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 T H E D I S C U RSIVE
C O N S T R U C TIOON OF BLAME

The Language of Public Inquiries

JAMES MURPHY
The Discursive Construction of Blame
 James Murphy

The Discursive
Construction
of Blame
The Language of Public Inquiries
James Murphy
Bristol Centre for Linguistics
University of the West of England
Bristol, UK

ISBN 978-1-137-50721-1 ISBN 978-1-137-50722-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50722-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018942350

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 Acknowledgements

This was a project which Prof. John Wilson instigated prior to his
retirement from Ulster University and I enthusiastically accepted his
invitation to join it over dinner at a conference. John then went on to
retire more fully and responsibility for this work passed to me. I am
grateful to John for that initial invitation and for subsequent discussions.
The work has changed in all sorts of ways, though Chapter 1 has John’s
fingerprints on it, and I’m grateful to him for allowing its use here.
Needless to say, he is not to blame for any of its shortcomings!
I am grateful to my colleagues at the University of the West of
England for their support during the writing process. They have been
especially encouraging and generous with their advice. I am particularly
grateful to Dr. Kate Beeching and Prof. Richard Coates for reading over a
number of chapters and to Prof. Jonathan Charteris-Black for discussions
about blame, often in the pub after a Bristol Rovers game. Dr. Anna
Piasecki has picked up some of my slack and has been greatly encour-
aging. Harriet Castor Jeffery’s red pen was a great help, as were our
Friday afternoon G&Ts. My colleagues in Linguistics and Writing really
are a great bunch.

v
vi Acknowledgements

I also have to acknowledge the fact that this work has been completed
thanks to two stints of faculty research leave which granted me a
reduction in my teaching load, which certainly allowed me to maintain
my sanity, especially in the final stages of the writing.
Undertaking a work such as this means that the professional and
personal overlap greatly (too much!). I thank Emily McCoy for making
sure we were well looked after and for all of her support; an effort made
all the more impressive given that she’s been carrying our first child. I am
thankful also to Barbara & John McCoy for their cheerleading. My
mother, Jacqueline, has supported me in everything that I have ever
chosen to do and has always had an encouraging word when it’s been
needed. My siblings, Daniel, Craig and Rachel, despite our woeful
inability to communicate with each other, I know are always there for
me.
I dedicate this book to my late father, Martin Murphy who passed
away before the book was completed and whose effusive praise at its
publication I will sorely miss. He always showed interest, asked insightful
questions and encouraged me to be concise. I hope all of this is reflected
in the end product.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Openings: Terms, Conditions and Getting Started 17

3 Questioning 47

4 Blame Avoidance 103

5 The (Non-)Assigning of Blame 159

6 Apologising 201

7 Conclusion 267

vii
viii Contents

Appendix A: List of Public Inquiries Referred to 275

Appendix B: Terms of Reference of the Public Inquiries

Discussed in Chapter 2 279

Bibliography 295

Index 307
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Parliamentary activity and the pressure felt by the

government to establish an inquiry 19
Fig. 3.1 Woodbury’s question types and their relationship to modal
and interpersonal properties 50
Fig. 3.2 A continuum of conducivity, adapted from Fig. 8 in
Archer (2005) 53
Fig. 3.3 The order of themes in service users’ evidence 89
Fig. 4.1 Shaver’s (1985) summary of blame (his Figure 8.2) 115
Fig. 4.2 An adapted version of Shaver’s (1985) view of blame 118
Fig. 5.1 Lexical items used to carry out blame in Volume 2,
Chapter 16 (‘Who was to blame?’) of the Shipman
Inquiry (frequencies in brackets) 165
Fig. 6.1 Participation structure of a post-inquiry apology 236

ix
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Dates relating to inquiry processes 29

Table 2.2 The contents of inquiry Terms of Reference 35
Table 3.1 Question types as posed at the C. Diff Inquiry 79
Table 3.2 A comparison of inquiry and courtroom question types 79
Table 3.3 Distribution of questions for service-user witnesses vs.
hospital staff witnesses 83
Table 4.1 The top 50 keywords in the News International corpus 131
Table 4.2 Themes of keywords found in the News International
corpus 132
Table 5.1 Frequency of blame-related lexical items, per million
words 181
Table 5.2 The frequency of the top 10 verbal collocates of ‘must
have’, frequencies per million words with raw frequencies
in brackets 187
Table 5.3 The frequency of the top 10 verbal collocates of
‘should/ought to have’, frequencies per million words
with raw frequencies in brackets 190
Table 5.4 The frequency of the top 10 verbal collocates of ‘may
have’, frequencies per million words with raw frequencies
in brackets 191

xi
xii List of Tables

Table 6.1 Post-inquiry apologies analysed for this chapter 222

Table 6.2 Explicit and conventional apology tokens found
in historical apologies 249
 1
Introduction

