Covid inquiry should not take 10 years - get it sorted, says CAROLE MALONE
The Covid inquiry is becoming a farce even before it has started.
I knew there was a rabbit off when the Cabinet Office said it didn’t want to hand over Boris's WhatsApp messages to the Covid Inquiry because it would be a gross invasion of his privacy.
Bearing in mind the Cabinet Office doesn’t give a stuff about Boris or his privacy that was a bit hard to swallow.
Let’s not forget this was the same office, aided, it’s alleged, by the clammy hand of Rishi’s right-hand man, Oliver Dowden, who referred Boris's diaries to TWO different police forces to investigate because it believed there’d been a breach of Covid rules.
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So, the idea the Cabinet Office was suddenly worried about Boris’s privacy doesn’t sound credible.
It’s like a Carry On... film and it would be funny if this wasn’t a serious inquiry to determine how prepared we were for the pandemic, what the government’s response was to it, how we handled it, and the impact it had – on well, everything.
Which is a very big brief indeed. And one that’s already descended into farce.
The Cabinet Office says the inquiry is overreaching its authority and there were “important issues of principle at stake” which is why it’s refusing to hand over Boris’s WhatsApp messages and are now seeking a judicial review.
That in itself is almost unheard of – for a Government to take action against its own inquiry. But it’s happening and it’s going to make this inquiry drag on even longer than it should.
What the hell’s going on? All of it feels decidedly fishy not least because Boris says he’s perfectly happy for the Covid Inquiry to see his unredacted WhatsApp messages. So doesn’t the Cabinet Office want it to happen? Why is it running scared?
Is it because there might be something in those messages to damage Rishi or people in the current Government?
Is it because if Boris’s messages are handed over the Inquiry might demand to see Rishi’s too? Or is it that the inquiry IS overreaching? That it has no right to ask what it’s asking for?
Is it just a bunch of overpaid people stretching this out for as long as possible which defeats the whole purpose of the inquiry because by the time it is published medical practices, pandemics and the world in general will have changed? And it will cost multi-millions of pounds.
The Chilcott Inquiry didn’t publish its final report until 2016 – 13 years after the decision to go to war with Iraq. The report into Child Sexual Abuse in the wake of the Sir Jimmy Savile scandal took from 2012 to 2022 – 10 years. The Bloody Sunday Inquiry took ten years and cost £400m.
The Covid Inquiry is scheduled to finish in 2026 but there’s not a cat in hell’s chance of that happening now. And already it’s cost £113m.
The point is people who were devastated by the pandemic, who lost loved ones, and who are still suffering the after-effects of Covid, don’t want to wait 10 years or more – to find out what and who’s responsible.
Yes, they want a thorough inquiry but they don’t want it to take years.
They don’t want to see politicians with personal scores settle for being difficult. They don’t want to see people trying to cover their own backsides by refusing to hand over information. Or lawyers and advisors interfering in the political process.
The Covid Inquiry is supposed to call on key figures from a host of governments to delve into how prepared the UK was for the pandemic and how top decision-makers responded as the virus spread and lockdown restrictions were imposed.
It’s supposed to help us prepare for the next pandemic if, and when, there is one and to ensure that the mistakes made during this one will not be repeated. But what it’s looking like currently is a great big gravy train for certain factions. An inquiry of this kind does not need to take 10 years.
Other countries around the world have already completed theirs. But not us. And it's just not good enough.
More than 226,000 people died here during the pandemic. Our politicians and those inquiry bods currently playing their silly games, need to remember that. Because for every person who died, there’s a grieving family that wants answers. Did their loved ones die for nothing?
Was it really necessary to lock us in our homes for two years and tank an economy and an education system that still hasn’t recovered?
That’s what we want to know. As well as how the pandemic started and where it really came from. But I suspect the inquiry won’t have the stomach to tackle that!
