In a transparent democratic society, citizens and taxpayers have a fundamental right to know what the government is doing in our name. I would also argue that this applies just as much to commercial organisations, especially, but not solely, those that are publicly-listed.
Yet, in almost every organisation there is a proper degree of confidentiality. For example, when I worked at the NAO, I was very aware of the tortuous clearance process for VFM reports. I was never involved in VFM audit, but they are the retrospective reviews of the Economy, Effectiveness and Efficiency of Government policies, projects, and programmes, many of which are published and laid before Parliament. Clearance can take months. Of course, some of the difficulties lie in the fact that Senior Officials are uncomfortable with the findings, but also, it is important for the NAO to ensure that everything is factually accurate, to the point that not a phrase is ambiguous or open to disingenuous twisting. Lay aside cynicism, the truth is that this scrupulous desire for total accuracy is one of the reasons why NAO Reports (which eventually morph into Public Accounts Committee Reports) are taken so very seriously. It would be easy to argue that the public has a right to know 'the facts' as soon as possible, but I don't think that immediacy always serves the public interest best.
Then there are issues, of which I know nothing, because I'm disinclined to submit to a higher level of security clearance. Issues of National Security, for example, where it would be a disservice to the public to make facts known - if the security forces are closing in on a major organised crime gang, no purpose is served by letting us the public know, especially if that could jeopardise the outcome.
And the convention is that it is not the responsibility of officials to inform the public - that responsibility lies with the politicians. I am perfectly content that if I found something important being suppressed that there are various routes I could take - Whistleblowing, my Union, approaching a minister direct, approaching my own MP, approaching a stroppy Labour backbencher, approaching relevant people in other parties. If all of them refused to accept, or act upon, what I was saying, I would have to conclude that I had probably misjudged.
There must be numerous examples in history where extremely senior politicians have had to lie: sometimes to enable the effective execution of the policy or action, sometimes just because it would be premature to state the facts boldly, perhaps because there is still some doubt about the accuracy about the facts.
Context matters a lot. It is expedient for Ministers to time the release of information, but again, I would argue that they owe us the courtesy of being accurate, too. All politicians - and all journalists - attempt to control the agenda, or to decide the emphasis of the discussion. For example, if you were a politician discussing Education, you would probably want to discuss matters such as attainment in the core subjects, and peripheral but important issues such as discipline, school dinners. A journalist might want to make a big deal out of, for example, the proportion of school children studying two or more foreign languages. This is not unimportant, but to judge any Government's Education policy disproportionately on this issue would be silly.
If, on the other hand, a Minister stated that every child has the opportunity to learn at least one modern language throughout their schooldays, the issue would become one of - exactly how well informed is that Minister, what is their hidden agenda etc, which then becomes not a discussion about Education, but about the personality, competence, trustworthiness of that Minister.
I do not think that the journalist is serving the public well by concentrating on that issue to the detriment of a grown-up discussion of what we, the taxpayer, should expect from our schools. On the other hand, it is a legitimate matter through which to question the ability of schools to deliver a proper education eg lack of suitably qualified teachers; shortage of time in the curriculum; inability of swathes of children to cope with one, let alone two, foreign languages; the fact that we don't have a culture of teaching languages until it's really too late. All of which can be keys to a wider yet focused discussion.
It never ceases to amaze me the level of candour of discussion one can overhear in a lift...
