Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
With a bill likely to top £114 million, the Covid inquiry might be of invaluable assistance to the retirement plans of numerous lawyers, but it won’t bring back a single victim of the virus or cushion the impact of long Covid or indeed alleviate the sadness of the many who suffered personal loss during lockdowns.
But it’s time to move on. Of course the impact of Covid will never be completely forgotten, and lots of mistakes were made, but I just don’t envisage a drawn out inquiry doing much other than apportioning blame and dragging up wounds that need healing.
They reckon three years. That’s the likely lifespan of Baroness Hallett’s hearing. Some cynics forecast it could take up to seven years before we get the full report.
Already many of the key figures in Covid, including those who addressed us nightly on television, have either left the political scene or returned to the relative anonymity of their medical roles.
As the legal eagles spin out the inquiry—reputedly over 100 of them in various capacities—the public’s interest in proceedings will diminish. Heaven help us if the next pandemic comes along while all the experts are tied up, wringing their hands over this one.
The media will rapidly lose interest in the day to day workings of the hearing. They move with treacle slowness anyway. For instance the report into the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 has now been delayed by a further year.
If the inquiry is to do any good then it requires transparency and learning for the future. The fact that tens of millions will be spent by government departments on legal representation looks suspiciously like having something to hide.
Why does everyone need a lawyer, for goodness sake? Can’t they just speak in forthright, honest terms?
In Sweden they got their inquiry done and dusted in quick time while we continue our glacial progress until eventually the purpose will be lost.
Our Covid inquiry has been branded “an unmanageable monster.”
I don’t doubt Baroness Hallett, with her legal experience, will do her best to draw the essentials from a welter of evidence.
She will hear about failings with personal protection, the moving of elderly patients from hospitals to care homes without being tested, gimmicks like Rishi’s eat double scheme and positives like the rollout of the vaccination programme.
Our recent history is littered with inquiries.
This one will perpetuate a lot of unhappiness. People who lost friends and family and weren’t able to visit or mourn properly will revisit the trauma.
Every one of us lost something as a result of the pandemic and the lockdowns. My abiding memory is of a deserted town centre that would normally have been bursting with tourist activity.
It was hard to believe it was actually happening and not a bad dream.
But as people have done after other crises, there comes a time to move forward again and I believe, three years on, it’s the right time.
Human interaction is so much preferable when computer says ‘no’
OK, so I sound like an old codger. But I’m convinced, despite the march of technology, things worked better 50 years ago than they do now.
For a start we had humans, not computers that seem to take pleasure saying “no”.
I’ve felt like someone lost in an impenetrable jungle this past few weeks, what with tax returns and an application for the renewal of my driving licence, which has to be done every three years once you are in the 70-pluses. Like they suggest, I did it online. Fine until the last line. They can’t identify me. So I’ve got to fill in the form, get a picture taken and post it after all. That’s a couple of hours of my life I will never get back.
The younger generation can handle technology. They’ve never had humans to talk to in banks and departments so they don’t miss them like we oldies do as we fumble and faff our way through official documents.
Edmund Blackadder put it more succinctly than I can ever hope to when he announced to Baldrick: “One is born, one runs up bills and one dies.” Even the Blackadder did not have licences to renew.
I can’t get you out of my head, Kylie
Mention Kylie and my mind goes back to Charlene, the feisty teenager in Neighbours, the Aussie soap highly popular in its day.
The lunchtime soap was one of my mum’s favourites. Actually she just liked Harold Bishop, the character played by actor Ian Smith.
I never thought that I would be a fan of Kylie at 55, but I can’t get her latest song out of my head, Padam, Padam. I’ve no idea what it means, but it’s the song of summer.
It’s Kylie’s first top 10 solo hit in over a decade and it’s remarkably catchy.
Can I use the words “good old” when referring to Kylie’s battle with the BBC and its ageist policies when it comes to the Radio 1 playlist? Well, good old Kylie has won and become the first woman over 50 to break into the playlist. All I can say is Padam, Padam.
