Well, the one thing you can say about the Saville Inquiry report is that it is huge… But even Shaun Woodward, the current Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is shocked (shocked I tell you) that the report is sooooo big that it has to wait until, maybe, the next election… Now the conspiracy theories are out and flying… Of course, it’s plausible enough excuse that the referencing 2,500 witness statements and heard evidence from 922 individuals, 160 volumes of evidence, containing an estimated 20-30 million words, plus 121 audio tapes and 110 videotapes is going to take a while… But it would not be the first time a government inquiry’s ‘home work’ had got delayed or fallen down the back of a sofa… It;s worthy of note too that Saville can never happen again, now the UK government has bolted the door with the 2005 Enquiries Act… My own sense is that Labour will want to leave this ball in the long grass for the Conservatives to trip over pick up and run with after next year’s general election…
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty