FV Trident – the upcoming court drama

The FV Trident inquiry is expected to start in October this year. Meanwhile, relatives of the crew, it has been announced, will submit an expert [1] report suggesting that stability problems were a contributing factor to the capsize and loss of the vessel.
There is also, of course, the official joint report, compiled by a 14-man expert panel, which, we are told, attributes the loss of the Trident to ‘seakeeping problems’.
These differences of opinion on what caused the tragedy are likely to add further delays to the formal inquiry.
Although we have not seen either of the above-mentioned reports, we would like to venture a couple of preliminary observations on the subject:

First, the seakeeping ability of a vessel - which the panel of experts in the Trident inquiry are geared up to blame for the tragedy - is a composite notion, vague enough and large enough to embrace a number of possibilities. Unlike stability, there is no agreed or regulatory yardstick attached to ‘seakeeping’ above which a vessel can be deemed to be safe. Hence, pointing the finger at seakeeping is almost like saying that the vessel did not perform well, that something was wrong with the vessel, without explaining what that was.
In such a case, it is to be expected that cause and effect and, therefore, blame and liability would be rather difficult to establish. [2]

And second, it would be very unfair if the expert reports attached to this public inquiry were not to be made public. Having paid, so far, no less than £3 million for the research into the causes of the Trident disaster, the taxpayer deserves full access to that information.

Anyway, as we have mentioned before, we will be taking a keen interest in the developments of this inquiry, and we hope that officialdom will not be tempted to try their luck again and replicate the travesties of justice that were the Gaul and Derbyshire formal inquiries.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Expert report on stability deficiencies by Mr Martin Pullinger, naval architect with over 30 years of experience with Burness Corlett & Partners – a marine consultancy firm who provided technical advice to the Gaul and Derbyshire formal investigations.
[2] This is perhaps the first indication of possible government interference in what should be an impartial technical process.

Unfinished Business

One of the main reasons for carrying out a Formal Investigation into a shipping disaster is to determine its causes so that safety lessons can be learned and action taken to prevent similar tragedies re-occurring. Following the Gaul and Derbyshire inquiries we have found out, however, that this is not really the case: the protection of the financial interests of a few political and corporate operators have primacy over all other considerations, including safety.

In the run up to the 2004 Gaul and 2000 Derbyshire formal investigations, and subsequently, a lot of public money was spent and a lot of work was carried out in order to determine the causes of these two maritime disasters and to propose new measures that would improve safety. The causes for the tragedies were well obscured and, as for the safety measures recommended during those two inquiries, when it came to the final stage - the implementation or concrete action stage – matters, somehow, fizzled out.

Trawler Gaul lost in 1974 with all 36 crew

It is doubtful whether the four safety recommendations that came out of the Gaul 2004 Re-opened Formal Investigation (RFI) will ever come into effect. They had not been implemented in January 2007 when we first raised this matter [link] and they have not been implemented since.

The fact that the four safety recommendations, put forward by Justice Steel (the Wreck Commissioner in the Gaul RFI), are based upon false premises, are inappropriate and will therefore not be effective in preventing future loss of life, may be one of the reasons why the Government prefers them to be shelved and quietly forgotten.

OBO MV Derbyshire lost in 1980 with all 44 persons onboard

The Formal Investigation into the loss of the MV Derbyshire concluded in 2000 and its final report was published on 8 November of that year. The principal finding and recommendation to come out from the Derbyshire RFI was that the regulations for hatch cover strength were seriously deficient and that the International Convention on Load Lines (1966) needed to be amended urgently to rectify this shortfall.

The regulations of the Load Line Convention were thus redrafted at IMO to include requirements for specially strengthened hatch covers to be fitted to the forward cargo holds of all new cargo ships (not only bulk carriers). The new amendments were finalised at IMO [*] in 2002 and came into force Internationally in 2005.

However, they did not legally come into force for UK flagged vessels at the same time because the UK’s own Merchant Shipping legislation had not been amended to give legal force to the new Load Line Convention requirements for hatch covers. Today, the legislation still has not been revised.

The relevant UK rules are contained in Statutory Instrument (SI) 1998 No. 2241: The Merchant Shipping (Load Line) Regulations 1998.

There is no reason why these rules could not have been amended in a timely manner; in fact, the UK Load Line regulations were recently modified by Statutory Instrument (SI) 2005 No. 2114, so as to implement the following changes:
“……… in the definition of "pleasure vessel" or "pleasure craft", as the case may be, for each reference to "husband or wife" substitute "spouse or civil partner".
Now, that was extremely important - and also revealing of our government’s legislative priorities as regards Maritime safety.

---------------------------------------------------------------

[*] International Maritime Organisation

Payment in nature

On the 18th of February 1974, in an interview with ITN News, David Shenton, the National Fisheries Officer for the Transport and General Workers Union, said that lack of evidence [1] about what had happened to the Hull trawler Gaul on the day it disappeared could cost the families of her 36 crewmen as much as £312,000 each [2] .

His statement [3], made just 10 days after the loss of the vessel, managed to crystallise, in a few words, the crux of the matter, which, for the next 35 years, would deny the general public the facts behind the vessel’s loss, and the families of the crew the right to know what happened to their loved ones.

It is now evident that it was not a submarine, a cold war spy-ship encounter, official secrets or hijack and capture by the Russians that had prevented the truth about this tragedy from emerging (these were just convenient ‘red herrings’ made up for the excitement of the public); it was money - purely and simply - and the British Establishment’s unwillingness to pay what amounted to a considerable sum, even though this was proper, fair and legally due to the victims’ families.

The reluctance of both governments and private companies to pay legal damages to injured parties is well-known, and has a long and colourful history in the maritime business world; what is particularly sickening, however, in the Gaul and other recent cases is the shoddiness of the tactics employed to circumvent the law: the cynical setbacks, the unnecessary delays, the long and costly legal battles, the blatant lies and, despite the recent disclosures, the persistent suppression of the truth, all of which go far beyond reasonable prudence and concern for the interests of shareholders and taxpayers.

But what is, perhaps, even more disturbing is the ease, the audacity and the extent to which the ‘cartel’ of politicians, businesses, insurers, civil servants, law firms and the judiciary are nowadays prepared to collude in order to prevent the payment of lawful compensation to those who have suffered such terrible losses.

