Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Middle East Peace Process, Lenient Judges, Leadership, Anti Social Behaviour, Sir Ian Blair and Afghanistan
Middle East Peace Process
Asked what the Prime Minister thought of the realignment plan, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said this was a case of getting horses and carts in the right order. The Prime Minister had said that the first priority was a negotiated settlement and he had set out why a negotiated settlement was in the interests of everybody, including Israel. A negotiated settlement would stick. Almost more importantly, if you could say such a thing, was that Prime Minister Olmert had said the exact same thing as he had also said at the White House. The priority therefore was not to jump ahead of where we were, but rather put all the effort behind the negotiated settlement. That was in the end what would work best. Having said that we recognised that for that to happen Israel had to have a viable negotiating partner on the Palestinian side. Prime Minister Olmert had made it clear this was his approach. It was right to focus primarily on what Prime Minister Olmert believed his first priority to be - a negotiated settlement. We would do everything we could to help persuade the Palestinians to become the viable negotiating partner that Israel needed.
Asked if the Prime Minister had been making a moral comparison between Palestinian rocket attacks and the Israeli shelling, the PMOS said the first thing, as both Prime Ministers had said, was to recognise the sadness with which any death occurred whether on the Israeli or the Palestinian side. Secondly, however, everyone needed to recognise that the focus should be on getting negotiations started that would make such things a thing of the past. Part of the obligations on the Palestinian side was to do all it could to stop such attacks happening from Palestinian territory. We had made our position clear on the need for restraint on the Israeli side as well. In the meantime people would have to wait and see what the investigation found.
Asked if the Prime Minister had shifted from the 1967 border commitment in UN resolution 242, the PMOS said that it was part of the road map that final status negotiations were for the final status negotiation. Therefore it was clearly important that they were able to take place. It was important that people did not take up positions now but got the negotiations underway. Only that, not restating positions, would lead to final status negotiations. This was why we believed that now was the time for everybody to become part of the negotiations. People could no longer condone violence because the impact of that was to get into an all to familiar vicious cycle of violence. People needed to recognise what everybody knew the solution had to be - a peaceful two state solution.
Lenient Judges
Asked whether the Prime Minister had a view on the Sun’s campaign against soft judges, the PMOS remarked that he had expected this question when he had seen the Sun’s journalist come in. No doubt the answer would be longer than he might hope for. It was important in this country that judges remained independent of government and other pressures. It was also equally important that the court system respected the views of victims and the impact of crime on victims. We had a system whereby if the Attorney General believed that a sentence was too lenient it could be appealed to the Court of Appeal. This was the way the current system worked and the published list showed where this had happened. A separate process overseen by the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice was in place, quite rightly, for when it was believed that a judge should face disciplinary action.
Leadership
Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with Hazel Blears that people should stop talking about the leadership issue, the PMOS said that this was a party matter, but as people could see the Prime Minister was focused on getting on with the job of being Prime Minister. Most recently he had been working hard on pensions, the respect agenda, the future energy needs of this country and foreign policy issues such as Iraq and the Middle East Peace Process.
Anti Social Behaviour
Asked whether Louise Casey’s comments on encouraging people to be proactive on ASB had come from last week’s cabinet committee and why had they taken so long to emerge, the PMOS suggested that although, no doubt, decisions at the BBC were actioned instantly things took a little longer in government. People should not get hung up on what was one idea in the discussion, but to take on board the principle that would be implemented. This government had brought in the ASB legislation, run pilot projects and was now extending it across the country because we recognised that for too long people had suffered from antisocial behaviour and not known what to do about it. We had now given local communities, local police forces and local authorities the means by which to do something about it. We had to break through and encourage local people in estates to believe something could be done so that they knew if they were to speak up they would be listened to and see action.
This was the purpose of the discussion going on at the Home Office. It was not something that we were apologetic about in any way, quite the reverse in fact; this was something we wanted to develop. If this wrong story had raised the awareness of ASBOs then that was a good thing. Put that a lot of people who had experienced antisocial behaviour may get listened to by the police but never actually saw one, the PMOS said that if people looked at the number of extra police and community support officers around the country, which continued to grow, that was becoming less and less of an issue. Secondly, if people looked at the effort that central government had put into developing the ASB legislation and giving the authorities the means to use it that equally addressed the question. We did want people to use these powers and we did want to encourage local authorities and police to use them as well.
Sir Ian Blair
Asked why the Prime Minister still had had full confidence in Sir Ian Blair, the PMOS said the Prime Minister had remarked at his press conference that he was fully aware that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner had always been a difficult job whatever. The Prime Minister was fully aware that it was particularly difficult at a time when we were facing major terrorist threats. He believed that it was absolutely right for the police and security agencies to act on the basis of credible intelligence. Therefore the Prime Minister believed that it was right to express his support for Sir Ian Blair and his team.
It was important that we all recognised that there was a difficult job to do. There were difficult decisions to be taken, which were not black and white, they had to be balanced judgements. Therefore it was right and proper that you recognised those difficult decisions and supported them. The first thing that anybody would do if the police, for whatever reason, ducked one of those difficult decisions would be to criticise them for that. The police’s primary concern was public safety and as such they had to act on the basis of any credible intelligence in the interest of public safety. Sir Ian Blair had the Prime Minister’s full support.
Put that it was often said that a group within the police force just wanted Sir Ian Blair out, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister believed that this was a time when everyone needed to support all those on all sides of our security involved in protecting the public and that nothing should be done or said which in any way undermined the effort to maintain that public security.
Asked in that case what the Prime Minister thought of Tony McNulty’s less supportive comments, the PMOS said that Tony McNulty had in fact expressed his full support for Sir Ian Blair and the Prime Minister was more than happy to do likewise.
Afghanistan
Asked how a Taliban leader could give a news interview in a village that the British forces had last week spent 7 hours clearing out the Taliban and whether this meant there were not enough NATO troops on the ground, the PMOS said that troop numbers were at the levels that commanders on the ground believed were needed. British troops were there to help the democratically elected Afghan government extend its administrative reach over that part of the country, which had not been there in the past.
Also to build up the infrastructure, which would allow that democratically elected government to continue to operate. That was the task of the British troops and the alternative was a return of the Taliban with all that that entailed including the end of democracy in Afghanistan.
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