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Is Matt Hancock a guilty man? (Isabel Infantes/Getty)
Of all the trite statements routinely rolled out by political figures in the aftermath of an atrocity, there is one which is particularly grating: “Lessons will be learned.” It is objectionable not just for its passivity and vagueness, but its lack of truth. We live in an age of inquiries, of ostensible public accountability. The names of otherwise faceless inquisitor-bureaucrats are immortalised in the collective memory: Chilcot, Leveson, Hutton. But all the questions and paperwork don’t change the fact that most lessons are not learned. They are forgotten, some deliberately.
This is worth remembering as the Covid Inquiry embarks on its mammoth investigation. Former prime ministers, chancellors, and, yesterday, the Covid-era health secretary Matt Hancock have taken their oaths of honesty, promising to help us understand what happened and why. As an exercise in modern lesson-learning, it sits on the same shelf as the The Grenfell Tower Inquiry, The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, The Undercover Police Inquiry and The Infected Blood Inquiry, all of which have been rumbling away for years now. All have, at times, shown the strength of a statutory public inquiry — its ability to force uncomfortable evidence into the public domain. But all have also demonstrated the fatal weakness of the process. Whatever findings emerge, we still lack the powers to force politicians to do anything to ameliorate their terrible mistakes.
I have spent much of the last four years reporting on the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, which is a perfect illustration of this shortcoming, being in part an investigation into why so many of the inquiries before it were ignored. Parts of the Grenfell tragedy are now fixed in the national-political consciousness, from the cladding which turned the building into a deathtrap, to the governmental bungling of building regulations which allowed its wide use. And so, as our Covid reckoning creaks into action, the appalling chain of state failure over Grenfell provides a painful but useful warning of how far responsible actors can deviate from proper practice — and how difficult it is to force reform.
The story of missed warnings starts in 1999, when the Government was warned of the risks of dangerous cladding on social-housing high rises. Following the death of a pensioner in a cladding fire in Scotland, a select committee of MPs presented a report which said there were potentially hundreds of other buildings around the UK with similar systems. “We do not believe that it should take a serious fire in which many people are killed before all reasonable steps are taken towards minimising the risks,” it said. They called for a rule change to make all cladding systems either entirely non-combustible or proved fire safe by a large-scale test. They also suggested regular monitoring by social housing providers, to ensure the safety of systems already installed was understood.
Neither recommendation was implemented. Behind the scenes, it is now clear there was lobbying against higher standards for cladding — with an industry body warning of “economic consequences for the building industry and the UK as a whole” if tighter standards were imposed. This concern appears to have taken precedence. This is all the more alarming, when you consider that, after the 1999 report, the Government commissioned tests on cladding materials in 2001. In the event, one test had to be stopped after five minutes because it risked setting the laboratory alight. But nothing was done about it. The precise cladding product tested would later find its way onto the walls of Grenfell Tower.
After another fire in 2009, which killed six residents (three of them children), concerns were raised about the advice conveyed by 999 handlers. The residents of Lakanal House, a tower block in south London, had been told to stay put, as a result of the logic that a blaze in a block of flats would stay in the compartment it started in. After the coroner’s inquest in 2013, the fire service promised better training of its call handlers to prevent a repeat tragedy. But this was downgraded amid budgetary pressure and the call centre would go on to repeat the exact same mistake on a much larger scale at Grenfell Tower in 2017.
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SubscribeThis is a very dangerous comparison. The Grenfell tragedy was appalling for the fact that it could have been prevented. Many decisions could have been taken to prevent that fire. Decisions were made to protect profit not to protect lives. When it comes to what happened in 2020, it is a completely different story. There is nothing that can be DONE to stop people dying of all the diseases people always die of. There was nothing significantly “novel” about the pathogen that made people ill in 2019 or 2020. And even if there was… ALL historic “pandemic response” literature – including that published by the WHO – said, expressly, that you must NOT make people panic, you must NOT do mass testing and contact tracing, you must NOT put masks on people and you must NEVER disrupt people’s lives. The “Covid inquiry” should start from the premise of asking WHY the government and SAGE members behaved like lunatics, terrorising people with fear propaganda, shuttering the economy, mandating masks, interfering in people’s private lives, torturing vulnerable people by forbidding human contact, placing children and domestic abuse victims in intolerable situations that many times led to their deaths. WHY the MHRA neglected their duty and authorised an unnecessary novel medication without proper testing periods. None of these questions are being asked. This is yet another utter waste of public money. Matt Hancock and all of them should have been arrested for democide long ago. It’s adding gross insult to injury watching them justify their actions when anyone with an ounce of awareness can see they’ve recklessly killed people. No one died simply from contacting a respiratory virus, they were KILLED by being placed on ventilators, given a toxic drug called remdesivir, given a fatal dose of midazolam, denied existing safe drugs… or probably a mix of those. There was no way to “prevent covid” but there was to “prevent murderous measures” and that is what the families of people with “Covid” written on their death certificates should be asking!
The lessons that SHOULD be learned from Grenfell apply to “vaccines”. People have been lobbying for years to ask the government to open a thorough investigation into, not only the safety of vaccines, but the efficacy of them. A whole cohort of children in the US and other countries have never had a single vaccine and they are thriving – no autoimmune diseases, no deaths from SIDS, no neurological disorders. In African countries and in India, whole communities protect children with firearms to prevent “vaccinators” from coming near them because they’ve seen the damage done to others. The false claim that vaccines prevent disease is pushed relentlessly, as it always is when people sell snake oil… the propaganda from big pharma is ramped up every year, pushing the narrative that “antivaxxers are spreading dangerous misinformation.” They never ACTUALLY refute the claims, they just attack. Why don’t they engage and debate? Because they have NOTHING to come back at the evidence provided by “antivaxxers” with. A million people protested against the “Covid vaccine” in London in June 2021 and the media was silent. The “lessons learned” from Grenfell should be that ALL protesters should be given a voice and listened to. And when one “side” (the industry, the establishment, the media) is heavily pushing a narrative, don’t just accept it… ask WHY.
“ALL historic “pandemic response” literature – including that published by the WHO – said, expressly, that you must NOT make people panic, you must NOT do mass testing and contact tracing, you must NOT put masks on people and you must NEVER disrupt people’s lives.”
Could you provide a link on that one? I’m not sure it’s quite true but I’m intrigued.
Potentially relevant, I recently read Michael Lewis’ recent book, the Premonition on how the US pandemic response plan was completely re-written during the Bush administration. The plan in that book was very much about contact tracing, very much about school closures and not greatly concerned with disruption or panic.
So the plan in that book, which was adopted by the US Govt and many others (including ours) did resemble the one we got. Here’s the thing though, the point of the book is not that the plan worked – it’s that it wasn’t implemented because the very essence of the plan was that whatever you do, you have to do it immediately. The point of the book was that the US government was simply too hidebound to implement the plan and that it lost many opportunities to do so through sheer ineptitude.
My overall suspicion is this – we had an old plan for how to manage a pandemic and we had a new plan about how you might prevent an epidemic turning into a pandemic. Unfortunately, we missed the window of opportunity to make the new plan work but we continued to use the prevention plan even after that window had been missed.
That’s a collossal failure – albeit an understandable one. The feature that is unforgivable, in my inexpert view, was the failure to recognise that different responses would be appropriate at different phases of the pandemic and the refusal to admit that the Govt did not know quite what it was dealing with so that it might need to change its mind as we went along.
But, having missed five COBRA meetings, the PM couldn’t very well say “we did have a plan to avoid this epidemic turning into a pandemic but we’ve missed the chance to use it now so we’re reverting directly to the old mitigation plan.” Had he done so and, had the disease turned out to be only a little more dangerous to young and healthy people, he would (rightly) have been blamed for being asleep at the switch. So, he started late but still implemented the aggressive “prevent” strategy.
