Secrecy and the Conservative governmentThe country simply cannot depart on like this over the question of official secrecy. The fundamental problem is easy to spell out: because the present administration of Mrs Thatcher tries to make everything secret,there is no national consensus over what should properly be kept secret and what the public has a right to know. The Government, aware it is going against the grain of public and press opinion, and uses erratic tactics,depending on what it thinks it can gain absent with: ranging from the prison cell under the Official Secrets Act for the hapless – and harmless – Miss Sarah Tisdall, to wretched dithering over the forceful, and left-wing journalist Duncan Campbell and his well-advertised plans final week to expose the Zircon satellite project.
Meanwhile basic civil liberties depart by the board. The BBC is leant on behind the scenes; the High Court is asked to grant injunctions against MPs. The Prime Minister herself set a very bad example to us all by conniving at the leak of a classified letter by her own law officer during the Westland affair.
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Source: theguardian.com