In the Gaul case, this collusion led to a dubious but costly public inquiry, which, contrary to the available evidence, laid the blame for the tragedy with the crew.

A decade ago, in the debate about the limitation of liability for the maritime industry, justice David Steel placed himself firmly on the side of the shipping and insurance industries, whose financial interests he considered more important than fair compensation to claimants for damages caused by shipping mishaps.

The same justice Steel was then appointed to chair the 2004 Re-opened Formal Investigation into the sinking of the Gaul, which, surprisingly, found no fault with the vessel and, therefore, no grounds for subsequent compensation claims by the victims’ families.

Of course, a fine balance between safety and profitability has to be struck, no one wants the shipping or the insurance industries to go bust, but “at no time should any innocent party be expected to subsidize any business by their personal loss”, [4] nor should a formal legal process to be turned into a farce.

-------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Simply put, as long as there was no firm evidence concerning the loss of the Gaul, liability could not be established and there could be no compensation for the dependents.

[2] About £3.5million in present day worth

[3] Unfortunately the families were soon to lose their champion as Mr Shenton passed away shortly thereafter. Mr James Johnson paid the following tribute to Mr Shenton in the House of Commons on 5 April 1976: “The late David Shenton, National Fisheries Officer for the Transport and General Workers' Union—whose untimely death is a great loss to the industry—did a great deal for the fishermen in Hull.”

[4] Serge Killingbeck, SCU Law Review Volume 3 November 1999

The culture of callousness

It is common knowledge that the measure of a civilised society is given by the way in which it cares for its weakest members. Judged by that measure, I’m afraid, today’s Britain would not score very high - the sympathetic activities of our so-called social-democratic regime being more declamatory than real.

A culture of callousness seems instead to have pervaded Britain, the latest and most shocking example of which being the disgraceful treatment of the soldiers wounded in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As if possessed by some ungodly avarice, the government has adopted the moral philosophy of the money-changers, and has now the audacity to take those wounded in war to Court, for the purpose of minimising their injury compensations.

Taking from the most deserving and giving to the least - this is what the squandering of public money on frivolous schemes and dubious contracts, rather than paying for the state’s most basic obligations, equates to.

The whole charade of leaving the MOD to handle competing financial obligations on a fixed, limited, budget is just an unseemly subterfuge; the government could very well set up a separate, special, fund to settle the claims of the military and avoid this ugly and ungenerous quarrel.

Also nowadays there appears to be a stigma attached to any search for compensation – as if all those seeking to obtain financial redress for their losses were some kind of system spongers or benefit cheats.
The so-called ‘culture of compensation’ that many within the British Establishment often decry is, in fact, the normal application of the law; it is not charity.
The right to compensation represents one of the principal checks and balances that society has created so as to ensure that its weakest members have some protection against the might of the strong.
What is more, the prospect of litigation can make both governments and private employers much more careful when dealing with human lives.

Our government should be able to recognize these factors and strike a fair balance between ethics and their various financial priorities.

Lord Woolf’s concerns

In December 2004, at the time when the Gaul RFI concluded and produced its final report, Lord Woolf, then Lord Chief Justice, was clashing with the government, an article published in the Times informed us, over a “matter of principle”.
The matter in question was Lord Woolf’s view – a view shared by other judges apart from the Lord Chancellor – that the final decision as to whether or not High Court judges should chair public inquiries, and who should be appointed to such duties, must necessarily rest with the head of the judiciary.

Lord Woolf was concerned that “public confidence in the judiciary’s independence could be harmed if judges were drawn into politically sensitive public inquiries” [*] where they could be seen as siding with the government, and that the separation of powers might be consequently compromised.

Lord Woolf was of the opinion that not all public inquiries were apt to be chaired by judges and that, from some cases of a “politically sensitive nature”, judges ought to stay well away.

Lord Woolf’s objections had been sparked, we were told, by the negative public reaction to the conclusions of Lord Hutton’s inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of the Government weapons expert David Kelly.

The Times article also listed the 13 inquiries which had been chaired by judges since 1997, and which included the sinking of the MV Derbyshire, FV Gaul and the Marchioness.

What struck us about Lord Wolf’s arguments, however, was the fact that his Lordship appeared more in favour of the judiciary skirting the politically sensitive cases rather than accepting the challenges they presented, giving thus the impression that the judges wanted both to have their cake and eat it… that is to remain both virtuous – preferably through non-exposure rather than as a result of personal endeavour - and on good terms with the government of the day.

And, reverting to the unfortunate case of the Gaul RFI, one feels tempted to ask, why is it that some of our judges, whose righteousness Lord Woolf was so keen to protect, having already sided with the government and having already been seen doing so, are still unwilling to make amends?

Are not our judges supposed to be the heroic defenders of the law’s basic commitments against the encroachments of politics? Is judging no longer concerned, as judge William E. Werner once explained, “with the romance of perseverance, of pluck and back bone”?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

[*] Woolf wants final say over inquiries, The Times, December 15, 2004

New Inquiry into the loss of FV Trident

The wreck of the FV Trident, which sank off the Caithness coast 35 years ago, was found by amateur divers in 2001.

This discovery, and the fact that the victims’ families had never accepted the conclusions of the previous investigation into the tragedy, prompted the former Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Byers) to order the re-opening the formal investigation into her loss. This was in 2002.

Inexplicably, it then took our government seven years to set up this new investigation, which is now, finally, to be opened on October 19, 2009.

It is, however, very fortunate that the new inquiry will be conducted under the chairmanship of Sir Stephen Young QC, Sheriff Principal of Grampian Highland and Islands.

In 2002, Sir Stephen, then sheriff of Paisley, headed the investigation into the 1994 Mull of Kintyre helicopter crash and had the fortitude to openly dismiss the idea of pilot error, stating in his report that the conclusions of the RAF investigation, which had put the blame for the fatal accident on the crew, were "flawed".

The appointment of Sir Stephen should therefore be taken as a good omen.

We, on our part, will be following the proceedings and direction of the Trident investigation with great interest.

Update

(Following on from our post of 23 April 2009)

The government's 'subtle' campaign of harassment continues as before, only now it would appear that the NHS, under the guise of incompetence, has entered the game.

