Queueing to get into the House of Commons usually takes about five minutes, if that. Yesterday, it was taking surprisingly longer. Even after all the security checks (which involved being lightly patted down), I was told it would take me quite some time to actually get to the viewing chamber.
But surely there’s nothing major going on, I thought: surely it’s just a matter of a few maiden speeches being made, and so on?
Well, no. As it turns out, the Prime Minister was at the despatch box.
And fortunately, 30 minutes after I joined the line, he still was. Because, as I remembered belatedly, the Saville Report was being published.
I’ve been to the House of Commons before, but actually seeing David Cameron stand up to field various questions was something altogether different. It was also a moment of history. The events of Bloody Sunday, which took place over 38 years ago, never make for pleasant reading; but Conservative governments have usually tried to shy away from the event, seeing as it occurred under the premiership of Edward Heath, their former leader.
Cameron, however, was making no excuses.
“That is why I reached my conclusion about there being no equivocation. When one reads the summary, whatever preconceived ideas one brings to the whole area and to what happened, one is given an incredibly clear sense of what happened and how wrong it was. I hope that, whatever side of the argument people come from, a report as clear as this will help them to come to terms with the past, because it puts matters beyond doubt. In that way, as I said, I think that the truth can help to free people from their preconceived ideas.”
So, in a word: the British army messed up, and it was unjustified. The 13 victims were, in a word, innocent.
Even better was Cameron’s response to a question from the Lib Dem MP Bob Russell…
“It is not in their interests, and nor is it in our interests, to try to gloss over what happened on that dreadful day.”
Considering this is such a hot potato for a Conservative PM - who you would normally expect to protect the Armed Forces from any controversy - he handled most questions impeccably.
But the best piece of speaking was left to Dr William McCrea, MP for South Antrim, who certainly left me moved, and Cameron a little raw:
“I am sure the Prime Minister would not like to support a hierarchy of victimhood. On 17 January 1992, eight innocent civilian construction workers at Teebane were murdered by the Provisional IRA, and six others were seriously injured. On 9 April 1991, my cousin Derek was gunned down and his child was left to put his fingers into the holes where the blood was coming out to try to stop his father dying. On 7 February 1976, my two cousins were brutally murdered-one boy, 16, and his sister, 21, on the day she was engaged to be married. Therefore I say this to the Prime Minister: no one has ever been charged for any of those murders, and there have been no inquiries. Countless others, including 211 Royal Ulster Constabulary members, were also murdered.
Saville says: “None” of the casualties “was posing any threat of causing death or serious injury”, but that could be said of Teebane, of Derek, of Robert and of Rachel. How do we get closure, how do we get justice, and how do we get the truth?”
To which Cameron replied:
The hon. Gentleman rightly speaks with great power and emotion about how people on all sides in Northern Ireland have suffered, and people in the community that he represents have suffered particularly badly. Some horrific things have happened to people completely unconnected with politics-people who are innocent on every single level-and there is nothing that you can do to explain to someone who lost a loved one in that way that there is any logic, fairness or sense in that loss. The hon. Gentleman asks how we try to achieve closure on such matters. There is no easy way, but we have the Historical Enquiries Team, which goes through case after case, and if it finds the evidence, prosecutions can take place.
I hope that the inquiry report published today will give some closure to those families from Londonderry, but one way for families who have suffered to gain more closure about the past is for terrorists or former terrorists to come forward and give information about those crimes. However, in the end, we have to move forward and we have to accept that dreadful things happened. We do not want to return to those days, and that sometimes means - as he and I know - burying very painful memories about the past so that we can try to build a future.”
So all in all, stirring stuff, and I’m glad I decided to go along for a few hours.
And bizarrely, Nick Clegg sitting next to Cameron doesn’t look that odd. Hmm.
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