Getting the 'right' answer is all that counts

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According to Wikipedia, a kangaroo court is “…a court that ignores recognized standards of law or justice, carries little or no official standing in the territory within which it resides, and is typically convened ad hoc.” Since none of those three criteria applies to a standing committee of the House of Commons operating in accordance with pre-existing and well-established processes, and recognised within parliament as having the authority to carry out its work, it is clear that allies of the former PM are using a different definition – probably one which says that any process which finds the perfect human being known as Boris Johnson guilty of anything is by definition flawed and unfair. Faced with criticism of their comments, which clearly go beyond the obvious right to express an opinion as to the correctness of actions and decisions taken, and which directly impugn the reputations and integrity of those taking them, their response has been to double down on those comments. Even the non-apology from Goldsmith yesterday seemed to be more about the fact that he was a minister when he said what he said rather than any sort of retraction of his words.

There is, though, a valid point lurking in there somewhere – a committee of politicians judging other politicians has an innate flaw built in. Every single member of the House of Commons has been elected on a political platform of some sort; holding and expressing political views is what they do. And they’re paid to do it. Finding 7 members of the House of Commons who have not only never expressed a view on Boris Johnson, but who also don’t even have a view on Boris Johnson is an impossible ask. The whole system depends on the members of the committee being trusted to leave their opinions outside the door and make a judgement purely on what evidence is presented to them, whilst forgetting everything they know about the man and his past. It’s an inevitable consequence of parliament regulating itself that the people making the judgements will have strong political views.

The logical consequence of a situation where politicians no longer trust each other to be honourable and fair is to take the decision out of their hands and give it to an ‘independent’ body. Somehow, I think that the Jakes of this world would be horrified at any such prospect, and in any event, the fact that the ‘independent’ members of an ‘independent’ panel have not previously expressed an opinion doesn’t mean that they don’t have one. What they really seem to want is a system which produces the ‘right’ answer – i.e. the one that they want to see. There are methods of achieving that, but they don’t have a lot to do with honour, justice or democracy. But those qualities, like dignity, are grossly over-rated commodities to an increasing proportion of the Conservative Party.