Leading Article: Two cheers for now

LAST WEEK we learnt that General Gordon may not have been murdered when Khartoum fell in 1885, but taken hostage. We also discovered that in 1894 Reuters news agency contracted to spy for the Government for pounds 500. Last month, we had news that in 1910 Dr Crippen planned to kill himself on the night before he was hanged. Before that we had modest revelations about Rudolf Hess, occupied Jersey and the evacuation of the Suffolk village of Shingle Street in 1940.

Why anyone saw fit to withhold official files on these matters for all these years is a mystery, but for his part in ensuring that they have been opened, William Waldegrave, the minister responsible, deserves one cheer.

Also last week, Mr Waldegrave published a White Paper promising new rights of access to information, a voluntary code of practice for officials and a supervisory role for the parliamentary ombudsman. The minister said these measures would alter the culture of Whitehall. For this, he may have a second cheer.

It was his misfortune that this coincided with testimony before the Scott inquiry into arms sales to Iraq suggesting that in 1989 Mr Waldegrave connived in misleading the public. For the public the coincidence was useful. If the Iraq affair tells us anything, it is that economy with the truth is one science in which Whitehall excels. It has been practising for many years across the full range of government activity, often for no reason at all. Half-measures will not shake a culture so entrenched. Only a Freedom of Information Act will. When Mr Waldegrave recognises this, he will be entitled to his third cheer.