VF raises the interesting example of information held back for  long term  timed exposure. I am not even sure of  all the reasons given for doing this - clearly to avoid someone serious discomfort somewhere but denying solace to many who want the truth. Do we always need the truth if is very harsh?  Has  much slow release of information done anyone a service? I cannot recall any startling revelations but they must be blunted by time and that is an objective. Are there many other  incidents on such long term hold? And, indeed, is this  withholding of information still being done?

Priscilla wrote:

And, indeed, is this  withholding of information still being done?

Seriously? You're asking that question one day after the UK government finally officially admitted its "leader" on no less than 23 occasions stood up in parliament and over-stated the number of antigen tests conducted since the start of May (three months later than they should have started anyway) by 1,300,000. And over-stated the amount of PPE made available to medical and care workers by a whopping factor of 10?

Judiciously timing the release of information collected by government is a time-honoured method of controlling the narrative. I'm surprised you opened a new thread on this topic given that there's already one up and running ...

You know very well that I meant the timed revelation  sensitive material and not the day by day cover ups and muddling through. of governments, managements and any one else trying to cover their backs.
 So, does the sensitive stuff still get put on hold? VF mentioned material not to be released for nearly 100 years....... not quite controlling the narrative in an immediate sense. 

Are you scolding me, having a sneer or just playing thick?

Am I right in thinking you're possibly having a bad hair day too?

Analyse and itemise the reasons why officialdom hides info from public view, be it for a few weeks, a few years, or even a few centuries, and I reckon you find they're pretty much the same regardless. And all most definitely related to both "control" and "narrative".

But since you're only interested in the long-term hiding of things by the authorities then - and again we don't have to stray too far from your own neck of the woods - what about the depositions submitted to the truth and reconciliation tribunal run by the NI Office a few years ago? Some of them have had a 150 year "reveal" date slapped on them, and some of them have even been designated as OSA material, which means not only are they technically to be held "for ever", but can even be destroyed at any moment by the authorities rather than let them become public knowledge. All for the public's protection of course. What you don't know can't hurt you etc, even if truth, and indeed reconciliation, therefore must get put on indefinite hold.

But enough from this thicko. Back to the expert ....

So the reveal date of sensitive material process continues - which is what I curious about Not a bad hair day just one submerged in others' painful memories on this day. So thanks, thickp, and who is the expert? I only ask daft questions.

It is better you don't know may have some validity in personal circumstances -  think of a mum today who found out how her only son died building that railway. it would nave neen better that she had not.

National circumstances are different  but truth does often seep  out, doent it? And that is what Historians must be about - sifting out truths.

Not sure if this should be posted here, on the Whistleblowers thread, or on the Contolling the Narrative thread. Katherine Gun's story should not be forgotten.  Please read this Guardian article - and, if you can, watch the 2019 film Official Secrets. The Guardian article includes a link to the film's trailer.  I was unaware of the amendments made in 1989 by the Thatcher government to the Official Secrets Act - I include a link for anyone interested. Good job Gun had very good lawyers who spotted a loophole in this legislation. Was Gun a traitor - or a woman of immense courage and integrity? Her story was just one thread in the Iraq War narrative. So much we will not be told about that for years and years - if ever.


Truth Always Matters


https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/6/contents

Thinking of the querying of the timing of the release of information, I'd heard something about the '30 year rule'* (where matters considered sensitive can be kept under wraps by the Government until 30 years after the event) being changed eventually to a 20 year rule.  Does anyone know about the finer workings of this change?  There is always Wikipedia (which I do consult intermittently) but I've been advised (by someone in real life not the internet) that Wikipedia varies in its reliability.

*Referring to UK law.

Government has a swathe of options officially available to it to hide information from public view. Besides the Official Secrets Act cabinet papers, for example, can be subject to a timed release convention, such as you refer to. Even then papers produced at cabinet meetings, for example, fall into as many categories as any country's government procedures wish to allow. Minutes of meetings might have one protocol applying to them whereas committee reports to cabinet another. On top of that you have other criteria - matters of continuing commercial sensitivity, for example, can be deemed exempt from any protocol and even expunged from the records at any point later, though to do this intervention can mean that subsequent cabinet meetings were held in which it was decided to take this course of action, whose minutes etc are then subject to even more protocols.

On top of this you have "private" meetings involving cabinet personnel per se, normally between one or more cabinet members and a third party, for example. Cummings and people like him in the past can always therefore avail of even more methods of keeping their input indefinitely from public scrutiny if they so wish.

And lastly you have the legal concept of "in camera" and "ex camera" conversations. The latter are deemed to have been ostensibly "outside the cabinet room" when conducted, even if that's exactly where they happened. This can cover quite a lot and of course will never be released - be it because the minutes might show that one member was pissed out of their skull when they attended, that this was the time someone suggested a lively round of strip poker, or simply because that was the day Igor got invited to drop in via the table lamp and relay Putin's latest instructions.

And that's just cabinet stuff. Within the civil service there are obviously umpteen more official and even some rather unofficial methods of restricting ministerial utterances, top level meeting minutes, etc from ever making it into the public record, even if deferred until everyone had safely shuffled off their respective coils.

PS: I moved your above post LiR to where it belongs. I do not see the value of having a topic called "miscellaneous" to which you primarily contribute. If your contribution addresses a new theme and you wish to engage in conversation about it then the "new topic" option is an ample recourse to avail of. If it's genuinely whimsical and designed only to air an incidental thought which is of no potential or likely interest to anyone but yourself then the bar, like any other establishment of that nature in real life, has a stool one can avail of. We pride ourselves on our egalitarian door policy there, and have a ready supply of nuts for just such occasions.

Fair enough, nordmann.  I have seen internet forums (fora?) where which have "Miscellaneous" or "Random" threads for topics which perhaps aren't important enough for their own thread.  But "rules is rules" and I'll try to abide by 'em.  I can't promise I'll never do anything that you find goes against the grain though not deliberately.

Well, rules may be rules, but common sense is also common sense. If you have something interesting to add to a topic under discussion it's only logical to add it to the topic under discussion, don't you agree? Placing it under a separate category called "miscellaneous" is like being asked a question by someone on the street to which you have the answer, only to scarper round the corner and whisper it to a passing dog. Odd behaviour, in my view, even if the incidental dog has possibly benefited from your wisdom.