This book is about blame and in particular how it is performed at public

inquiries. Blame has been extensively thought about by moral philoso-
phers, sociologists and psychologists, but has been investigated very little
by linguists. The public inquiry as a site of action has also been under-
studied, despite its increasing frequency in public life. This work seeks to
remedy this—by analysing the talk of actors involved in public inquiries
with a view to investigating how blame is constructed in this setting. I
will show that, despite not being explicitly performed, blame pervades the
discourse of the participants at inquiries. Unlike some, I do not see this as
a bad thing, and I hope to argue that blame is a healthy and natural part of
public life. Whilst the establishment of a blame culture can have negative
effects, these are not outweighed by the importance of accountability in
civic life. The public inquiry may be seen as the ultimate arbiter of such
accountability and I will demonstrate how this accountability emerges,
from the establishment of the inquiry panel, to the questions which are
asked of witnesses, to the evidence which those witnesses provide and to
the reports which emerge as a result of this evidence.
Having set out the broad aims of this work, in this chapter I will go into
some detail about the purpose of the public inquiry and their relationship
© The Author(s) 2019 1
J. Murphy, The Discursive Construction of Blame,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50722-8_1
2 J. Murphy

with blame (Sect. 1.1), the typical processes of inquiries (Sect. 1.2) and the
history of public inquiries as a part of civic life in the United Kingdom
(Sect. 1.3). In Sect. 1.4, I will go into some more detail about how inquiries
unfold over time and the hurdles which are encountered as the inquiry
progresses. Section 1.5 explains the general approach of the book, touching
upon the main methodological tools and theoretical ideas invoked in
the study and Sect. 1.6 outlines the structure of the work. I conclude in
Sect. 1.7 with an explanation of why I think this book is needed, and what
I seek to achieve in presenting a view of blame at public inquiries.

1.1 The Purpose of Public Inquiries

A public inquiry is an ad-hoc temporary body established by the govern-
ment for specific purposes. There are a variety of such bodies with varying
functions; some examples include Royal Commissions, Committees of
Inquiry, reviews or task forces. As the House of Commons Library note
on public inquiries puts it:

The term ‘public inquiry’ has a very broad meaning, and the history of
the British government shows that there are in fact a number of forms of
‘inquiry’ available, designed, in principle to fulfil specific functions. Some-
times the wish may be simply to establish the relevant facts, leaving their
interpretation, the allocation of ‘blame’ and recommendations for future to
other agencies such as Ministers, Parliament or the courts. In other circum-
stances it may be thought desirable that the ‘inquiry’ itself undertake these
broader, perhaps more delicate tasks. A prime purpose of some inquiries
may also be to allay public (and Parliamentary) disquiet about some public
issue or a ‘scandal’. (Briefing note SN/PC/2599 )

For the purposes of this book, however, the focus will specifically be on
those types of public inquiry which are ‘investigative’ in nature and which
have been set up in a context where something has gone seriously wrong in
terms of government procedures or actions, or where the matter has raised
issues of public concern regarding the behaviours of bodies such as the
police, the NHS and the press. Moreover, only inquiries established under
 1 Introduction 3

the terms of the Inquiries Act (2005) or its predecessor the Tribunals and
Inquiries Act (1921) are examined in this work (I will discuss these acts in
Sect. 1.3). This will ensure some level of commonality between the rules
governing the inquiries and, therefore, offers the possibility of comparison
between different inquiries.
Public inquiries are now a central part of modern political structures
not only in the UK but also Australia, New Zealand and Canada where
older colonial links have created public inquiry models very similar to
those found in the UK. But outside such connections the overall concept
of the public inquiry is also central to other developed democracies, for
example the USA has its own forms of investigation such as Presidential
Committees and Congressional Committees.
Public inquiries were first instituted with the central aim of:

establishing the facts…the modern model of the public inquiry often has
as its central (but not only) question, ‘what happened?’. And further it also
functions to ‘identify wrongdoing, blameworthy conduct, or culpability by
individuals and organs of the state’. (Beer 2011: 2)

Contrast this, however, with the then Government’s view expressed to a

2004 parliamentary commission that the purpose of a public inquiry was
‘to prevent recurrence…and learn lessons, not to apportion blame’ (House
of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, Government by
Inquiry, Evidence 29, iii, my emphasis).
These two sets of aims seem potentially contradictory or at the very
least in conflict with one another, after all given that public inquiries are
called where something has gone wrong how does one identify culpability
without apportioning blame? Furthermore, how does one learn lessons
and avoid recurrence without accepting that what did occur was wrong
or should not have happened? In stating that something is wrong, if one
shows that someone can be held responsible for such negative actions or
outcomes, is this not a form of blame? From the Government’s viewpoint
it seems that ‘facts’ should be neutral, i.e. person X did action Y; the
perspective of some inquiries is that it is not so simple as to say that X did
Y, but that Y is a negative action which X is responsible for and therefore
to blame for. Views of what blame is do differ, but a straightforward way
4 J. Murphy

of thinking about it is that it sees a speaker assigning responsibility for an

action considered to be negative to a hearer or third party. As such, any act
which identifies culpability is surely also an act which blames. Describing
an act as one which needs to change surely allows a hearer to infer that
the act is a negative one. I shall return to these complexities around blame
in Chapters 4 and 5. I will also consider the delicate Terms of Reference
which inquiries are given which have in mind these conflicting views in
the next chapter. But these initial thoughts should plant the seed of an
issue which will emerge in this book: blame is something which can be,
and is, carried out indirectly.

1.2 The Process of Public Inquiries

In most cases public inquiries are chaired by a judge, although this is not
necessary. The chair of an inquiry is not tasked with assessing innocence or
guilt, that is the function of the courts. At the start of the Chilcot Inquiry
into the Iraq War, the matter was put in this way:
(1) Sir John Chilcot’s statement to the press: 30 July 2009
1 As I have said before, we are not a court or an inquest or a statutory inquiry; and our
2 processes will reflect that difference. No one is on trial. We cannot determine guilt or
3 innocence. Only a court can do that. But I make a commitment here that once we get to
4 our final report, we will not shy away from making criticisms where they are warranted.

