Leveson: accountability and amnesia

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/14/leveson-accountability-amnesia

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Your queries for the prime minister regarding the Leveson inquiry (After the admissions, Cameron faces a question of judgment, 14 June) highlight a very important issue over the wider political and business culture.

Heading a government who came to power on the back of a campaign on responsibility, Cameron now seems to be doing everything to avoid it. He scolded Labour for not acting sensibly when the economic onus was on them but now that he finds himself in the spotlight during the Leveson inquiry, he's refusing to accept blame.

What would really fill the public with confidence would be seeing our leader own up and show some accountability, rather than pass it on into the depths of ministers and civil servants where somebody down the ladder will take the bullet. Coulson, Brooks and Hunt have all been in the firing line, and rightly so, but the common denominator here is Cameron. He remains unscathed, while he should be accepting blame.

This undemocratic political culture has taken over the corporate world too, in which companies work in such convoluted mazes that responsibility is impossible. No product and service can be pinned down to one company, so that any blame is passed on or simply batted off by careful yet deceitful small print.

Politics and business are the controlling forces in our society and both trade transparency and accountability for money and power. It's a harrowing cycle of circumvention and it will only change from the top. Sam Charles-Edwards Rugby, Warwickshire

• As a Lib Dem I am at a loss to understand the rationale behind Nick Clegg's order that Lib Dem MPs abstain in the vote on the Labour motion to refer Jeremy Hunt to the adviser on the ministerial code, rather than to vote for the motion. To do so would in no way offend the coalition agreement. It concerns the ministerial exercise of quasi-judicial powers and is simply an issue of good governance. Hunt told Leveson he had not heard the "phrase" (sic) "quasi-judicial" before becoming involved in the BSkyB bid. Administrative Law, by Wade and Forsyth, defines a quasi-judicial decision as "an administrative decision which is subject to the principles of natural justice", a key principle being "No man a judge in his cause", which means that a judge is disqualified from determining a case in which he may be, or may fairly be suspected to be, biased.

On this principle Hunt clearly disqualified himself, and the competence of a cabinet member who admits his ignorance of so fundamental a question of administrative law in itself justifies scrutiny by Sir Alex Allan. Benedict Birnberg London

• The Conservative MPs dragged from their hospital bed and honeymoon for a Commons vote should vent their anger not at the Liberal Democrats but at their own leader whose behaviour led to it.

When the Lib Dem minister responsible for media takeovers was stripped of this power after a single chance remark he was tricked into making, anyone with any sense or integrity would have made sure his replacement was someone who was scrupulously clean of anything that could be construed as bias. Instead it was given to a Conservative with close associations with Rupert Murdoch.

To expect Lib Dems to stand by meekly while different ethical standards are applied to a minister of their party than to a minister of their "partner" party is bad enough. To expect them to troop through the lobbies in support of those double standards is worse. This is not a partnership, it's an abusive relationship. Matthew Huntbach London

• After six months of the Leveson inquiry, I think we can already draw one conclusion: people in high places tend to suffer from amnesia. We should all find it worrying that, in giving evidence, many of our politicians, newspaper barons, the Metropolitan police and even lawyers so often resort to "I do not recall" or "I do not remember" when questioned about significant events. Aware that the public doubts the veracity of so many claims of poor memory, the prime minister, keen to establish his amnesic condition before he appeared at the inquiry this week, pulled off a PR stunt that even Malcolm Tucker would balk at when he "forgot" his daughter in a pub. Huren Marsh London

• Martin Kettle managed to write a whole article on why the coalition will survive without touching on the real reason it will run until 2015 (Will the Hunt vote unravel the coalition? Dream on, 14 June).

If there were a general election tomorrow the Liberal Democrats would be decimated, and they are not going to vote for their own destruction. Here in Didsbury East, part of Manchester Withington constituency, they have betrayed their erstwhile supporters.

The result has been Labour securing over 50% of the vote at the last two local elections in what hitherto was a key ward for our Lib Dem MP.

He will want a stay of execution until the last possible moment. Andrew Simcock Cllr Lab, Didsbury East

• Martin Kettle is too shrewd a commentator to imagine the coalition falling apart over Leveson. The Labour whips aren't stupid. The vote was aimed at the public and the media, not the government. It revealed the sophistry at the heart of the rose garden pact, with the Lib Dems crying conscience but terrified to put their principles before the electorate. Murdoch must be enjoying a quiet chuckle as he calculates the profits from the latest Premier League deal. Dennis Marks London