Fallon spat out Shiner the lawyer’s name with loathing

DEFENCE Secretary Michael Fallon spat out the words. he was opening his lunchtime Statement to the Commons about the Al Sweady Inquiry. The inquiry looked at allegations of torture and worse by British troops in Iraq. They have been found to be false.

The word used by Mr Fallon was ‘baseless’ and he uttered it with emphasis on the first letter, his jaw pushing forward, making plain his anger that the allegations had been made, had initially been believed, and moreover that they had found a busy little lawyer who pushed them to the fore with much indignant clamour.

That solicitor, said Mr Fallon, was ‘Mr Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers’. I don’t think I have heard a name mentioned with such a clear sense of loath- ing. Mr Fallon noted that the inquiry had been held over 169 days, had heard evidence from 55 Iraqis, 222 military personnel (a further 328 were required to submit written statements).

Four expert witnesses had been employed. And all, as the inquiry has now found in its ‘incontrovertible’ conclusion, on a lie. Or make that several lies.

‘Unequivocally.... falsity of allegations... beyond doubt... wholly without f oundation... without merit of justification... deliberate and calculated lies’: these and other expressions were used by Mr Fallon as he described what went on.

I have been hanging round Westminster on and off for the past quarter of a century and have not heard such a clear verdict. It really does seem extraordinary that the Iraqis’ lurid claims got so far. That they did so says much for our cultural self-loathing and our tolerance of professional grievance polishers.

Lawyer Shiner claimed (said Mr Fallon) that his clients had witnessed ‘mutilations’ and had screamed terribly. No they didn’t. We know now that they made up those things.

The allegations loomed over the soldiers for ten years. Mr Fallon said it was ‘inexplicable and shameful’ that counsel for the Iraqis took so long to concede that the torture claims were rubbish.

At the front of every traffic jam, goes the saying, you will find a caravan. Is it not at least equally true that at the front of every drawn- out, expensive, anti-patriotic injustice you will find a lawyer?

The European Union is built on lawyers. Compensation culture, health and safety lunacies, investment cons, immigration tribunal foul-ups, judicial reviews which gum up essential Government cuts: these and countless other glories of British life in the 21st century can be attributed to, or have certainly been badly exacerbated by, lawyers.

In the past few years we have had no shortage of Establishment complaints that journalists have been too high and mighty.

An entire show-trial inquiry was set up (run by lawyers) to damage the reputation of Fleet Street. Is a similar wide-ranging, public, definitely nonjudge-led inquiry into the culture and practices of lawyers not now needed?

Perhaps the excellent Mr Fallon might chair it and do to the scurvy estate of the Law what M’lud Leveson did to the Press?

Yesterday also brought us Prime Minister’s Questions, the last for the year. They went less than brilliantly for Ed Miliband.

ThErE was even the unusual sound of Ken Clarke ( Con, rushcliffe) being helpful to the Tories. David Cameron was able to cite all manner of Labour U-turns and policy goofs, most of them on the economy.

The PM noted the latest employment figures (up again) and the news that wages are now growing faster than inflation.

Mr Miliband had a go at a fulminating denunciation of the Coalition and said that Mr Cameron had at last shown himself to be ‘ a conviction politician’ when his ex aide Andy Coulson went to prison. As he said this, Mr Miliband threw aside a sheet of paper in a manner that looked petulant and panicky.

his ears had gone pink. he was screaming sideways and looked vexed and stressed.

‘he’s a complete waste of space,’ deduced Mr Cameron. It was not a particularly statesmanlike thing to say but it did have a ring of truth.