Bloody ridiculous

Any day now, you can expect Downing Street to announce that there will be a public inquiry into the Third Crusade. Did Richard the Lionheart exaggerate the threat posed by Saladin? Was unreasonable force used at Acre, and what benefit was there to England in any case, when Richard’s time could have been better spent attending to outbreaks of scrofula at home?

It may seem far-fetched, but an inquiry into the crusades is slightly more likely than Tony Blair announcing a public inquiry into the publication of the ‘dodgy dossier’ which foreshadowed the House of Commons’ vote on war in Iraq. During his six years in office, the Prime Minister has perfected the use of the public inquiry as a political tool. When it comes to dubious events which have occurred during his own premiership, an inquiry is something to be strongly resisted as a waste of valuable time and money. When it comes to scandals which have occurred under previous administrations, on the other hand, no effort is to be spared in the quest for truth.

All but forgotten by the public, and even by the media, the three-year-old Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday ground on this week at Central Hall in Westminster. A report is expected by the middle of 2004 at the earliest; by which time the inquiry will have swallowed £200 million of public money. However interesting the political and military intrigue uncovered by the exhaustive analysis of events in Londonderry 31 years ago, no matter whether individual soldiers will be found to have acted with excessive zeal, it is certain that the inquiry will come to no better conclusion than that put by Colonel Ted Loden, formerly of the Parachute Regiment’s Support Unit, in one sentence to Lord Saville this week: ‘If the IRA had not opened fire on my soldiers with murderous intent, no one would have been killed.