Nevertheless, whether chaired by a judge or not, and Chilcot’s comments

notwithstanding, most such investigative inquiries take on a quasi-legal
status, and although they are said to be less adversarial rather than pros-
ecutorial in nature, their organisation, procedural production and ques-
tioning patterns, as well as the overall style/register of the language used
places them within a set of recognisable legally-based, if not legally bound,
activities. One of the aims of this book is to examine where the language
of inquiries is marked as being distinctive from prosecutorial (criminal)
forms of courtroom talk and how this relates to the construction of blame
and responsibility. I will take up this aspect in Chapter 3.
In this case, and like most legal or legally influenced activities, public
inquiries are dependent on ‘language’. As Tiersma puts it:
 1 Introduction 5

any legal activity, such as settling disputes, making contracts, or providing

for what happens to your possessions after you die, presupposes the existence
of a sophisticated system of communication, which is another way of saying
that such legal activities require language. (Tiersma 2009: 11)

It is a fundamental claim of this book that language is central to the

nature of public inquiries and that they may be seen as discursive activities.
That is to say, they are forms of talk in which the organisation, processes,
understanding and outcome of public inquiries may be analysed in terms
of units of language which are packaged—often as discrete discourse struc-
tures: e.g. openings and closings; sequential patterns: e.g. questions and
answers; or individual actions: e.g. accounts, justifications, and apologies.
Consider, by way of introductory example, the following extract from
the Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press:
(2) Leveson Inquiry Oral Evidence Day 64. Lord Justice Leveson
= LJL
1 LJL: On Monday afternoon I said this: “I understand the very real public
2 interest in the issues that will be ventilated by the evidence. I also
3 recognise the freedom that permits what is said to be discussed and
4 the subject of comment in whatever way is thought fit, and I shall be
5 interested to see how it is covered. For my part, I shall approach the
6 relationship between the press and politicians from an entirely non-
7 partisan judicial perspective, which I have no doubt is the reason that
8 I was given this remit. I would hope that this approach will be made
9 clear”. When I said those words, I had in mind some of the evidence
10 that I anticipated we would hear, including that which we did in
11 fact hear yesterday. In the light of the reaction and considerable
12 commentary last night and this morning, it’s appropriate for me to
13 say a little more. This necessarily involves explaining something of
14 the judicial process.

We can notice, without the need for invoking any linguistic theory at
this stage, several things about this short extract. Its quasi-legal style is
clear in several ways, not least of which is Leveson’s own use of the term
‘judicial’ both in judicial perspective and judicial process. But the level of
formality used is also noteworthy—both lexically, as in the interesting
used of ‘ventilate’ as found in will be ventilated by the evidence and the use
of grammatical complexity in lines 2–5 for example, which includes both
embedding and conjunction of clauses. In that same extract, note also the
6 J. Murphy

use of the auxiliary ‘shall’ which is preferred in more formal genres over
the more commonly used ‘will’ (Biber et al. 1999: 148ff.).
Finally, consider the way in which Leveson uses direct quotation to
refer to what he said previously (line 1 introduces this). This is a verbatim
account, readily available from previous recordings and transcripts. This
differs from more informal use where our direct quotations are often more
ad-hoc paraphrases, e.g. quotatives such as: I was like, and the expectation
of our interlocutors is that what we are reporting is not a completely
verbatim account (see Buchstaller and van Alphen 2012). This is clearly
something which Leveson is keen to avoid by referring and evidencing
what he said, word-for-word.
In this informal assessment of a brief extract from one of the inquiries
which I will return to later in this book, we can see some of the things
that will be explored in what follows. Many such things we will look at in
more technical detail. For now though, let us consider briefly how public
inquiries have emerged over time and consider their inexorable rise such
that they are now a key feature of the political and social landscape.

1.3 A Potted History of the Public Inquiry

Since 2005 public inquiries have been carried out under the auspices of
the Inquiries Act (2005), which replaced the Tribunals and Inquiries Act
(1921). Before the advent of either act, most investigations into wrong-
doing or government failings were conducted ‘in house’ by Parliamentary
Select Committees of Inquiry—specially convened groups of parliamen-
tarians who were able to call for evidence, examine witnesses and hold
ministers to account (see Thomas 1971: 14–44).
This system, of the legislature investigating the wrongs of the executive,
was replaced following the Marconi affair in 1912 and its investigation by
a Parliamentary Select Committee of Inquiry. The Marconi Company was
alleged to have made corrupt payments to the government in order to ben-
efit from a deal to build telegraphy systems across the British Empire. The
investigation which followed saw government members of the committee
(who were the majority) produce a report which exonerated the ministers
implicated. As Beer notes, it ‘was this unsatisfactory outcome that led to
 1 Introduction 7

