Joan Bakewell among those demanding an inquiry into the UK's handling of the pandemic

Veteran journalist and broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell is among prominent figures demanding an investigation into the way the UK’s has handled the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bakewell, a Labour Peer and former Tsar for older people, praises the work of the NHS saying everything it has controlled as done well. But the 87-year-old raises concern about contracts given by the Government to private companies, “to people they know.” This practice says Bakewell, a regular past speaker for Clive Conway Productions, needs to be investigated.
Others piling pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to launch an inquiry include the film director Stephen Frears and the children’s writer, poet and covid survivor Michael Rosen.
It is now eight months since the prime minister first promised a public inquiry but he now says the time is not right as an inquiry would distract from the vaccination programme. Rosen, who spent weeks on a ventilator battling the disease, says he fears that, in the early days of the  pandemic, the government may have been experimenting with the idea that herd immunity could be achieved without vaccination”. He demanded an inquiry into the thinking behind what he called “this lethal idea”
Meanwhile a group representing thousands of bereaved families has said that unless a public  inquiry is launched they will take legal action.

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