Those With Nothing to Hide Have Nothing to Fear

I am sure we all remember Lord Hutton, the kindly old man whom the Vicar of Downing Street appointed to showcase the pristine whiteness of the angel Campbell's hands as regards the unfortunate business of Dr David Kelly, in the first and least tedious of our many Iraq-oriented inquiries to avoid shedding blame except upon the minions of that perennially legitimate target, the BBC. Via his Twitter account, of which he has none, Tiso the technomnemologist has directed my attention to Lord Hutton's latest bit of tact, which took the form of a seven-decade gagging order on records and photographs relating to Kelly's supposed suicide. Lord Hutton has since declared that he imposed the order purely to spare the feelings of Kelly's immediate family, which consists entirely of women for whom the prospect of further inconvenience to Lord Hutton's sponsors would evidently be one trauma too many. Doubtless the same spirit of chivalry also motivated Lord Falconer, the then lord chancellor, when he suspended the original inquest into Kelly's death and then failed to resume it once Lord Hutton's inquiry had come to its Government-friendly conclusion. Lord Hutton's concern for the unfortunate ladies extended so far as to omit all mention of the gagging order even on his inquiry's own website, and the whole business might have toddled off into the warm British haze of oblivion had it not been for five doctors who find the present official account of Kelly's death "so improbable as to demand a much more detailed investigation of what happened". Lawyers, too, have added their voices to Tony's continuing martyrdom, professing uncertainty as to the legal basis of the gagging order - as though the mere legal basis of anything had ever counted for much with Tony and his chums.