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CerberusIV
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Teflon Tony escapes again.
The really interesting thing for me was watching the silence from the opposition benches in the House of Commons after Tony Blair challenged Michael Howard. I have thought for some time that one of the reasons Howard was put in as Tory leader instead of IDS was to do as much political points scoring off the Hutton report as possible. I wonder if any Tory MP's now regret changing leader because this didn't come off?
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Cruddy
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To be honest, I reckon the Hutton report is a very fair accounting of the evidence.
The conclusions are of course a complete whitewash.
The Govt was wrong to quote one source and use it as an excuse for war.
The BBC were wrong to quote one source and use it as a news item.
Where lives the greater wrong?
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East Street Trader
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London, United Kingdom
Jun 2000
time: 05:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Agathon
A question: has anyone here ever had the inside info in such an inquiry? |
Well I am a government lawyer and it is the group of lawyers to which I belong who provide the legal secretariat which instructs counsel to public enquiries, helps gather, marshall and present the evidence under the direction of the person conducting the enquiry and provides legal support generally (conducting correspondence, practical arrangements with witnesses etc.).
When I first started, it was always just one of us who was appointed. But nowadays there tends to be a team of three or four. They can be hard work.
It would not be right for me to say anything about any specific enquiry but I will say that I do not share the wholesale cynicism being expressed by some in this thread and elsewhere.
And that is not because I like these things - I hate them - or because I support governments, I have cordially disliked ever single administration I have served.
It is true that there are some enquiries where a person is carefully picked expressly to whitewash or obfuscate. But that is the exception not the rule. Most of the people appointed honestly try to get to the bottom of things - and they often succceed.
It is also true, as is being said of Lord Hutton, that the people appointed tend to be establishment figures. It could hardly be otherwise. And that does mean that there is an inbuilt bias.
But that does not mean that evidence is suppressed or that conclusions adverse to the government are either rare or shirked.
On the contrary the "insider" expectation is usually a bad outcome for the gov.t. Often justified by events.
It is also true that reports are often long and turgid. I would go so far as to criticise some enquiries for casting their net too wide, taking far too long and being guilty of prolixity in the final report. But that is mostly just because it is very hard to stay 100% focused, especially when (as is almost invariably the case) the issues addressed are themselves a bit diffuse. And it is actually quite important for the report to recite a lot of the relevant evidence. It could be shorter if it just listed conclusions but that would not be right and no one would accept it.
There is quite a lot that goes on behind the scenes but that arises because of the need to be fair. So, for example, when someone is going to be criticised it is the practice to give them advance sight of what is intended to be said about them so as to ensure they have had their say properly. And there are always difficult procedural issues like which persons shall have the right to be represented by counsel or solicitors before the enquiry (and who pays for that). You simply can't let it degenerate into a scrum but there are invariable plenty of folk with a stake in the outcome.
Actully running many enquiries - strangely big planning enquiries can be so (Sizewell B, which concerned where to cite a nuclear power station is long enough ago that I can mention that one expressly) - is tricky. Lots of people want to give evidence and lots also want to be disruptive.
Many enquiries do not get splashed all over the national press because their subject is dull or because interest will be mostly local. Planning for motorways is one example of this, another is enquiries which centre on misdeeds in a particular institution, a hospital say (I represented clients twice when in private practice at ones like that).
But many are very newsworthy. When I first became a gov.t lawyer one colleague in the next office was doing the enquiry into the King's Cross Underground fire and one across the corridor was away doing one of the periodic enquiries we have had to have into children coming to great harm while under the wing of our social services workers. It may have been the silly one involving allegations of satanic abuse but those ones blur together a bit ihn my aging mind so that may be wrong.
I should perhaps add that I have not myself yet been the solicitor to an enquiry so what I say is still from the outside, but nevertheless from a seat so close as almost to be inside.
For those who like oddities, from the point of view of me and my colleagues the two most important things when appointed to support an enquiry are to negotiate well about what happens to the rest of your work while you are tied up and to negotiate even better about your expenses - these things can be held in out of the way places.
I don't like them, they are often flawed, but there is a great deal - a very great deal - more honest endeavour involved that cynics would ever be willing to acknowledge.
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CerberusIV
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The media are worried that this report will be used to impose controls on the BBC, through its charter, which will be applied to the rest of the media by extension. They were also hoping for some ammunition to attack the Government and now need something else to fill the column inches and airtime. They see it in their interests to shift the focus back onto the Government and PM as quickly as possible.
The real issue that the BBC have to contend with is that they leapt to Gilligan's defence without properly checking that his story stood up. That is where they are vulnerable and why heads have rolled at the top.
