There was an intriguing story in The Times earlier this week:
I knew, of course, that the “Hillsborough law” was not a law at all. But if this report turned out to be correct, there might never be one.
Clearly, the government will not be introducing a bill before the Commons rises for its summer recess next Tuesday. Equally clearly, it will need to say or do something between 1 September, when MPs return, and 16 September, when they pack up again for the party conferences. Labour meets in Liverpool from 28 September to 1 October.
What’s all this about? What’s the duty of candour? And why should this be so expensive? Those are the questions I have tried to answer in my latest column for the Law Society Gazette.
Update 21 July: The Times reports that Lord Hermer KC, the attorney general, has been asked to resolve the impasse.
As a (very young and struggling ) nineteen year old in 1964 at Guildford’s College of Law I recall efforts to alert us to the dead hand of the Treasury. Being naive and trusting of authority at that bemusing time I was both shocked and disbelieving of the concept. Not any more, although still writing as a sceptic rather than a cynic since I regard that approach to be a cop out.
Add to that the sinisterly effective smoke screens and finger pointing and the gratuitous vicious assaults by the likes of Kelvin McKenzie upon Liverpool and its citizens and yet again here we are with the rumour factory and coverups rendering a tragic and inexcusable series of failures at the time the cover up does indeed add layers of injustice, loss and erosion of trust.
Perseverance is so often the name of the game beyond the unworthy hope-almost assumption- that the “little people” will eventually give up. But then as per the title of Alabama lawyer and scholar Joyce Vance’s book soon to be published (the spelling is of the US variety):”Giving up is unforgivable”.