the replacement of Parliamentary Committees with public inquiries’ (Beer

2011: 6).
The replacement of this approach was the Tribunals and Inquiries Act
(1921). This allowed a motion to be lodged by any parliamentarian to
establish an inquiry independent of government to be established, if this
was agreed to by a vote in both the House of Commons and the House of
Lords. This meant that parliamentary time had to be found to debate the
motion, and since the executive has control over the majority of business
presented before parliament, this could be made difficult. That aside,
the power to institute an inquiry laid with all parliamentarians and not
just members of the Executive (this is very different to the Inquiries Act
2005). The Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1921 allowed for an investigation
to made either privately or publicly and the constitution of the inquiry’s
panel could be decided during the debate on whether to hold an inquiry
(and could be changed by seeking an amendment to the main motion). In
its history, 24 inquiries were carried out using the 1921 act. Three of those
are examined in this book: the Cullen Inquiry, The Shipman Inquiry and
the Bloody Sunday Inquiry (see Appendix A for more details on these).
More information on the 1921 act can be found in Keeton (1960).
Beer (2011: 23) outlines the reasons which were presented for replacing
the 1921 act with the new Inquiries Act 2005. These included a need for a
clearer framework for the conduct of inquiries, issues which arose because
of devolution to the nations, and some concerns about the cost of tribunals.
The main difference between the two acts is that the 2005 act allows only
a minister to establish a public inquiry. This means that parliament does
not get to introduce a motion to hold a public inquiry and is reliant on
the executive establishing an inquiry. We will see in Chapter 2 how MPs
may lobby for an inquiry using parliamentary means, but nonetheless,
the establishment of an inquiry is in the gift of a minister. That executive
power extends to who is asked to chair the inquiry and sit on its panel;
there is no necessity for parliamentary involvement or approval in these
matters either. Furthermore, the timescale of an inquiry is determined
by the minister, rather than the panel and the minister is empowered
to terminate an inquiry before it has completed its work. The level of
executive power allowed for in the Inquiries Act 2005 has been strongly
criticised and this is summarised by Beer (2011: 24ff.). The processes
8 J. Murphy

found in the 2005 act are a clear departure from the 1921 act, and some
have questioned how independent an inquiry can truly be when so much
power is invested in the government. This is not a matter for this book,
but it can have a bearing on the work the government has to do to ensure
an inquiry has credibility and this is something which I will pick up again
in the next chapter.

1.4 A Standard Timeline for Public Inquiries

It almost goes without saying that each public inquiry is different—they
are led by different people,1 they inquire into different events which came
about in vastly different circumstances and in different areas of public life,
etc. However, some generalisations can be made about what happens and
when in relation to the establishment and conduct of a public inquiry.

0. The ‘wrong’—the incident or incidents which trigger the need for

an inquiry. The length of time between this trigger and the following
stages is massively variable (see Sect. 2.3 for some indication of this).
1. Public disquiet—campaign groups may be formed to both support
people affected by the wrong, but also to lobby for a proper investi-
gation into its causes and handling (this investigation may include a
public inquiry, if the matter is considered serious and/or if previous
investigations have been unsatisfactory).
2. Parliamentary moves—individual MPs with affected constituents
and/or who are supportive of the campaign groups may raise the need
for a public inquiry in questions, debates and emergency debates in
parliament. The nature of these moves is discussed in the next chapter.
3. Announcement of an inquiry—the government may concede that
a public inquiry is necessary and the minister will then announce its
establishment by making a statement in parliament.

1 Forthe most part at least—some inquiry leads are considered successful and invited to conduct
subsequent (related) public inquiries. For instance, Michael Redfern QC led the 2000 inquiry into
unauthorised organ retention at the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and was invited to chair the
Redfern Inquiry into organ retention in the civil nuclear industry in 2007.
 1 Introduction 9

4. First hearing of the inquiry—after preparatory work which goes on

behind the scenes (including finding a chair and agreeing Terms of
Reference, also discussed in the next chapter), the inquiry will hold an
initial public hearing in which it outlines what will be investigated. It
will call for interested parties to come forward with information that
will help in its inquiry and will set out a timeline which the inquiry
will aim to follow.
5. Collection of written documentation—the inquiry seems to go quiet
after this initial hearing, but behind the scenes documents are col-
lected, collated and interrogated. Summonses requiring the disclosure
of evidence may be issued.
6. Announcement of core participants—following this huge endeavour
of synthesising written evidence, the key witnesses who will be required
to give further evidence to the inquiry will be informed of their status
as core participants.
7. Hearings to collect oral evidence—hearings take place to collect
oral evidence. These are most often public, but can be held in camera.
Questions are usually asked on the basis of written submissions. This
aspect of the inquiry will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.
8. Correspondence with participants for further information/
clarification—if necessary, further clarification can be sought from
witnesses in writing. This may particularly happen if a later witness
brings evidence which requires a previous witness to clarify a com-
ment. The initial witness may be recalled to give further oral evidence,
but it is often sufficient for them to provide a written response.
9. Writing of the report—on the basis of the evidence presented to the
panel, the chair (along with other panel members) writes the inquiry
report.
10. Writing to those criticised—before the report is published, a warning
letter must be sent to those who are criticised in the report which offers
them the right to reply. This reply may trigger a redrafting of the report,
or may simply be published in the final report, or may be dismissed
entirely. Moreover, the inquiry is only obligated to provide warning
letters to those who are criticised. Beer (2011: Chapter 9C) discusses
this process in more detail.
10 J. Murphy

11. Publication of the report—the report is published and the minister

who established the Inquiry lays a copy of the report before parliament.
There is usually a ministerial statement of the report and a debate at
a later date. These matters are discussed in Chapter 6.

I will seek to show that the construction of blame is something which is

done throughout the process of the public inquiry—from its establishment
to its reporting. I will show that at various stages this is done implicitly
rather than explicitly.