Like many Brits I do think the BBC is pretty good but I am also realistic enough to say that it doesn't attain the standards it once did relative to the rest of the media here.
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lightblue
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L'Boro, UK
Oct 2001
time: 05:33
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I like the bit how the MoD isn't apportioned any blame for naming Kelly to "interested sources". Basically the press phoned the MoD, went through a list of names, the MoD said: Mr Smith, no he didn't do it, Ms Jones, no she didn't do, Dr Kelly, yes it was him...
It is just too biased in one way to be held fully credible. Public opinion is going to see it as whitewash. If the MoD was criticised, and Hoon sacrificed, the report would have been accepted as is.
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CerberusIV
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quote:
Originally posted by lightblue
I like the bit how the MoD isn't apportioned any blame for naming Kelly to "interested sources". Basically the press phoned the MoD, went through a list of names, the MoD said: Mr Smith, no he didn't do it, Ms Jones, no she didn't do, Dr Kelly, yes it was him...
It is just too biased in one way to be held fully credible. Public opinion is going to see it as whitewash. If the MoD was criticised, and Hoon sacrificed, the report would have been accepted as is. |
Actually Hutton specifically pointed out in his summary 2 or 3 newspapers that correctly got Kelly's name from the available information and the MoD then confirmed it. He then mentioned the one that sent in a list of 20 names.
Once No 10 challenged Gilligan's story it was such hot news that Gilligan's source was going to come out. Hutton was, IMO, right not to criticise the MoD for a somewhat half hearted attempt to fight off the inevitable.
It is worth remembering that Lord Hutton has a legal background - innocent until proven guilty. The fact that he only criticises where there is clear fault actually shows that his report was not politically influenced either way.
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East Street Trader
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London, United Kingdom
Jun 2000
time: 05:33
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lightblue
That it was decided to confirm the man's name if that name was put has been known throughout. It is not a secret unearthed by the inquiry.
What has been in issue is why that was done. The assertion was made - and Hutton decided it was one of the issues for him to address - that getting the source's name out into the open by that roundabout route was part of a concerted stategy. It was put like this. The government was in dispute with the BBC. It believed, so it was said, that it strengthened its own position in that dispute if the name came out. Because it could then seek to demonstrate what, in the event, it has taken this inquiry to show. Namely that the main allegation made by Gilligan is not supportable from the information he had. But, it was said, the government (or rather Tony Blair who chaired the meeting at which the question of what to do about the fact that a civil servant had come forward and said he might be the source was discussed) recognised that it would attract opprobrium to itself if it directly named the civil servant. Hence the roundabout route. It was said.
Anyway Hutton exposes this rather elaborate conspiracy theorist proposition for hooey. Because what the meeting really discussed was the fact that a Commons committee which is concerned with intelligence matters was interested in the dossier and if the government concealed the fact that a civil servant had come forward it would lay itself open to the criticism - from the Commons committee and from everyone else - that it had engaged in a cover up.
Which is obviously exactly what would have happened. Indeed they under-estimated the response they would have got. Because the chairmen and members of the Commons committee gave evidence to Hutton in which they said they regarded the government as under a duty to tell them immediately about what had happened and that, for good measure, they would have then wanted to bring the source before themselves - which is, of course, exactly what they actually did.
So the decision was made to make a statement to the effect that a civil servant had come forward.
Now the point of confirming the man's name if it was directly put was this. No one - and that includes the man himself - had the slightest doubt that the press would rapidly ferret out the name. So refusing to confirm his name in these particular circumstances would have led to a brief period of speculation during which the few other people in the field whom it might have been (The Times put 20 names to the BBC, most everyone else put one) would have been besieged. Which exposes others to hassle which is a waste of space when no one thought it would save the man from shortly being exposed anyway.
Frankly all of this makes complete sense. The guy had himself created a situation where to hope for some clear and simple course of action which no-one could criticise is just wishful thinking.
I have no personal view as to whether it could have been handled better. But that it was honestly muddled through and not part of a deep and cunning plot is pretty well unarguable. Well, no one is arguing on that as far as I know. And the opposition had pinned such high hopes of nailing Blair with this that if there was any real way to challenge these findings they would certainly be screaming about it.
Instead of which they stand silent.
Those who are determined that the answer to everything lies in deep conspiracies will take no notice of Lord Hutton as they take no notice of anyone except someone floating a yet wackier conspiracy theory.
But the truth is that secrecy in this case was both impossible to maintain and wrong.
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29-01-2004 05:42
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