Letters: Israel/Gaza isn’t the time for fence-sitting

Ill-judged

Sir: Professor Carl Henegan’s authoritative demolition of the Covid Inquiry (‘The Covid whitewash’, 4 November) prompts the question of why judges are normally appointed to chair public inquiries. Lady Hallett has clearly had a distinguished law career, but has no apparent expertise in government, public health, epidemiology, medicine or science. Her first move on being appointed was not to remedy these deficiencies but to spend more than £100 million hiring other lawyers – and the only possible explanation for the inquiry’s behaviour is that they believe they’re in a court of law and having already stated their positive view of lockdown, see themselves as acting for the defence. Hence their deployment of the usual tricks of talking up the credentials of their witnesses and seeking to denigrate those of the other side.

Lady Hallett is unfortunately likely to join the long list of distinguished retired judges whose reputation was tarnished by lending their names to widely derided public inquiry reports.

Christopher Wyke

Worthing, West Sussex

The lockdown of debate

Sir: Carl Heneghan’s article was timely but depressing. At the start of the pandemic I followed the debate in Sweden closely and found the arguments of their experts persuasive. I was therefore alarmed when reputable scientists such as Professor Heneghan and Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford, were not only ignored by the government, but for reasons I could never fathom deemed ‘right-wing’ by the left-wing press. I, a cradle socialist, was also tarred with this brush when I wrote a couple of articles in support of their policies. As Professor Heneghan suggests, this attitude was not only ignorant but unscientific and has done immense harm to our children, young people and economy. According to the evidence, it has not saved lives either.

Salley Vickers

London W11