Judge Describes Byers' Justification for Lying to Parliament as "little above gibberish" Articles / Domestic Posted by ringverse on Oct 14, 2005 - 06:13 PM |
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It comes as no great suprise to find out that the shareholders have lost [1] their case against the government over the 're nationalisation' of Railtrack. Mr Byers described the verdict as: "A great victory". He added: "The Railtrack shareholders put my honesty and integrity at the heart of their case and the court has found in my favour," he said. The Judge, however, was less than complimentary about Mr Byer's evidence, saying of his explanation for why he lied to parliament: "His explanation as then given seemed to me little above gibberish, but it will be for parliament to assess what he meant. However don't hold your breath waiting for parliament to hold Byers to account for his lies, it would appear that he is trying to pre-empt his referral to the standards and privileges committee by making an apology to the house first... The shadow leader of the Commons, Chris Grayling, said he would be formally writing to the Speaker on Monday asking permission to table a motion referring Mr Byers to the standards and privileges committee. If the Speaker agreed, Mr Grayling said that there would then be a short debate in the chamber followed by a vote of MPs on whether the matter should be referred to the committee. Mr Grayling said that he expected Mr Byers would try to pre-empt him by apologising in a personal statement to the house. If he was unsuccessful however, Mr Grayling said that the government would then have to decide whether to use its Commons majority to block a standards and privileges investigation. "I think it would be outrageous if they did. It would be a sign that they are more interested in looking after their own than maintaining the propriety of parliament," he said. Mr Byers later confirmed to Sky News that he would be seeking to make a personal statement in the Commons "early next week" to explain his actions. And he insisted there was a "very clear distinction between something being untrue and deliberately setting out to mislead". Given our government's current attititude to the judiciary, it's my bet that what the judge describes as gibberish will be more than enough for Labour MPs. Move along, move along, nothing to see here... |
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This article is from Blairwatch http://www.ringverse.f2s.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.ringverse.f2s.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=465 Links in this article [1] http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1592576,00.html?gusrc=rss |