Grenfell Tower: The Public Inquiry

Public Inquiries have fallen into disrepute. They take too long and even longer to deliver a conclusion. Rarely does that conform with what everybody who heard the evidence would have themselves concluded. They cost a fortune and are then forgotten. Occasionally they work; Bloody Sunday (in the end) and Scarman come to mind. But Scott, Hutton, Leveson, Chilcot have all cost millions and achieved little.

On the other hand Select Committees in the House of Commons do get answers and when multiple fatalities are involved, the Inquest, with the Coroner sitting with a Jury on the style of Hillsborough, really can deliver. It is that format which the government should have chosen for the public investigation into the unprecedented horror of Grenfell Tower.

The choice of a judge led public inquiry has already run into controversy and criticism, the last thing survivors now need. It is perhaps another example of a style of politics out of touch, behind the curve and on the wane.