(More details to come)

FV Trident - update

A year ago, in a post published on this site, we gave a brief account of the of FV Trident tragedy - the Peterhead-registered seine-net trawler which sank on 3 October 1974 with the loss of all seven men on board – and commented on the fact that 6 years after the decision to re-investigate the loss of the Trident had been taken, the RFI was not yet concluded.

At long last, as recently announced in the press, there is now some movement in the official investigation.

We do not know yet in which direction things are moving, but hope that the Department for Transport and those responsible for the conduct of this inquiry will have learnt a few lessons from the aftermath of the FV Gaul and MV Derbyshire Formal Investigations and that, this time around, the victims’ families will finally obtain justice.

League of villains extraordinaire

After many years of rampant extravaganza, our voracious politicians – once upon a time thought to be our betters –have, finally, been exposed.
Enthralled, day-by-day, we read of new revelations in the MPs’ expenses scandal and witness the unseemly squirming of those caught with their hands in the till.

The fact that many of our representatives possess a guilty conscience has created a bond of solidarity across the political divides - a unity against the voters …a league of villains extraordinaire.

In such circumstances, of course, one cannot demand justice, because justice pleases neither side.

Overly preoccupied with their personal welfare, our representatives have no time for the electorate, and, incapable of grasping what is true and just, they cannot deliberate and act in the best interests of the nation.

As in many other instances of recently uncovered transgressions, when taken to account, the culprits blame the system - a system which, in fact, they have themselves designed, but which has now, allegedly, acquired a will of its own and - just like HAL 9000, the supercomputer on board the spaceship Discovery – has taken control of Parliament.

Yet, just changing the system is not going to solve our problems. No system, however secure and cleverly conceived, can protect us from the greed of our politicians, unless we, as a society, vigorously demand that only those able to act decently out of conviction should be given the chance to represent us.

To tighten the system without improving the quality of our legislators would be to act like in those lunatic asylums of the past, where they used to tie up their patients without ever treating their illnesses.

Only a moral society is capable of opposing a crooked regime, and, if we are still a moral society, then we must demand some serious changes. Just making a noise, naming and shaming, is not going to be enough.

Brazen but not brave

After 5 months of delays and prevarication, the Metropolitan Police felt finally able to release a copy of the document requested by us under the provisions of the FOI Act.

And this is how the released copy looks like:

The Met’s contention that obliterating most of the text in their ‘investigation report’ was necessary in order to protect ‘personal data’ is so absurd and so blatantly insincere that makes you wonder whether their response was meant to be, in fact, some sort of joke or mockery.

Anyhow, we took them seriously and sent another request, disproving their arguments and urging them to reconsider...

... although we have serious doubts as to their willingness and ability to serve the public interest in this matter.

Can the people of this country still trust the police force to offer them any protection against the criminal ‘elite’, or have the police, nowadays, been turned into a different species - something between the rogue army of a failed state and the timorous functionaries of a conquered nation?

Off-target

Trying to knock us off? Well, we may be a bit ruffled now, but we remain undeterred - the recent attacks against us having merely inflamed our determination and reinforced our resolve.

Also, the consequent pause I had to take from blogging over the past month gave me more time to ponder past events, so I would now like to recount how my first public disclosures about the Gaul RFI scandal were acted upon three years ago.

It was in the spring of 2006 when, after three and a half years of harassment, I decided that enough was enough and, taking advantage of the EU spring summit in Brussels (we were living there at the time) and having managed, on that day, to lose our regular ‘tail’, I sought out the press corps - gathered in the Belgian capital for the summit – and handed over leaflets containing a brief summary of the Gaul affair.

Soon afterwards, to extend the courtesy, I also approached a member of the British press who was familiar with the Gaul saga and who, I was told, had contacts with the largest of the Gaul protagonists: the right honourable John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister at the time and MP for Hull East. During conversations with that journalist, when asked about the other beneficiaries of my disclosures, I mentioned the names of a few of those contacted, giving, however, an incomplete account of the total number of recipients. The astonishing reply that I got in return was: “But we did not count so many”.

Taken aback by such unexpected admission, I forgot to ask who we were or what that counting involved. It might have been interesting to know.

Nonetheless, shortly afterwards, I asked the same journalist – who claimed to know the Deputy Prime Minister quite well – to contact Mr Prescott and try to persuade him to come clean about the Gaul, so that we might resolve this disgraceful matter in a slightly more dignified fashion.

Yes, I know the whole idea was laughable, but, sometimes, like the cowslip whose pretty yellow flowers can spring up in ditches and bogs, so virtue and contrition might blossom even in the most unlikely of human forms.

Unfortunately, this time, nothing came out of it. Nothing good that is. Within days, however, the news broke about Mr Prescott’s affair with his diary secretary – a story that would entertain the British public for some time.

To be continued…

Happy Easter

Did you pack your bags yourself, Sir?

Our previous post revealed that, according to the Department for Transport, the only advice received by Mr Jim Fitzpatrick, the Transport Minister, in response to our complaint about the Gaul RFI, was the draft of his letter to the Shadow Transport Minister, as jotted down by some unnamed DfT officials.

Forgetting the candid Mr Fitzpatrick for a moment, we turn our attention again towards Mr Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Transport, for it is Mr Hoon himself who is obliged under the provisions of the 1995 Merchant Shipping Act to order a re-hearing of the Gaul RFI, if it “appears” to him that there are “grounds for suspecting that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred”.

In his recent statement (see HERE) the Secretary of State for Transport asserted that there were “no grounds for suspecting that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred” during the Gaul RFI, although - as his own Department currently maintains - the grounds put forward by us have never been properly examined.
In fact, Mr Hoon made sure that no adequate technical counsel was obtained, lest the ‘grounds for suspecting a miscarriage of justice’ would become too ‘apparent’ to him, obliging him to re-open the case. (That is assuming he didn’t know the truth already.)
His contrived ignorance of the matter may also be seen as a precautionary measure taken with a view to escaping future liability: if ever brought to account, Mr Hoon must have reckoned, he would be able to claim lack of knowledge about the technical basis of our arguments.

Thus, like the drug courier who refrains from looking in his suitcase, Mr Hoon has avoided asking for expert advice, shielding his eyes from any unwanted knowledge.
As a lawyer, however, Mr Hoon can be no ingénue in such legal matters and should be aware that this is not how things work in the normal world. Courts are known to have decreed many times in the past that the ignorance-pleading smuggler should have known, and they may likewise, one day, decide that Mr Hoon should have asked.

