vs

Not The Butler Inquiry: www.butlerreview.org

Isnt this rather pre-supposing some discernable level of technical competence??

ISTR Hutton sending out on numerous occasions for extra ink for his quill and some more blotting paper……..

Besides, asking such a question might mean that some evidence might actually come out. And that could be most unseemly. If there was some evidence, it might even go as far as to point a finger of suspicion at either an elected or non-elected official! Far better to let the BBC and Gilligan be the scapegoat.

Have any people commited to prison by Hutton appealed their sentence yet - on the grounds of Hutton’s flawed logic?

OK I’m a nerd - I read the Hutton Report and all of the appended material.

If our intelligence services are as slap-dash as the people ‘black-lining’ e-mail addresses in the appended material then God help us. Two poor people (hunt for them yourself) must have really upset someone because their e-mail addresses were not ‘black-lined’. Interestingly revealing the destination for most of the other ‘black lined’ e-mail addresses.

……and a ‘just for fun’ question:-
Did anyone ask for the original electronic copies of the e-mails to see who was on the bcc (blind carbon copy) list?

This is a "neutral" summary of the lobby briefing from the Lobby PoV. For example for Monday’s AM briefing they said:

No immediate action against Clare hort’s ‘cocking a snook’ at Cabinet Secretary Sir Andrew Turnbull is pending, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman made clear today.

Sir Andrew had set put the position in his letter to Ms Short - warning her that as a former Cabinet minister she was still bound by the Ministerial Code - and that was the Government’s position, said the PMOS.

" I have nothing further to add to that. The Prime Minister was obviously aware of the letter and approved of it."

" If and when we do have a view then no doubt we will tell you about it. The situation is as it is at the moment.

Asked if any further consideration of Ms Short’s status as a Privy Councillor had taken place, the spokesman said it had not.

Questioned further, he said he was not sure who had the power to take away Privy Council status.

It was put to the PMOS that if nothing could be done about Clare Short’s actions and she was able to ‘cock a snook’ at Sir Andrew, then the authority of the Cabinet Secretary was ‘a total and utter joke’.

The PMOS replied, " Sir Andrew’s letter sums up the position and that is as far as it goes at the moment.

" Sir Andrew wrote that letter because that is part of his duty as Cabinet Secretary to inform ministers of the Ministerial Code and remind ministers of the Ministerial Code."

What mattered, he said, was what was happening on the ground in Iraq where the foundation stones of democracy, were being put in place. " We are not going to allow the pace to be set by other people."

Questioned whether current bank profits might result in the Chancellor introducing a ‘windfall tax’, the spokesman said, " That is a question with DTI and Treasury written all over it."

Asked about the reports that the Prime Minister had slept on a park bench in London as a teenager, the PMOS, said the Downing Street press office had been laying bets on who would ask the question.

" We have nothing to add except to confirm that he did sleep one night on a park bench. Which park bench, I don’t know; whether it can be
preserved for posterity, I don’t know; what meal he ate on the park bench, I don’t know; what the menu was on the park bench, I don’t know."