Self-Bleaching Whitewash

Returning briefly to the minor matter of those hundred and seventy thousand excess deaths among the non-royal classes, the independent inquiry into the public's experience will naturally be carried out by a private company nominated by the government whose conduct is under investigation. The company which eventually runs the inquiry will be selected from a list of twelve bidders whose bids have been invited by the Government, since the companies have in many cases demonstrated their competence by being paid by the government whose conduct is under investigation, during the period under investigation. Although this procedure has been denounced as an instance of those in power marking their own homework, the independence of the inquiry will in fact be rigorously safeguarded, as the government under investigation will urge its potential investigators to declare any conflict of interest; so the homework will actually have been marked, with all the efficiency and honesty we have come to associate with private corporations, before anyone in power even sees it.