Democratic? No public enquiry on the 7/7 bombings.

[Badger Kitten]

ranting from me about the lack of enquiry here

views of some other survivors here


more ranting and calls to action from me here

Channel 4 news debunking one of the more tiresome conspiracy theories here.

Some of the many reasons I want a public enquiry are not to get a 'narrative of what happened' ( I have watched the news non stop since and I was there)

but to learn stuff that will be useful in the future - how the victim response could be improved, how the aftercare could be A LOT better ( it is crap, I and many of the other survivors from my train have oraganised pretty much all our own help, ourselves)

and finally to debunk some of the irritating conspiracy theories that really really piss me off. I have even had my account of the event mis-used by conspiraloons to 'prove' there was no bomb, just a power surge. The smilie does not even come close to describing the breadth and depth of my rage at my truthful account being abused by lying fuckheads in this way.

Anyway, I am making a fuss so if anyine wants to join in, great. And thanks.

 

[newbie]

A public enquiry works to strict terms of reference. It's not a generalised twawl or fishing expedition on a subject. In the case of Hutton, the terms were to look at the death of Kelly, not the reasons for the war with Iraq. This made a hell of difference to the outcome.

The outcome in terms of the report is important, but it's only part of the overall. Obviously you're right, and to look to a PI as some form of salvation, or even to produce a truly objective report, is pointless. None the less, it's better to have one than not.

 

[bristol_citizen]

The outcome in terms of the report is important, but it's only part of the overall. Obviously you're right, and to look to a PI as some form of salvation, or even to produce a truly objective report, is pointless. None the less, it's better to have one than not.

Apparently there are 4 House of Commons committees looking at various aspects of 7/7. TBH they're more likely to come up with stuff than an enquiry.
Anyone remember the Public Accounts Committee that sneaked through the research on Prince Charles's finances whilst the government's back was turned?
I seem to remember he decided to get married rather hurriedly.

ranting from me about the lack of enquiry here

views of some other survivors here

more ranting and calls to action from me here

Channel 4 news debunking one of the more tiresome conspiracy theories here.

Some of the many reasons I want a public enquiry are not to get a 'narrative of what happened' ( I have watched the news non stop since and I was there)

but to learn stuff that will be useful in the future - how the victim response could be improved, how the aftercare could be A LOT better ( it is crap, I and many of the other survivors from my train have oraganised pretty much all our own help, ourselves)

and finally to debunk some of the irritating conspiracy theories that really really piss me off. I have even had my account of the event mis-used by conspiraloons to 'prove' there was no bomb, just a power surge. The smilie does not even come close to describing the breadth and depth of my rage at my truthful account being abused by lying fuckheads in this way.

Anyway, I am making a fuss so if anyine wants to join in, great. And thanks.

What you want is the press, not an enquiry.

 

[Badger Kitten]

Apparently there are 4 House of Commons committees looking at various aspects of 7/7. TBH they're more likely to come up with stuff than an enquiry.
Anyone remember the Public Accounts Committee that sneaked through the research on Prince Charles's finances whilst the government's back was turned?
I seem to remember he decided to get married rather hurriedly.


What you want is the press, not an enquiry.

Why?

No, I want an enquiry. There are a lot of useful learnings that could be shared - the press are no good for that, it needs to be an enquiry. When the next bomb goes off, the police, ambulance control room, passengers, drivers, nurses, have got stuff they can feed back which will help with the next response.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Have you been sending out press releases to that effect?

 

[laptop]

There are two purposes to public inquiries:

- to investigate some catastrophic event in order to understand what took place and to prevent a repetition.

- to enable those involved in such events to understand what took place and come to terms with their experiences.

ADD: 3) to give consparanoids more nits to pick.

In the case of 7 July they're desperate. There's a "narrarive" that makes sense, complete with video of someone claiming responsibility and explaining why.

Case in point:

A public enquiry into 7/7 might at the very least clear up such trivial facts as how one earth did the men travel on the 7.40am train from Luton to King's Cross, as the police claimed - when that train was cancelled?

