Iraq Inquiry boost

New plans

A nest of cooing turtledoves replaced the PASC bear pit this morning.

The public Administration Committee has a reputation for sharp hostile questioning. Not today. We and our witnesses conspired to find a way to seek out the truth that the Executive wish to conceal. It is a favourite subject of chairman Tony Wright.

How can we get a proper Inquiry into the Iraq War? Our witnesses included the accumulated wisdom of political giants David Owen, Douglas Hurd, Ming Campbell and the welcome well-informed chutzpah of Adam Price.

As committee PASC published a cunning plan for a new style of Inquiry that would by-pass the Government. Why should we wait for Government to decide  when the time is right for  a probe into what is likely to be their own embarrassing behaviour? There never was an inquiry into Britain’s previous worst foreign disaster of Suez.

Would future Governments behave better if they knew their actions were certain to be investigated by an inquiry outside of their control? Our witnesses were all supportive of PASC’s initiative. They also came up with one of their own.

Thinking aloud, Lord Owen said that perhaps the Lords could pass a proposal to set up their own.  That would then have to be considered by the Commons and would difficult to reject.

One way or another, today’s session may set the Iraq Inquiry ball rolling.

Topical Tosh
The innovation of topical debate luckily struck gold with to-day’s subject.

Who could have guessed that drugs would hit this morning’s headlines with the leak of the Advisory Drugs Council’s decision not to re-classify cannabis?

The news also got me out of bed at 7.30 this morning for an interview on Radio Cymru. The Tory spokesman at the topical debate sneered at the Government’s record and demanded ‘zero tolerance.’ I generously described his speech as  ‘superficial, futile and an embarrassment to David Cameron.’ This is not a party matter.

My own side were only marginally better. Vividly I recall being the only dissenting voice when the previous ten-year strategy was launched in 1998. One of its ludicrously ambitious targets was to reduce drug use among young people by 50% by 2008.  There has been some reduced use - usually because of changing drug fashions and the smoking ban. Even that and a wicked use of spun statistics cannot the disguise the abject failure of vainglorious targets.

One example of dishonest statistics in the claim that heroin deaths have gone down by 2%. True only if the base year is altered to 1999. Taking the true base year of 1998 and deaths have increased by 10%.

A few syllables of regret or even apology from all parties for their failed policies would have helped. They all agreed to spend £billions on a strategy hat has resulted in the UK remaining as Europe’s top country for dug use, crime and deaths.

A little contrition may lead to policies that work. Meanwhile, to re- classify cannabis or not is an irrelevance that been whipped by a hysterical ill-informed press. Rightly the Advisory Council squashed this excuse for not thinking.