Sir Humphrey, the fictional head of the Whitehall public service in the bitingly accurate comic series Yes, Minister on the BBC offered this sagacious advice in one episode: “Never set up an inquiry unless you know in advance what its findings will be.”
Though fictional, Sir Humphrey’s wisdom holds more truth than the families and friends of those who perished in the Grenfell fire tragedy in north London might care to know. It’s been a little more than three weeks since an estimated 80 residents of the tower died in a spectacular blaze fuelled by inflammable cladding. The death toll is uncertain — there were many illegal sublets in the building and some of the bodies were so badly burned — in a fire that was so intense that it melted firemen’s helmets — that they may never be identified or indeed accounted for.
The Conservative minority government of Prime Minister Theresa May has set up a public inquiry, although the terms are yet to be established. It has appointed Sir Martin Moore-Bick, a recently retired 70-year-old appeal court judge and specialist in commercial law to chair the inquiry. While he’s highly regarded in legal circles, Labour isn’t impressed, with the MP for the constituency of Kensington — where the fire occurred in the early morning of June 14 — and the shadow secretary for fire services both calling for his replacement.
The reality is that there’s a long tradition of public inquiries in the United Kingdom — and an equally long tradition too of whitewashing, half-truths, mistruths and inaction resulting from the inevitable expensive showcases. They often amount to little more than a salve on the wounds of deeply injured and hurting members of the public.
Harsh? Hardly.
Take the Widgery Tribunal to look into the murders of 13 innocent protesters who died on the streets of Derry on January 30, 1972. Another died later in hospital, while 14 others were injured by live rounds fired by the soldiers.
Lord Widgery was the lord chief justice at the time when he was invited by the then United Kingdom prime minister, Edward Heath, to head a public inquiry into the shootings by members of the Parachute Regiment. He concluded that the soldiers were fired upon first. He never took evidence from wounded survivors, and key witnesses to the horrific events on the streets were never called to the limited hearings. The entire inquiry was done and dusted by April 19. Justice wasn’t delayed, it was denied. The report cleared the Brits and it took another two decades before a full-and-proper public inquiry reported what all knew all along — the British soldiers ran amok.
It’s not as if that’s the first time such an event happened, as the events in Jallianwala Bagh unfolded under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer in Amritsar, India, on April 13, 1919. Then, hundreds of unarmed Indian protesters were massacred. The inquiry into that bloody episode in British military history exonerated Dyer and proclaimed him as the “man who saved India”.
But it’s not just British soldiers who get the benefit from such public inquiries.
The families of the 96 Liverpool Football Club fans who died at Hillsborough have been waiting for more than 28 years to see criminal charges laid. The fans were crushed to death when they were herded into a dangerously overcrowded stadium by South Yorkshire Police (SYP). Despite warnings, police forced more people into the area of the stadium, leading to the 96 deaths and injuries to another 766 more.
In the days and weeks that followed, Liverpool fans were made to look like drunks and louts responsible for the tragedy. Despite an inquiry — one that has changed the face of football to this day, making all top-tier stadium seating-only and reforming the game into the success it is now — no charges were laid.
SYP officers were ordered to rewrite their notes, change their testimony, tear pages from reports and blatantly lie by superiors. Only last week, after a long and bitter campaign by victims’ families and relatives, have the first charges been laid by the Crown Prosecution Services.
Justice has been delayed and denied, and at least now there is a very real chance that six individuals will be held accountable for their actions that day. It’s no wonder now that the government has no appetite to launch a public inquiry into the SYP again, this time over the manner it was politically controlled under direct orders from former prime minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet ministers during the bitter Miner’s Strike of 1984 — and specifically surrounded the events around the Orgreave coking plant.
Ruling out a public inquiry, government papers suggest it would become a “witch hunt” for the officers. Tell that to the 95 miners who were arrested at the plant between Sheffield and Rotherham by 6,000 officers on June 18, 1984. They were prosecuted with rioting and unlawful assembly, charges that carried potential life sentences. Their trial collapsed and all were acquitted. Why? Because the SYP and other officers colluded to write their statements on orders from the very top of the UK government.
And then there’s that whole public inquiry into the Iraq War. The Chilcot Inquiry was announced by the then prime minister Gordon Brown in 2006 into the circumstances over UK’s decision by another Labour prime minister, Tony Blair, to go along with the United States in invading Iraq.
Cast your mind back to a time of weapons of mass destruction and a vial of anthrax being held up at the United Nations Security Council by the then US secretary of state, Colin Powell, and manufactured intelligence. After seven years of preparing his report and spending £10 million (Dh47.46 million), nothing new was reported. For £767 you can buy a physical copy of the report and learn nothing. After all, Chilcot did give each of the senior figures named in the report months to respond to his findings that he intended to report at some stage over the seven years.
If the Grenfell fire victims think for one minute that the public inquiry into the tragedy will provide justice, they better not hold their breath. This also from the wisdom of Sir Humphrey on those who believe that investigators are impartial: “Railway lines are impartial too. But if you lay down the lines for them, that’s the way they go.”
