I admit I was pretty annoyed yesterday to find that I had been accused of breaking the Chatham House rule when speaking at and blogging on a meeting at the Social Market Foundation. I consider myself to be a pretty principled person. I would never consciously break an undertaking given.
As I mentioned last evening, no one at the meeting in question referred to the Chatham House rule. One speaker did ask not to be quoted by me on one issue and of course I agreed. And even then the Chair did not refer to Chatham House. And nor, and this I have checked, did the speaker's notes, issued in advance. In other words, I did not breach the rule, and I would not have done.
This matters to me. Whilst I believe in transparency, and very, very, rarely speak off the record, I respect the fact that I am often told things I cannot quote. I go to countless meetings that never get referred to on this blog because it would break relationships of trust to do so. I talk almost every day to journalists on stories that I could as a result break, but of course I don't. I give them my word that I will not do so, and I keep it. A training as a chartered accountant makes the ability to stay silent second nature. It's what I will do if asked to be so (unless criminality is involved, but then I wouldn't be blogging it). I think it important to reiterate this point for the sake of those I speak to.
But what I won't have is either a think tank or HMRC seek to retrospectively impose the Chatham House rule because Judith Knott (I can name her, and will, since the rule did not apply) said things on public record she'd rather were not reported. I'm not here to do that. Nor should anyway else be so either.
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Given your opposition to the current policies of this government and your trenchant criticism of HMRC Richard, I wouldn’t be surprised if this has all been cooked up to try and disredit you by suggesting you’ve broken the Chatham House code; this government seems keen to do this since so many of their arguments are rubbish. e.g the GP’s opposition to the NHS reforms was because the BMA is a ‘trade union only interested in protecting the interests of its members’, not because the doctors might actually know what they’re talking about.
Or am I being too cynical, or even paranoid?
As Woody Allen said, being paranoid doesn’t mean people don’t hate you
I don’t rule out a cooked up event – candidly. Wouldn’t it be convenient?
But this wasn’t it – I suspect this one is cock up. Maybe the event was meant to be Chatham House – I’d have gone anyway and respected the rule. But nothing said it was – and that I suspect was the mistake by SMG and HMRC and they’re all really rather embarrassed.
I’m not. I have acted in good faith. It’s what I try to do.
And let’s do the contest – I’ve been to two other meetings today and I will not be referring to either of them. It would be inappropriate to do so, and in both cases I’d agreed not to do so as well. So that’s all that I’ll say about them
Let’s hope you’re right Richard; I much prefer the cock up theory of history to the conspiracy one, since it paints human nature in a rather better light.
Anyway, I’ve just finshed reading Treasure Islands, which is both enlightening as to the extent and effects of offshore, and plain infuriating when you consider how big a role the Bank of England and the City have had in allowing, encouraging and participating in it.
And now I’m straight on to The Courageous State, which will hopefully provide some antidote to the greed and stupidity displayed in Treasure Islands.
Enjoy!