1.5 Approach of This Book

This is probably the right point to stress to the reader that this investigation
into blame at public inquiries does not concern itself with the Critical
Discourse Analysis (CDA) agenda, as presented by some practitioners.
The task which many CDA analysts set themselves is to:

produce and convey critical knowledge that enables human beings to eman-
cipate themselves from forms of domination through self-reflection. (Wodak
and Meyer 2009: 7)

While a noble aim, it is not one I share. Firstly because, like Widdow-
son (1998) and Geis (1987), I think this view contains an unfortunate
presupposition, namely that ‘ordinary’ users of the language require the
intervention of a CDA practitioner to spot the particular uses of language
by public figures (usually politicians, but establishment figures more gen-
erally, to which group inquiry chairs would certainly belong). This clearly
has the unwanted side-effect of elevating the analyst’s interpretation over
those made by other members of the speech community.
The other common critique is summarised by Joseph: ‘because CDA has
its own strong political commitments, it does not provide any ‘objective’
analysis of texts but a politically interested analysis’ (Joseph 2006: 130).
Of course, the rebuttal many CDA practitioners would give here is that
there is no such thing as objectivity and, as Breeze alludes to in her review
of CDA and its critics, it might be suggested that ‘by not taking a critical
 1 Introduction 11

stance, they [those espousing ‘acritical’ approaches – JJM] are taking side
with the existing hegemonies, guilty of precluding the necessary social
critique, and thereby of collusion or of furthering the reproduction of
an unjust social order’ (Breeze 2011: 518). Breeze suggests this to be ‘a
form of ideological manipulation, a way of disqualifying the competition’
(Breeze 2011: 519).
Elsewhere the quality of analyses produced in CDA has been scruti-
nised, with some suggesting that too narrow a range of analytical tools is
used and that developments in linguistic theory have been neglected in
the textual analyses produced (see for instance: Billig 2002; Verschueren
2001; Widdowson 1998). This has led, in Verschueren’s opinion, to a
type of discourse analysis which is ‘the product of conviction rather than
the result of a careful step-by-step analysis that reflexively questions its
own observations and conclusions’ (Verschueren 2001: 65). I endeavour
to use a variety of linguistically informed theories in this book, which,
it is hoped, will prevent such a criticism being levelled at the analyses
contained herein.
So if this work is not concerned with the emancipation of the oppressed,
what is its purpose? Here I believe that Wilson’s view of political language
can be applied to the language of inquiry participants and chairs too and
that:

[t]he question that is interesting from the linguistic point of view is how did
they do it [i.e. use language –JJM], not whether they should have done it
or not. In classic terms, we are interested in describing what happened, not
in prescribing what should happen. In order to understand what politicians
do with language it is important to understand what it is possible to do with
language in general. (Wilson 1990: 15)

I propose to do this using a variety of approaches and methods: exploring

lexical semantics, presupposition, conversational implicature, the notion
of the speech act and activity types. I do this using traditional text linguistic
methods, as well as corpus linguistic methods. Rather than discussing and
justifying these approaches here, I will explain concepts and methods as
they arise in each chapter. Eclecticism is something which, I argue, is to
be favoured when exploring the various speech events which make up the
12 J. Murphy

public inquiry. I hope to show that this eclecticism can be, and is in this
case, principled.
This work, then, aims to describe what public figures do with language,
albeit with a narrower focus than that found in Wilson (1990). In partic-
ular, I will spend time looking at the resources used by language users to
construct blame. I will occasionally indulge in a discussion of the benefits
or otherwise of blame and will conclude the book with some observa-
tions about how the process of public inquiries may be changed. I hope
the reader will forgive such indulgence which is, in part, motivated in
Sect. 1.7.

1.6 Structure of This Book

The structure of this book seeks to mirror insofar as possible the timeline
of the inquiry discussed in Sect. 1.4.
In Chapter 2, I will look at the processes involved in establishing a
public inquiry. I will consider the different parliamentary routes which
are open to MPs to lobby for the establishment of an inquiry. I will also
examine the lexical semantics of the Terms of Reference which inquiries
are tasked with, discussing how these make it possible for blame to emerge
at the end of the public inquiry.
In Chapter 3, I will discuss questioning patterns during the oral evi-
dence giving stage of an inquiry. I will show how these are different from
those produced during criminal trials and how this helps to establish
the inquiry as a different speech event within a broader genre of legally-
informed discourse. I seek to investigate how witnesses who may be blame-
able are treated by counsel to the inquiry as compared to witnesses who
are blameless. In so doing, this is likely to give us a better understanding of
how blame is viewed by the participants of inquiries, as well as the panel
conducting the inquiry.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal most directly with blame. In Chapter 4, I will
show how witnesses seek to pre-emptively avoid blame when giving oral
evidence. This will provide us with an insight into what blame is, its
component parts and conflicting views on the definition of blame. I will
also attempt to disentangle justifications, explanations and accounts and
 1 Introduction 13

demonstrate the linguistic means through which these ‘moves’ are per-
formed.
I will move on to looking at the reports of public inquiries in Chapter 5.
Here, I will demonstrate the ways in which public inquiries go about
blaming. I will show that, for the most part, this is done implicitly—
using implicature, rather than explicitly. I will explore whether blame can
be described as a speech act and will try to provide an account for the lack
of explicit performativity. This account will stem from the meta-awareness
which inquiry chairs bring to bear on blame; it is something which many
view as negative and to be avoided. I will conclude that chapter with a
discussion of why blame can be a positive thing.
In the final substantive chapter (Chapter 6), I will abandon the sequen-
tial organisation of the rest of the book to focus on one particular speech
act—apologies—and how they relate to blame. I will argue that apolo-
gies can be motivated by: a desire to avoid blame; a view that blame is
inevitable and so needs to be mitigated; having already been blamed. I
will focus particularly on apologies as government responses to public
inquiries and how they can be seen as a means of legitimising the work of
an inquiry.
Chapter 7 will conclude with a summary of the findings, a discussion
of the value of public inquiries and some suggestions for changes to their
processes.
In terms of the inquiries I plan to deal with, this will vary from chapter
to chapter, depending on the aims each. The initial substantive chapter,
for instance, which covers the Terms of Reference found in inquiries will
look at the 25 most recent public inquiries in general terms. The follow-
ing chapter on questioning will focus on one of those (Inquiry into the
Outbreak of Clostridium Difficile in the Northern Hospitals). Chapter 4
focusses on blame avoidance by some witnesses called before the Leveson
Inquiry. The final two chapters take examples from various inquiry reports
and government responses to four public inquiries. The choice of which
inquiry to look at for each topic has, for the most part, been a pragmatic
one. It relates to what data was available and in what form. For instance,
some of the data were already in machine-readable format requiring only a
little ‘cleaning’ and so these were used in chapters which called for corpus-
assisted techniques. Others were less ‘tidy’ and so were used when such
14 J. Murphy

