Where is the public inquiry?

[Fambo Number Mive]

There is a petition for  a public inquiry into Government contracts granted during Covid-19 (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/328408) but where is the public inquiry into the overall handling of the pandemic by the government? There's one taking place in France, where the government response was much better than here.

[SpiderChrist]

NOW IS NOT THE TIME!

_{(c) some Keir Starmer groupie of my acquaintance}

[Cuellar]

Given that this is going to go on for years (Covid, that is), it would probably make more sense to kick it off a) when the virus actually starts to go away for whatever reason and b) closer to an election than we are now, so the papers can be filled with TORY INCOMPETENCE stories

[jobotic]

2070

[Fambo Number Mive]

2070

"Too soon" shouts a hologram of Kier Starmar in the relocated House of Commons, while a cyborg Boris Johnson gets ready to read the list of places flooded following the melting of the polar ice caps. In the distance, the Bicester Walrus eats some more people.

[Bleeding Kansas]

2090

Bicester Walrus wins a landslide general election victory.

Cyborg Laura Kuenssberg welcomes our new walrus overlord.

Inquiry delayed indefinitely for the government to concentrate on pro-walrus initiatives.

[Thomas]

Captain Tom appointed chairman

[Fr.Bigley]

Gynaecology, Floor 6, Turn right at the lift. 

[dissolute ocelot]

2090

First rule is never hold a public enquiry while it could affect anyone powerful's career. And Priti Patel will rule us forever, like Jesus or whoever invented trousers.

[Fambo Number Mive]

A group of families bereaved by Covid-19 say they are "really disappointed" at the government's response to their calls for an urgent inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.

In a letter sent to thousands of affected families, Downing Street said "an inquiry now is not appropriate".

It said there was "simply no capacity" for the government to divert resources to an "intensive" inquiry.

The PM has previously said there will be an inquiry in the future...

The letter, dated 1 April and from the government legal department, added: "The very people who would need to give evidence to an inquiry are working round the clock to respond to the pandemic and keep us all safe.

I presume the people who "are working round the clock" are people like Jenny Harries and Chris Whitty, as ministers seem to have time for all sorts of culture-war related divisive nonsense. I can't imagine Johnson is working that much harder, isn't he famously lazy?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56886334

[Fambo Number Mive]

From the Guardian

 

Boris Johnson's refusal to trigger a public inquiry into the UK's handling of Covid is facing a fresh challenge as some of the country's leading experts in government and healthcare demand the launch of an immediate investigation.

The Institute for Government (IfG), whose leadership includes the former Conservative cabinet minister David Lidington and the former Labour science minister Lord Sainsbury, will call on the prime minister to set up a statutory public inquiry as soon as May, with hearings to start in September.

At the same time the respected healthcare thinktank the King's Fund, which is chaired by Lord Kakkar, a government adviser on race and professor of surgery at University College London, will tell Downing Street: "Now is the time."

Their intervention comes weeks after the Guardian revealed the extent of support for an inquiry, with senior doctors, government scientific advisers and a former head of the civil service all demanding that Johnson launch a process. He has resisted so far – insisting it is not the right time.

Wonder how Tory MPs will smear these people.

[BlodwynPig]

It's always Lords and Ex-MPs who have the power to call for inquiries?? I want a fucking inquiry, me, the voter.

[bakabaka]

While we wait and wait and wait for this the Good Law Project are getting a head start.

They're having to fight every step of the way, but are now in court against the government, trying to get to the information that the government are required by law to publish but are refusing to do so.

It's day 2 of the case and this is tonight's update:

Today the High Court heard our lawyers detail waste, mismanagement - and yet more special treatment for politically connected companies placed in the "VIP" Lane.

Government paid tens of millions of pounds to PestFix and Ayanda Capital for face masks which did not meet NHS standards. An email from a senior official stated that they needed to "get out of a contract" due to "a failure of the commercial process..."

PestFix was in the "VIP" lane because an ex-director was an old-school friend of a senior official's father-in-law; Ayanda, because one of its senior advisers was a member of Government's Board of Trade.

Government failed to carry out any proper checks before ordering gowns from PestFix. After examining the evidence, our lawyers told the Court: "over £100m spent on gowns with no technical assurance, no financial due diligence and based on a misunderstanding of the gowns which were actually being purchased."

Government didn't put its cards on the table. One witness went to some lengths to "gloss over" - as our lawyer put it - the lack of technical assurance. It was left to a detailed forensic review by our legal team to uncover this extraordinary failure.

Government awarded huge contracts to Ayanda Capital despite it having failed financial due diligence. The hedge fund was given a red rating, which meant there were "Major issues or concerns [which] would need to be resolved before we use them"

Not only did this not dissuade Government from accepting Ayanda's offer to supply millions of FFP2 masks, but its VIP status actually meant that it was invited to supply a different type of mask, leading to an even larger contract award.

This was taxpayers' money, dished out to companies because of who they knew, not what they could supply. The result - unsurprisingly - was a waste of hundreds of millions of pounds. In these contracts alone.

Our challenge seeks to get to the truth of the PPE procurement process in which - again to quote our lawyer - "a truly colossal amount of public money" was spent "in circumstances of almost total secrecy".

£280 million on worthless face masks: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/government-agreed-spending-substandard-masks-ppe-covid-b935860.html

[Fambo Number Mive]

Johnson may have missed coronavirus meetings to work on yet another book:

The government is concerned that Dominic Cummings will reveal that Boris Johnson missed numerous key coronavirus crisis meetings because he was working on a biography of Shakespeare, the money from which he needed to fund his divorce

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1396214307227045890

It's also been claimed he spends £800 a week on takeaways, yet the public still see him as "a man of the people".