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At last Hain will be found out

Ruth Dudley Edwards

Wednesday, 13th December 2006

There are signs of life among us Northern Ireland Watchers (NIWs). Greyed and wrinkled after years of service, over the past 18 months we have either slumped into near-catatonia or have transferred our attention to wondering what’s to be done about our little Islamist chums.

Mr Justice Girvin, who — if there is any justice — will be Peter Hain’s nemesis, has woken us up. Ruling on a legal challenge to Hain’s appointment last year of an estimable Royal Ulster Constabulary widow as Victims’ Commissioner (at the behest, as many people suspected, of the Democratic Unionist Party), he accused the minister of ‘improper political motive’ in flouting the structures painfully designed over years by successive ministers and civil servants to ensure fairness in public appointments. Infuriated by Northern Ireland Office attempts to cover up, the judge said Mr Hain had ‘failed in his duty of candour to the court’ and — with the help of two senior civil servants — had sought ‘to divert attention from the true course of events’.

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