The difficulties facing Britain’s covid-19 inquiry
Establishing facts, consoling the bereaved, drawing lessons: all look daunting
HUGO KEITH KC, the chief lawyer to Britain’s covid-19 inquiry, took a defensive turn. “We’ve proceeded at a remarkable pace,” he told a preliminary hearing on June 6th. “There is simply no justification for any complaint that the inquiry has been slow or dilatory.” Yes, commissions in other countries had already finished their reports. But they lacked legal powers to compel witnesses to appear and evidence to be produced. “They did not, of course, address these issues with anything like the same degree of scope and width.” That much is true. It will be the inquiry’s great virtue. And its great weakness.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “The state on trial”
Britain June 10th 2023
- The difficulties facing Britain’s covid-19 inquiry
- Why does London have so much sexually transmitted disease?
- Children’s centres in Britain are crammed again
- How grassroots schemes are helping England’s non-white cricketers
- The fading charms of Britain’s historic cinemas
- Britons still do like to be beside the seaside
- British politics is littered with fake taboos
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