The Levenson Inquiry Begins.

Today (14/11/11) The Right Honourable Lord Justice Levenson has opened the inquiry that bears his name and is expected to last about a year at a cost of around £3million. The inquiry will not deal with the events of August 2011 when the worst rioting in almost 90 years tore through six British cities causing close to £1billion worth of damage, putting over 1000 people at serious risk of being burnt alive in their homes and left 6 dead. Instead the Levenson Inquiry will be dealing with the much more serious issue of a few people having their answer phone messages listened too as part of the phone hacking scandal.

Also today at Britain's High Court the murder trial of Gary Dobson and David Norris has begun. Gary Dobson and David Norris are 2 of the 5 men who murdered Stephan Lawrence in an unprovoked racist attack in south London in 1993. The reason why 18 years later no-one has been convicted of this crime is that the guilty were protected by an institution wide network of corrupt and racist police officers. This lead to the Macphearson Inquiry which although did not lead to a single police officer being prosecuted it did do away with double jeopardy and the right to silence - two important legal principles best described in the 5th amendment to the US Constitution.

So by timing the start of the Levenson Inquiry to co-incide with the start of the Lawrence trial Britain seems to be trying to convince the public that the Levenson Inquiry is anything other then a state attack on one of the cornerstones of democracy - a free press.