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Cast the net wider

November 3rd, 2014 · Posted by Skuds in Life/Politics · 1 Comment · Life, Politics

To adapt Oscar Wilde a little:

To lose one chair of an inquiry into historical child abuse, Mr. Cameron, may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness.

People have been asking whether the failure of the government to find somebody to chair this inquiry who doesn’t have some sort of personal connection to anybody who might be part of it, is down to incompetence by the government or civil service, or whether it is a deliberate attempt to delay proceedings, leading to all sorts of conspiracy theories.

There is another possibility. Perhaps the British establishment is such a closed shop that there really isn’t anybody in judicial circles who doesn’t have connections to at least one person who might be part of the inquiry? When a large proportion of the establishment went to a handful of schools and universities, especially in the 1970s and 1980s that has to plausible. Between the old school tie network and Freemasons it must be hard to find anybody both qualified and independent.

Lord Carlile has said that the government should look ‘North of Watford’ and find somebody outside the Westminster village. Perhaps it should go further and consider casting the net a bit wider and appoint a foreigner? You would have to be careful with Commonwealth countries since a lot of their establishment probably shared an education with a lot of ours, but how about an American? Or maybe somebody who was involved in investigations into similar allegations, maybe in Belgium?

Just a thought.

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