(Related POST)

Draft advice

The latest answer from the Department for Transport to one of our FOI requests contains an attractive twist.
Our initial query concerned the source of the technical advice given to the Transport Minister, Mr Jim Fitzpatrick, in response to our criticisms of the Gaul RFI.

In response, the DfT informs us that the exclusive source of that ‘advice’, which Mr Fitzpatrick claimed to have received in his letter to the Shadow Minister for Transport, was nothing else but the very draft of that letter – i.e. the one in which he declared himself advised…?!

Génial!! The DfT reply may not be very informative, but, one must admit, it has a notable artistic value.

The common practice, as far as I am aware, given that there are no marine specialists within the Department itself, is to seek technical counsel from one of the DfT’s agencies: i.e. the MCA [1] or the MAIB [2]. The DfT, however, informs us that “no request for additional information was made by the Minister”.
So which officials within the DfT assessed the technical evidence we had provided?
Are we to assume that, perhaps, the Shadow Minister for Transport was corresponding, in fact, with one of Mr Fitzpatrick’s typists?
Is it not more likely that, as it nowadays happens, the Minister outlined his politics-driven decision and then asked the DfT civil servants to draft his response along those lines? Common sense and experience tell us that no official would make ministerial decisions in his place – especially when the issues at stake are both complex and sensitive.
Whatever the case, the statement in Mr Fitzpatrick’s letter: “I am advised that there is no reason to re-open the investigation” now looks as though it had been intended to mislead his Opposition counter-part into assuming that, maybe, a great assembly of experts and scholars had been drawn in to review and offer advice on our criticism of the Gaul RFI.

Put together in one piece, all the correspondence received so far from the DfT looks like a Möbius strip: however attentively you follow it, you will always end up on the opposite side without crossing any boundary – a loop that takes you without interruption from back to front and front to back, without giving you any sign or orientation.

--------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Martime and Coastguard Agency
[2] Marine Accident Investigation Branch

Delaying tactics

To our request for information, dated 22 October 2008, the Department for Transport is still struggling to provide a coherent reply. They have now postponed the conclusion of their second internal review on this FOI matter until the 27th of February 2009 (LINK). Four months for a simple question…!

No more forthcoming, the Metropolitan Police, have initially put off their response to our complaint until the 18th of February. “We hope to complete our internal review no later than 18 February 2009. Should there be any unforeseen delay we will contact you and update you as soon as possible”, only to advise us on the 19th of February that, due to unforeseen circumstances, they had been unable to meet the response time and that “We hope to complete our internal review no later than 27 February 2009. Should there be any unforeseen delay we will contact you and update you as soon as possible” (LINK). And so we are going on and on…

No matter that the Information Commissioner’s guidance to the FOI Act states clearly that “a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20 working days from the date of the request for review” and that “in no case should the total time taken exceed 40 working days”, the Met have their own rhythm.

Cunning strategy, one might suspect: these cautious delaying tactics would give them more time for fixing ‘a few little things’ and limiting the embarrassment.

Somehow, I feel sorry for our humble public servants. In the quicksands of today’s politics, power struggles and uncertainty, they may find it difficult to decide when to stay still, when to jump, and which side of the fence to fall down on.

Besides, considering all the laws that our officials routinely defy nowadays, a breach of the FOI rules is a mere bagatelle.

***

UPDATE 1: On the 27th of February 2009, the Met sent us a surprise answer: "We hope to complete your review no later than 13 March 2009. Should there be any further delay, I will contact you and update you as soon as possible."

UPDATE 2: On the 13th of March the Met replied: "We hope to complete your review no later than 27 March 2009. This review is near completion and I will be in contact with you shortly to update you on the status of this case. Should there be any further delay, I will contact you and update you as soon as possible. "

UPDATE 3: And on the 27th of March the answer was: "We hope to complete your review no later than 17 April 2009. Should there be any unforeseen delay, I will contact you and update you as soon as possible."

UPDATE 4: On the 17th of April the Met duly informed us: "We hope to complete your review no later than 1 May 2009. Should there be any unforeseen delay, I will contact you and update you as soon as possible."

35 years

On the 8th of February, 35 years ago, the Gaul sank in the Barents Sea, during a severe storm. None of its 36 crew survived.

A few small notes in the 13 February 1974 edition of Lloyd’s List, reproduced below, gave the first details about the search for the missing trawler.

Over the following days, Lloyd’s List published several brief reports on the progress of the search operations:

The unsuccessful search for the Gaul was closed at 15.00 hours GMT on the 15th of February 1974.

On the 19th of February the Department of Trade and Industry ordered an official inquiry into the loss of the Gaul.

The last Nimrod search operation ordered by the Prime Minister on the 20th February 1974 ended two days later without success.

The wreck of the Gaul was only discovered twenty-three years later, in 1997.

In 2004, the Re-opened Formal Investigation into the loss of the vessel concluded that the 36 fishermen of the Gaul had died at their own hands.

Today, 35 years after the tragedy, the truth about what caused the loss of the Gaul still remains unacknowledged, walled inside a 21st century edifice of political spin.

Destabilised

Voting down the government’s proposed legislation, the Prime Minister warned, will have apocalyptic consequences: it will de-stabilise the government; it will de-stabilise the markets… it will make the earth roar and the abyss spew off its stench.

Meanwhile, the PM is taking great care not to de-stabilise himself and, to that effect, he is prepared to do away with formality.

He allocates cabinet jobs for political compromise rather than for the competence and suitability of the person employed, appoints as chief of the Met a New Labour favourite to placate those in his party who have reasons to fear the arm of the law, and procures fast-tracked seats in the Upper House, clumsily knocking over the barriers in his pursuit of short-term political gain.

Amazingly, now it appears that even John Prescott (the Hull MP who played a nefarious part in both the Gaul and the Derbyshire RFIs) is being re-habilitated and courted for political support. Acrimony in the House of Commons can’t be afforded at this time - it is politically much cheaper to whip up a scandal in the Lords, instead, and thus appear tough on corruption.

We would have hoped that the Prime Minister was able to carry his party along with him by the force of his talents and personality, not by peddling gongs, favours and immunities from prosecution. The PM has, of course, many other ways of stabilising his political tenure, but these are, perhaps, too fraught with risks and difficulties.

