13/07/2011 Newsnight Scotland

heart of his Downing Street Good evening. We will be returning

to the issue of the press and politics later. But first, a saga

which seems to have been running almost as long. 17 years after 29

people died in a military helicopter when it crashed in the

MacIntyre, the two pilots have been cleared of negligence at last. An

inquiry concluded the earlier verdict of negligence should be set

aside. Liam Fox has apologised to the pilots' families, but why has

it taken so long? In a moment I will be speaking to one of the

inquiry team, are there Hahnemann. But first, here's Tim Reid. It was

a 70 minute helicopter flight which ended in disaster. It has taken

many years to re-establish the truth, amid claims of systemic

failings and the scapegoating of a young crew. This afternoon, it was

all smiles, as justice for the two family's was finally done. This

gathering of relatives, MPs, peers and the media was the culmination

of a long fought campaign to overturn the findings of gross

negligence which not even the officials in charge of the first

investigation ever reached. Liam Fox is the last in a long line of

defence secretaries to consider the case, but he is the first to change

course. I have written to the widows of the two pilots, and to

the family of them, to express the Ministry of Defence's apology for

the distress which was caused to them by the finding of negligence.

I also wish to express that apology publicly today. With that apology,

he went further than many campaigners had expected, but there

was no joy for those who claimed technical and safety issues could

have been responsible. Those who allege a long-running conspiracy to

cover up technical shortcomings in the aircraft will find no support

here. The Chinook has had an excellent safety record since the

disaster. It has been a mainstay for our operations in successive

theatres of war, and it has the full confidence of those who fly it.

The flight lieutenants were amongst 29 people who were killed in June

1994, when their Chinook crashed into this hillside on the Mull of

Kintyre. Also on board were 25 senior intelligence experts. The

RAF board of inquiry found a probable cause was an inappropriate

rate of climb, but it never apportioned blame. Two RAF air

marshals disagreed, accusing the pilots of negligence to a gross

degree. Give the pilots discharge their duty of care? I'm afraid that

in my mind there is no doubt whatsoever that they did not.

a nine month independent inquiry, retired judge Lord Philip has

concluded that decision was wrong, based on faulty legal advice at the

time about the burden of proof needed to reach that finding. This

is the report, it is less than 100 pages long, and it has taken 16

years, but finally it clears the two pilots of blame for gross

negligence. In it, Lord Philip accuses the MoD of intransigence

for failing to rectify this much sooner. It is absolutely first

class. It is extraordinarily good, even though I have only read about

a third of it. Absolutely delighted and taken aback. I was not

expecting we would get that much today, to be honest. I just

understood we would get an idea of what the report said and that would

be it. To get the fact that Liam Fox is supporting the

recommendations and that they're making an apology is really much

appreciated. The findings have been welcomed by the families of some of

the other servicemen who died in the crash, though there is dismay

at the length of time it has taken. I no longer get angry about

anything. I'm very, very sad, it is the sadness about the unnecessary

suffering for the families, and for those two families in particular,

and the fact they have lost other loved ones in the families who did

not get to see their loved ones' names cleared. It is the end of the

road for some of the politicians who had fought to get the MoD to

reconsider. This has been a grievance which we have heard over

many years. Today, that grievance has been put wide. The air marshals

themselves have resolutely stuck to their verdict. I understand their

explanations during questioning in front of the inquiry did not overly

impressed the team of Lord Philip it. But there are those who still

believe the pilots were to blame. I'm afraid I will upset a lot of

people here but I have no doubt in my mind that this was down to pilot

error. We have not heard anything today about the plane being unsafe,

it was a brilliant piece of kit. We seem to have lost that report,

but we do have Tim Reid himself, who joins me from Westminster. Just

as we had that technical problem, it is quite clear there are still

people who take the line that the Ministry of Defence has taken for

16 years, until today, and they will not change their mind? Yes,

not very many who come out in public, like that member of the

House of Lords did. But I was speaking to someone, a senior

Labour politician last night, who said he believed that this report

would say the pilots were not guilty of gross negligence, but

still believed they were culpable, in other words, that they were

flying too low, too fast, in thick fog. We know from the report that

it is pretty detailed in the explanation of why they do not

believe the pilots were guilty of gross negligence. And the RAF's own

rules, there had to be no doubt whatsoever. And clearly, because

there were other factors involved, we do not know what happened in

this case. Y do you think that there has been such resistance to

changing this verdict? Is it, as Lord it's a seemed to be implying,

because the RAF wants to defend a piece of kit, as he put it? It is

entirely possible that it is about the piece of kit, but have no it is

more about the processes which were going on within the Ministry of

Defence at the time. Back in April we talked about the report on the

air worthiness of the Chinook, and it is mentioned in this report, but

it is not mentioned in detail about what happened after that. There are

experts who believe there was cost- cutting going on within the

ministry, that there were people to blame for the fact that the

airworthiness issues had not been resolved, and it is those people

who it is being said the Ministry of Defence was trying to protect.

