How Government Inquiries come to pass
by Comrade Muttley

This is applicable regardless of the hue of the Party in power.

Disaster strikes.

Opposition: We demand an inquiry!

Government: We're not keen, lessons have been learned etc...

Opposition: But we won't shut up till we get one.

Government: [sigh] Oh alright, let's ask a respected Freudian authority figure to take a look and report back quickly.

Opposition: None of that! We'll see your quick informal inquiry and raise you a full judicial inquiry under the 1922 Tribunals and Inquiries Act. And if you don't agree, then you must have something to hide....

Government: Oh bleedin' hell. That will take forever, and tie up Ministers indefinitely, cost a fortune and deliver no more answers than the process we suggested.

Opposition: We knew it! You're hiding something....

Government: OK, OK, you can have an inquiry. We suggest the Lord of Appeal in Ordinary Sir Reginald Hyphen Hyphen Massingberd-Blueblood to preside over it.

Opposition: [gasp!] But he once passed within a half mile of Cherie Blair! It's a fix, he's a crony!

Sir Reginald etc: I hereby report that Ministers dropped the ball with regard to this one...

Opposition: [snarl] But no calls for resignation! No calls for ritual disembowelment! Fix, Fix! We demand an inquiry into the inquiry, and a second inquiry into the original question to prove that the first inquiry got it wrong, which we already know anyway.

[the cycle repeats ad infinitum.....]