Hiding under the blankie

Twenty-three days have passed (i.e. way past the ten-day official deadline) since an email was sent to the Heads of MCA and the Department for Transport (DfT), raising the issue of the cover-up in the Gaul RFI, and there are still no signs of a reply.

The officials concerned are silent as birds at the end of the day. The MCA’s recently appointed CEO continues to be hard to catch, invoking pressing engagements and other similar pretexts. (His gofers have discreetly let the word slip that the implications of any review of the Gaul inquiry could be massive. It is possible, of course, that the implications of this case could be massive; but what may be more unfortunate, however, is that the moral stature of the people called to deal with them might turn out to be rather small. Who can tell?)

The DfT is not available these days either. Ruth Kelly has had to refer the complaint to higher fora, while the Shipping Policy branch in the DfT is quietly awaiting instructions from various ‘groups of lawyers’, who don’t seem to have any deadlines or even disclosable identities.

And no one else in the Establishment is daring enough to even mention the name of the Gaul - the ill-fated name that has covered us all in shame.