I have grown quite fond of Hugo Keith, KC. The lead counsel to the UK Covid inquiry had me at “Mr Gove, I ask the questions”. Maybe it’s the husky yet classically trained voice that speaks of too many single malts enjoyed in fireside leather chairs (dramatic license duly taken). Possibly, it’s his forensic mind and apparent disdain for the grubby political manoeuvres of the specimens he is obliged to interview.
I’m not alone in my fandom. The Independent recently compiled Keith’s best bits into a Strictly-style montage even before he had a chance to have at Boris Johnson.
Politicians air dirty laundry
It might be Stockholm syndrome. I have spent far too many hours of late with AirPods in, listening to the livestream of the Covid inquiry. My fury still burns over Partygate, neglect of care homes, PPE corruption, and general indifference to the vulnerable. This, even though I had a relatively easy ride through the pandemic with my work-from-home job. I can only imagine how furious and heart-broken must be those who lost loved ones or who suffer the long-term consequences of a failed pandemic response.
Watching Johnson, Dominic Cummings and Matt Hancock faced with their own profanity-laced machinations is a much-needed release. Their lack of compassion and vision, their lies and arrogance needed airing. I even sometimes forget that several of the main offenders are now safely beyond the reach of public accountability.
Lessons for government identified
The inquiry terms of reference cite one of its main aims as identifying lessons for future pandemics.
There are plenty to find.
The government likes to describe the pandemic as unprecedented, as a defence against accountability. In many ways, of course, it is. But there was ample opportunity for reflection and preparation in the years before Covid.
In 2016, a three-day exercise, Cygnus, was designed to test the UK’s preparedness for a flu pandemic. The findings remained unpublished for three years but they included concern about lack of social care capacity, PPE stocks and ventilators. Though Cygnus was based on a pandemic flu scenario, there is significant crossover. We know this by the adoption of certain recommendations for Covid, such as relaxation of legislation and the eventual centralisation of the government response rather than the lead government department approach often taken in smaller-scale crises.
Even after Covid had hit our shores, the February 2020 Exercise Nimbus was a chance to test UK responses to a known pandemic disease. Sadly, its focus was on rationing resources and managing the death toll rather than taking infection control steps to prevent it. And this when we’d been watching the virus march west towards us for weeks. By then, sadly, we already had thousands of test cases and numerous other nations to learn from. Or not, as it turned out.
Meanwhile, back at the inquiry, we’ve heard that there was no effective pandemic plan and too many decisions rested with a Downing Street cabal. No one asked the scientists about Eat Out to Help Out. Cummings is an arrogant potty mouth, and Johnson is a “trolley” who thinks we’re daft enough to believe he doesn’t know what a factory reset is. So far so obvious, but it’s nice to see them called out.
Will pandemic lessons be learned?
But there’s danger in this popcorn seduction. With an estimated price tag of £156mn, the inquiry must ultimately make a real-world impact beyond the spectacle. Because the NHS is still on its knees and leaking passionate but exhausted staff. Decision making will be flawed whilst our leadership hails from a narrow pool of privately educated, over-confident, middle-aged men. And the sordid VIP procurement lane stands ready to reopen once more.
Inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett has the unappealing task of making something of this immoral maze. The inquiry will publish an interim report after the completion of the current Module 2, which will give us an indication of how the mountain of material has landed.
The risk is that after the swearing’s done and the show’s over, the volumes of the Covid inquiry report will be doomed to gather microbes on a reinforced shelf in the Palace of Westminster vaults. Like Leveson and Grenfell before it, could its implementation be destined to languish in the ‘too difficult’ box?
It had better not. Because those who follow the science know that future pandemics are a certainty.
We can only hope next time we have at the helm a group of people who are rather less pre-occupied with their own “world-beating” brilliance and who are armed with a better set of plans.
