Friday, September 09, 2011

Broken Government

I have written before on this blog about the campaign to have the results of past formal inquiries (starting with the one held into the loss of the trawler Gaul) into several maritime casualties reviewed. These inquiries resulted in miscarriages of justice, which were the handiwork of the past labour government.

Years ago, I received the most credible and respectable assurances that the Conservative administration would sort these things out. 

Well, that has certainly not been the case. Cameron’s government shows no appetite in upholding the law. Rioters on the streets of London were fair game, Establishment figures are, however, a completely different matter – especially when their crimes lead to the powerful Mr Blair and his allies.

Having been persecuted by officialdom for blowing the whistle about the FV Gaul farce, we have taken the government to court. We hope that the information which we will bring to light will do some good in restoring justice in this case as well as in others.

But it is not going to be easy. Mr Cameron, so willing before the 2010 election to attack Labour and be indignant about what we exposed - in fact, mercenarily, Cameron’s Conservatives even considered using the Gaul scandal as electoral ammunition in 2010 [*] - has now been mollified. Recently his government has even started to raise obstacles and put pressure on us so as to make us abandon the court case, which harms the prime minister’s current interests. All done to protect Murdoch.

Mr Cameron is in no mind to address the wrongdoing committed by Labour … he has the phone-hacking saga to worry about right now. (And he seems determined to cover that one up, no matter the costs.) The appalling miscarriages of justice that took place under Labour and the misery of those who have been affected by the maritime tragedies referred to on this blog are being used by Cameron’s government to parry attacks from Labour - thus trading misfortune for short-term political gain.

Yes, it is as squalid as that, and there is still more to add. However, what is most shocking is that all this is going on with the acquiescence (and any recent appearance to the contrary is nothing but theatre) of the very top of the British Establishment. There is, at the moment, no public authority that one can trust or that deserves to be trusted.

(More to come)
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[*] But more about what happened at that time, in a different post