Mick Hume spoke at the Radley/St Helen's Conference in November of last year:
The idea of holding an 'urgent' national inquiry into the suicide of a middle-ranking civil servant was always pretty bizarre. The notion that such an inquiry could put the government on trial and effectively find it guilty of murder was even more far-fetched. Those critics of Blair who looked to Hutton to do their job for them have achieved the opposite effect. By building the inquiry up and overreaching themselves, they have pulled off the remarkable achievement of making the New Labour government look good. Some of those now crying 'whitewash' appear suddenly to have discovered that Lord Hutton is a member of the British establishment (you might have thought that the 'lord' bit would have given them a clue somewhat earlier). His ruthless record of jailing the British state's enemies, while sitting alone as both judge and jury in the Diplock courts of Northern Ireland, might also have suggested that Hutton was unlikely to be keen to bring down the system of government at their behest. It is the height of naivety to look to such a pillar of the state for support, and then be shocked when it falls on you.spiked
