The Zidane moment of madness

For Christmas I would like a special writer's present. This would be the uninhibited capacity to be able to write sentences about stench and stink and sleaze and about how politics is enmired in corruption, or else about how government is terminally incompetent and useless — and to get this stuff into boisterous print, before the treacherous and debilitating thought occurs to me (as it invariably does), that perhaps there is something more to it all than venal politicos and unemployable public servants. Scruple diminishes the effect of all too many a column.

Criticism — reproach, even — comes easily enough; satisfying condemnation, however, I tend to reserve for actions, statements or falsehoods I couldn't readily have made myself. I somehow just can't slaughter someone just for messing up, because I also mess up, and in circumstances far simpler than those faced by prime ministers or generals. Was Wendy Alexander, Labour's Scottish leader, attempting deliberately to subvert the law for the sake of £950 from a chap in the Channel Islands? I doubt it.

Sometimes, however, there is a kind of messing up that goes beyond my understanding. And you think: “How on God's green Earth can that have happened?” Two of the Government's recent debacles fit into this uncomprehended category: the case of the lost discs and the affair of the general secretary. Let us take them in reverse order.

In the year 2000 Labour brought in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act, one explicit objective of which was to end the anonymity previously enjoyed by large donors to political parties. In the run-up to the general election of 2005 the intention of the Act was subverted by the advancing of loans, whose origins did not have to be declared. This loophole was first exploited on a gigantic scale by the Conservatives, followed by a panicking Labour Party.

But there was no loophole concerning money donated through a third person. A donor could use an agent, but would have to declare this to the political party who, in turn would have to tell the Electoral Commission, who would declare it in their register of donations. The reason for this was pretty bloody obvious — to stop people making a complete nonsense of the legislation. As the Electoral Commission made clear this summer: “Transferring a donation to an agent rather than directly to a party must not be used as an attempt to evade the controls on permissibility and transparency.”

This, however, was exactly what David Abrahams seems to have done between 2003 and a few weeks ago. The Labour general secretary when this all began, Lord Triesman, has said that he had not been told that the donations made in several other names had originated with Mr Abrahams. But eight days ago his successor plus one, Peter Watt, resigned, revealing that, for his part, he had understood that Mr Abrahams had used third parties to protect his identity from disclosure, but had not realised it was against the rules.

This is where I slap my forehead with my hand. How could the general secretary of the Labour Party — a party recently damaged by the issues of loans and the accusations of cash for honours — not have known the most elementary aspects of the law governing donations? At the most basic level, did he never once look at what the Act actually said? I don't think he can have done.

Now let's visit the Lost Discworld. On October 18 an official at HMRC in Tyne and Wear sent two discs to the Audit Office in London, via the courier TNT. The package was neither recorded nor registered. Six days later, when it was apparent that the CDs had not arrived, another package was sent out, this time by registered mail. Two weeks after the original dispatch senior managers were informed about the loss.

So when I found myself sharing a dinner table with a recently retired permanent secretary I asked him about data security. He told me that in his previous departments the regular risk assessments had put possible confidential data loss right at the top of possible perils. In fact, there were monthly meetings at the highest level that reviewed data protection issues. So how could it possibly be that officials — albeit in another department — could believe that it was not just satisfactory to ship material out by courier, and could also be initially unworried by its evident loss?

Venality doesn't explain it, and nor does stupidity. Sometimes — as with Zin�dine Zidane's head-butting of Italy's Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final or a particularly obvious sexual d�gringolade on the part of a Tory politician — one can almost detect an unconscious acceleration of the moment of doom. Zidane ends the tension of his last game by getting himself sent off; an easily recognisable rising Tory star is easily recognised emerging from a flat that does not contain his wife.

In the case of both Mr Watt, who is described as a likeable man and no rogue, and of personnel at the HMRC, there seems to have been a temporary break from reality. Neither needed to consult the rules or look up the procedures, even in situations of obvious hazard — both seemingly confident in their own unguided ability to get it right. It reminds me of the occasional surreal journey with a minicab driver who is clearly not familiar with the route, but who does not carry a map. We all know people who will not wear watches and who constantly risk lateness, men who attempt flat-pack assembly ostentatiously ignoring the instructions, would-be yachtsmen or mountaineers who assail their chosen element without the right equipment. In these situations, and despite warnings, the individuals have decided that their own perceptions govern reality, and not the other way around.

Until disaster actually strikes, it must be rather pleasant to be free of the continual anxiety about life that afflicts most of us most of the time. In which case something else occurs to me: what is amazing about such a triumph of narcissism over reality is that it happens so rarely.

Comments

[Henry]

Perhaps "the triumph of narcissism" happens rarely on the grand scale (i.e., on the scale affecting large numbers of people), but I seem to encounter the "everyday, garden variety" daily. As Einstein said, "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe."