Covid inquiry is most expensive in history

IT’S about time we all got ourselves on this public inquiry gravy train.

There’s millions to be made, mate. They last forever and a day. And at the end of them nobody is much the wiser.

All you have to do is apply a bit of hindsight and state the bleedin’ obvious. And maybe chuck in a bit of Tory bashing.

That always goes down well.

A perfect example of this is Baroness Heather Hallett’s inquiry into the way the government coped with the Covid pandemic.

It is now, officially, the most expensive inquiry in British history.

Heather and her lawyer chums will have cost the taxpayer £208million.

That’s about the cost of a new hospital.

It’s been running for two and a half years. They’ve interviewed more than 160 witnesses.

And what came out at the end of this process? This sort of guff, from the mouth of Heather herself: “Key recommendations include ensuring that decisions and their implications are clearly communicated to the public — laws and guidance must be easy to understand.

“There should be greater Parliamentary scrutiny of the use of emergency powers as well as improved consideration in an emergency of the impact that decisions might have on those most at risk.”

Likes to kick Boris

Well, you don’t say. Tell the public what’s going on and MPs should consider very ­carefully what decisions the government are taking.

Stunning insight, isn’t it? Well worth £208million.

Hallett dressed up her report with a few eye-catching digs at Boris Johnson’s government.

February 2020 was a “lost month”, she said.

The government knew the virus was going to be very dangerous and delayed taking action. Well, yes, Heather.

There are vital, crucial questions about the pandemic

Rod

That’s because it was something we hadn’t faced before.

And because there were competing verdicts from the experts as to what to expect.

And the ­government had to navigate between what it needed to do to protect the people of the country. And what it needed to do to protect the economy.

Hallett also called Johnson’s administration “chaotic” and “toxic”.

And she said that Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, didn’t help very much.

All that stuff was playing to the gallery. Everybody likes to kick Boris.

Me too, as it ­happens. But it’s not really the point, is it? Baroness Hallett’s report has failed so far because it has been asking completely the wrong questions.

There are vital, crucial questions about the pandemic.

And we desperately need them answered — because the next one is only just around the corner, I’m afraid.

Here is what she should have been looking at instead.

So, there were about 232,000 deaths from Covid in the UK according to the stats.

This is probably a largeish over- estimate, because we know that “Covid” was scrawled on many death certificates when it was at best a contributory cause.

We also know that over the same time period, Covid was far from being the number one cause of death for British people.

That would be heart disease. With chest diseases a close second.

We also know that overwhelmingly Covid killed the VERY elderly and people with underlying health conditions. If you were under 65 and in reasonably good nick, Covid would simply have been an unpleasant week in your life.

A bit like getting the flu — which is, of course, what it was. Some 93 per cent of UK deaths were in the over-60s.

We might also ask a few careful questions about vaccines

Rod

Now, the other side of the coin is this. How lethal were the steps taken to stop ­people getting Covid? What damage was done to our country?

We know that lockdowns cost the country about £410billion. To put that in ­context, that’s a third more than our annual welfare bill (which of course we were still paying).

We know that during lockdown younger people with really serious illnesses didn’t get treated, or have their ­problems properly diagnosed.

Did you know that there were 100,000 people who died of heart disease and strokes because they didn’t get their illnesses diagnosed or treated because of Covid?

There’s also been a large increase in deaths from cancer, diabetes and kidney disease — all for the same reason.

And people also got illnesses directly as a consequence of lockdowns, because their immune systems became weakened and compromised.

Meanwhile, as the economy plummeted ever downwards, a whole generation of children saw their educations ruined because the schools shut down at the first available opportunity. Exams cancelled. Mental health suffered.

And scandalously, the one section of the population which WAS at risk from Covid — the very elderly — were left to rot and die in nursing homes, without being visited by their relatives.

Sad, lonely, deaths, which are still being grieved up and down the country today.

Now THOSE are the difficult questions that needed answering. Was the cure more lethal than the illness? It seems very much as if it was.

Waste of money

And if that is the case, then should that not be the most important lesson to take on board for when a rogue virus next threatens to strike?

Along with a consideration of how we might deal more humanely with our elderly population. So that they can get the best treatment.

Without being separated from their younger loved ones who were, effectively, at no risk at all from Covid?

We might also ask a few careful questions about vaccines. Now, I am no anti- vaxxer.

But was it necessary for young and middle aged people to be vaccinated when the illness posed them almost no threat whatsoever?

And when possible problems caused by the vaccine itself may have proved — in an admittedly very small proportion of cases — rather more dangerous?

None of these questions require sticking the boot into Boris Johnson.

Or Dominic Cummings. Or, for that matter, Dr Chris Whitty, who was also criticised by Hallett when he was simply doing the best he possibly could under the ­circumstances.

But they are the questions which, so far at least, Baroness Hallett hasn’t been prepared to ask.

The ones that might actually help our country out next time a virus comes visiting.

Baroness Hallett’s inquiry so far has been a ludicrously expensive waste of money.