Â鶹Éç

Good morning. Remember Musical Chairs? One chair is removed, the music stops
and everyone sits down except the one left standing who is suddenly exposed.
I was reminded of the shame of real exposure when Sir Brian Langstaff delivered his long
awaited report on the infected blood scandal. Alongside the harrowing stories of
ruined lives, was the long, long cover-up.

Doctors, researchers, civil servants, NHS officials, politicians and government
ministers repeated untruths, refused to investigate, turned the other way. All to avoid
being exposed, shamed, blamed. We can see all too clearly how some of
our most prestigious national institutions protected themselves from exposure on the
one hand while sacrificing the innocent on the other.

Could it have been otherwise? The answer must be yes. In this country we have a
respect for our institutions, which have often served us well. But we tend to forget
that healthy institutions require individuals who have a conscience, an inner sense of
right and wrong. For many of us that conscience is formed by faith: the Ten
Commandments, the Dharma, the Tao, the Golden Rule.

As we have drifted away from religion, as we have made morality personal and
optional, we seem to have quenched the voice of conscience. Instead, we listen to
the voice of authority. The elite who run our institutions too often put reputation
management first. Think of Hillsborough, think of Grenfell, think of Horizon and the
Post Office, think of the endless NHS cover-ups and denials. The elite control the
lower orders and the lower orders obey. I remember being shocked when a senior
Oxbridge figure once said to me ‘I hate whistle-blowers’, as though people
asking questions were a kind of woodworm to be destroyed to stop the roof falling in.

I have lived with institutions all my life. I narrowly avoided becoming a civil servant. I
have been part of Oxbridge. I have worked for the Â鶹Éç. I am a minister in the
Church of England. My instincts are to be loyal, but I have seen how loyalty can
corrode conscience. You can get to the point of genuinely believing that the public
good is best served by silence and denial. Yet without the voice of conscience the
roof really does fall in and destroys those who sit beneath it. Wrong doing requires
repentance, confession and a firm purpose of amendment. The Prime Minister and
the Leader of the Opposition have tried to begin that process. But it is only a
beginning. All of us, workers, patients, family members, consumers, voters, need to
relearn the practice of examining our consciences, repenting of our secret sins and
rediscovering what we were once called to be.

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