Our Flexible Friends
Conor Gearty
- Scott Inquiry Report by Richard Scott
HMSO, 2386 pp, £45.00, February 1996, ISBN 0 10 262796 7
The most remarkable aspect of the Scott Report is its simplicity. The famous length and the differing interpretations to which it has been subjected since its publication suggest a learned and complex treatise full of ambiguity and complex allusion, a sort of political bible with Sir Richard Scott in the role of the Yahweh/ Saviour and Robin Cook and Ian Lang fighting it out to play St Paul. In fact, the occasional double negative aside (these alone have been enough to drive our illiterate media into hysterical denunciations of prolixity), the Report is a model of clarity. Its narrative is compelling and its conclusions stark in their certainty. The only confusion and ambiguity in the text flows from Sir Richard’s occasional reporting of the Government’s manifestly untenable case.
You are not Logged In
- If you have already registered login here
- If you are a print subscriber using the site for the first time please register here
- If you are not yet a subscriber you can subscribe here
- If you are a member of a subscribing institution or University library please login here
- If you have an Institutional print subscription and online access is not included, find out about our Institutional online subscriptions