Jayfor Justice to The Reverend

Guilt. It’s a terrible thing. It seems to live in the stomach and squirm through the body relentlessly and with an uncanny ease. Trying to hide said guilt is usually a pretty futile exercise (save a few of those rotten scumbags who seem to excrete it and never get caught). Someone needs to tell this to Prime Minister Brown. Yesterday the PM announced that there would be a full, independent inquiry into the long and bloody occupation of Iraq. For many, this inquiry is long overdue and much needed. The absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq cast huge doubts over the legitimacy of the invasion, and further doubts have been cast by yesterday’s announcement. Mr Brown’s statement to the Commons detailed that the inquiry would take place in private and that it would “not apportion blame”. All I heard was “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned”.

Unsurprisingly, the outrage came like a firestorm from every direction. Tories, Lib Dems, families of victims. Even Labour back-benchers. And it’s easy to see why. Following the cesspool of lies and thievery that was the expenses scandal, Gordon Brown smugly announced that he could and would put an end to this sort of deceit. The buzz word was ‘transparency’. I’ve read the word ‘transparency’ so many times over the past few weeks, it's burnt onto my retinas. And now, in the most bizarre suicide attempt, the Prime Minister has announced that one of the most important inquiries of this decade (and surly the most of what will be his short premiership) will take place in private. This, if I’m not mistaken, is a middle finger.

Trying to fob us off with any excuse as to why this ‘must’ take place in private is surely as futile as trying to hide the guilt that radiates off the man. Cost? What, compared with the cost of the war? Nah. Guilt? Maybe. And even if the report is conducted with the upmost of scrutiny and the result does turn out to be that the war was justified and followed through in the most appropriate of ways, who is going to believe it? Not me Reverend. Not me.