THIS column was born more by accident than by design. I was in huge trouble after giving a journalist from The Observer newspaper a copy of the minutes from a visit to the microbiological and chemical defence research establishments at Porton Down, Wiltshire, by the first Select Committee on Science and Technology. The journalist in question, the late Lawrence Marks, was in no way at fault. I had not realised that these minutes had not gone through the procedure by which the Accounting Officer checks the evidence.
All hell broke loose. I became the last MP to be arraigned at the Bar of the House of Commons and for Mr Speaker to don his black cap and formally rebuke me. I came within an inch of being expelled from the House. Only 35 years later did it transpire that the procedural overreaction was because, through my inquisitiveness, I might have stumbled on what Porton was up to in the 1950s and early 1960s. It was giving sarin to National Service volunteers who had been told they were helping research into the common cold.
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Most of the press condemned me as being anything from foolish to traitorous. But one person didn鈥檛, namely, the late Donald Gould, 快猫短视频鈥榮 editor. 鈥淢y readers are more concerned with the substance of the rights and wrongs of chemical and biological weapons than parliamentary mumbo-jumbo,鈥� he wrote offering a page in the magazine to put my side of the affair. The following week he said 快猫短视频 readers were interested in what I had to say. 鈥淲ould you write another column piece on a subject of your choice?鈥� I offered him an article on pneumoconiosis and 快猫短视频 began its regular column from Westminster on 30 January 1969: p 239 to be precise. It has been running ever since.
No contract was drawn up, though I was paid for what I wrote. 快猫短视频 could have sacked me at any time without warning. However, it was my good fortune to gain much from this association. Politicians tend to be cavalier with fact. I am not.
This is due in no small part to the various members of this magazine鈥檚 editorial team who have looked after all I have written and have put it to careful scrutiny: 鈥淗ow do you know that?鈥� 鈥淎re you sure of your facts?鈥� 鈥淲hat exactly will our readers interpret from this?鈥� 鈥淲hat is the provenance of that?鈥� It was a unique experience and I shall always be grateful. If only governments could be subjected to this kind of scrutiny.