I think that the real focus for the inquiry should be how on earth we rebuild enough trust to make any plan work next time.
There is really no such thing as a “global pandemic of a respiratory virus”. All respiratory viruses are mutations of previous ones. Pathogens surround us all the time and as they mutate, healthy people catch them and create antibodies to them naturally. There is NO RESPONSE NECESSARY! What was done was a tyrannical violation of human rights. Look up Abir Balan and her work published with PANDA, and David Bell’s writings on Brownstone Institute. And Norman Fenton of Queen Mary’s University has written extensively on this. Michael Lewis is a deep state hack!
There is really no such thing as a “global pandemic of a respiratory virus”. All respiratory viruses are mutations of previous ones. Pathogens surround us all the time and as they mutate, healthy people catch them and create antibodies to them naturally. There is NO RESPONSE NECESSARY! What was done was a tyrannical violation of human rights. Look up Abir Balan and her work published with PANDA, and David Bell’s writings on Brownstone Institute. And Norman Fenton of Queen Mary’s University has written extensively on this. Michael Lewis is a deep state hack!
Yes, yes and yes. Could you volunteer as expert witness to the “inquiry” please, as you have clearly done your reading. Someone needs to raise these points or the globalist villains (and their lackeys) will simply create another and another fake emergency until we are cowering in bunkers.
Ye Gods, it seems there is a whole bunch of people on here who actually believe this BS. face/palm
What “BS” are you referring to?
The whole of the first post, second and the whole of yours for that matter. I’m an advocate of free speech so wouldn’t call for moderation of these views, they seem to be representative of some kind of mental institution however.
Oh and the fourth, missed that.
Okay, well you are welcome to your opinion, even if you can’t articulate your opinion. Also, your post is marked “Last edited 11 minutes ago by dfsdfsdfssdfsdef” Are you by any chance a computer program? If so, where do you get your opinions from?
ChatGPT lol
ChatGPT lol
Oh and the fourth, missed that.
Okay, well you are welcome to your opinion, even if you can’t articulate your opinion. Also, your post is marked “Last edited 11 minutes ago by dfsdfsdfssdfsdef” Are you by any chance a computer program? If so, where do you get your opinions from?
The whole of the first post, second and the whole of yours for that matter. I’m an advocate of free speech so wouldn’t call for moderation of these views, they seem to be representative of some kind of mental institution however.
What “BS” are you referring to?
I don’t agree with any of your opinions.
I don’t believe any of your “facts.”
Thank you. You’re probably all aware of this, a devastating critique of the lockdowns:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Covid-Consensus-Politics-Global-Inequality/dp/1787385221
“ALL historic “pandemic response” literature – including that published by the WHO – said, expressly, that you must NOT make people panic, you must NOT do mass testing and contact tracing, you must NOT put masks on people and you must NEVER disrupt people’s lives.”
Could you provide a link on that one? I’m not sure it’s quite true but I’m intrigued.
Potentially relevant, I recently read Michael Lewis’ recent book, the Premonition on how the US pandemic response plan was completely re-written during the Bush administration. The plan in that book was very much about contact tracing, very much about school closures and not greatly concerned with disruption or panic.
So the plan in that book, which was adopted by the US Govt and many others (including ours) did resemble the one we got. Here’s the thing though, the point of the book is not that the plan worked – it’s that it wasn’t implemented because the very essence of the plan was that whatever you do, you have to do it immediately. The point of the book was that the US government was simply too hidebound to implement the plan and that it lost many opportunities to do so through sheer ineptitude.
My overall suspicion is this – we had an old plan for how to manage a pandemic and we had a new plan about how you might prevent an epidemic turning into a pandemic. Unfortunately, we missed the window of opportunity to make the new plan work but we continued to use the prevention plan even after that window had been missed.
