Lack of legal muscle behind Chilcot - a blessing in disguise

Maurice O'Brien • Published 17 Dec 2009 10:00 0 Comments

THE major misgivings surrounding the Chilcot inquiry are its lack of legal muscle and the guarantee that nobody will get nailed at the end of it.

But perhaps that's the beauty of it.

The absence of a roomful of clever dick lawyers, ducking and diving like 'find the lady' pavement conmen, won't just streamline proceedings but actually enable deeper digging than the political establishment ever anticipated.

Given that the 'there but for the grace of God' mentality of our rulers ensures nobody from any party would ever allow smarmy Yo B to get his proper comeuppance, why not let his erstwhile cronies tell tales?

Without the legal lounge lizards leaping up to intervene with obscure and obstructive points of law each time some disillusioned civil servant or senior soldier lets another cat out of the bag, we're seeing that infamous Teflon coating being progressively chipped away.

Emboldened by Chilcot, even former allies are beginning to break ranks. That old dud Prescott apparently knew George W was a dodgy dude all along and Blair's former Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken McDonald, allows words like 'sycophancy', 'narcissism', 'self-aggrandisement' and 'subterfuge' to roll deliciously off his tongue.

Typically, for a man content to govern with nods and winks rather than use the constitutional forum there for the purpose, Blair materialized, all tan and teeth, to preempt his Chilcot gala performance.

Now the canard of weapons of mass destruction has been well and truly stuffed, Yo B tells a simpering, tummy tuck telly queen he'd have overthrown Saddam even without the WMD, simply because he was a baddy who deserved dethroning.

But there were plenty of other bad men around during the Blair crusade. So why didn't he and buddy George invade Zimbabwe to get Mugabe, North Korea for Kim Jong-Il, Cuba for Castro, or a host of African states where the goodies and the baddies swap roles on a weekly basis?

And why not the brutal Azerbaijan Aliyevs? Whoops, silly me. Not when Tone can trouser ninety grand for a 20 minute talk on formaldehyde. Easy money. Just read the scientific definition until you get to the bit where it says exposing formaldehyde to sunlight creates an impenetrable fog.

- MEDIA mogul Michael Grade has made a bob or two out of showbiz in his time so it's surprising he's so out of touch.

He tells a House of Commons committee that ITV should scrap regional news and substitute more X Factor. Too late Mikey.

With our 'local' Meridian bulletins flipping from Rayleigh to Ryde in the blink of an eye, it's already happened.

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