Some nutter from Bristol handed me a leaflet including this - of which I think he was the author - in Hyde Park.

I pointed out to him that there's also a Midland Mainline service from Luton to St Pancras, which takes 28 minutes.

His jaw dropped.

I have no idea what train they took. Neither has he. He'd just picked up a reference to a possible inconsistency and leaped on it to prove in his mind that the official story was bunk and his paranoid confabulations were justified (as if one proved the other, but that's a rather philosophical point for this time of night).

But as I've said before about conspiraloons, the whole point of them is that they live in a purely textual universe unconnected to any experience of the 3-D world, such as knowledge of how to get from my mum's back home. They want an inquiry to give them lots of text to pore over. No other reason.

Now, Badger Kitten's idea of an inquiry to work out how victim response could be improved is in principle a very good one. But the consparanoids are one reason it won't happen: an inquiry with such sensibly restricted terms of reference would risk giving them a platform.

Far more important, though, is the fact that if such a focussed inquiry, doable for £2M or so, were held, then almost the entire Press would say, whether motivated by some kind of decency or by a desire to make the Tories electable:

Ey up then, Tony's saying "nobody mention the war". So we will, mi ducks.

 

[TeeJay]

Well it sits uneasy with me, the idea that because public enquiries dont work, we shan't bother having them.
I mean surely, we dont know everything, there are unanswered questions...
Can it be right to let the government just decide on a 'narrative' of events?
It seems alarmingly big brotherish to me.

What are your unanswered questions?

Maybe we could have a go and answering them - the information might be around somewhere...

,,,also, at the risk of encouraging Jazzzification of this thread, I don't suppose anyone can torpedo the "invisible Luton to London train" theory on that site can they? I would start checking facts for myself but if someone has done so already I can save myself a load of grief.

 

[newbie]

Apparently there are 4 House of Commons committees looking at various aspects of 7/7. TBH they're more likely to come up with stuff than an enquiry.

They trundle along and might generate useful material, but they don't have the time or resources for a full, detailed inquiry.

the latest evidence to the Home Affairs cttee was in September, for instance.

What you want is the press, not an enquiry.

The problem with the press is that so much is unattributable.

If a 'senior source' says something truly misleading via the press there is just a possibility of a whistleblower but the possibility is slight, and thus we're slipped deniable, misleading spin under the guise of news. Evidence from a witness stand, checked and corroborated under cross examination, is far more worthwhile.

When 'sources close to...' rumour that Downing St has twisted the facts or has pressured the BBC, we all grunt and move on, not knowing who's spinning or why. When Hutton dragged the great and the good onto the stand and nitpicked the detail from them he served two purposes: firstly to confirm us, the people, in our cynicism, and secondly to embarrass them. Not much, but more than the press would have managed alone.

Without that PI we wouldn't really know how we were duped, nor how the BBC was leant on.


We don't know what the press hasn't unearthed about 7 July.

 

[dylanredefined]

Personally I hope the proffesionals medics/police/rescue review there plans and learn from this .And probably best done away from public (if only they can speak openly about unpleaseant stuff without fear of a misquote appearing in
press ) Do we really need to know about how they deal with unidentified body parts .Or some surgeon making coments about hystrical minor injured survivors
cluttering up the place . And the spooks cant go public about how they could do things better in case it tips off the bad guys.
How to improve aftercare needs to be a debate between surviors and those who provide the aftercare and again they may want to speak about this away from the public .
The intelligence services missed some nutters who killed a whole lot of londoners what else is there to know .Would it have happened if iraq hadn't happened who knows ? Or cares they hated the west before iraq
so might have found another excuse .Or just made one up.

 

[mod]

Why?

No, I want an enquiry. There are a lot of useful learnings that could be shared - the press are no good for that, it needs to be an enquiry. When the next bomb goes off, the police, ambulance control room, passengers, drivers, nurses, have got stuff they can feed back which will help with the next response.

I'm with you 100%

 

[aurora green]

What are your unanswered questions?