And, as the old wisdom goes, no one can really climb out beyond the limitations of his own character.

http://www.dailymotion.com/gadflymotion531

The necessary muck-out

This Wednesday, the clean-up of politics started in America with the pledge by the new US President to introduce new rules for openness and integrity in public life. Lucky Americans!

Here, unfortunately, things don’t look as promising. In recent years, the political structures have been contaminated by sleaze and corruption, with the Labour party taken over by rogues and opportunists, in much the same way that organised-crime racketeers infiltrated the Labour movement in the 1930s America. This phenomenon, albeit to a much smaller extent, has also gained ground inside the other political factions.

Politics in Britain is now seriously tainted, in need of a thorough cleansing, a revitalization of ethics and the reinstatement of the rule of law. Without firm action the decay will continue; it has already spread into many, once respectable, state institutions, and even some, more vulnerable, sections of society have now been corrupted by the humiliating dependence on the political power, and turned into tools of control for the state.

The malign influence of this state of affairs on the human character and dignity is growing alarmingly visible.
Ethics, it’s been said, becomes an issue only when things become dangerous; hence, with the coming recession, an ethical revival in British politics should be treated now as a matter of urgent priority.

To clean the stables and make it such that, in future, only the best men and women are eligible to represent us is, of course, a Herculean task – but not a task that a strong-willed political leader, and a good sweeping broom, would be unable to achieve.

***

“AUGEAS: But it makes a difference whether we muck out just a bit or whether we have a radical muck-out. If we muck out just a bit, after a year, the muck will stand as high as it stands now or even higher, considering the amount of it we produce. Therefore we have to muck out radically.” (Friedrich Dürenmatt, The Augean Stables)

Judge in his own cause

During the ill-famed Hutton inquiry, Geoff Hoon’s conduct was often described as “slippery” and “dishonest”. We couldn’t follow those events very closely, but we can relate how Mr Hoon, now Secretary of State for Transport, has conducted himself recently.

In a letter dated 17 December 2008 (see HERE), Mr Hoon made known his opposition towards a possible re-hearing of the Gaul Formal Inquiry.

In his elaborate message, the Transport Secretary sought to suggest that the evidence and analysis we had provided over the last three years was not of a quality and quantity that would undermine his confidence in the execution of the 2004 RFI. Consequently, with his confidence intact, Mr Hoon considered himself free from any obligation to have the results of the Gaul RFI re-examined.

Back in 2003, if I remember correctly, Mr Hoon didn’t used to be so demanding, and needed a lot less evidence to be able to claim, against the best experts’ advice, that two trailers found in Iraq were ‘mobile weapons laboratories’. That was a different kettle of fish, of course, but Mr Hoon’s variable stance towards evidence standards, somehow, undermines his credibility as trier of fact.

What intrigued us even more, however, was that, this time, Mr Hoon would reveal neither the source nor the substance of the technical advice that had underpinned his decision, offering us no other option than to take him at his word and rest assured that the hint of political embarrassment or scandal was not a factor in his weighty deliberations, deflecting him from his pursuit of the public good.

(We have, of course, replied to Mr Hoon’s letter, and our response can be read at this link or here.)

Sadly, what follows from the Transport Secretary’s position is that, whenever the results of a government-led public inquiry are contested, no matter how compelling the evidence adduced, it is solely up to the government to decide whether or not those results should be re-examined, and it is totally in the government’s power to cloak their decision-making from public view and independent scrutiny.

I wonder, on a large scale, what the consequences of this trend are going to be.

More about MV Derbyshire

This is to wish you all a Happy New Year and to let you know that we have just published a new post on the MV Derbyshire blog [1].

In this latest commentary we show that the hatch covers on the Derbyshire complied neither with the minimum strength requirements of the International Load Line Convention 66 nor with the standards of Lloyd’s Register of Shipping that were in force at the time of the vessel’s build. These non-compliances, which could have been a crucial factor in the loss of the vessel, were ‘overlooked’ during 2000 RFI, the final report of which stated: “7.16 At the time of the DERBYSHIRE’s last voyage her hatch covers complied with the minimum strength requirements of ILLC 66 and of the Lloyd’s Register of Shipping Rules”, and concluded that it was a severe deficiency within those standards that allowed the vessel’s hatch covers to be built with inadequate strength, thus making their failure and the subsequent loss of the vessel in heavy seas possible.

However, independent strength calculations (presented in detail on the MV Derbyshire blog), carried out both through classical methods and by means of finite element analysis, show that the strength of the hatch covers fell short even of the minimum requirements that were set in those “deficient” 1966 standards.

Whether or not the vessel would have been lost if the construction of the hatch covers had conformed to the rules applicable at that time - insufficient as they were - is, furthermore, debateable. Placing the blame on the ‘regulations’, however, as the 2000 RFI so kindly did, made further debate redundant and removed the risk of subsequent commercial litigation for the vessel’s Shipbuilders and the Classification Society.

----------------------------------------------------

[1] The Derbyshire Re-opened Formal Investigation bears many similarities with the Gaul Re-opened Formal Investigation – not the least of which is the fact that both investigations were presided over by judges who were acknowledged experts in the field of maritime commercial litigation.

Why was it that these two public inquiries, supposedly aimed only at finding the truth, were set up in this way?

Merry Christmas

The Detectives' Story

The New Labour Militsiya, formerly known as the Metropolitan Police, have been trying to spin their way around the institution’s publicly avowed commitment to openness and accountability.

Asked to provide information (see our FOI request HERE) about the manner in which they had dealt with our fraud and corruption allegations about the conduct and outcome of the 2004 Gaul RFI, they refused to do so, making the most of the exemption provisions in the FOI Act, and pettifogging about their grounds for absolute secrecy.

Amongst other things, they argued, disclosing the detectives’ assessment of the case and their justification for refusing to investigate our complaint could expose their “operational methodology and investigative techniques” to the general public and, potentially, to any crooks with an interest in foiling them.

Far from it being our intention to wreck the operational capability of the Met, we contend that our request was only aimed at confirming their ability to act as politically impartial public servants; we were not particularly interested in their investigative methods - which, frankly speaking, are already known to many of us, having recently read about them in the national press.

