The Home Secretary and the Parish Priest

This does not show Charles Clarke in a good light. A parish priest, one of Mr Clarke's constituents asked him a question and got a negative response. Here's how the good reverent's daughter, a survivor of the London bombings, tells it;

"My father tells me he at this point left his seat and strode up to Clarke, because he wanted to ask his question, and he said,

''Congratulations on fixing the meeting so that nobody can ask questions! You will have heard about Rev Julie Nicholson who is so angry she cannot forgive the bombers who killed her daughter on 7th July , well, I have a question, my daughter was feet away from the 7/7 Kings Cross bomb, and she and some other surivors have said they are not angry with the bombers, but with the Government, because there was no public enquiry. Why is there no public enquiry?''

Charles Clarke looked at my father ''in a very nasty way'', and then he said to my father

'' Get away from me, I will not be insulted by you, this is an insult'.

And he stormed past, and Dad was so upset he could not share Eucharist with this man,

and my father left the cathedral in despair.

Dad has cheered up a bit now, but he was almost in tears at being so insulted by Clarke when I spoke to him: he did not think he had insulted Clarke at all.

Why is it an insult when the father of a bomb survivor, a gentle man of God, who has never caused trouble in his life, asks for a public enquiry? Why is his question not answered?"