Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Miliband should heed Callaghan's words on the Franks report

Harking back to the Franks inquiry into the Falklands just won't wash as an excuse to hold the Iraq war enquiry privately. The Franks inquiry was held nearly thirty years ago before the internet and the Freedom of Information Act.

(David Miliband) said the government was "determined to match" the Franks inquiry into the Falklands war, which he said had set the "gold standard" in terms of thoroughness and access to papers.

Gold standard! Perhaps David Miliband should read the withering words of former Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan on the subject:

For 338 paragraphs he painted a splendid picture, delineated the light and the shade, and the glowing colours in it, and when Franks got to paragraph 339 he got fed up with the canvas he was painting, and chucked a bucket of whitewash over it.

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