Increased calls for Covid inquiry to begin sooner than 2022 after bombshell claims by Dominic Cummings

Unions and MPs have joined urgent calls to bring forward their independent inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic to this year, accusing the UK Government of ducking scrutiny by waiting until 2022.

Labour has said the inquiry must begin this summer, as UNISON – the union that represents thousands of care workers – the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group, the Royal College of Nurses and a cross-party group of MPs investigating coronavirus united in saying it needs to begin as soon as possible.

The Prime Minister recently announced that an independent inquiry will take place in 2022, and health secretary Matt Hancock told the Commons that date won’t change.

This follows the explosive evidence given by Dominic Cummings earlier this week to a joint hearing of the Health and Social Care Committee and Science and Technology Committee at Westminster.

Cummings, who served as Boris Johnson’s most senior adviser until last December, said mistakes by government led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, and the inquiry should not be delayed.

There were also dramatic claims that the health secretary lied about the level of protection for care home residents.

Families of those killed by COVID worry that waiting until next year to begin the inquiry will in the meantime shift the focus to political infighting rather than addressing what caused the UK's catastrophic death toll.

“The way things have been handled over the last few days has just turned things into a spectacle where it’s Johnson Vs Cummings, Cummings Vs Hancock," a spokesperson for the COVID-19 Bereaved families told Holyrood’s sister site PoliticsHome.

https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,calls-increase-for-public-inquiry-into-coronavirus-to-begin-sooner-following-dominic-cummings-evidence

Whenever a politician seeks to stop, stall or put off an investigation, he/she immediately looks guilty, don't they?

Ben Reilly wrote:

Unions and MPs have joined urgent calls to bring forward their independent inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic to this year, accusing the UK Government of ducking scrutiny by waiting until 2022.

Labour has said the inquiry must begin this summer, as UNISON – the union that represents thousands of care workers – the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group, the Royal College of Nurses and a cross-party group of MPs investigating coronavirus united in saying it needs to begin as soon as possible.

The Prime Minister recently announced that an independent inquiry will take place in 2022, and health secretary Matt Hancock told the Commons that date won’t change.

This follows the explosive evidence given by Dominic Cummings earlier this week to a joint hearing of the Health and Social Care Committee and Science and Technology Committee at Westminster.

Cummings, who served as Boris Johnson’s most senior adviser until last December, said mistakes by government led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, and the inquiry should not be delayed.

There were also dramatic claims that the health secretary lied about the level of protection for care home residents.

Families of those killed by COVID worry that waiting until next year to begin the inquiry will in the meantime shift the focus to political infighting rather than addressing what caused the UK's catastrophic death toll.

“The way things have been handled over the last few days has just turned things into a spectacle where it’s Johnson Vs Cummings, Cummings Vs Hancock," a spokesperson for the COVID-19 Bereaved families told Holyrood’s sister site PoliticsHome.

https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,calls-increase-for-public-inquiry-into-coronavirus-to-begin-sooner-following-dominic-cummings-evidence

Whenever a politician seeks to stop, stall or put off an investigation, he/she immediately looks guilty, don't they?

Sometimes, but also politicians know that investigations can be witch hunts and the mere accusation of something can cause you problems.

Opposing parties love to have investigations of people in the other party.

But I think every country needs to take a look at what happened during this pandemic so as to learn something. Just make sure the investigation is designed to be as unbiased as possible and designed to learn something from mistakes. Unfortunately, they are often used to beat the other party over the head for political reasons, not to help the general public.

I know what you're saying, but the fact that Cummings was a Tory demigod makes me think this isn't your typical partisan witch hunt.

The investigation should definitely get at the heart of the mistakes that were made, but the unfortunate thing about human nature is that many people seem to think that finding the person/people to blame for things going wrong is the same thing as fixing the mistakes.

Politicians need to be taught that the people are tired of them worrying only about the next election, and that we want them to focus on doing the right/smart thing first. We as voters need to teach them that.

Ben Reilly wrote:I know what you're saying, but the fact that Cummings was a Tory demigod makes me think this isn't your typical partisan witch hunt.

The investigation should definitely get at the heart of the mistakes that were made, but the unfortunate thing about human nature is that many people seem to think that finding the person/people to blame for things going wrong is the same thing as fixing the mistakes.

