Immediate reply = guilt?

Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 390

A respected correspsondent writes on the question of Fox-Werrity-Gould affair and a future Iran war:

The FCO is obviously very concerned about this, as they seem to operate a 24-hour Freedom of "Information Act service when FOI requests about Werritty-Gould come in, capable of "servicing" the request in under 90 minutes late in the evening, rather than the multiple weeks response time FOI requests often get!  Maybe you should ask a PQ about this late evening FCO FOI service?

According to Craig Murray he emailed in a FOI request for Gould/Werritty correspondence in the evening, and got the rapid response at 23:31 declining the request as "too costly".  So in under 90 minutes, late in the evening, it appears the FCO FOI unit was capable of calculating the cost of this request.  I think not - this is a farce. As Murray points out, the cost should be low as all they have to do is ask their employee, Gould, to supply a copy of the correspondence."

One on my fellow MPs waited two years for a reply to a FOI request. 90 minutes must be a record.  Confirmation of a genuine conspiracy?..

Probably.

Bercow the innovator.

 

The portrait of Bercow 'unveiled' tonight is a startling break with the portraits of past Speakers of the last couple of centuries.

It is the first one that includes a picture of another person - the Speaker's Secretary standing alongside the Speaker's chair. It show the Speaker at work, standing to make a point to the Government benches. It is also the first to discard the ridiculous flummery of the golden uniform used by other recent Speakers.  This symbolic progress will be followed by substantial progress in our creeking procedures.

 

Comments

[Pete]

Dear Mr. Flynn

I completely agree with you on the subject of Mr. John Bercow as a true innovator. He has made real progress toward reducing the amount of time spent on the repetitive and quite frankly dull dialogue of little substance between DC and EM.

I too, am glad he has opted to ditch the majority of that ostentatious mess and has opted for a more modern 21'st century attire. If only our universities would pay due notice; my own graduation a couple of years back was quite frankly a laughable, expensive affair full of pretentiousness and self-promotion. I highly doubt I will attend my PhD graduation for this reason.

May he continue to serve in such an excellent capacity for a long time to come, in addition to your own capacity.

I originally found your blog after watching a YT video, in which you asked an interesting question regarding potentially decriminalising drugs for possession, similar to what has been done in Portugal, Italy and myriad of other nations. I wish I could say the same of the response. I have been following your blog closely for a while on my RSS feeds (not only your points on drug police), please keep up the excellent work!

Best Wishes

Pete