It seems that even nationalist politicians can learn from experience. Have you noticed none of them has been daft enough to demand an inquiry. Even the dopes we elect, most of whom you could hardly dignify with the title politician, realise how pointless such a request is. Not pointless in the sense that it won't be listened to, but pointless because an inquiry into the Stakeknife affair would be a waste of time and money like every other inquiry over the last 30 years.
Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister when this place exploded in 1969, was a great believer in inquiries. He preferred to go the whole hog and establish royal commissions. He used to say that the way to deal with a major problem was to appoint a royal commission and the problem would go away.
It was Wilson who forced the old Stormont regime to appoint the Cameron commission to examine the causes of the disturbances in 1968. The Cameron report's indictment of that same Stormont regime was the last useful report issued about the north. Its findings are the last clear explanation of what led a substantial proportion of the population to reject the wretched unionist administration.
Even before Cameron reported in September 1969 Whitehall had forced Stormont to appoint the Scarman tribunal to examine the causes of the disturbances in 1969. Scarman was excellent for presenting factual detail about deaths and injuries and destruction but very short on laying blame at anyone's door.
For all its shortcomings Scarman's was the last open, frank investigation into events here. That was because the Stormont administration was in charge and the British government was happy, indeed anxious to lay the blame on unionists.
By the time Scarman reported in 1972 there had been internment and torture of suspected republicans carried out mainly by British soldiers but eagerly assisted by some RUC men. The British government was running the north through the NIO, a branch of the Home Office, and the Ministry of Defence had been responsible for the behaviour of soldiers in internment sweeps. The report into the torture of internees was therefore a whitewash and so have been all reports since.
No, that's not entirely true, some reports have been cover-ups.
There was a change in the 1980s. By then the activities of the British security forces had become indefensible. Britain had had to derogate from parts of the European Convention on Human Rights, had been indicted in the European court more often than any other country, but Lady Hacksaw's government had carried on regardless defying some of their own laws and bending others that didn't suit.
Instead of publishing whitewashes and cover-ups the new approach was to set up an inquiry and then either only publish a synopsis of its findings or not publish any findings at all. Inquiries ceased to be for the people who demanded them and the results weren't for the public in whose name the security forces misbehaved. The people who gave the orders which led to the misdemeanours being inquired into were the only ones who got to read the report of the inquiry.
The so-called Stalker-Sampson report was the first such example. Stalin would have been proud of that idea. Even he never thought of that one. Alongside these fake secret inquiries the NIO changed the rules governing inquests, rules based on principles which had operated more or less unchanged since the 12th century. Inquests were dangerous because they offered the opportunity for public inquiries which Lady Hacksaw's government was determined people here would not have. Therefore, members of the British army and RUC who killed people were not compelled to appear or give evidence. It saved them routinely lying as they did in the 1970s. Just to be sure to be sure though, inquest juries were prevented from making a finding. Good eh?
Sometimes the NIO was fearful that even these draconian measures would be insufficient and inquests were delayed up to 10 years, like Roseann Mallon's. In a couple of cases there have never been inquests at all.
So please, no 'demands' for an inquiry into Stakeknife.
They're always 'demands' aren't they? They only people who would see the results would be the people who ordered the recruitment of agents like Stakeknife, namely senior British politicians. They are the reason why you'll never get a clear result from any inquiry into events since 1972. Do you think any British politician's head would roll for conniving at murder in Ireland?
By the way, it took Scarman two years to report in detail into death and destruction all across the north. The total cost of his tribunal including legal expenses was £460,250, say £8 million in today's money? Of course the government cooperated with him.