That’s a collossal failure – albeit an understandable one. The feature that is unforgivable, in my inexpert view, was the failure to recognise that different responses would be appropriate at different phases of the pandemic and the refusal to admit that the Govt did not know quite what it was dealing with so that it might need to change its mind as we went along.
But, having missed five COBRA meetings, the PM couldn’t very well say “we did have a plan to avoid this epidemic turning into a pandemic but we’ve missed the chance to use it now so we’re reverting directly to the old mitigation plan.” Had he done so and, had the disease turned out to be only a little more dangerous to young and healthy people, he would (rightly) have been blamed for being asleep at the switch. So, he started late but still implemented the aggressive “prevent” strategy.
I think that the real focus for the inquiry should be how on earth we rebuild enough trust to make any plan work next time.
Yes, yes and yes. Could you volunteer as expert witness to the “inquiry” please, as you have clearly done your reading. Someone needs to raise these points or the globalist villains (and their lackeys) will simply create another and another fake emergency until we are cowering in bunkers.
Ye Gods, it seems there is a whole bunch of people on here who actually believe this BS. face/palm
I don’t agree with any of your opinions.
I don’t believe any of your “facts.”
Thank you. You’re probably all aware of this, a devastating critique of the lockdowns:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Covid-Consensus-Politics-Global-Inequality/dp/1787385221
This is a very dangerous comparison. The Grenfell tragedy was appalling for the fact that it could have been prevented. Many decisions could have been taken to prevent that fire. Decisions were made to protect profit not to protect lives. When it comes to what happened in 2020, it is a completely different story. There is nothing that can be DONE to stop people dying of all the diseases people always die of. There was nothing significantly “novel” about the pathogen that made people ill in 2019 or 2020. And even if there was… ALL historic “pandemic response” literature – including that published by the WHO – said, expressly, that you must NOT make people panic, you must NOT do mass testing and contact tracing, you must NOT put masks on people and you must NEVER disrupt people’s lives. The “Covid inquiry” should start from the premise of asking WHY the government and SAGE members behaved like lunatics, terrorising people with fear propaganda, shuttering the economy, mandating masks, interfering in people’s private lives, torturing vulnerable people by forbidding human contact, placing children and domestic abuse victims in intolerable situations that many times led to their deaths. WHY the MHRA neglected their duty and authorised an unnecessary novel medication without proper testing periods. None of these questions are being asked. This is yet another utter waste of public money. Matt Hancock and all of them should have been arrested for democide long ago. It’s adding gross insult to injury watching them justify their actions when anyone with an ounce of awareness can see they’ve recklessly killed people. No one died simply from contacting a respiratory virus, they were KILLED by being placed on ventilators, given a toxic drug called remdesivir, given a fatal dose of midazolam, denied existing safe drugs… or probably a mix of those. There was no way to “prevent covid” but there was to “prevent murderous measures” and that is what the families of people with “Covid” written on their death certificates should be asking!
The lessons that SHOULD be learned from Grenfell apply to “vaccines”. People have been lobbying for years to ask the government to open a thorough investigation into, not only the safety of vaccines, but the efficacy of them. A whole cohort of children in the US and other countries have never had a single vaccine and they are thriving – no autoimmune diseases, no deaths from SIDS, no neurological disorders. In African countries and in India, whole communities protect children with firearms to prevent “vaccinators” from coming near them because they’ve seen the damage done to others. The false claim that vaccines prevent disease is pushed relentlessly, as it always is when people sell snake oil… the propaganda from big pharma is ramped up every year, pushing the narrative that “antivaxxers are spreading dangerous misinformation.” They never ACTUALLY refute the claims, they just attack. Why don’t they engage and debate? Because they have NOTHING to come back at the evidence provided by “antivaxxers” with. A million people protested against the “Covid vaccine” in London in June 2021 and the media was silent. The “lessons learned” from Grenfell should be that ALL protesters should be given a voice and listened to. And when one “side” (the industry, the establishment, the media) is heavily pushing a narrative, don’t just accept it… ask WHY.
