Still waiting for the Government response on 7/7 inquiry

The Government lawyers are getting back to us re. the Judicial Review application for an independent inquiry tomorrow. So when they do, Oury Clark, the pro-bono lawyers representing the bereaved, injured, and survivors who are asking for an independent inquiry into the 7 July bombings will issue a statement on our behalf.
I will put on my suit and go down to Oury Clark's offices tomorrow to answer questions, and other members of the group are also on standby to answer media inquiries from 11.30am Friday 7 September.

Background on the legal challenge

Request issued for an inquiry after the Crevice trial
London Assembly backs our calls
Legal Challenge issued
7/7 Inquiry Group Vs. The Government

FRIDAY UPDATE: I predict that we will get told something along the lines of this:

''the Government is consulting on how in future the ISC should be appointed and should report to Parliament - with, where possible, hearings in public, a strengthened capacity for investigations, reports subject to more parliamentary debate and greater transparency over appointments to the committee''
as per Brown's security strategy announced in June 2007 (and blogged about here)

Let's have a quick fisking before breakfast, shall we?

As the ISC at the moment has NO independent investigator at all, since John Morrison was sacked by Blair for bravely speaking out about the misuse of intelligence in the run up to the Iraq war making the case about WOMD, you could frankly appoint a spaniel sniffer dog to the panel and thus deliver a ''strengthened capacity for investigation''.

The appointees are presently MPS hand-picked by the PM. They report to the PM and not Parliament. How they are appointed is not transparent. And, anyway, the skill set for being an MP and being a watchdog/investigator are entirely different things.

Reports subject to more Parliamentary debate is something, but again, debating something is not the same thing as an independent person fully investigating what M15 and the police knew about the 7/7 bombers , cross examining witnesses and compelling evidence, making recommendations and having them acted upon, is it?

And having delivered an unsatisfactory first stab at it, then seeing how the aftermath of the Crevice trial exposed the ISC report as flawed, how can we trust them to have another go?
The original ISC 7/7 report completely exonerated the security services of failing to stop the 7/7 bombers - despite the fact that the 7/7 men were bugged and followed hanging about with murderous terrorists weeks away from unleashing a UK atrocity? The 7/7 ringleaders were taped and listened to chatting about jihad and how to commit crimes ( planning to kill British subjects in the armed forces abroad, defrauding UK companies of £20,000 - which is certainly enough to arrest anyone. And all this came out in the Crevice/Fertiliser bomb plot trial. ( which was a great result for the security services but bittersweet in that it also exposed their great failure).

And if they had been arrested, rather than let go to carry on with their criminal activity and their jihad plans, (for whatever reason, following a decision made by somebody who is as yet nameless and unaccountable) - then perhaps 52 innocent people might be alive today. And 700 people not injured.

How defensive would you be if you were asked to investigate yourself? Hmmm.

A Parliamentary Committee or something that has been reformed to look like one, is not the same as an independent inquiry or a public inquiry, is it?

And so if we get the above, and the same tired old tripe about ''diversion of resources'', we shall be very disappointed. And we shall challenge it in the Courts.

Anyway, I'm off to Oury Clark's offices in John St, to see if my predictions are right.
Press conference outside in 10 John St at 11.30am.