DEBACLE OF THE GAG THAT FAILED

ACCORDING to one ally, Jack Straw has had the "Christmas from Hell" but
emerged politically unscathed. The same cannot be said of the Attorney
General, John Morris, whose actions prolonged the fiasco by preventing
publication of the Home Secretary's name.

Mr Morris's allies argue that his actions were legally correct. As the
government's official guardian of the law he acted to protect the legal
process - although Mr Straw himself wanted to be named. Thus Mr Morris
applied for and was granted an injunction last Tuesday preventing the Sun
newspaper from naming Mr Straw.

Unfortunately for the Attorney General, his court action was ultimately
worthless. The Home Secretary had been identified to millions on the
Internet, in foreign newspapers (including those circulating in Britain)
and finally in Scotland.

Most colleagues saw this as a case of technology overtaking the law and an
Attorney General out of touch with the age of global communications.

To be fair, Mr Morris has never claimed familiarity with new technology as
one of his strengths. Aged 66, he has been an MP since 1959, was made a
minister in 1964 by Harold Wilson and is a veteran of Jim Callaghan's
Cabinet in which he served as Secretary of State for Wales.

As such he is unlikely to be fired, but he is not expected to continue in
the post to the end of the parliament. When a suitable successor has been
groomed (some suggest Geoff Hoon, a junior minister in the Lord
Chancellor's Department), Mr Morris is expected to retire discreetly.

Meanwhile, the law may also be a casualty of the Straw debacle. Yesterday
the shadow home secretary, Sir Brian Mawhinney, told BBC Radio 4's Today
programme that the law on naming juveniles, which is 60 years old, should
be examined. He said: "The world has changed very considerably in that
time", adding that overseas newspapers are readily available, the Internet
is essentially un-policed, Scotland and England have different laws and
that the proportion of crimes committed by under 18s was now very
significant. "We need to have a law that deals with present-day reality."