I entirely agree that the Covid enquiry will be an utter waste of time and money but not for the reasons given by author – despite an excellent summary of some of the failures of officialdom to respond properly to safety recommendations made before Grenfell and following the enquiry.
What went wrong with the government’s response to covid was that it merely copied responses elsewhere under huge pressure from a hysterical media circus without taking into account the predictable economic, social and health knock-on effects. One of the few governments that did take a more sane, although not perfect, response was the Swedish government and it is from this that lessons should be learned and not from a blame seeking enquiry driven by emotional accusation and defensive theorising.
It is well known that aviation safety has improved considerably over the years by low-key enquiries that eschew seeking to blame individuals and look to see what systems might be improved following accidents and near-misses.
Recommendations coming out of the covid enquiry in contrast are quite likely to be completely wrong and should certainly not be regarded as sacrosanct and to require implementation.
I think the Air Investigation Board wa set up after the Comet crashes. Extremely thorough investigations were undertaken.
With regard to the Covid I think what panicked The Government was Ferguson’s report stating 500,000 may be killed. Gupta issued a report a week or so later which was far more realistic but by that time the Government had panicked. The reality is that we no longer have a ruling class who had to make life and death decisions in their teens and early twenties. The Battle of Britain was won because Dowding, a WW1 fighter pilot was was able to plan and did not panic over a period of six months. A historian said if one examines all Dowding’s decisions in the Battle of Britain, they could not be improved upon.
If we have a society where peoples feelings are all important then panic, which is an emotion, should be allowed to be dominant. A society ruled by emotions is a society ruled by fear from which sprouts hatred and spite. One cannot hate what one does not fear and people are spiteful towards those who show them to be fearful.
I think the Air Investigation Board wa set up after the Comet crashes. Extremely thorough investigations were undertaken.
With regard to the Covid I think what panicked The Government was Ferguson’s report stating 500,000 may be killed. Gupta issued a report a week or so later which was far more realistic but by that time the Government had panicked. The reality is that we no longer have a ruling class who had to make life and death decisions in their teens and early twenties. The Battle of Britain was won because Dowding, a WW1 fighter pilot was was able to plan and did not panic over a period of six months. A historian said if one examines all Dowding’s decisions in the Battle of Britain, they could not be improved upon.
If we have a society where peoples feelings are all important then panic, which is an emotion, should be allowed to be dominant. A society ruled by emotions is a society ruled by fear from which sprouts hatred and spite. One cannot hate what one does not fear and people are spiteful towards those who show them to be fearful.
I entirely agree that the Covid enquiry will be an utter waste of time and money but not for the reasons given by author – despite an excellent summary of some of the failures of officialdom to respond properly to safety recommendations made before Grenfell and following the enquiry.
What went wrong with the government’s response to covid was that it merely copied responses elsewhere under huge pressure from a hysterical media circus without taking into account the predictable economic, social and health knock-on effects. One of the few governments that did take a more sane, although not perfect, response was the Swedish government and it is from this that lessons should be learned and not from a blame seeking enquiry driven by emotional accusation and defensive theorising.
It is well known that aviation safety has improved considerably over the years by low-key enquiries that eschew seeking to blame individuals and look to see what systems might be improved following accidents and near-misses.
Recommendations coming out of the covid enquiry in contrast are quite likely to be completely wrong and should certainly not be regarded as sacrosanct and to require implementation.
Isn’t the point of a public enquiry to kick the ball into the long grass for long enough that those involved have retired and picked up their pensions and knighthoods before any conclusions are reached
Certainly appears to be that ..
it’s why when they knew they were wrong in the first few months … they carried on and on for two years to justify their incompetent and kick everything down the road
They think we’re all as stupid as they are don’t they //./ sadly most are as thick a mince ..
