Democracy is a distraction from the business of government. Arguably it disrupts administration, panders to interest groups, elevates those unfit for office – and yet it’s what we’ve got, to be abandoned only in extremis.

So when Britain’s Interior Minister rejects calls for an investigatory public inquiry, on the grounds it would divert “energies and resources” he’s right if the level of threat is so overwhelming that the state’s security apparatus is at risk of collapse. But John Reid is not Winston Churchill, and this is not May 1940.

I noted yesterday that the decision by the UK’s domestic security agency, MI5, to put a large amount of information from the Fertiliser bomb plot investigation into the public domain sat oddly with their website’s own announcement that they don’t make press statements. Charlie B reckons – charitably – that it’s a step towards openness.

In news management terms I can only see it as a knee-jerk reaction to divert attention from calls for a public inquiry – a cynical attempt to move on the news cycle and a spoiler to Peter Taylor‘s Panorama last night.

Openness does not mean suddenly spewing out material to fend off demands for an inquiry, or to dismiss questions raised anonymously by regional Special Branch officers. Openness means ongoing parliamentary oversight that’s able to ask difficult questions and get answers.

BBC Security correspondent Gordon Corera provided a sympathetic, and quite possibly reasonable account of MI5’s position, blaming resources and workload for failure to follow up on the 7/7 bombers. These may well be true, but I’d like someone other than the security services themselves to tell me that. Someone whose sources testify under oath.