Therefore, availing ourselves of the same FOI Act provisions and of the Information Commissioner’s interpretation thereof, we have sent the Met our reply (HERE) and insisted on a review.

The whole exchange of correspondence can be seen at:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/complaint_about_re_opened_formal

Launching day

Today is the 6th of December. Thirty-seven years ago, on 6 December 1971, the Gaul was launched at the Brooke Marine Yard in Lowestoft. At the launching ceremony – a sort of baptism for the ship – the vessel was given her first name: Ranger Castor.

The ship launch itself signifies the moving of the ship from shore into the sea. With the Gaul, as with many other vessels, this was done using slipways – greased sliding ramps along which the vessel slid slowly into the water.

It Happened Here - (Original Trailer)

Враги трудящихся *

“All leaders of the Constitutional Democratic party, a party filled with enemies of the people, are hereby to be considered outlaws, and are to be arrested immediately and brought before the revolutionary court” [1]

That our government is ruling over this country by inalienable, divine right is no longer debatable. They have now assumed absolute power, and along with it the conviction that they always do what is ‘right’ and, therefore, must never be challenged.

Members of Parliament find it increasingly difficult to obtain straight answers to their questions and are no longer able to hold the government to account. Most of the time, the New Labour ministers manage to deflect attention away from any inconvenient topics, obfuscate unhindered and, on occasion, even get away with impudently insincere replies.

We ourselves know it only too well, since none of the MPs whom we have contacted in relation with the Gaul RFI miscarriage of justice was able to break the government’s silence and bring the matter to the fore.

And, as though things were not bad enough as they were, it now turns out that the government has decided that some of these inconvenient questions should not even arise.

As confirmation on this state of affairs, we learn that, a couple of days ago, a member of the shadow cabinet was arrested for the ‘crime’ of having embarrassed the government with the disclosure of some leaked information - data which, in the public interest, we should all have the right to see.

The British Police, in pure Cheka [2] fashion, seem to have started rounding up the Opposition politicians who are still able to confront the executive – a few sparse, dissenting voices, now treated as ‘enemies of the people’, who must be annihilated and made an example of.

(This, of course, is the same police force who, faking ignorance and confusion, sidestepped the allegations of fraud in the Gaul RFI in order to protect the Labour high ranks and the murky interests behind them.)

“Anyone who dares to spread the slightest rumour against the Soviet regime will be arrested immediately and sent to a concentration camp.” [3]

_________________________________________________

* Enemies of the labourers

[1] Grigory Zinoviev

[2] Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (i.e. Soviet Police)

[3] Izvestiya, "Appeal to the Working Class", 1918

Behind time

As this blog attests, we have periodically requested various bits of information from the Department for Transport, on the subject of the Gaul RFI.

Periodically, though not without additional prompting, one of Mr Jim Fitzpatrick's officials, like a cuckoo out of the clock, would come out to deliver his two-note message - a message sterilised beforehand by the various DfT attorneys - and then quickly withdraw.

The answer to our latest request (see
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/trawler_gaul) is now overdue.

The government seems to be playing for time. Maybe, they hope, with time, the questions will go away and everything will be nice again.

Or, maybe, we reckon, the questions will get a lot worse.

Asking the PM

The dapper Number 10 YouTube channel is currently offering the proletariat in this country the chance to ask the PM questions (in video format) about the economy.

Wishing to take advantage of this unique opportunity, we prepared a short video clip (see below the better Dailymotion version) and confidently submitted it to http://uk.youtube.com/DowningSt.

Unfortunately, our clip, it seems, is not going to make it to the Prime Minister's attention.

Why? Probably, its content was not considered pertinent enough to economic matters, or, perhaps, too pertinent for its own good. Who knows?

Anyway, Downing Street has kindly sent us a reply to a related FOI request (you can see it here:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/corruption_investigation), on which we shall comment properly in due course.

The epistemological virtues of John Prescott’s class concerns

The BBC has recently delighted us with a two-part documentary about John Prescott, MP and his opinions on the class system in Britain.

The programme was designed to portray Mr Prescott as a man of the people, full of candour, bonhomie and good intentions - the idyllical tones in the scenes of his domestic life tempered only by his robust take on the social inequalities in Britain.

Having had the chance, during his ten years in office, to improve the lot of those less fortunate than him, Mr Prescott now has the chance to decry that lot while at leisure.

Although Mr Prescott is not so interesting as a personality, he is still noteworthy for his symbolic value.

The BBC show, light though it was, provided a glimpse into the worldview of John Prescott’s kind of militant - i.e. the kind which remains forever insurgent.

This type - even after they have acquired wealth, political power, and have gained access to high government office and the chance to trample the social barriers underfoot - are always frustrated, deep down in their hearts, always harbouring a resentment, a grudge against the objects of their failed emulation, against something that eludes them, but which others acquire with ease and lightly pass down successive generations - a situation which, they protest, is terribly unfair.

This must be due to the fact that Mr Prescott and some of his compeers see the differences between people mainly in ephemeral terms. If they included in their ranking of human merit some more perennial values, they would find what really makes people differ, and, maybe, would also realise that modest origins are not always a guarantee of altruism and concern for the poor and that, quite often, the opposite can be true.

The pitiful saga of the Gaul stands testimony to that.

Verba volant scripta manet

When Moses received God’s commandments, he didn’t have any paper to write them down on. Still, he dutifully carved them onto clay tablets, which he carried all the way down the mountain to show his people the proof.

More than three millennia down the line, the UK Department for Transport, inexplicably, are not even able to store the instructions received from their earthly superiors, and the reasons behind some of their most important decisions are not kept in any decipherable form.

As already mentioned in a previous post, in response to our FOI request of 4 July 2008, the DfT informed us that they held “no specific technical justification [of their decision not to re-hear the Gaul RFI] recorded in any form”. Within the same reply, the DfT also mentioned that their earlier decision “fully sets out the Secretary of State’s reasoning in relation to the re-opening of the investigation”.

Unaware of what that reasoning was, we have formally asked them, via another FOI request (dated 11 September 2008), to provide us with a full account of the reasoning behind the Secretary of State’s decision not the re-open the Gaul Formal Investigation.The DfT’s response to this latest enquiry, received on 13 October 2008, was astounding. It stated simply that “The department does not hold such an account in recorded form.” Hmm! From the Department’s contradictory statements we are now left to surmise that either there was no analysis and justification behind their decision not to re-open the Gaul RFI, or that their reasoning has not been ‘set out’ and recorded on any physical media or legible format. It may, therefore, only exist in their heads – in the form of mental images, conceptions, impressions or phantasms. Or, perhaps, it only manifested itself via sensory representations, dispositions, moods or affections.

