The Covid Inquiry might have upped sticks and left Belfast, but there’s still some entertainment to be had from the Post Office Horizon Inquiry over in London. Except there isn’t. It’s turned out to be a dreary procession of grey and boring former Post Office people who’ve clearly been coached to within an inch of their dull lives to avoid taking any blame for the scandal.
The former boss, Paula Vennells, is just scary. She has come across this week as though she was a robot fed by artificial intelligence. A barrister asks a dull question. There’s a noticeable pause and then Paula’s monotone voice kicks in with a measured and steady response. Well, denial rather than response, to be fair.
It’s all so flat, it’s all so boring and it’s all so obviously going nowhere. A bit like the Covid Inquiry. Whilst the Covid one will find that some mistakes were made and lessons could be learnt, yadda, yadda, yadda…..the Post Office one will find much the same. There’ll be some wrist slapping and tut-tutting but that’ll be the height of it.
Don’t forget, though, that the scandal behind the inqury devastated people’s lives. Watching the goings on in the inquiry room, it’s easy to forget that.
But the two inquiries were dwarfed by this week’s findings from the Infected Blood Inquiry. To be fair, this one didn’t hold back. It shamed governments, it shamed medical professionals and, most of all, it shamed the NHS. The sacred cow was shown to be a very dangerous animal indeed.
And this was a story of real human tragedy and loss. Will heads roll though? Don’t hold your breath. In the public sector, they rarely do.