A government spokesperson announced within the last hour that an urgent Inquiry was to be set up to investigate the huge amount of inquiries being set up to investigate anything and everything these days.
He/she said that the Government had concerns on three fronts and the three topics would accordingly require three separate inquiries but that the three senior judges chairing each of the inquiries would eventually, sometime after the next general election probably, convene to co-ordinate a joint report and news conference and thus make it seem like just one big inquiry.
The first inquiry will be known as Inquiry A and will specifically investigate if all these inquiries continually being set up are entirely necessary and are not just instead a prolonged substitute for inaction. It is to be chaired by Lord Justice Bojangles Brown-Nose with an administrative back-up of 246 civil servants, 152 time and motion specialists and 77 lawyers and will be expected to report within five years.
The second inquiry will be known as Inquiry 2 and is charged with investigating the sheer cost of all the inquiries. This will be chaired by Dame Justice Esther Expense-Claim with an extended panel of worthy establishment figures, a crack 500-strong forensic accountancy unit, 310 civil servants and 84 lawyers. It is expected to report within ten million pounds.
The third inquiry will be known as Inquiry C and will investigate the Government's concern that many thousands of lawyers, civil servants and other specialists are spending all their time on inquiries rather than getting on with their real jobs. This is to be chaired by Lord Justice Percy Permanent-Sabbatical and will - in deference to its remit - have a slimmed down administrative back-up team of just 849 civil servants and 99 junior counsel. It is expected to report before the Twelfth of Never.
UPDATE: Following urgent demands from the assembled media the Government spokesperson returned to the stage of the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre to confirm that an inquiry would be set up in due course to investigate the labelling of the three earlier inquiries. This fourth inquiry will be known as the 'Whatever happened to B?' inquiry and will be chaired by the Cabinet Secretary with an emergency remit to report by Christmas 2013.