Certainly appears to be that ..
it’s why when they knew they were wrong in the first few months … they carried on and on for two years to justify their incompetent and kick everything down the road
They think we’re all as stupid as they are don’t they //./ sadly most are as thick a mince ..
Isn’t the point of a public enquiry to kick the ball into the long grass for long enough that those involved have retired and picked up their pensions and knighthoods before any conclusions are reached
There is only one lesson the government has to learn and that is to stay out of our lives. The government doesn’t view us as customers for its services, it views us as an open bank account that it can withdraw from and spend without seeking our agreement to the theft or the reason for the expenditure. Only fools give authority to people who can never be held accountable for their mistakes. It is time we woke up and said enough is enough.
No Government is better than a Government of incompetent killers …
YUP
No Government is better than a Government of incompetent killers …
YUP
There is only one lesson the government has to learn and that is to stay out of our lives. The government doesn’t view us as customers for its services, it views us as an open bank account that it can withdraw from and spend without seeking our agreement to the theft or the reason for the expenditure. Only fools give authority to people who can never be held accountable for their mistakes. It is time we woke up and said enough is enough.
Much needed reminder. It’s so easy to forget and move on to the next very big, very pressing issue.
Whatever happened to ministerial accountability – when ministers were actually fired for dept screw ups?
…I would say ministerial accountability has lost its relevance, because it’s pretty clear to everybody, that politicians don’t have meaningful control over the vast array of officials designing and implementing a vast array of policy and operations. Its the bureaucrats who run the politicians. Look what happens when a minister gets even a little bit angry with any of them !!
Indeed in every sphere of life the only way to get rid of useless but articulate individuals is to promote them out of your department to implement more daft ideas elsewhere.
Great idea……but how do we apply this to our politicians? Every five years we vote in a new lot of useless but articulate individuals. We can’t promote them all to the House of Lords and in any case there’s no-one better waiting to replace them.
Great idea……but how do we apply this to our politicians? Every five years we vote in a new lot of useless but articulate individuals. We can’t promote them all to the House of Lords and in any case there’s no-one better waiting to replace them.
Indeed in every sphere of life the only way to get rid of useless but articulate individuals is to promote them out of your department to implement more daft ideas elsewhere.
They don’t get fired anymore – they go on ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here!’ instead.
…I would say ministerial accountability has lost its relevance, because it’s pretty clear to everybody, that politicians don’t have meaningful control over the vast array of officials designing and implementing a vast array of policy and operations. Its the bureaucrats who run the politicians. Look what happens when a minister gets even a little bit angry with any of them !!
They don’t get fired anymore – they go on ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here!’ instead.
Much needed reminder. It’s so easy to forget and move on to the next very big, very pressing issue.
Whatever happened to ministerial accountability – when ministers were actually fired for dept screw ups?
Will we EVER hear the truth about Matt Hancock’s briefly reported role as UN Covid Recovery Envoy to Africa ?
Will we EVER hear the truth about Matt Hancock’s briefly reported role as UN Covid Recovery Envoy to Africa ?
Instead of ‘lessons will be learned’ we need, in all these enquiries, a comprehensive list of the individuals who are to blame. ‘We’ got it wrong is not good enough. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, there is no such thing as ‘we’, there are individuals.
Instead of ‘lessons will be learned’ we need, in all these enquiries, a comprehensive list of the individuals who are to blame. ‘We’ got it wrong is not good enough. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, there is no such thing as ‘we’, there are individuals.
This is typically flawed investigative journalism. On the one hand we have excellent journalistic work to provide detail about matters of public relevance, about what decisions were made, and by whom, and with what effect.
But like most crusaders, the author is completely unwilling to research and analyze (or perhaps even to acknowledge) the complex issues that surround the problem and have prevented its resolution – preferring instead to blame shadowy self-interest. Time and again he blames ‘closed door meetings’ with ‘industry participants’ for things being Bad instead of Good. The concerns and objections that would have been raised at those meetings he dismisses without analysis – “Cost and expense! What a hollow excuse! Pshaw!” As if cost and expense were not something that in the real world must be examined and resolved via the complex negotiations of the political process, as if there weren’t other competing interests for every public dollar taxed and spent.
