From the archive – this week in 1987

Secrecy and the Conservative government

The country simply cannot go on like this over the question of official secrecy. The fundamental problem is easy to spell out: because the present administration of Mrs Thatcher tries to make everything secret, there is no national consensus over what should properly be kept secret and what the public has a right to know. The Government, aware it is going against the grain of public and press opinion, uses erratic tactics, depending on what it thinks it can get away with: ranging from the prison cell under the Official Secrets Act for the hapless - and harmless - Miss Sarah Tisdall, to wretched dithering over the forceful, left-wing journalist Duncan Campbell and his well-advertised plans last week to expose the Zircon satellite project.

Meanwhile basic civil liberties go by the board. The BBC is leant on behind the scenes; the High Court is asked to grant injunctions against MPs. The Prime Minister herself set a very bad example to us all by conniving at the leak of a classified letter by her own law officer during the Westland affair.