Covid Inquiry: Tricky questions for O’Neill and Foster

At this point let’s introduce lawyer number two, Brenda Campbell KC, counsel for the Covid19-bereaved families in Northern Ireland.

The final verdict on the executive lead by Michelle O’Neill and Arlene Foster would be hers.

The charge sheet, as follows:

The Bobby Storey funeral was “breathtakingly insensitive”; the DUP’s use of the cross community vote was an “unedifying spectacle”; there was finger-pointing, sectarianism, spin and valuing “political point scoring over political progress” .

That was only the half of it.

Judge Hallett’s report will come in time, Ms Campbell said, but in the here and now she borrowed a phrase from Mo Mowlam, telling our politicians: “Bloody well get on and do it”.

A question you often hear asked is: “What is the Covid inquiry for?”

“Ridding Stormont of any complacency which may be setting in now that it’s survived its first 100 days” probably isn’t the answer.

But it might do for now.