I dont know really, but surely there should be some sort of investigation into the networks' of the bombers. I mean is enough known about how, and why, these men turned into suicide bombers?

 

[detective-boy]

I dont know really, but surely there should be some sort of investigation into the networks' of the bombers.

You hnestly cannot believe that (a) this won't be taking place anyway (what do you think the hundreds of officers attached to the anti-terrorist branch, special branch and others do all day??) and (b) that a public enquiry is the best way of going about it .... can you?

 

[slaar]

I dont know really, but surely there should be some sort of investigation into the networks' of the bombers. I mean is enough known about how, and why, these men turned into suicide bombers?

The ongoing police investigation into this is absolutely massive. I don't want it in the public domain if it would compromise intelligence on the networks.

 

[dylanredefined]

A lot of the stuff could be senstive if made public if only it allows somone to
find out how to kill more people next time .I dont know how you could have an indepth enquiry in public without compromising security .

 

[Idaho]

Alright, I'm convinced again. We don't need an inquiry.

 

[Badger Kitten]

Have you been sending out press releases to that effect?

I am not an organisation! Have you been sending out press releases lately?

I have written something about it, so let's see whether that gets run. And I'm blogging, and others are linking and I'm trying to work out how to get one of those online petitions going and pass it about.

 

[Jazzz]

Some nutter from Bristol handed me a leaflet including this - of which I think he was the author - in Hyde Park.

I pointed out to him that there's also a Midland Mainline service from Luton to St Pancras, which takes 28 minutes.

His jaw dropped.

I have no idea what train they took. Neither has he. He'd just picked up a reference to a possible inconsistency and leaped on it to prove in his mind that the official story was bunk and his paranoid confabulations were justified (as if one proved the other, but that's a rather philosophical point for this time of night).

Bridget Dunne remarks in her blog The strange case of the non-existent train time a comment which could equally be directed to laptop here regarding the need for a public enquiry

I think you have proved the point of this blog, which is, why on earth do you or any other member of the public, (which I presume you are), have to guess what train these men could have travelled on from Luton on 7/7 (If indeed they did).

Every news source, including the Horizon programme on BBC2, which showed a forensic psychologist following the journey, have stated the 7.48 or the 7.40 train on that day.

Why won't the Metropolitan Police state exactly which train they are alleged to have travelled on?

The 7.40am train, as we know, never existed, and the 7.48am would have been too late. So, the 'official story' as it stands, is clear bunk; and until the day we can establish a simple detail like that one what confidence can we have in any aspect of it?

 

[Badger Kitten]

Right, well if you want to get the the bottom of things a petition has just been started

or via my blog

 

[Kid_Eternity]

I am not an organisation! Have you been sending out press releases lately?

I have written something about it, so let's see whether that gets run. And I'm blogging, and others are linking and I'm trying to work out how to get one of those online petitions going and pass it about.

Yep I've sent out a few for work. You don't have to be an organisation to send em out or get them noticed. All you need is email addresses to send them too, trust me if you really want your views to be noticed do yourself a favour by sending one out.

 

[Badger Kitten]

Bingo! Have written thing and got it into the S.T!

 

[Kid_Eternity]

St?

 

[Badger Kitten]

Sunday Times

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Ah right, send it too the Guardian and Indy too.

 

[Badger Kitten]

cheers.

 

[Jazzz]

I have signed your petition bk.

 

[Badger Kitten]

Thank you!

 

[Kid_Eternity]

And me, emailed it out to my friends too to sign and pass on.

 

[Badger Kitten]

 

[laptop]

OK, which one of you lurkers is Mark Lawson (Guardian, today)

 

[TeeJay]

OK, which one of you lurkers is Mark Lawson (Guardian, today)

I don't understand. I can't see anything lifted/quoted from here. I'm sure thousands of people who have never come to urban75 think that public enquiries are a waste of time. I am sure that people are quite capable of coming to that point of view without any assisstance from this thread.

Or am I missing some subtle reference or give-away in that article?