It is, of course, also possible that the DfT is not telling the truth. But, that would be terribly bad and unbecoming.

MV Derbyshire

Recent events have compelled us to re-visit the MV Derbyshire shipping disaster, its causes and the ways in which the British Government conducted both the investigation and the re-investigation of the tragedy and to what effect.

We have therefore decided to dedicate a separate blog to the MV Derbyshire case, and this can now be visited at the following link: http://mv-derbyshire.blogspot.com/

As with the Trawler Gaul, we shall progress matters one step at a time, make the necessary disclosures, analyse and present the evidence piece by piece.

Possibly, with time, the number of our blogs will increase. Our government, certainly, offers enough scope for that.

Portfolios and kisses

Last week’s cabinet reshuffle marked a return to the good, old days of the Blair regime, the allocation of government jobs designed to celebrate the various Labour factions' decision to kiss and make up.

The reshuffle saw Peter Mandelson, New Labour’s own Machiavelli, hurriedly brought back from Brussels for his alleged ingenuity in economic concerns. It also saw several other similar characters ennobled or promoted to important cabinet jobs.

Geoff Hoon, a politician much beloved by the armed forces, was appointed Secretary of State for Transport, taking over from Ruth Kelly who had left the political scene in a rush. Lawyer by profession and quite flexible by nature, Mr Hoon is expected to deal with the DfT problems in a more expedient and craftier fashion.

The Department for Transport also witnessed John Prescott’s good friend, Rosie, bartered in exchange for his former loyal attendant, Paul Clark [*] - thus allowing old Mr Prescott to keep his chubby index finger on the DfT’s pulse.

The ends justify the means, the Prime Minister might have thought in his desperate struggle to remain in power.

But is this really an effective approach?

In situations like this, we fear, the ends can be quickly forgotten and the questionable means, chosen to attain them, turned into ends in themselves. And, having forgotten where it all started and what for, those means could then easily become institutions.

Or, have they already become that?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[*] Just like Jim Fitzpatrick, the other Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, appointed in June 2007, who was once a junior minister at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

Why no search for the Gaul?

Although the approximate position of the Gaul had been well known, both in official and unofficial circles, in the 23 years that preceded its discovery, successive governments were reluctant to survey the area in question, and to locate and identify the wreck.

It was only in 1997, when TV producer Norman Fenton chartered a vessel and launched a search in the Barents Sea, that the position and identity of the wreck could be confirmed. Finding the wreck took him no longer than six hours. His discovery triggered an obvious question: why had a search for the wreck not been carried out earlier, this would have put an end to much of the speculation and rumours that had surrounded the vessel’s loss and, more importantly, would have helped to ease the grief, frustration and anger felt by the families and friends of those who had perished with the Gaul.

The discovery of the wreck obliged the Government to answer this question; hence, in April 1999, the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, asked Mr Roger Clark, Head of Shipping Policy in the DETR, to conduct an ‘independent’ [1] investigation into why there had been no search for the Gaul after her disappearance in 1974.

Mr Clark applied himself to the task and, a year later, his findings were published in a 60 pages DETR report (see Annex 1).

In brief, the Government’s justification, presented within Mr Clark’s report, claimed that:
Initially we didn’t really know where the vessel was and it would have cost too much to find her and, even if we were to find the vessel, the expense of carrying out an underwater survey of the wreck could not be justified in terms of the benefits it would bring for marine safety.
John Prescott lauded Mr Clark’s conclusions and expressed his total confidence in their soundness and objectivity.

During the 2004 Re-opened Formal Investigation, in response to the victims’ families’ dissatisfaction with Mr Clarke’s explanations, justice David Steel, the Wreck Commissioner, re-examined the arguments, then endorsed, in his turn, Mr Clarke’s earlier conclusions (see the final report of the RFI [2]).

While the official reasoning may appear quite plausible, we have reasons to believe that, in fact, the Government had never been too keen to discover the location of the wreck, not on the grounds advocated by Roger Clarke, but for an entirely different reason: i.e. because a survey of the wreck and an analysis of the evidence that it revealed would have raised questions as to the adequacy of her design. The DfT’s marine experts, it now appears, had long suspected that the arrangement of the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul were a weakness in her design and that this weakness might have been a causal factor in her loss.

(Further details to follow)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] As head of the DfT’s shipping policy section, Roger Clarke could hardly be considered independent of the government whose actions he was asked to investigate

[2] “We accept the Department’s submission that its actions were solely directed to balancing the interests of those immediately affected by the loss of the GAUL with the wider public interest and the resources available”

The sure thing

In our post of 20 August 2008 we revealed the content of a Freedom of Information request that had been sent to the Department for Transport and the response received from them. This response confirmed that “no specific technical justification [of the Secretary of State’s decision not to re-open the FV Gaul Investigation] recorded in any form” was held by the DfT.

Consequently, we sent back a reply and also lodged another FOI request asking the Department to provide us with “a full account of the reasoning (of whatever kind and however held or expressed) behind the Secretary of State’s decision not to re-open the Gaul Formal Investigation)”. (See the full text at this link: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/justification_for_the_decision_n.)

The deadline for Mrs Kelly’s reply was 9 October 2008 and we were waiting with feverish anticipation for the arrival of that day, knowing that, whatever faults Ruth Kelly might have had, dishonesty was not one of them.

Alas, Mrs Kelly is to quit her post before that date. Who the next person to take over this 'poisoned chalice' will be, it is not yet known, but his/her identity, when revealed, will provide us with a clue as to whether the Prime Minister wants the cover-up to continue (and whether indeed he has a stake in it), or whether things will finally be resolved in a correct and honourable fashion.

So far, those with an interest in keeping the scandal under wraps have been quite lucky. But – as an old maxim warns us - the only sure thing about luck is that it changes.

Ruth Kelly

Mrs Ruth Kelly, it has been announced, is to quit her post of Secretary of State for Transport. The reason given for her departure was "spending more time with her family". Family and high-powered politics must be difficult to reconcile, we imagine.

