NOT MUCH LEARNT

by MONITOR
THERE was more heat than light at yesterday's appearance of Assistant Commissioner John Yates at the House of Commons' Public Administration Select Committee yesterday; the Committee was pursuing its inquiry into “cash for honours” following the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service that a prosecution based on evidence gathered by Mr Yates would not be successful. At one point the chairman of the Committee, the Labour MP Tony Wright told Mr Yates to “calm down” for denying that his officers had “beaten down” the door of No 10 aide Ruth Turner at 6am. Perhaps Mr Wright should have told the MP who put his question in those terms to calm down. The most interesting interchanges con cerned Mr Yates' relations with Downing Street. He said that the Cabinet Office had given him full co-operation but “Others did not”. Pressed to say whether he was referring to No 10, he replied that “No 10 comprised several different groups of people”. The Committee also wanted to know whether Mr Yates was put under pressure not to interview Tony Blair under caution and told that if he refused Mr Blair would resign; in response he said that Mr Blair himself had set no conditions for being interviewed “other than his diary”. Almost nothing was learnt from the exchanges at yesterday's meeting. Mr Yates was acting under constraints from lawyers of many of the people he interviewed and he himself was caution itself in his answers.