Disgrace of Mrs Hodge

By Stewart Steven,
Evening Standard Editor 1992-95

This article appeared in the London Evening Standard on 16 June 2003

There are two politicians drowning and you are allowed to save only one. What do you? Read a newspaper or eat your lunch?

So asked that marvellous American comic Mort Sahl. A nice line certainly but also a bit of a cheap shot? Of course it was. The saloon bar notion that all politicians are just in it for themselves, hypocritical and double-dealing, doesn't bear a moment's scrutiny. Many decent and honourable people are attracted to the political life and for the most part discharge their duties as one might expect of them, decently and honourably.

But from time to time even those of us who have spent a lifetime in and around politics, befriending politicians and speaking up for the process they represent, come across an event so shocking, and so cynical, that even our faith is badly dented.

Such an occasion came at the tail-end of last week when Tony Blair announced that Mrs Margaret Hodge, the MP for Barking, was to become the new Minister for Children. The blood runs cold.

A few years ago, after one of the most intensive investigations ever mounted by this newspaper, the Evening Standard reported that children in the care of Islington Council were being exploited by pimps and paedophiles and drug pushers and were corrupted and seduced, in some cases led into prostitution or groomed for the sexual gratification of men, often council employees, who swarmed around them.

There were "long periods", said one of the many official reports which followed our investigation, when they (the children) were receiving inadequate care and protection and experiencing distress and damage.

Islington, it was said, provided a classic study in how paedophiles target "the children world". Mrs Margaret Hodge, our new Minister for Children, was then head of Islington Council. So how did she respond to what was obvious to everyone was a serious and detailed piece of reporting affecting some of the most tragic and defenceless people in her charge?

Our report, she said, was "a sensationalist piece of gutter journalism". She authorised a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission. There were five official investigations into the Standard's report. All completely vindicated the newspaper and the reporters on the story went on to win prestigious press awards. What Mrs Hodge described as "gutter" journalism came to be widely celebrated as an example of newspaper reporting at its very best - fighting on behalf of the weak and defenceless, against uncaring and heartless authority.

It can certainly be argued that Mrs Hodge could hardly have known about what was going on and so it would be unfair to hang the responsibility for these appalling events around her neck. I would not do so. Neither do I think that her extreme, archetypal loony Left views, which had the Red Flag fluttering daily above the offices of Islington Council, should count against her now. Politicians are entitled to and do change their opinions.

But this is not about politics - it is about attitude and heart and understanding and, yes, let's return to those old-fashioned words once again, honour and decency. Those things don't change. People either have them or they do not.

A real human being could not have reacted to the charges that her members of her staff were sexually abusing children in their care by doing other than calling immediately for a full and open inquiry. A political apparatchik, of the kind we see wherever a culture of either financial or moral corruption exists could not have reacted differently to the path she adopted.

Her first duty, the paramount duty of all political leaders nationally or locally, is to represent the people who elected her. Her choice, the unvarying choice of the political apparatchik was to support the bureaucracy. We cannot know how many children she condemned to a period of further abuse by not acting immediately. We do know that a frightening number of officials guilty of the most terrible of malpractices got out before the enquiries could report and, armed with references, sought and found employment in similar situations elsewhere. Nobody knows who or where they are. We can only hope that the systems which were put into place everywhere following the Islington inquiries will protect children currently in their charge. But hope is a flimsy vessel upon which to rely when one is dealing with determined paedophiles.

Mrs Hodge has four children of her own. When she ran Islington Council, she presided over what was universally acknowledged to be one of the very worst state education systems in the country. Her children crossed the boundary to neighbouring Camden where the schools' standards were considerably better. When Minister for Higher Education, she pushed through "top-up fees", telling middle-class parents that "there was no such thing as a free lunch", neglecting to mention that this was exactly what her children enjoyed when they were doing their further education.

BUT this is the kind of woman she is. Shortly after she became an MP, she admitted that she had made a mistake about the Standard's inquiries but never apologised. Subsequently she told someone that she had offered to do so but the Evening Standard had refused to accept it.

That is not what happened. She telephoned me and offered to "put the past behind us" by taking me out to lunch. I would gladly break bread with her, I told her, but first she had to apologise to the children of Islington whom she had betrayed. The Evening Standard, I said, could take care of itself.

She regarded this as "unfriendly" and that was the last contact we had.

Now she is Minister for Children. Those of us who are not contemptuous of political life must find it just that little bit more difficult to remain so today.

Mrs Hodge's appointment disgraces this Government. It doesn't disgrace Mrs Hodge. She cannot, in my judgment, fall any lower.

Magaret Hodge in charge!!!