As much as the seven-volume report that it launched, Sir Brian Langstaff’s remarkable speech yesterday at the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster was a milestone in the history of the modern British state. Its specific theme was the contaminated blood scandal in which 30,000 people were infected with HIV or hepatitis and 3,000 have died.
But its central contention — “this disaster was not an accident” — was a devastating indictment of an entire national system: political, administrative, medical, and ethical. Sir Brian’s mission was to describe “suffering which is very difficult to put into words”, to see that justice is done (as far as practicable, given that many of the victims and culprits are dead); and to ensure that his recommendations do not now gather dust on a shelf in Whitehall.
