People interested in the notions of crime and punishment, and who in particular feel that the punishment should fit the crime, must be intrigued by the case of Jonathan Aitken.
Aitken is generally described these days as the "disgraced" former Tory Minister. Following his conviction for perjury and for perverting the course of justice during his High Court libel action against the Guardian and World in Action in 1977, Aitken was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Right now he in incarcerated in Belmarsh prison in south-east London, where he has a cell to himself, but it seems that he will soon be transferred to a low-security prison in West Sussex.
All this seems right and proper, though some people thought the sentence too lenient, and others too harsh. Either way, the outcome is that this formerly powerful, wealthy, high-flying politician is publicly disgraced, and temporarily deprived of his freedom. Justice would appear to have been done.
We will get to the freedom issue later. In the first place, however, "disgrace" surely implies a certain acceptance that one has done wrong, and not merely a recognition that other people believe one has done wrong. When you are publicly disgraced, the natural reaction is surely an overwhelming sense of shame, and acute embarrassment. People in such situations characteristically talk of an overpowering desire for the ground beneath to open up and swallow them whole.
When Jonathan Aitken was convicted and subsequently sentenced, there was no such reaction. He did not hang his head in shame. He did not apologise for his criminal lies and smears or for drawing his former wife and his daughter (14 at the time) into these lies. He did not attempt to explain his original proud statement about how he would defend himself with "the simple sword of truth" against "the cancer of bent and twisted journalism".
In short, he did not feel himself disgraced. He did, however, write in the Tablet of how his downfall (he does recognise that he has fallen, from a particularly elevated pedestal) caused him to change from being a nominal churchgoer to someone who has experienced for himself what Christianity is all about. So he says. But what you can actually read between the lines of this article is a resurgence of pride - or rather, a reassertion of the pride which has never failed him. Jonathan Aitken has not been humbled. Far from it. The man is actually patronising Jesus Christ.
Aitken has, however, been jailed. His freedom is curtailed. He cannot take a walk on the beach. He cannot wander down to his local (though one doubts he ever did). The liberal view is that a prison term should mean nothing more than a lock on the door - that deprivation of freedom is sufficient punishment in itself. In reality, it usually involves all sorts of misery, but not, however, in Jonathan Aitken's case. Those who take the liberal view must be delighted at how Aitken is faring in Belmarsh. He appears to be having a quite enjoyable time.
In a letter sent to his mother, Lady Aitken, and published in the Mail on Sunday, the prisoner tells her he is "absolutely fine." He describes the Belmarsh regime as "spartan, strict and full of silly rules, but perfectly tolerable and humane." And for Aitken himself, "there's masses of human warmth, good humour and friendliness flowing my way." Having helped an inmate called "Stokesy" with his housing benefit form, he speaks of inmates greeting him with cries of "Hi, Jonofan", and tells how he has acquired an AfroCaribbean fan-club: "It was just like being back in my constituency surgery in Ramsgate." The letter incidentally begins: "Hail from de Jail!"
No doubt the Afro-Caribbeans appreciate the warm humour of all this, and don't even think for one moment that "Jonofan" looks down on them in any way. No doubt too, the prison guards are humbly tipping their caps in appreciation of Jonofan's tribute to the "perfectly tolerable and humane" regime they operate. How, then, has Jonathan Aitken been punished for his crimes? The truth is he has not been punished. As a government minister he cheated and lied, and almost succeeded in stealing some £2 million from the Guardian, and yet there is only minimal disruption to the course of his gilded life. He is officially bankrupt, but vast amounts of his wealth were transferred to offshore accounts, and into his wife's name, before his marriage ended. Friends say they will be back together before long.
Jonathan Aitken's capacity for self-deception, his enormous vanity (fed by his friends) and his innate, Eton-bred sense of superiority to the mass of people have made him immune to ordinary punishment. There is no one or nothing he does not look down on, not even the law itself. He is, in his own eyes, a temporarily inconvenienced supreme being.