Earlier this evening I spoke to one of the three Scottish Privy

Councillors who sat through the nine month Philip inquiry. I asked

Malcolm Bruce if he thought it was important that the results of the

review were unanimous. I believe it is. None of us had any preconceived

notions about this issue. None of us had looked into it at all. We

approached it with a completely open mind. When we first heard the

opinions of the air marshals, I think we understood that they were

in absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the helicopter had effectively

flown deliberately into the mountain and that that was gross

negligence. But what we gradually recognise was that that completely

failed to meet the standard of proof, namely that there had to be

no doubt whatsoever, absolutely no doubt whatsoever, that you had to

be certain that the crash was caused by that mechanism. And the

truth is that there was doubt. The chairman of the original board of

inquiry had doubt. Other pilots had doubt. The Air Traffic investigator

said he could not be certain of the operational state of the aircraft.

In all of those circumstances, it became clear to us that there was

doubt, and that whilst some people were absolutely sure, as long as

there was doubt, it was not proper to come to the conclusion that the

air marshals had done. As you have just said, the original board of

inquiry did not find that the pilots were negligent. There have

been any number of inquiries since. Why do you think there seems to

have been almost institutional intransigence over this issue?

Certainly it is quite extraordinary, because the conclusions we have

come to were pointed out in the House of Lords inquiry and indeed

were used as a basis for our own evidence. But I think what appears

to have happened is that Sir John Daly took legal advice, and that

was the first time that had happened, and the advice he was

given was misleading and unclear, namely what I think any layman

would understand - absolutely no doubt whatsoever means total

certainty in everybody's mind. And yet the advice given was that

actually it was possible for some people to come to a different

conclusion and meat that test of proof. And quite astonishingly, it

was said that actually the standard of proof could mean whatever the

RAF wanted it to mean. So clearly and think they got themselves into

a frame of mind that they were going to do what they began to do

without real reference to what they were required to do, which was to

be in absolutely no doubt whatsoever. It is absolutely clear

there is doubt. Nobody can know what happened. There was no black

box. There were no absolute witnesses. We do not speculate, we

do not know. But we certainly do know that there was not enough

evidence to be able to conclude that the pilots were negligent in a

gross degree. What seems particularly bizarre is not just

the unwillingness of the MoD for so many years to reverse the decision,

but the fact that if there were such a crash now, the RAF would not

conduct an investigation in a way which could find pilots, deceased

pilots, guilty of gross negligence, yet they were this ending this

decision? -- defending his You are right to say that,

subsequently, the rules were changed so that could not happen.

This case was instrumental in doing it. You might have thought that the

logical thing to do was to go back and say, we should not have done it,

therefore we should not have done it. When you look at what the

burden of proof was, and what the offer so who drew up a prove, he

said it was intention to be a very high standard. It had to take on

board that if they were dead, they had no opportunity to defend

themselves. The logical thing to do, was to revisit the decision and say,

we would not have made that decision to date. Let us set it

aside. They may have been negligent. But, it is not possible to say with

absolute certainty that it was right they should be set aside.

Apart from this issue of negligence, you raise one issue: The fact that

so many very important people were were in one helicopter. What is the

problem with that? That is a security issue. Let us not set

aside the fact that 29 people died, and their families have had to

grief. Anybody's death is a tragedy. What we recognised was, this was

not just that tragedy. It set back the peace process in Northern

Ireland for several years, because the top people were in that one

aircraft. In those circumstances, we should not put at risk such a

key group of people. Beat Secretary of State, Liam Fox, said he would

review that to ensure that in these circumstances, never again will so

many key people be put in a one vehicle.

The revelations of the past few days have highlighted the close and

sometimes complicated relationship between the press and the

politicians at Westminster. But should the microscope be switched

In a highly-charged Chamber, Gordon Brown accused News International of

criminality on an industrial scale. But he was quick to lay out how his

relationship with Rupert Murdoch did not affect his decisions as

Prime Minister. There was nothing given. I doubt, if anyone in this

house will be surprised to hear, that the relationship between News

International and the Labour administrations by a lead was

neither cosy nor comfortable. But he raised questions over the

relationship between the Conservatives and News

International. I have compiled, for my own benefit, a no to all the

policy matters affecting the media that arose in my time as Prime

Minister. This also demonstrates in detail the coincidence in how News

International, and the then consult and opposition, came to share the

same media policy. 's the phone hacking scandal has

forced a tension on the complex relationships between the

politicians and press. This relationship is very close, it has

always been very close. On this occasion, the most important thing

is the atmosphere of fear and intimidation that seems to have

prevailed over the past 15 years, or maybe even longer. What is very

interesting about the parliamentary action has been a sense that it log

jam has broken, and that people are finding their voice is.

