'Covid inquiry is a sideshow led by smug lawyers with 20-20 hindsight'

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Jump to category:

Daily Mail leader article
Chris Deerin in The New Statesman
Anjana Ahuja in the Financial Times
The Washington Post editorial board

published 1 November 2023

The Covid inquiry has become a circus

Daily Mail leader article

Dominic Cummings "went on the attack" at the Covid inquiry "in characteristically belligerent fashion", says the Daily Mail leader, "spraying bullets in all directions". But while Boris Johnson's former right-hand man "may be right about the ineptitude of the Whitehall Blob", he's "hardly in a position to throw stones". And "what is the purpose of this circus of an inquiry" anyway? "Smug lawyers with 20-20 hindsight excoriating the personalities involved may be fascinating theatre, but it's largely a sideshow."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Scotland's ruling party "has deservedly gained a reputation for playing fast and loose with important information that might in time cause it embarrassment", writes Chris Deerin for The New Statesman. The alleged deletion of senior government figures' WhatsApp messages about the pandemic "adds to the growing appearance of SNP slipperiness". And as former first minister Alex Salmond should know, the "idea that you’re 'dodgy', once it’s implanted in the electorate’s mind, is especially toxic and hard to shift".

"From a purely evolutionary point of view, we older women are a mystery," says science writer Anjana Ahuja in the Financial Times. "We serve no apparent purpose because we cannot reproduce after the menopause." Some experts point to the grandmother hypothesis – an extra pair of hands for child-rearing – but "older women are not just grandmothers: they are valued universally for their economic contributions, caregiving and wise counsel". Regardless of whether "the scientific enigma persists, the social reasons for our continued existence seem much clearer".

When US climate envoys arrive in Dubai for Cop28 later this month, "they will bring with them a big new global warming plan, codified in federal law, enabling them to declare to the world that the United States has joined the climate fight", says The Washington Post editorial board. They will also be underlining Joe Biden's commitment to the cause, by stressing that his country "will not just invest in new technologies but also bring them within reach of the entire world".

Explore More