Covid bereaved don’t deserve further Government obstruction at inquiry - The Yorkshire Post says

That is what ultimately led to support for the former PM Boris Johnson collapsing amongst the electorate.

However, bereaved families are still awaiting a sense of closure, something that can only be reached through a transparent inquiry.

That is why Baroness Heather Hallett, chair of the Covid inquiry, is right to demand to see messages between Ministers to establish what went on in Government during the crisis.

The Government’s attempts to block messages being seen by the inquiry will only further the anguish suffered by those who lost loved ones.

Politically, it is a poor reflection on the Government that it has been outflanked by Boris Johnson when it comes to revealing the WhatsApp messages to the Covid inquiry.

It should be up to the inquiry to decide what is and isn’t relevant communication when it comes to examining the decisions taken by the Government at the height of the pandemic.

For bereaved families, full disclosure is imperative. They deserve to know everything that happened.

In order to learn lessons from the pandemic, it is important to remove unnecessary obstacles from the path of the inquiry.

And it is vital that lessons are learned for the legacy of the pandemic is evident today with an economy on its knees, children left playing catch up at school and a mental health crisis that has only worsened.