The lawyers’ trough has been put out in the shape of the proposed public inquiry into the mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic by the UK government, according to Dr Myles Harris, Editor of The Salisbury Review. He reckons, based on the cost of the Bloody Sunday inquiry that this could set us—the tax paying public—back by approximately £70 million. Moreover, we will not know the outcome until 2026. I will be into my eighth decade by then and in a higher risk group of dying from the next pandemic.
According to Wikipedia a Public inquiry is described as follows: ‘A tribunal of inquiry is an official review of events or actions ordered by a government body. In many common law countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Canada, such a public inquiry differs from a Royal Commission in that a public inquiry accepts evidence and conducts its hearings in a more public forum and focuses on a more specific occurrence. Interested members of the public and organisations may not only make (written) evidential submissions as is the case with most inquiries, but also listen to oral evidence given by other parties.’ And then: ‘Typical events for a public inquiry are those that cause multiple deaths, such as public transport crashes or mass murders.’ Sounds like the COVID-19 pandemic fits the bill, except, what is there to inquire into?
While some inquiry will, undoubtedly take place and is probably necessary, there must be a case for putting some people directly in the dock of a criminal court. Surely the crimes of death, vandalism and robbery are enough, and we do not need to look for the suspects. They are obvious. First the whole Cabinet of Boris Johnson, including the man himself, for their ‘sins of commission’ in deliberately inflicting a range of untested and demonstrably damaging outcomes on millions of the population. For those Cabinet members who said nothing—and none did—they have committed the ‘sin of omission’ by allowing this to happen. I am not sure if sins of commission and omission have any legal standing, if not then they ought to.
We have had death meted out to us by the government, not only in allowing potentially infected people to enter the UK when they knew the risks and putting vulnerable lives in danger, but by recklessly putting most of the population not at risk under protracted months of house arrest and closing businesses. This has led to deaths from suicide and neglect of, for example, undiagnosed cancer and heart disease. Older people were banished from NHS hospitals to make way for the sick of the pandemic into nursing homes where they dropped dead like flies. The government knew this was happening. The overwhelming of the NHS, if it happened at all, was transitory and only in the places reported by the Ministry of Truth (aka the BBC). And according to Dr John Lee on Unlocked (content removed by Facebook) some areas of the NHS coped perfectly well. Yet they stubbornly refused to change tack. Instead, they pilloried the voices of reason such as John Lee, Sunetra Gupta, Carl Heneghan, Karol Sikora, David Livermore, Mike Yeadon and a host of other experts who, at the very least, should be taking them to court for defamation of character.
The vandalism to which I refer took place on our high streets some of which look like the aftermath of riots with boarded up shops, bars closed for good and in some places, just deadly quiet. And that is just the tip of the iceberg, behind each business—even those which may yet open again—there are tens, hundreds and even thousands of lives that have been affected. Furloughing meant lower incomes and it will not last for ever. For those businesses that are gone people are facing unemployment and whole families will be affected. The NHS was, essentially, vandalised by being turned into a COVID-19 service and ignoring the plight of millions of sick people. I am full of praise for my GP surgery which soldiered on when many others did not, mainly because it is not run by complete idiots. Nevertheless, it looked like a scene from a police incident, festooned as the front was with ‘Do not enter’ posters. We built massive ‘Nightingale hospitals’ at enormous expense and stocked up with ventilators and never used them. All this medical tomfoolery was presided over by Sir Simon Stevens who took a kowtowing approach towards the government and a censorious attitude towards the public whom he should have been serving. He is being elevated to the House of Lords; instead, he ought to be stripped of his Knighthood.
Finally, robbery. School children have been robbed of nearly two years of education, but worse, they have been robbed of over a year of friendship with their peers and hugs from their grandparents. University students, while online working went better than expected, have simply been robbed of money. Some are being made to pay fees for accommodation not used or, if they did use it, to which they were confined and abused by security staff in scenes reminiscent of Colditz. We have all been robbed to some extent during the pandemic but most of all our children and their children have most likely been robbed of economic security. The magic money tree will bare its branches at some point and that must lead to a prolonged period of inflation. It has already happened in the US. Of course, the economy will ‘recover’—sales will increase, and jobs will return. That is not hard to predict when we are starting from such a low base of widespread misery, hardship and economic stagnation. But the effect on the man and woman in the street, many of whom may well be living on the street, will be profound. Inquiry or show trials, this must never happen again.
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