The endless cost of the Iraq Inquiry. The enduring inability to publish. The continuing obfuscation of some in protecting reputations clearly unworthy of the effort.
Such nonsense makes this country and its culture seem steeped in formaldehyde and devoid of vital signs.
Yesterday. 21st January, Sir John Chilcott not only announced yet another delay to publication of the inquiry report but had to say that he was not even in a position to estimate when it could be published.
The charade that has draped itself around what was originally an inquiry with integrity is now choking the life out of it.
The name given to the practice of advance notification of individuals who will face criticism in an official report and of giving them the right to respond before the finalisation and publication of the report, says pretty well everything there is to say about this process – Maxwellisation.
It is called for the bullying, bloated defrauder of his own companies’ pension funds, ruining the later lives of so many honest folk. It is the tag given to a process that advantages those who deserve no such consideration.
Back in 1969, Maxwell, in a report by the then Department of Trade and Industry [DTI], was described as ‘unfit to hold the stewardship of a public company’.
Events later showed just how right was that judgment – but Maxwell took the DTI to court, where the Judge pronounced that the department had ‘virtually committed’ his ‘business murder’.
It is ironic to name a process destructive of trust after a man who destroyed trust wholesale.
The Chilcott Inquiry has now cost somewhere between £9 and £10 million.
If Chilcott had simply published when he was ready to do so; and had said what he knew requires to be said – on the evidence; and had been sued by the odd usual suspect, would it have cost any more, even if he had lost?
And it would have done what people were entitled to trust it would do – tell the truth about a matter which killed numbers of innocent people, deliberately left uncounted and shaped this country for the worse.