It's A Feature, Simon, Not A Bug...

Be it the Manchester bombing, children’s homes or Daniel Morgan, millions are squandered on probes that merely enrich lawyers

Thus thunders Simon Jenkins in the 'Guardian', clearly missing the point that often that's their actual purpose.

These inquiries must be the worst value for money in British government. Most were just kicks into touch by some embarrassed minister, producing a day’s headline some years later before gathering dust. The infected blood inquiry, into an NHS mistake half a century ago, is now costing £32m a year. Like this week’s Manchester Arena bombing report, costing millions, it is telling us little or nothing that a bunch of assiduous investigators could not have discovered in a few weeks.

Probably, but then what are we supposed to do, not find out that BTP officers drove five miles for a kebab over a two-hour lunch break, leaving no one on duty in the City Room Foyer on the night in question?  

There is soon to be the mother of all inquiries, into the coronavirus pandemic. It will inevitably seek to apportion blame. I sense that the present extreme caution of Whitehall’s politicians and scientists on lockdown is not driven by the public interest. It is driven by a sense of how their reputations will stand up under cross-examination.

That's always what drives them. And anyone who thinks it's anything else is fooling themselves... 

Why Must We Remove Freedom From Everyone...

...simply to prevent a small sector of society from abusing it?

A move to outlaw weddings for under-18s was backed by senior Tories yesterday.

The right to marry at the age of 16 is a loophole that should go because it encourages child abuse and exploitation, former chancellor Sajid Javid said.

Both of which are against the law. Is this so widespread? Well... 

Mr Javid, who comes from a Pakistani background, said: ‘I’ve seen this myself in the community I was raised in, young girls expected to enter into marriage far before they were ready to with painful consequences. Let’s call this what it is: Child abuse.’

Yes, let's! And let's see some action against it that doesn't affect the existing rights of the majority population, shall we? 

Academic and author on family law Patricia Morgan acknowledged the ‘problem of attitudes to women in some communities’ that see girls marry young, but added: ‘This is a very minor issue. It affects only a very small number of people. I am surprised ministers think it is worth the time and effort.’

Sadly, I'm not. It has the hallmarks of modern Toryism all over it. Ignore the elephas maxima in the room and find some way of looking to be doing something without actually pointing fingers.  

"We Stopped Counting It, So It's Gone Down..."

A year ago, as the coronavirus began to spread across Maryland, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby stopped prosecuting drug possession, prostitution, minor traffic violations and other low-level offenses, a move aimed at curbing Covid-19's spread behind bars.

That shift — repeated by prosecutors in many other cities — didn’t just reduce jail populations. In Baltimore, nearly all categories of crime have since declined...

Umm... 

...confirming to Mosby what she and criminal justice experts have argued for years: Crackdowns on quality-of-life crimes are not necessary for stopping more serious crime.

Wait, what? 

On Friday, Mosby announced that she was making her pandemic experiment permanent, saying Baltimore — for decades notorious for runaway violence and rough policing — had become a case study in criminal justice reform.

It's a case study in something, all right! 

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found sharp reductions in calls to police complaining about drugs and prostitution, she said.

Because if they aren't going to do anything about it, what's the point..? 

Maybe Their Proofreaders Are Very Slow..?

Britain's most dangerous prisoners are more likely to reoffend when they leave jail if they are put on a high-profile rehabilitation programme, the Daily Mail can reveal.

A bombshell study reveals that offenders who went through the programme posed a greater risk than those who had not – and they went on to commit more crimes after their sentences ended.

Well, thank goodness someone was evaluating this and can take swift action to...

Oh. 

Yet the Ministry of Justice, which commissioned the study, has still not published the report – nearly three years after it was finished.

*sighs* 

The OPD pathway budget in 2016, the last year for which figures are available, was £64 million.

The beancounters are clearly even slower! 

The Real Cost Of Lack Of Consequences...

Smart motorways in their current format were signed off by then Tory transport minister Sir Mike Penning at the beginning of last decade.

However, he has always maintained he was misled about the risks of turning the hard shoulder into a live lane of traffic.

He also claims they don't resemble the designs he signed off and that Highways England has 'casually ignored the commitments' made to MPs on safety.

And have any civil servants been sacked? Dragged before PAC? Mildly admonished? 

A Department for Transport spokesman (said): 'As soon as the Transport Secretary took office he recognised the concerns around smart motorway safety and commissioned an urgent stocktake of the evidence, which we published a year ago - along with a £500 million, 18-point, action plan to make them safer still.'

Oh. No, of course not. We're just going to be forking over more cash to try to put it right.  

Highways England is facing possible manslaughter charges over the death of Nargis Begum, 62, who died on the M1 smart motorway in Yorkshire in 2018.

Bet that comes to nothing too.