Daily archives: April 19, 2006

Jack Straw on banning the publication of political memoirs

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MINUTES OF EVIDENCE, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION select COMMITTEE

(UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 689 – v)

Wednesday 29 March 2006

Q452 Mr Prentice: Craig Murray says that because you have an interest in all these matters, you should not be the person who has the final say, it should be an independent disinterested body of people. There is some force in that, is there not? If books are being published and they mention Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, doing this, that or the next thing, it would be better if someone other than Jack Straw decided whether the book should be published?

Witness: Rt Hon Jack Straw, a Member of the House, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, gave evidence.

Q429 Chairman: In that case, let me start off briefly, and I apologise for the fact that we shall be interrupted. When you last came in front of this Committee you were introducing the Freedom of Information legislation and you were the purveyor of openness. My sense is that you have now come as the purveyor of closedness, that is that you take a dim view of these former diplomats and former civil servants who rush into print with their memoirs. How can one approach be reconciled with the other?

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The shooting of de Menezes: inquiry witness on a collision course

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From The Guardian

Ever since the shooting dead of an innocent man who was mistaken for a terrorist, Brian Paddick has been on a collision course with the leadership of his own force. Soon after the police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes on July 22 2005, persistent allegations surfaced from within the Metropolitan police that senior officers feared within hours that the wrong man had been killed.

Within police circles, the name of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick kept coming up as someone who might have information challenging the assertion by his boss, Sir Ian Blair, that the force was unaware for 24 hours of its fatal blunder. Investigators from the Independent Police Complaints Commission interviewed a series of senior officers, including Mr Paddick, about what they knew, and when.

Some inside the force see the decision by Met bosses to try and move Mr Paddick from his job in territorial policing as punishment for his testimony to the investigation. One senior officer said: “This is retaliation for his statement to the IPCC.” Other senior colleagues will dismiss any linkage.

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