» Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Butler Report

Asked if in response to the WMS this morning, there would no more "sofa meetings" and meeting minutes would be taken from now on, as outlined in the Butler Report, the PMOS said we would implement the Butler recommendations, and we would do so, as we said at the time the Butler Report was published. Today’s statement only confirmed what we had already said.

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4 Comments »

  1. I think we should go the whole hog and attach a camera + microphone to the Prime Minister which relays in real time to a special 24 hour video channel that we can all watch to make sure he’s not getting up to no good.

    It’s only fair. If he feels we private citizens don’t need any airy-fairy civil liberties, rights or privacy from all their ID card and biometric people tracking systems, ostensibly to prevent us from getting into trouble, the same case goes for him. Only more so. As a private individual, the crimes I can commit are miniscule, but the ones he can and has managed are massive.

    Blair could not have committed so many international crimes if he was under 24 hour public audio surveillance. The requirement to take down minutes for every meeting so that crimes can be detected and proven is just the beginning.

    If he’s nothing to hide he’s nothing to fear.

    Comment by Julian Todd — 24 Mar 2005 on 10:41 am | Link
  2. This demand for minuted meetings is civil servants telling ministers how to go about running the country. That’s not good. The British people elected a guy sitting on a sofa with a mug of tea in one hand, a guitar in his lap – that’s one thing actually stuck too in office – he brought a massive change of culture to Government. Now, with good reason the establishment are slowly reacting and excercising a moderating force.

    Comment by gdfgdf — 25 Mar 2005 on 2:40 am | Link
  3. The Written Ministerial Statement referred to is this one, I think.

    http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wms/?id=2005-03-23.73WS.1

    Comment by Francis Irving — 28 Mar 2005 on 4:52 pm | Link
  4. In other words Straw is saying Butler’s report means ‘let’s finger the spooks because they can’t respond publicly without breaching their contract – and if they do we’ll be able to bang them up’.

    Who actually chose to go to war? Certainly it wasn’t the civil servants – but perhaps this was part of great scheme by a few disaffected spies to justify more cash.

    At least the EC guys do publish minutes of their meetings – accurate or no – and let’s not forget that minutes aren’t verbatim records.

    Comment by Chuck Unsworth — 30 Mar 2005 on 2:38 pm | Link

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