techniques were not being applied and when an interactional linguistic

approach was called for.

1.7 Purpose of This Book

Given the prevalence of public inquiries—and the general interest in
them—it is surprising that so little has been written about them, and
particularly about the language used during them. This book seeks to
remedy this lack of discussion.
One of the main purposes of this book, however, is to begin addressing
some of the concerns that families often share about public inquiries: they
can often feel re-victimised when an inquiry does not come to conclu-
sions which they see as obvious from the evidence provided. Often this
comes about from a clash of expectations: families want to find out who
was at fault, i.e. they want to see responsible parties blamed, but inquiry
chairs are often reluctant to do this (possibly for fear of prejudicing future
criminal/civil action(s) or because it is not explicitly stated in the Terms
of Reference).
In this regard, the purpose of this book is two-fold. Firstly, to raise
awareness of these constraints on inquiries with a view to making sug-
gestions of changes to the inquiry process. Secondly, I seek to offer an
exploration of how blame is done at inquiries, albeit implicitly and in a
way which may be unsatisfactory to families. To borrow from Lord Justice
Leveson in example 2, I aim in this book to ventilate issues which are of
public interest.

References
Beer, Jason. 2011. Public inquiries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, and Edward
Finegan. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Essex: Pearson.
Billig, Michael. 2002. Critical discourse analysis and the rhetoric of critique. In
Critical discourse analysis: Theory and interdisciplinarity, ed. Gilbert Weiss and
Ruth Wodak, 35–46. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
 1 Introduction 15

Breeze, Ruth. 2011. Critical discourse analysis and its critics. Pragmatics 21:
493–525.
Buchstaller, Isabelle, and Ingrid van Alphen. 2012. Preface: Introductory remarks
on new and old quotatives. In Quotatives: Cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary
perspectives, ed. Isabelle Buchstaller and Ingrid van Alphen, xi–xxx. Amsterdam:
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Keeton, George. 1960. Trial by tribunal: A study of the development and functioning
of the tribunal of inquiry. London: Museum Press.
Thomas, Peter. 1971. The House of Commons in the eighteenth century. Oxford:
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Tiersma, Peter. 2009. What is language and law? And does anyone care. Loyola
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58–81.
Widdowson, Henry. 1998. The theory and practice of critical discourse analysis:
A review article. Applied Linguistics 19: 136–151.
Wilson, John. 1990. Politically speaking: The pragmatic analysis of political lan-
guage. Oxford: Blackwell.
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agenda, theory and methodology. In Methods of critical discourse analysis, ed.
Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 1–34. London: Sage.
 2
Openings: Terms, Conditions and Getting
Started

2.1 Introduction
As I explained in the previous chapter, public inquiries are a not
uncommon feature of civic life which under the Inquiries Act (2005)
are commissioned by the sitting Prime Minister or the appropriate Secre-
tary of State (or their equivalent in the devolved nations and regions). This
was a change from the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act (1921) which
allowed for backbench Members of Parliament (MPs) to call a vote on a
proposal for an inquiry—now the decision to hold a public inquiry lies
entirely in the hands of the Executive. The effect of this shifting of power
to the government is something which we shall explore in this chapter.
The nature and conduct of public inquires depends greatly on the panel
chosen to conduct it and is particularly determined by its chair1 who has
the authority to carry out the investigation in any way s/he chooses. The
chair of the inquiry is usually a senior judge, a (former) civil servant or
an expert in the field. A further feature which separates a public inquiry

1 I shall use the term chair in place of chairman which is used invariably in the Official Report of
House of Commons business (Hansard).

© The Author(s) 2019 17

J. Murphy, The Discursive Construction of Blame,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50722-8_2
18 J. Murphy

from another type of formal investigation into (potential) wrongdoing is

its independence from government (once it is established at least) and its
ability to call any witness of the chair’s choosing.
Given the often controversial nature of events deemed to merit such
formal investigation, it should be unsurprising that the establishment of
an inquiry may be resisted and/or vociferously campaigned for. The first
section of this chapter will explore how parliamentarians lobby for and
argue against the instituting of a public inquiry and how these debates
play into the discourse of blame.
I then consider the timing of inquiries and how this relates to the events
themselves and the lobbying for such an investigation (Sect. 2.3).
In Sect. 2.4, I move on to outlining the formal means by which an
inquiry is established, through a written or oral statement in the House
of Commons.
From these procedural aspects, I discuss in Sect. 2.5 the first steps that
an inquiry takes once it has been set up by the minister responsible. In
particular, I will consider how ministers justify their choice of chair (and
other members of the panel) and why this process—which I shall call
legitimisation—is carried out at all.
In addition to this, I will outline how the Terms of Reference for an
inquiry—a result of negotiation between the minister responsible and the
chair—frame the public inquiry and how it will proceed. I also consider
the verbal semantics of such Terms of Reference in Sect. 2.6.
Through these discussions I hope to shed light on the processes involved
in the establishment of a public inquiry. In addition, I seek to demonstrate
that the current processes are unsatisfactory as a means for members of
the public to seek justice and get to the truth, since they are, for the most
part, excluded from the processes.