Politicians need to be taught that the people are tired of them worrying only about the next election, and that we want them to focus on doing the right/smart thing first. We as voters need to teach them that.

I’d love to think Cummings is acting with total integrity here; however, he also comes across as a bit of a vindictive egomaniac, and I could totally see him doing this for fame or infamy and to get back at Johnson for sacking him.

That doesn’t mean his claims shouldn’t be taken seriously though. The government did, regardless of excuses of ‘exceptional times’, make a mess of handling Covid in the early days and in needs to be looked into.

There was undoubtedly mistakes made in the early days, and the way this was handled does need to be investigated. This wont be the last pandemic and lessons need to be learned in order to handle the next one more efficiently.

But, we are in a different position now, we have the vaccine, the pandemics in a different phase, so the same mistakes are not being repeated.

However we are still in the middle of the pandemic, it's not over yet, so would it not be better to leave the government to concentrate on the job in hand right now, plenty time later to pick the bones out of what was done rightly and wrongly.

I also think Cummings is rather bitter and vindictive, also a proven liar.

Surely it’s “okay” to make mistakes at the beginning of something this massive, something unheard of before. It was like unchartered territory, after all.
I mean, did any of us actually take the threat of Coronavirus seriously in the early days?

That's the biggest lesson the world needs to learn -- that something happening "over there" is going to spread to "here" soon enough, unless we do something dramatic like severely restricting international travel.

Which we won't do, obviously, but we may do it the next time a disease emerges and begins to spread rapidly in some corner of the world.

I also expect the health industry to become much more efficient at developing and manufacturing vaccines. Probably some protocol will be developed to isolate viruses very early in an outbreak, and subject them to computerized analysis so that the groundwork for creating a vaccine is accomplished much earlier in the process.

As far as governments go, they need to learn to plan for the next pandemic just like they plan for the next attempted terrorist attack or natural disaster. They have to adapt the mindset that another pandemic is coming.

I agree with you Ben but this was unprecedented and like I said, how many people actually took this seriously in the early months when it was reported? I’m not saying the government were flawless but to be perfectly honest, they’re only human and it was an unusual situation for any government.

Eilzel wrote:

Ben Reilly wrote:I know what you're saying, but the fact that Cummings was a Tory demigod makes me think this isn't your typical partisan witch hunt.

The investigation should definitely get at the heart of the mistakes that were made, but the unfortunate thing about human nature is that many people seem to think that finding the person/people to blame for things going wrong is the same thing as fixing the mistakes.

Politicians need to be taught that the people are tired of them worrying only about the next election, and that we want them to focus on doing the right/smart thing first. We as voters need to teach them that.

I’d love to think Cummings is acting with total integrity here; however, he also comes across as a bit of a vindictive egomaniac, and I could totally see him doing this for fame or infamy and to get back at Johnson for sacking him.

That doesn’t mean his claims shouldn’t be taken seriously though. The government did, regardless of excuses of ‘exceptional times’, make a mess of handling Covid in the early days and in needs to be looked into.

Cummings was a vindictive and vengeful disaffected member of Johnson’s staff who was not only content with the power that he held within No 10 but also tried to extend his domination over other departments, treating elected ministers and private parliamentary secretaries and their aides as his own subordinates.

He may well have been brilliant at his job, but he was a proven liar who treated ordinary people suffering lockdown with utter contempt, ignoring the restrictions that he had played a prominent role in creating.
He caused division and dissent among ministers and senior civil servants at a time when the country desperately needed unity, leadership and action. Johnson was absolutely right to get rid of him before he could do further damage.

Of course, as can be seen with hindsight, the government made mistakes at the beginning of 2020, probably compounded by Cummings’ own interference in other key ministries. And some of these were serious and had devastating consequences. But Johnson and his team, whatever you think of them, faced a frightening situation which developed in a matter of weeks from being just another novel disease in a far away country into probably the biggest national and world crisis since 1939 at the very least.

Do you think a Starmer government would have fared better? Or one led by a Corbyn? I don’t think so, and I think Johnson’s team (and brilliant scientists and researchers) have at least made a damn good fist of Britain’s vaccination programme since.

And yes, I agree completely that the early mistakes should be fully and independently investigated and this will take place. But for the moment the government’s first duty is to deal with the continuing toll of illness and death through vaccinations or any other means and to prepare for the next few years....because Covid ain’t going to go away any time soon.

Yawn...