MANY millions of pounds back at the start of this inquiry I’m sure I recall that the people in charge stated that the sole purpose of it was to find out what worked, what didn’t and what could be done better in the future.

So far all we have had is back covering, buck passing, character assassinations and the settling of old scores.

Nothing would have happened any differently had Jeremy Corbyn or Sir Keir Starmer been in charge instead of Boris Johnson because none of them and probably very few in Parliament are trained medical scientists or epidemiologists.

As such any decisions those in power can make have to be on advice from the experts. As was obvious from what occurred at the time plus what has come from the inquiry is that the ‘experts’ couldn’t agree on the action to be taken, which is understandable as this was a new untested, unknown quantity.

All this inquiry will do, even if it actually finishes before any subsequent epidemic, is to make obscene amounts of public money for all the legal people involved.

All it needs is the people who had to deal with it at the sharp end, medics, emergency services and possibly local authorities to sit down together and thrash out what helped them carry out their duties, what didn’t and how contingency plans could be drawn up for the future.

It should cost a fraction of what’s been spent already and actually be of some future use. But the main thing to remember for the future is, for the sake of the British public please keep party politics out of it.

Paul Morley

Long Preston