Talk:John Widgery, Baron Widgery

Reaction to the Widgery Report and Saville

There seems to be some dispute about how to report what happened after the Widgery Report was published. Until recently the article cited three sources for the rather vague statement that Widgery was "denounced by many". They were not the best sources: the first was an opinion piece from the Morning Star (repeated by the Irish Democrat) which used the recent death of Edward Heath to discuss both Widgery and the UK government's reactions to Bloody Sunday. This is a partisan source which has been removed from its original context which was to report reaction to Widgery among Irish nationalists, a wording which has long since disappeared from the article. The second source was another opinion piece from February 2004 by Nick Cohen which only briefly touches on Widgery but is largely there to justify the emotive but frequent term "whitewash". The third source is from the BBC News Online's 'On This Day' section - which purports to be a contemporary report but was in fact written years later.

In summary none of these are actually contemporary, and two are opinion and not reportage. The important point to be made and sourced seems to me to be this: the purpose of a Judicial inquiry is to produce a report which is accepted as widely as possible as a true description of what happened. Widgery never came anywhere near that as Irish Nationalists immediately denounced his findings. Instead of clearing up the incident, the Widgery report became an additional part of the problem and a stain which Irish Nationalists were determined to remove.

It is also important to note the timeline. The previous wording in the article jumped immediately from the Widgery report to saying that it "Labour politician Tony Blair" (an unusual formulation of words) was one of those who denounced it. When did he do that? At the time, when he was preparing to go to Oxford? Surely not. The article has leapt forward 26 years to the point where Blair is Prime Minister and has ordered the Saville inquiry. This time lapse needs to be noted because it is highly unusual for a second inquiry to be ordered 26 years after a first.

This is a biography of Widgery rather than a general discussion of Bloody Sunday, so excessive reportage of the Saville Inquiry's conclusions would be inappropriate (and I'm not sure about including David Cameron's apology either - Tony Blair had already apologised for Bloody Sunday on behalf of the UK Government some years before). However it's important to note that the reasons given by Blair for setting up the Saville inquiry were that Widgery's inquiry had been deficient in its processes. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:12, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I think what you said in a previous edit summary is exactly right, The focus has to be on the Widgery's personal contribution, not Bloody Sunday generally. Widgery was responsible for a notorious whitewash, which reflects on his values and is an important part of his biography. Cameron's "unjustified and unjustifiable" comment seems important because it implicitly undermines Widgery's finding of justification. A few days ago this section was error-strewn and largely nonsensical, your latest edit gives it coherence and lucidity, I hope it is allowed to stand.--Alistair Stevenson (talk) 10:58, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Notice of revert

My edit to this article has been reverted for reasons which I don't follow. Surely the best thing to have done would be to simply drop a message onto the talk page (or that of this IP account), instead of simply reverting immediately after having reverted a previous edit from this IP account.

The question asked is: what is the importance of my edit? The edit included information about an opinion of a well-known journalist with regard to the subject matter - an opinion which reflects the opinions of many others, as indicated in the previous paragraph of the article.

I am going to revert back to my original edit, and I request that any issue with the edit be discussed here before any further reverts are made. --94.15.75.35 (talk) 18:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

The burden is upon you to show how this minority view is important, notable, and worthy of inclusion. As per the discussion above, this is a biography of Baron Widgery, not an article about the Widgery report, per se. In any case, as I said, you have to show notability and importance, which you have failed to do. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 19:41, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

By the way, your accusation of harassment is repugnant. I saw an edit that looked questionable and I reverted it. Very simple. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 20:26, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

What makes you so sure that John Simpson's description of the Widgery report as "disgusting" is a minority view? Alarics (talk) 10:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm buggered if I can understand your rationale for reverting my edit again, RJ. It's well-known that a number of people considered (and still consider) the Widgery report as a whitewash. Whether or not it's a minority is irrelevant. A minority could be anything from 49% to less than 1%. It's quite an important viewpoint to include in an article which mentions the report (and there is a whole section dedicated to the report in this article). The article also already hints at the fact that some didn't believe it: "and it was reported that people in the Bogside and Creggan areas were disgusted by his findings" - and it should be noted that this sentence isn't "properly sourced", and also that some found the report "disgusting".

The fact is though, the sky is indeed blue. The term whitewash has frequently been used in connection to the Widgery report, as can be seen by reports from the BBC, the Belfast Telegraph etc etc (take a look at this Google search result). So my edit is not only a reiteration of what is already in it, but it also lends a citation to the information.

Importance is a relative and subjective thing anyway. Obviously Bloody Sunday and the Widgery report were quite important to many citizens of Derry, and more widely to the people of Northern Ireland. Most people from Northern Ireland (over a certain age at least!), if they're honest, could probably tell you that the word whitewash has frequently been attached to the Widgery report, if they agreed with the report itself or not. Of course the problem arises as to whether that fact has been widely recorded in citable material (eg. the Internet). In this case though, the fact has indeed been recorded on the Internet and newspaper and current affairs publications - including the recent current affairs programme I specifically cited.

There is no article on the Widgery report and, in fact, Widgery Tribunal redirects to the relevant section of this particular article.

The reason behind my accusation of harassment (and I present this by way of explanation, not as a simple attack) is based on the fact that you obviously checked the contribution history of this IP address (assuming this IP address has remained the same as it was when I first edited this article!). This is something I don't bother doing, personally. I tend to try to just take each edit (or conflict) on its own merit. Given that a threat was made against me though, as you probably know, on the Martin McGuinness talk page, I will be checking on a certain person's edit history in case I am not informed if he carries through with his threat. My IP address may change, for example.

So given my own personal knowledge and experience of the Troubles, the sources widely available, your behaviour, attitude and accusations made against me, that has led me to believe that you have specifically targeted me - I even believe that there is a concerted obstructive effort to attempt to stifle editing by making each and every edit into a laborious drama, no matter how trivial the edit, or what the content. Who could be arsed with tackling such an intransigent attitude when the walls are closed on individual editors? Now, if that is indeed the case, I simply do not have time - nor even the interest - to build a case for presentation. I will note that you, RepublicanJacobite, have reverted the article twice now, which surely brings you into conflict with the Troubles Arb - something that editors here seem quick to throw at other editors over and above discussing content using common sense.

However, as I said, I haven't got the time or inclination to go into all that and I'm merely presenting the difficulties that have been created with regard to editing this website. So I'm left with just discussing the merits of individual edits I have made in the hopes that common sense will prevail.

You're not likely to agree with my observations, though perhaps you could respect my sentiment as offered on the Martin McGuinness talk page when I said that this is not about me, nor about us - it is about representing and presenting valid information in a freely accessible database. So, although I have described my feelings and observations, hopefully we can get them out of the way and limit our discussion to the specific edit. That being the case, I still can't see your objection to the edit - particularly as you have ignored similar uncited statements in the article.

So my questions to you are thus: are you ignorant of the fact that the Widgery report has often been described as a whitewash? If so, does or should your ignorance preclude other editors adding information to any given article? --94.15.75.35 (talk) 18:31, 26 June 2010 (UTC)