What's The Difference Between Grooming Gangs and Grenfell?
Nothing. Both get an inquiry. Both get ignored. And both may likely happen again.
(Image:ITVX)
UK public inquiries cost £1.5bn since 1990, yet recommendations go ignored. Discover why Britain’s inquiry system is an expensive con that changes nothing.
Reading time: 5 minutes
You know what the British government has genuinely mastered? Spending millions to discover what everyone already knows.
They call them “public inquiries.” I call them employment programmes for lawyers who couldn’t make it in ambulance chasing.
How the Scam Works.
Something terrible happens. Kids get abused. Grenfell burns. We invade Iraq. Everyone already knows what went wrong.
But we can’t just say that. Instead, we spend seven years and £186 million confirming it.
The numbers:
£1.5 billion spent on inquiries since 1990
COVID inquiry: £227 million (£158,000 per day)
Average cost exploded from £8.2m (2005-2014) to £69.4m (last decade)
2023/24 spending: £130 million—enough for 5,000 NHS nurses
That money’s paying lawyers to argue about paragraph formatting.
Why UK Public Inquiries Take Forever and Cost a Fortune.
Scope Creep and Lawyer Feeding Frenzies.
British inquiries suffer from massive scope creep—trying to assign blame, learn lessons, and memorialise victims simultaneously. Legal staff alone account for 36% of total inquiry costs. Multiple QCs, solicitors for every party, witness representation—it’s a gravy train with biscuit wheels.
The “Maxwellisation” Time Sink.
Before publishing, inquiries must allow everyone criticised to review and respond to findings. This process—called Maxwellisation—adds months or years to every inquiry. The Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War took seven years, partly because of this.
Zero Accountability for Implementation.
Here’s the genuinely criminal part: only six out of 68 inquiries between 1990 and 2017 received proper follow-up to ensure recommendations were implemented.
Let that sink in. That’s an 8.8% success rate.
The consequences? Disasters repeat because nobody implements the lessons:
The 2001 Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry recommended changes that could have prevented the 2013 Mid Staffordshire scandal
The 2013 Lakanal House fire inquiry made recommendations that could have prevented Grenfell Tower
The grooming gangs inquiry spent £186 million over seven years, yet we’re launching another one because the recommendations were ignored
Other Countries Run Circles Around Us.
New Zealand: Average 18 months
Netherlands: Three COVID inquiries conducted between June 2020 and October 2023, recommendations already implemented
Australia: Uses “implementation monitors” to ensure action
Britain’s own Soham Inquiry took under a year. We can do it. We just choose not to.
The Pattern: It’s All the Same Scam.
Remember the UK protest prisoners on hunger strike, repeating a 2000-year-old tactic that’s never worked?
It’s the exact same con.
Governments have learned they can simply wait people out. The inquiry is the magic spell cast to make angry people shut up.
“We can’t comment—there’s an ongoing inquiry.”
It’s a seven-year, £200-million STFU button.
The cycle:
Disaster happens → 2. Government promises action → 3. Inquiry launched → 4. Years pass, lawyers get rich → 5. Report confirms what everyone knew → 6. Government “accepts recommendations” → 7. Nothing changes → 8. Return to Step 1
That’s not insanity. That’s exhaustion. It’s the only game in town when those in power control all other options.
The system isn’t broken. The system is working exactly as designed to:
Create the appearance of action without action
Burn through time until people forget or die
Transfer public money to private law firms
Protect those who cocked things up
Ensure nothing fundamentally changes
Why the Government Keeps Running the Same Playbook.
Because it keeps working.
Every inquiry that takes seven years is seven years they don’t have to fix anything. Every £200 million spent on lawyers is £200 million they don’t spend actually solving problems.
The hunger strikers know their tactic hasn’t worked in 2000 years. The bereaved families know inquiries don’t deliver justice. But they keep trying, hoping this time will be different.
That’s not insanity. That’s the only game in town when those in power control all the rules.
The Greatest Hits: When Inquiries Meet Reality.
Let’s look at some recent masterpieces in the inquiry-industrial complex:
WASPI Women: The £10.5 Billion “No.”
3.6 million women born in the 1950s had their State Pension age suddenly raised from 60 to 66 without proper notice. The Parliamentary Ombudsman investigated, found maladministration, and recommended £2,950 compensation per woman.
The government’s response? “We accept the findings and apologise... but we’re not paying.” They rejected compensation in December 2024, claiming it would cost £10.5 billion. One WASPI woman dies every 13 minutes whilst they fight a judicial review scheduled for December 2025.
The pattern: Inquiry confirms wrongdoing → Government admits wrongdoing → Government refuses to fix wrongdoing → More inquiries, more waiting, more deaths.
Post Office Horizon: The Slowest Justice in History.
Over 700 postmasters were wrongly convicted of fraud due to faulty Fujitsu software. Lives destroyed. Suicides. Bankruptcies. The inquiry concluded in December 2024. By May 2025, only 106 people had received compensation totalling £96 million—despite £1.8 billion being allocated.
The Post Office kept delaying evidence disclosure to its own inquiry. Fujitsu, complicit in the persecution, continues to win government IT contracts. The compensation scheme? Run by people from the organisation that caused the damage.
Infected Blood: £11.8 Billion of Bureaucratic Cruelty.
30,000 NHS patients were infected with HIV or hepatitis C from contaminated blood between the 1970s and 1990s. The inquiry’s final report came out in May 2024. The government committed £11.8 billion for compensation.
By the end of 2024, only ONE person had received their full compensation. The inquiry chair, Sir Brian Langstaff, was so appalled by the government’s implementation that he took the extraordinary step of reopening the inquiry in July 2025 to investigate why compensation wasn’t being paid. An inquiry into why the inquiry’s recommendations weren’t being followed. You couldn’t write this as satire.
The Real Cost: Justice Denied and Lives Lost.
The financial waste is staggering, but the human cost is worse. Every delayed recommendation is another Grenfell waiting to happen. Every ignored report is another grooming gang operating with impunity. Every bureaucratic delay is another WASPI woman dying, another postmaster waiting, another infected blood victim denied justice.
The Current Grooming Gangs Inquiry Status? Four months after being commissioned in June 2025, there’s still no chair appointed, no scope determined, and no start date. Meanwhile, the previous £186 million inquiry’s recommendations gather dust.
The protesters starving themselves on behalf of others aren’t crazy. They’re just honest enough to show what the government is actually doing to everyone: starving people of justice. Slowly. Bureaucratically. With paperwork.
For 2000 years, hunger strikes have failed because authorities have always known they can wait longer than a human body can survive without food. The inquiry system does the same to justice—it starves it slowly, bureaucratically, with 2.6 million words nobody will read.
The Truth Nobody Wants to Say.
These inquiries aren’t about finding truth. They’re about delaying it. Waiting until people stop being angry. Making it look like action whilst doing nothing.
Seven years from now, the COVID inquiry will publish 2.6 million words. The newspapers will cover it for three days. A few MPs will make angry speeches. Then we’ll move on.
Until the next disaster. When we’ll do it all again.
Learn nothing. Spend everything. Repeat.
The lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank. The politicians are covered. The victims are dead or still waiting.
And you and I? We’re continually paying for it.
Conclusion: The roundabout keeps spinning. Same disasters. Same inquiries. Same ignored recommendations. It’s not a roundabout—it’s a death spiral.
And we’re all on it, in one way or another.