Covid-19 Inquiry timetable favours Conservatives' general election chances

 Private Eye reckons

it's good news for government that the inquiry has said it won't look at events in chronological order. Thus the successful vaccine roll-out will be scrutinised before the election, but how the virus spread through care homes isn't scheduled until summer 2024. With an election likely in autumn 2024, the inquiry won't be able to hold hearings during an election campaign, so the care home deaths module will likely be delayed until afterwards.

The inquiry could still publish its interim analysis of pandemic preparedness and the government's initial response before the election - but only if it receives the evidence it needs in time. 

That timeframe will also be a relief to the Welsh ministers in post at the time the epidemic was taking hold here. First Minister Mark Drakeford and Health Minister Vaughan Gething were the men in charge. Gething has since been replaced by Eluned Morgan and Drakeford may well have sent in his promised resignation letter by the time the inquiry takes evidence from Wales. They must feel that denying a Wales-only Inquiry, which may well have been able to report more swiftly than Hallett, was justified in keeping out of the line of fire until it did not matter. 

There was a further item in Private Eye about the Inquiry which is difficult to believe until you see the official confirmation:

Renowned art curator Ekow Eshun has been appointed to oversee the co-creation of a modern tapestry for the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that will capture the experiences and emotions of people across the UK during the pandemic. Ekow is Chairman of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, overseeing one of the UK’s foremost public art programmes.

Ekow will curate the tapestry, which will feature panels produced by different artists over the coming months. The Inquiry is working with a range of organisations and individuals across the UK to identify stories to inspire each panel.

This is an egregious waste of public money when one considers that such a tapestry already exists. It is shortly to find a permanent home with the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Trust after a tour of the UK:

The Covid Chronicle was set up by artist Wendy Bliss during the February UK Lockdown, 2021. The completed project is made up of 142 submissions from around the world, and the panels have been curated and stitched together into metre square blocks of four, making a total of 36 metres of work. The installation has been described as a ‘Bayeux Tapestry’ for the 21st century pandemic, and records personal experience in words as well as pictures: each artist has been invited to add words to support their panel for this extraordinary collection; these are often poetic or moving, and always interesting.