Examination of Witness (Questions 100
- 119)
TUESDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2000
MR JOHN
RAFFERTY
100. He did not warn you? He did not say "look,
I have to tell you that what you are about to say is going to
be taped"?
(Mr Rafferty) No.
101. I see. With hindsight do you feel that
he treated you shabbily then?
(Mr Rafferty) I have read The Observer newspaper,
I think that he was pursuing a line of inquiry. I cannot tell
what the truth is here or not, that is a matter for others to
decide.
102. I only ask you about your feelings. When
you discovered that you had been taped did you think that you
had suffered some sort of injustice? Did you feel aggrieved?
(Mr Rafferty) No.
103. Did you not?
(Mr Rafferty) I think all of this is unfortunate.
104. I would. I would have been furious.
(Mr Rafferty) All of this is unfortunate and I would
rather it was not happening.
105. Just for clarification and to get it on
the record, did you have any knowledge at all of a deal whereby
either MP would finance part of the costs of staff to work for
the party?
(Mr Rafferty) No.
106. Thank you. You were startled when Winslow
told you of his fears and immediately went and told the General
Secretary. If you had learned that earlier in the campaign would
you have been possibly even more alarmed in the context of this?
(Mr Rafferty) I am familiar with issues of propriety.
Had there been any irregularity I would have advised that it should
be stopped or that a simple log could be taken of who the work
was done for, when it was done and the nature of it.
107. While you were in the same room, and we
understand you said there were about 20 people,—
(Mr Rafferty) At least.
108. Obviously you could not put tabs on the
work that was done by everyone and nobody was expecting you to
do so. Coming back to a question that was asked earlier, would
you have thought it was impossible for someone working the hours
that they were working to have done 20 hours over a week elsewhere?
(Mr Rafferty) I think it varied throughout the campaign.
109. You said that it was difficult for you
to judge in an earlier answer. You probably were working at least
as long as any of them. You were going in at the start, reasonably
early, eight or nine o'clock, and you were working until the end
of the day?
(Mr Rafferty) Yes.
110. Some of them were not.
(Mr Rafferty) As I said to the Commissioner, from
time to time Chris Winslow worked from home, Suzanne Hilliard
worked with the Media Monitoring Team on a shift basis, and Kevin
Reid in Media Monitoring worked from reasonably early in the morning
until around lunchtime, early afternoon.
111. So what sort of hours were you having to
do a week then?
(Mr Rafferty) Eight or nine o'clock in the morning
until six or seven in the evening, until the last month when we
were there most of the time.
112. What happened when you finished, did you
go home and collapse? If I may ask, how old are you then?
(Mr Rafferty) I am 48.
113. You are keeping very well on it.
(Mr Rafferty) Thank you.
114. But at 48 you were working those hours.
To me these are young kids, these are young people, are they not?
Would you have expected that they would be able to work at least
the same hours as yourself?
(Mr Rafferty) Yes.
115. In view of their age and, of course, the
sort of enthusiasm you get with youngsters involved in political
campaigns, would you have expected them to have been able to work
at least the same hours as yourself?
(Mr Rafferty) Yes.
116. And even more?
(Mr Rafferty) I think, given the age difference, probably.
117. Finally, the circumstances about your departure.
You said that you were not dismissed by the First Minister, "we
agreed that I should leave my post".
(Mr Rafferty) Yes.
118. We, in Parliament, recognise a formula
like that because many of us have experienced the agreement, "do
you go voluntarily or do I kick you out". It is a rough old
life in politics. Why did you agree to go?
(Mr Rafferty) Much has been written about this, I
have never spoken about it. Donald Dewar and I were very close
for a very long time. He was very concerned at the continuing
interest of the newspapers in me and in my post. It was becoming
clear that they were making it impossible for me.
119. Did he find a successor?
(Mr Rafferty) No.
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