This comment was taken from the Telegraph online, 24 Jan 2010, in respect of Tony Blair’s appearance at the Enquiry next Friday.
“There may even be some sympathy for him (Tony Blair). Straw's former Foreign Office deputy, Denis MacShane, is not the only person faintly nauseated by the sight, as he puts it, of "top mandarins and diplomats who took every honour, school-fee, bonus, pension and post-retirement job that the British establishment bestows… suddenly discover[ing] that all along they were worried about the Prime Minister's Iraq strategy".
Can there be anyone who is generally surprised about this reaction of top mandarins and diplomats?
They may of course refute this claim of disloyalty, and with a straight face, claim that they cannot be bought or influenced by spin.
I wonder how many Ministers and Mandarins, if push comes to shove, will express their doubt as to the correctness of the behaviour of those with whom we have dealt over the past four years. Even the legality, let alone the unfairness, of that which the Ceremonial Officers led by the Cabinet Ceremonial Officer have done in order to deny us the right of wearing the PJM. It also appears that they may well have had a hand in criminalising its wearing, along with those who wear medals, etc to which they are not entitled and the bling byers and wearers (what will the RBL do now?) for which permission to accept and to wear has not been given once the 2006 Regulations are imposed. Mind you as far as the PJM is concerned, the PJM was accepted by Her Majesty the Queen in early 2005 and could have been worn vide LG 5057 3 May 1968, but in Jan 2006 the Ministerial Statement based on the November issued 2005 regulations, including the cynical Part C precluding the wearing the PJM, was made in the House of Commons. The 2006 Regulations will also be retrospective!
It seems that these people really could get away from responsibilty for their original decisions, as they often do when Ministers are removed from their appointments for accepting the advice from those Mandarins and others who they might think are people that they could and should trust.