Also, we hear, she had strong feelings about the government's position on the Embryology Bill.

In respect of what we are mainly concerned with - the FV Gaul Investigation - the Secretary of State for Transport found herself caught, once again, between a rock and a hard place.

Perhaps Mrs Kelly owed too many loyalties and they were all conflicting. No one can really serve more than one master, at the same time.

Anyway, we wish Ruth Kelly all the best for the future, and hope we haven't caused her too much offence.

New Labour rondo

We are no longer in touch with the government. They are no longer governing; they are plotting, fighting the plotters or watching the plot.

The DfT, for instance, the department we are most concerned with, is now completely out of sorts, the officials waiting to see which way the wind will be blowing before taking even the smallest decision.

It’s the same all over again. The rebellious overture, the chorus of discontent, the war cries in the media, the panic, the bluster, the acrimonious retorts, the suspense, the empty declarations of loyalty or the opportunistic ambivalence, John Hutton’s eyes icily fixing us from the television screens, the foreboding lull and then… the return to the beginning.

We have seen them at it so often now that we can recognise their motives, the tactics and the idiosyncrasies of each of them, just as girls in a massage parlour can, after a while, recognise their clients by their individual penchants and dislikes.

After so many months, however, the monotony of this repetition is starting to irritate, wearing down our patience and turning it slowly into disgust. And the danger is that, if the plotters have their way, our disgust could turn into anger.

Objectivity Constrained

In their 30 year-long search for truth, the relatives of the trawlermen who lost their lives on the Gaul had to compete against a number of adversaries whose interests would not have been best served if the reasons for the tragedy had become known.

The victims’ relatives were not aware of the nature of the fight they were in, nor did they know the identities or the motives of their adversaries. All they knew was that they were not being given straightforward answers to their questions, and that the facts were somehow eluding them.

Although, in theory, meant to provide an explanation as to the most likely causes for the tragedy, the 2004 Gaul Formal Investigation, like a number of other public inquiries, became, in fact, nothing more than a case of ‘shadow commercial litigation,’ organised and controlled by the very parties whose interests would have been adversely affected by an impartial verdict. The Gaul RFI was therefore an unequal fight - dressed up as an expert and unbiased analysis - a fight the outcome of which was both pre-determined and inevitable.

Concerns have already been raised that, due to their legalistic and adversarial nature, many formal inquiries, instead of pursuing the truth, provide in fact a platform from which opposing parties, flanked by their legal representatives, can pursue their specific interests, and that, when the ‘adversaries’ are not evenly matched, it is usually the interests of the mightiest that prevail.

It is evident to us that improvements in respect of the rules by which formal inquiries are conducted are necessary and important.

However, above and beyond any rules and safeguards that may be applied, what is most important is the professionalism and personal integrity of the individuals involved - the principal guarantee that the results of an inquiry will be meaningful and sincere.

(More details to come)

Two years after

Yesterday we marked two years since this blog was started, two years since we made public our findings and our concerns regarding the miscarriage of justice in the Gaul Formal Investigation.

What has happened since? Nothing much. Nothing except gaining further knowledge about how the current regime works, how it respects the law and the rights of ordinary people, and how it retaliates when taken to account.


Two years after we have started this blog, the only conclusion we would draw is that we, as well as those whom the 2004 Gaul inquiry betrayed, are treated as insignificant, that financial & political might is always right, and that there are no longer any principles to be cherished, rules to be played by, or even appearances to be saved.

Ho hum, what to do next? ... Pursue the matter all the way to its rightful conclusion, of course.

Video Interlude

Russian trawler in storm. Excellent video clip, kindly provided by RuTube.

http://rutube.ru/tracks/880557.html?v=568383d214265ffcd7d718852064bc86

The limits of reasoning

On the 4th of July, we lodged an FOI request with the Department for Transport, asking them to provide us with the reasons and technical arguments underpinning the Secretary of State’s earlier decision not to re-open the Gaul investigation on the basis of our disclosures.

(You can see the full exchange of correspondence at this link: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/evidence_
undermining_the_results)

The DfT eventually sent us their reply in which they stated that the Secretary of State’s decision “fully sets out the Secretary of State’s reasoning in relation to the re-opening of the investigation” and that the DfT held “no specific technical justification [of that decision] recorded in any form”

The Department’s statement, short though it is, is pregnant with implied meaning.

Thence we found out that our disclosures and technical arguments made over the past two years have washed over the DfT like water off a duck’s back. This is an admission by the British government that concrete evidence, invalidating the results of a public inquiry, was not considered as required by law. (See also our post of 12 July 2007)
This, of course, is understandable since the Department know damn well that the outcome of the Gaul RFI represents a miscarriage of justice, without having to review our evidence. The officials’ obstinate non-engagement with the subject is their way of maintaining the deceit without getting themselves ensnared by their tongues.

Their claim that the Secretary of State’s decision “fully sets out the Secretary of State’s reasoning in relation to the re-opening of the investigation” is already hazarded, and so untrue as to make it laughable.
Given that the response previously received from the Secretary of State only mentions that “the Department is satisfied that there is no reason to doubt the outcome of the expert analysis that led to the Re-opened Formal Investigations conclusions and consequently there is no reason to re-open the investigation”, the DfT’s latest statement can only be taken as a crude parody or as a blunt admission that this is, actually, as far as the Secretary of State’s reasoning powers normally go.

Yet, through its very brevity, the DfT’s reply provides us with further confirmation that the decision not to re-open the Gaul RFI was unlawfully taken and politically motivated.

Answer from Lord Goldsmith

In response to our message of 25 June 2008, Lord Goldsmith has gracefully sent us his reply.

"As I am no longer Attorney General those matters are more properly for the present Attorney General and I therefore send a copy of your letter onto her."

(The present Attorney General will be looking forward to its receipt, I'm sure. We already contacted her office, a year ago, and that proved to be an unsuccessful enterprise.)

In truth being said, we did not address Lord Goldsmith in his present official role, but in his role as the leading party in the 2004 Gaul RFI.
We did not call upon his current employment duties as much as upon his remanent responsibility for an investigation conducted under his baton, and we did not count much on the requisites of formal routine, but on the munificence of lordship.

And we would have been very much interested to learn more about the rationale behind his past decisions.