19 July 2022: MacNiven - B
The negative rapport between the SHHD and the SNBTS (Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service) was down to John Cash, it would appear, if you believed the witness. Cash was a vigorous advocate for his part of the CSA, in ways that were frustrating and tiring, apparently. He would sometimes “get the wrong end of the stick” and had to be managed. Clearly, the witness saw this as his job to take on. “If John had been a different person”, stated the witness, then went on to assert how Prof Cash could have achieved his commendable desired outcomes with less energy being expended. He hinted at the John Cash motivation being “empire building”, but he himself would not say that (so why did he say it at all?) When asked if colleagues had said it, he could not remember (… surprise, surprise). Recognising the potential banana-skin of the line of questioning, Mr MacNiven adopted a serious, brow-dropped expression, but as he certainly got his volleys off about a man who is no longer here to defend himself. And his smile-smarm returned quickly afterwards. He pre-empted a question about how this personality fractiousness might have negatively affected the SNBTS service which John Cash was responsible for, by saying that it did not. A letter was displayed where Prof Cash openly criticised Dr Forrester to Mr MacNiven’s boss. The witness had not been sent the letter. The witness refused to comment on the negative assertions on the medical competence of the witnesses’ close colleague (Forrester). He then went on to assert the manner of Dr Forrester’s reliance on researching the evidence, as opposed to Prof Cash’s tendency not to do that. (Does this count as passive-aggressive character assassination of the dead guy?) The witness described the actual issue raised by Cash as being quite “trivial”. He said the two men were “chalk and cheese” if their characters’ were to be compared.
The witness advised Counsel to call up the response document to the Cash complaint letter. Counsel said he would do that (… when he was ready). Mr MacNiven came to the role having been advised of the clashes between the two Johns. He saw himself as a close colleague of both men, so positioned himself as a conduit. This writer wonders if Prof Cash might himself respond, were he here to do so, that “With close colleagues like that, who needs enemies? To the fact as highlighted by Counsel that the witness was not himself a medic, the witness said that despite being “a mere historian”, he brought a high level of intellectual rigour to the matters at hand to be dealt with; in terms of the relationship problems and the work to be done. It must be great to know you are possessed of a superior brain compared to those with mere medical cerebral capacities, or the population in general. (Arrogant or what?) The witness pushed back against the gentle way Counsel had pressed his being in control by referring to the “letter you are about to bring up”. This witness comes across as a very slippery operator, well-versed in manipulation of narratives to suit his preferred discourse direction. If this is a masterclass, it is one steeped in the dark arts of the permanent government which is the senior civil service. (No generalised offence intended to any senior civil servants monitoring these writings.)
As Counsel was posing a question, the Chair interjected for clarity. The witness could not even respond to an exchange he was not yet part of by simply flicking his eye between the two. No, it involved him using exaggerated head movements, tennis follower like. He smilingly answered to the Chair not Counsel and referred to Counsel in his answer by his first and second name. He must see himself as being on a par with the Chair and not an Inquiry Junior Counsel. When he gave his attention back to Counsel, his answer was introduced by the laced-up wording of, “Yes, but you should remember …” Mr MacNiven must really think he is seven foot tall. Why else would he be so readily good at talking down to people?
When the questions moved from process and personalities to more of direction and delivery, his previous acknowledgement of not being medically trained was not a limiting factor to the witness waxing lyrical about the technical aspects of, for example, the scientific issues around surrogate testing. When asked about any relations with the Treasury, he told Counsel it was a hypothetical question. When asked about the veracity of something in his statement, his response was, “Well, that is why I put it in my statement”. Does the arrogance of this man know no bounds? Oh, and just in case anyone had forgotten, Mr MacNiven slipped in the 35-year time-delay factor, again.
With steeple-held hands, the witness would sometimes nod his way through a question he was clearly expecting, while still keeping a regular eye-flick to the Chair. The nod-led questions were answered with assertive confidence. Others were received with a frown and were the ones most likely to draw critique.
A contemporaneous PhD thesis by a Dr Dow was referenced in a recommendation signed by Dr Forrester not to initiate testing for non-A-non-B. The original study was criticised during the Penrose Inquiry. It could have been the origin – or one of them – of the assertion that HCV was not a serious issue. The witness was asked if he disagreed with the Penrose criticism of the Dow thesis, and he did not. He agreed that Lord Penrose’s conclusions recognised how the Dow document was used for a considerable time after it was referenced at the time of the Forrester document. Counsel asked if the witness thought the use of the Dow thesis was because it supported the referred view of SHHD. The witness thought the question was, “Putting the cart before the horse”. The witness is obviously an authority on question-setting and feels the need to give others the benefit of his ability in this dimension of being an Inquiry witness. He is the ultimate regular witness who wants to be seen as an expert witness.
The SNBTS was seen to request resources for introducing testing capacity for HCV based on their assessment of the benefits of doing so, but these were seen as “insufficiently uncertain” to justify making money available, or to involve Ministers or others higher up the tier level system. Mr MacNiven was part of making that decision. He said it was typical of how things were done due to the amount of issues the SHHD had to deal with. He had previously mentioned how the Inquiry was comprehensively covering matters related to blood issues, and so he must have done his homework in anticipation of being called to give oral evidence.
He was asked to reflect on the correctness or not of making that decision, but the question was batted away. Maybe with an eye on the clock, he prefaced, “I have no appetite for …”, then went on to refuse to answer the question. He must have seen the no-win/no-win examples by previous witnesses of trying to answer in hindsight any questions where they either have to stick to their guns or dismiss their past decisions. Like a Tory leadership contender, he must have thought that discretion was the better part of valorisation when it came to his back-catalogue of pronouncements. And speaking of appetite, it was time for the lunch-break.
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