He may be right that public inquiry rarely produces change – but this is not because ‘public inquiry’ lacks the necessary teeth. It’s because ‘public inquiry’ is still ultimately a legal process governed by democratic norms, the rule of law, etc.
So what exactly in your view is the purpose of this long and vastly expensive Covid enquiry (other than enriching the lawyers) since the government of the day will be under no obligation to take any action on any of its recommendations?
I can’t speak to the COVID inquiry in particular, but most public commissions exist because ‘Something Must Be Done.’ The reason their recommendations are often ignored is because they were political animals, often created to demonstrate one political interest group’s commitment to an issue when they don’t otherwise have the votes / arguments / persuasive power to actually effect the change they want.
In other words, you may not be able to get a law passed, but you can probably create a toothless commission to promulgate a report that says, ‘they oughta pass a law.’
Then your supporters who care about the issue will think you’re trying your best, and they will wag their fingers and shake the report and say, ‘see, we were right, they oughta pass a law.’
I agree with you, but it sounds like yet another argument that democracy is the worst form of government…apart from all the others.
My chief complaint about the article above is the author’s obvious ideological motivations which he declines to acknowledge… his refusal to consider the competing interests which he dismisses.
Otherwise, I was just trying to explain my views on why these commissions exist and why they accomplish little… they accomplish exactly what they *can* accomplish, a sort of virtue-signalling for the political forces that muster sufficiently to create them, but insufficiently to act on them.
I don’t think whether we should have a democracy or not is a live question. What is up for debate, is what sorts of ideals and principles should motivate our democracy, and what sort of reforms we should enact to get closer to those ideals, whatever we decide they are.
Thanks for engaging – always appreciate having a conversation on Unherd.
My chief complaint about the article above is the author’s obvious ideological motivations which he declines to acknowledge… his refusal to consider the competing interests which he dismisses.
Otherwise, I was just trying to explain my views on why these commissions exist and why they accomplish little… they accomplish exactly what they *can* accomplish, a sort of virtue-signalling for the political forces that muster sufficiently to create them, but insufficiently to act on them.
I don’t think whether we should have a democracy or not is a live question. What is up for debate, is what sorts of ideals and principles should motivate our democracy, and what sort of reforms we should enact to get closer to those ideals, whatever we decide they are.
Thanks for engaging – always appreciate having a conversation on Unherd.
I agree with you, but it sounds like yet another argument that democracy is the worst form of government…apart from all the others.
I can’t speak to the COVID inquiry in particular, but most public commissions exist because ‘Something Must Be Done.’ The reason their recommendations are often ignored is because they were political animals, often created to demonstrate one political interest group’s commitment to an issue when they don’t otherwise have the votes / arguments / persuasive power to actually effect the change they want.
In other words, you may not be able to get a law passed, but you can probably create a toothless commission to promulgate a report that says, ‘they oughta pass a law.’
Then your supporters who care about the issue will think you’re trying your best, and they will wag their fingers and shake the report and say, ‘see, we were right, they oughta pass a law.’
So what exactly in your view is the purpose of this long and vastly expensive Covid enquiry (other than enriching the lawyers) since the government of the day will be under no obligation to take any action on any of its recommendations?
This is typically flawed investigative journalism. On the one hand we have excellent journalistic work to provide detail about matters of public relevance, about what decisions were made, and by whom, and with what effect.
But like most crusaders, the author is completely unwilling to research and analyze (or perhaps even to acknowledge) the complex issues that surround the problem and have prevented its resolution – preferring instead to blame shadowy self-interest. Time and again he blames ‘closed door meetings’ with ‘industry participants’ for things being Bad instead of Good. The concerns and objections that would have been raised at those meetings he dismisses without analysis – “Cost and expense! What a hollow excuse! Pshaw!” As if cost and expense were not something that in the real world must be examined and resolved via the complex negotiations of the political process, as if there weren’t other competing interests for every public dollar taxed and spent.
