MPs must stop this 'conspiracy of silence'

I blogged earlier this week about the possibility that our disgraced bank bosses had signed “gagging orders” as part of their severance deals, stopping them from talking about what happened to the banks on their watch (earlier this week we asked RBS and Lloyds TSB to confirm or deny this, but they have yet to do so).

Above all, these gagging orders mean the government and individual ministers escape scrutiny, which in turn means the media route to exposure is dead. Beyond whatever police inquiries that may be underway (and if you work for the FSA, DPP or the attorney general, can you tell me – are there any police inquiries?), only MPs remain empowered to break these gagging orders.

The Treasury select committee has hardly scratched the surface of this thing thus far. It has done a good job in what little it has found time to do and to continue to do.

We journalists are doing what we can. But MPs have the power to order attendance before the bar of the House of Commons. They should use it extensively and exhaustively to break this possible “conspiracy of silence”.