With me in the studio is David Miller, who is professor of

sociology at Strathclyde University. He specialises in writing about

spin and lobbying and he is also co-founder the political website

spinwatch.org. And joining David is Colin McAllister who, until May

this year, was the head of communications and special adviser

to the Scottish Government. And in our Westminster studio is the

political commentator Catherine MacLeod, who was also a former

special adviser in a past life to the then Chancellor Alistair

Darling. This bid has been withdrawn. Can

you see it coming back? It is conceivable they could resurrected.

People now would not want that to happen, but they might in a year.

But the timing would be everything. You can imagine an inquiry would go

on for ages, then criminal prosecutions. That is true, there

are a long series of possible prosecutions, also up here as well,

not just in News International. Catherine, I wonder whether it you

think that politicians at Westminster might have thought that

there is a possibility they could just say no. That who could say no?

If his bid comes back, they could say no, we do not want you to do

this. Are we talking about the bid? Yes. The politicians could say they

don't want it, but they will have no legislative power to stop the

bid. I think that the prosecutions could go on and on. They could also

go on in Australia and America. America are very tough on

shenanigans like we have seen over the last couple of weeks. Lots of

politicians... We will have to see what happens. What do you think,

Colin? Do you see a situation where this just goes away over time? Or

can you see the House of Commons fixing it? To some extent, it

depends on whether this scandal changes the media culture in this

country. If the situation arose in a few years, and we heard had a

number of years where this culture had changed, it would be less of an

issue. The issue now, is that they do not look like the right people

to be running a media organisation. All sorts of scrutiny between

relationships between the newspapers and politicians in

London, and the police. Do you think questions need to be asked up

here? The have caused. The relationships between the press and

political elite in Scotland have always been close. People say that

Scotland is a political village, but it is a village where everyone

knows each other within the elite. It is this breakdown of trust that

has happened as a result of MPs' expenses, and now that News of the

World, where institutions are seen to be allegedly corrupt. There is a

total breakdown of trust between the government, the people of the

country and those institutions which are supposed to run the

country. That makes it very difficult for those institutions to

continue unless they is serious reform. It also means reform of

government. We have seen that with the expenses and the lobbying

scandal. There is a need for proper reform and transparency in

government. Catherine, there is this issue of trust between

politicians and the public. When you were a spin-doctor for Alistair

Darling, Labour were falling over themselves to get into rude put

Murdoch was a good books. -- Rupert Murdoch. I was with Alistair

Darling for three years, and there was no day when he said how will I

get them to Rupert Murdoch's good books? You didn't have to, because

Tony Blair was doing it for him! Well, Tony Blair was not there when

I was there. It is quite right to say political leaders in all

parties have wanted good relationships with the press. I do

not think that it is News International that delivered those

results. They all wanted to neuter any hostility there was.

Politicians want to be in with newspapers that are writing about

them, and people understand that. It is this business about the

private dinners that go on at Downing Street, the turning up to,

for example Gordon Brown turning to Rebekah Brooks's wedding. I think

that is right. I have never understood it myself. I cannot

understand why it those people then that socialise with each other. I

do not do that myself as a journalist, and Alistair Darling

did not do it. It is very strange behaviour. Colin, traditionally,

you have lost your Emerson now, have you? Alex Salmond was caught

in James Murdoch in January. would expect that of the First

Minister. It is also true that the SNP's relationship with the media

has been very different to other parties. It has not been so much a

symbiotic relationship as a police stop kicking us every week. That

has changed things. -- please stop. The S&P put massive effort into

social media. You also have the backing of the Murdoch newspapers

as well? That is the problem. Suddenly, it has gone from a

problem because of the close relationship of politics and

newspapers, to this. It comes back to the question of trust. People

are willing to it accepted that the First Minister would meet up with

James Murdoch. That is an important part of his role. May be the Labour

politicians, like Tony Blair having Murdoch up the back stairs in

Downing Street. Maybe he was! The point is that people's trust in

politicians is the issue. David, you are looking right. This is the

problem. There is a problem of closeness to the press, and there

is a problem but we do not know what happened in these meetings.

Even if Alex Salmond did say to chip Emes Murdoch money to support

me, -- say to James Murdoch, what is wrong with that? There is

nothing corrupt about asking for support. The no, there is not, but

we do not know if that is what he asked for. That is because we do

not get told by government about who is meeting with the ministers

and white. Once you get beyond this, people may have committed acts, to

people saying we don't like the closeness of the media to

politicians. It becomes a grey area. If Alex Salmond goes to James

Murdoch and says, listen mate, how about backing my party in an

election? He would be mad not to, wouldn't he? Of course, and the

problem for democracy, the voters will want to know who the

politicians are speaking to, and which big corporations are speaking

to the government. That is why we need disclosure of lobbying, for

example, which the government in London has promised. We also need a

proper regulation of the press, which we do not have. The Press

Complaints Commission is a joke. It is not just a question of some

crimes now, we had the case of Tommy Sheridan saying he had his

car but, at which is an entirely different question beyond phone