2.2 Seeking an Inquiry

When it comes to seeking a public inquiry, I have noted that campaigns
are often launched and are multi-faceted, such that pressure is brought to
bear on politicians through the media, grassroots campaigns and petitions,
 2 Openings: Terms, Conditions and Getting Started 19

Written question Less pressure

Oral question at a ministerial question-time
Contribution in debate ↓
Oral question at Prime Minister’s Questions
Staging an emergency debate More pressure

Fig. 2.1 Parliamentary activity and the pressure felt by the government to establish
an inquiry

as well as through questioning and debates in parliament. It is these latter

two avenues for seeking an inquiry which I shall take up here.
There are a variety of parliamentary routes available to backbench MPs
to campaign for public inquiries and they seem to exist on a cline of how
much pressure the MP is seeking to bring to bear. Figure 2.1 highlights
the cline.
I come to this cline on the basis of (i) how public the activities are
and, related, (ii) how easy the calls are for the minister to provide a neg-
ative response to. Whilst there has been a great deal of work on how the
government seeks to persuade (see amongst many others Charteris-Black
(2011, 2014) and chapters in Mutz et al. (1996)), there has been far less
done on what persuades the government. I seek to explore this in relation
to lobbying for a public inquiry and provide examples of each type of
(parliamentary) action which can be used to this end.

2.2.1 Written Questions

Written questions (or more formally, ‘Questions for written answer’) are
exactly that—questions asked of a minister by an MP which will be
responded to in writing. An MP can ask for the question to be answered
by a particular day, but that does not guarantee an answer is substantive
in nature—indeed a frequent response to such questions is that they ‘will
be answered as soon as possible’. There is a general expectation that an
answer will be provided in 7 days, but there is nothing to enforce this, or
to ensure that a question is answered in a substantive way. In other words,
20 J. Murphy

the Speaker of the House of Commons does not police the content of
written answers.
An example of a written question relating to the pursuit of a public
inquiry can be seen below. I have highlighted a number of aspects for
further discussion:
(3) Written question – Hansard 6 Feb 2012, Column 27W
1 Robert Flello: ((To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if ))a ((he will es-
2 tablish a public inquiry into the cause of deaths in custody in young
3 offenders’ institutions and measures to reduce and prevent them))b
4 Mr Blunt: Every death in prison is a tragedy and affects families, staff and other
5 prisoners deeply. ((Ministers and the Ministry of Justice in-
6 cluding the National Offender Management Service are committed
7 to learning from such events to reduce the number of self inflicted
8 deaths in prison custody))c . ((Deaths in custody are among the most
9 scrutinised of all events in custody. All deaths in prison are subject
10 to a police investigation, a coroner’s inquest before a jury and an
11 independent investigation by the Prison and Probation Ombudsman.
12 In addition, there will be a Serious Case Review, commissioned by
13 the relevant Local Safeguarding Children’s Board, into each of the
14 recent deaths of the two young people))d .
15 ((It is established practice for investigators to share emerging find-
16 ings so that any immediate actions necessary can be taken to reduce
17 the likelihood of further deaths))e .

