Peter Rhodes on a travelling inquiry, a whipped garden and windows that buckle in a heatwave
It's January, so it must be Scotland. The Covid inquiry, reckoned to be costing us taxpayers £200,000 a day, is off to Scotland this week and will appear in Wales next month, followed by Northern Ireland in April.
All this dashing around is, we are told, to prevent the inquiry from becoming “London-centric.” It is also a reminder of how very easy it is to spend other people's money. The Covid inquiry has already cost more than £55 million and is expected to last until 2027.
Its aim is to learn lessons and better prepare the nation for a future pandemic. Yet there is no guarantee that the next pandemic will be anything like Covid-19. And are you convinced that such inquiries can influence opinions? What would it take, for example, to persuade someone that Boris Johnson was an inspirational leader during lockdown when that person has always thought Johnson was a brainless party animal?