He may be right that public inquiry rarely produces change – but this is not because ‘public inquiry’ lacks the necessary teeth. It’s because ‘public inquiry’ is still ultimately a legal process governed by democratic norms, the rule of law, etc.
These Inquiries are poisoned from the get-go, especially when the bureaucrats who recommended, advised, and administered the “programs” are part of the fact-finding apparatus. A bureaucrat’s primary function in life is to cover their six, which is why ALL of their recommendations are so draconian. When given the absolute power they had, you will have absolute tyranny, which we did. Our elected officials are “supposed” to protect us from this tyranny, as well as the issue, but they were, the great majority of them, all in with the bureaucrats. There is no way in hell either the politicians or the bureaucrats will find fault with their actions. They will find a mid to low-level agency or person to blame. The only hope is that the party out of power at the time of the issue will come to power and hold the investigations and then, of course, it will be spun as retaliation. There is almost zero accountability in today’s Western countries and that is why the great majority of us don’t trust a damn thing that comes out of politicians’ or bureaucrats’ mouths. If they are talking, they are lying or spinning. We do have the ballot box but that has seemed to fail us in the last 25 years. The only thing left is civil insurrection or revolution. The next 10 years will be interesting.
the 1st lockdown was proof that they missed peak infection …
AND
that showed us the virus wasn’t the black DEATH !!!
Yet they ploughed on and on for two year killing people …. with lockdowns and everything else …
WHERE IS THE REAL INQUIRY ????
the 1st lockdown was proof that they missed peak infection …
AND
that showed us the virus wasn’t the black DEATH !!!
Yet they ploughed on and on for two year killing people …. with lockdowns and everything else …
WHERE IS THE REAL INQUIRY ????
These Inquiries are poisoned from the get-go, especially when the bureaucrats who recommended, advised, and administered the “programs” are part of the fact-finding apparatus. A bureaucrat’s primary function in life is to cover their six, which is why ALL of their recommendations are so draconian. When given the absolute power they had, you will have absolute tyranny, which we did. Our elected officials are “supposed” to protect us from this tyranny, as well as the issue, but they were, the great majority of them, all in with the bureaucrats. There is no way in hell either the politicians or the bureaucrats will find fault with their actions. They will find a mid to low-level agency or person to blame. The only hope is that the party out of power at the time of the issue will come to power and hold the investigations and then, of course, it will be spun as retaliation. There is almost zero accountability in today’s Western countries and that is why the great majority of us don’t trust a damn thing that comes out of politicians’ or bureaucrats’ mouths. If they are talking, they are lying or spinning. We do have the ballot box but that has seemed to fail us in the last 25 years. The only thing left is civil insurrection or revolution. The next 10 years will be interesting.
Without wishing to point out the obvious, the Grenfell Inquiry hasn’t finished yet or issued it’s final reports, and blaming it for things that happened before the Grenfell fire seems utterly specious.
How I miss covid and the sport of winding up coronaphobes.. next best sport to a good day in the Leicestershire hunting field or a wild bird day in Norfolk ( ps last comment not intended to upset friends there and their first meeting with Vegan Markle!)
How I miss covid and the sport of winding up coronaphobes.. next best sport to a good day in the Leicestershire hunting field or a wild bird day in Norfolk ( ps last comment not intended to upset friends there and their first meeting with Vegan Markle!)
Without wishing to point out the obvious, the Grenfell Inquiry hasn’t finished yet or issued it’s final reports, and blaming it for things that happened before the Grenfell fire seems utterly specious.
Chilling reading as regards fires and deadly Government/Industry fudging. As regards covid though, how about banning ‘gain of function’ research on viruses?