How Livingstone's law of hat and coat may protect a troubled Tory
• Elected mayors, elected police commissioners. We are putting a good deal of power into the hands of individuals. Is that a good thing? Depends on the individual. Let us look, for instance, at the London Fire Authority and its chairman, Brian Coleman. When he is not making gargantuan claims for taxi expenses or dining out with folks who later benefit from huge commercial contracts, he is at the centre of much controversy at fire authority HQ. For thanks to freedom of information requests submitted by the Fire Brigades Union, we know that of the 18 complaints lodged with the standards committee there in the last three years, 14 relate to allegations concerning Coleman's behaviour. They cover areas such as rudeness, bullying, conduct unbecoming. One related to unpleasantness arising from the way he was served his breakfast. A plate or a takeaway container? Upon such things the fate of nations turn.
• Worth saying that no accusation against Coleman or anyone else has been upheld. Indeed, just one complaint was fully investigated; the conclusion was that no further action was necessary. Of the remainder, says the FBU, 15 were rejected without investigation. Some lesser form of "informal action", such as a letter of apology, was recommended in the other two. Such is life, in a politically febrile atmosphere. The FBU doesn't like Coleman. Coleman has no time for the FBU. But what is interesting is the conclusion reached by investigators that even if he had yelled at the female caterer who allegedly failed to serve breakfast in the manner to which he is accustomed, that was not a sustainable complaint, because at the time he was not "acting in his official capacity". This defence has echoes of that deployed by Ken Livingstone when he was in trouble for likening a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard. Ken got off because he was off duty, that is, he was wearing his hat and coat. The authority disputes claims that, armed with this defence, Coleman and his colleagues are free to do as they wish on all but formal occasions, but the approach would seem to afford them an agreeable measure of protection. The hat and coat judgment always was a can of worms.
• Seems anachronistic, too. For this is the age of the apology and the synthetic drama of the demanded apology. Thus it cannot be long before David Cameron – scourge of binge drinkers everywhere – dons the hair shirt. For as he steps up his campaign against youthful overindulgence, he must wish to atone for the years he spent as a part-time non-executive director of the Urbium company, which owned the kind of drinks bar that might concern him now. He knows, and he knows that we know, that once he was complicit in the sale of all sorts of colourful concoctions; the Pink Pussy (Campari, peach brandy, lemon-lime soda, served over ice), and of course, the Slippery Nipple (2 parts sambuca, 1 part Irish cream liqueur, dash of grenadine). A simple sorry will suffice.
• It's a tough life right now for lobbyists, but some do nothing to help themselves. Into this category we must place Robin Smith. It was entirely right that in reaction to the letter from 105 Tory MPs attacking the wind farms he should seek to organise a counterblast. Pretty quickly, the likes of Jonathon Porritt and Tony Juniper signed up to a letter debunking the Tory initiative. But it wasn't so smart for him to seek a signature from MP Chris Heaton-Harris. Heaton-Harris organised the original Tory letter. He was being asked, by confidential email, to join a lobbying campaign against himself.
• Finally to the theatre and Michael Frayn's Noises Off, his play about the staging of a sex comedy titled Nothing On. It is, says Wikipedia "the type of play in which young girls run about in their underwear, old men drop their trousers, and many doors continually open and shut". And there on Valentine's Night, enjoying its subtleties from a box at the Old Vic, was Chris Huhne and his partner Carina Trimingham. Yesterday found him in court with his ex-wife Vicky Pryce, with both accused of perverting the course of justice over that ill-fated speeding ticket. Much farce in one short life.
Twitter:@hugh_muir