The first point to note here is that the opening of the question (extract a)
is, as we will see later with other aspects of parliamentary language, a set
formula which has to be followed in order for the question to be tabled.
Also noteworthy when it comes to my argument about the pressure felt by
the government is that whilst the question is asked of the Secretary of State
(i.e. the most senior minister in the particular government department), it
is usual that it will be answered by the junior ministers in the department.
As such, the call for an inquiry can, to some extent, be ignored by those
with the power to establish such an inquiry—indeed, it may be that the
call is not even seen by the Secretary of State meaning little pressure is
brought to bear by the written question.
There is further prescription in the format of written questions
which also means that they bring less pressure to bear on the government
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Sculpture
Van Dieren, B. Epstein. (F ’21)
Sea fisheries. Jenkins, J. T. (F ’21)
Sea power
Stevens, W: O., and Westcott, A. F. History of
sea power. (Ja ’21)
Sea power in American history. Krafft, H., F:, and
Norris, W. B. (F ’21)
Seaborne trade. Fayle, C: E. (F ’21)
Searchers. Foster, J: (Ag ’20)
Second latchkey. Williamson, C: N. and A. M. (Je
’20)
Secret battle. Herbert, A. P. (Mr ’20)
Secret corps. Tuohy, F. (F ’21)
Secret of everyday things. Fabre, J. H. C. (N ’20)
Secret of Sarek. Leblanc, M. (Je ’20)
Secret of the sea. Allison, W: (Ap ’20)
Secret of the silver car. Martyn, W. (Je ’20)
Secret spring. Benoit. P. (Je ’20)
Secret springs. O’Higgins, H. J. (D ’20)
Secrets of Crewe house. Stuart, C. (F ’21)
Secrets of dethroned royalty. Radziwill, C. (S ’20)
Secrets of earth and sea. Lankester, E. R. (Ja ’21)
Seeing the Far West. Faris, J: T. (D ’20)
Seeing the West. Dumbell, K. E. M. (O ’20)
Seen on the stage. Hamilton, C. M. (Ja ’21)
Seine river
Dodd, A. B. Up the Seine to the battlefields. (Je
’20)
Selected articles on modern industrial
movements. Bloomfield, D., comp. (Ag ’20)
Selected articles on national defense. Johnsen, J.
E., comp. (F ’21)
Selected articles on problems of labor. Bloomfield,
D., comp, and ed. (Ap ’20)
Selected articles on the American merchant
marine. Phelps, E. M., comp. (Mr ’20)
Selected articles on the compulsory arbitration
and compulsory investigation of industrial
disputes. Beman, L. T., comp. (N ’20)
Selected articles on the employment of women.
Bullock, E. D., comp. (Mr ’20)
Selected poems. Sackville, M. (N ’20)
Selections. Swinburne, A. C: (D ’20)
Self-health as a habit. Miles, E. H. (D ’20)
Self-help in piano study. Brower, H. M. (F ’21)
Self-training. Hunt, H. E. (Je ’20)
Selling your services. Gunion, P. C. (Je ’20)
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, c 4. B.C.-A.D. 65
Holland, F. C. Seneca. (Jl ’20)
September. Swinnerton, F. A. (Mr ’20)
Serbia
Social life and customs
Davies, E. C. Boy in Serbia. (O ’20)
Serbian poetry
Kossovo: heroic songs of the Serbs. (Ag ’20)
Sermons
Banks, L: A. Winds of God. (F ’21)
Newton chapel. Newton theological institution.
(Jl ’20)
Service of love in war time. Jones, R. (N ’20)
Seven men. Beerbohm, M. (D ’20)
Seven o’clock stories. Anderson, R. G. (Ja ’21)
Seven wives of Bluebeard. France, A., pseud. (F
’21)
Seventeenth century. Boulenger, J. (Ag ’20)
Severn river
Bradley, A. G. Book of the Severn. (N ’20)
Sex
Fielding, W: J: Sanity In sex. (Jl ’20)
Galbraith, A. M. Family and the new democracy.
(Mr ’10)
Lay, W. Man’s unconscious passion. (F ’21)
Sex-education of children. Forbush, W: B. (Ap
’20)
Sex hygiene
Gallichan, W. M. Letters to a young man on love
and health. (O ’20)
Sex Instruction
Blanchard, P. M. Adolescent girl. (Ag ’20)
Forbush, W: B. Sex-education of children. (Ap
’20)
March, N. H. Towards racial health. (Ap ’20)
Shadow. Ovington, M. W. (Ap ’20)
Shadow-shapes. Sergeant, E. S. (Ja ’21)
Shadow-show. Curle, J. H. (Jl ’20)
Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616
Furness, H. H. Gloss of youth. (N ’20)
Odell, G: C. D. Shakespeare from Betterton to
Irving. (Ja ’21)
Authorship
Looney, J. T: “Shakespeare” identified. (Jl
’20)
Criticism and Interpretation
Stoll, E. E. Hamlet. (Je ’20)
Shakespeare for community players. Mitchell, R.
(Jl ’20)
Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving. Odell, G: C.
D. (Ja ’21)
“Shakespeare” identified. Looney, J. T: (Jl ’20)
She who was Helena Cass. Rising, L. (N ’20)
Sheepskins and grey russet. Thurston, E. T. (Je
’20)
Sheila and others. Cotter, W. (Ja ’21)
Sheila intervenes. McKenna, S. (Ap ’20)
Shell-shock. See Shock
Shepherd of the sea. Leverage, H: (Mr ’20)
Shining fields and dark towers. Bunker, J: J. L.
(Mr ’20)
Ship “Tyre.” Schoff, W. H. (F ’21)
Shipping
Annin, R. E. Ocean shipping. (Ag ’20)
Huebner, G. G. T. Ocean steamship traffic
management. (Ag ’20)
Ships across the sea. Paine, R. D. (Je ’20)
Ships’ boats. Blocksidge, E. W. (D ’20)
Shock
Southard, E. E. Shell-shock and other
neuropsychiatric problems. (S ’20)
Shoemaker’s apron. Fillmore, P. H. (N ’20)
Shooting
Caswell, J: Sporting rifles and rifle shooting. (S
’20)
Short and sweet. Gittins, H. N. (S ’20)
Short history of Belgium. Essen, L. van der. (Ap
’20)
Short history of the American labor movement.
Beard, M. (Je ’20)
Short history of the great war. McPherson, W: L
(Je ’20)
Short history of the great war. Pollard, A. F: (Jl
’20)
Short history of the Italian people. Trevelyan, J. P.
(Je ’20)
Short life of Mark Twain. Paine, A. B. (D ’20)
Short stories
Bibliography
O’Brien, E: J. H., ed. Best short stories of
1919. (Ap ’20)
Short stories from the Spanish. McMichael. C: B.,
tr. (D ’20)
Shuttered doors. Hicks Beach, S. E. (Je ’20)
Siberia
Moore, F: F. Siberia today. (My ’20)
Sicily
Social life and customs
Heaton, E. O. By-paths in Sicily. (D ’20)
Sickness of an acquisitive society. Eng title of
Acquisitive society. Tawney, R: H: (Ja ’21)
Side issues. Jeffery, J. E. (N ’20)
Sigurd our golden collie. Bates, K. L. (Ap ’20)
Silence of Colonel Bramble. Maurois, A. (Jl ’20)