TOMORROW we will mark the one year anniversary of the first lockdown.

As we reflect on the tumultuous events of the past 12 months we should perhaps also feel some small amount of gratitude that, back then, we didn’t know what was to come.

If we had known in March 2020 that our lives would still be governed by restrictions and impacted by loneliness a year later, that long slog ahead would have been much harder to bear.

When Nicola Sturgeon announced our road map for easing restrictions, it was the most optimistic speech she’s given in a long time. Our return to normality looks to be slow and steady, in the hope that this time there will be no going back.

We are all looking forward to different things. I’m excited to see my mum for the first time in eight months and to reconnect with friends again. And the pub! If science and Mother Nature work hand-in-hand, we could see a beautiful summer of cold drinks on hot days, surrounded by the people we love.

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With all that has come before and all that we have to look forward to, it would be tempting to want to move past the coronavirus crisis, embrace the good times and never speak of it again.

But if we are to properly prepare for anything similar happening in the future, we need to learn what went wrong so we can avoid making the same mistakes again.

Nicola Sturgeon has committed to a public inquiry into how her government handled the crisis, as has First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford. Boris Johnson has previously said that he would set up an independent inquiry but in recent days he has come under pressure from bereaved families to commit to a firm date for its commencement. Lawyers for 25 bereaved families have given the UK Government two weeks’ notice and that if it doesn’t commit to a date, they will go to court, claiming that the Government is breaking the law by not launching an inquiry now.

At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Mr Johnson refused to say when an inquiry would be set up and crucially, whether it would have adequate powers to subpoena evidence and witnesses.

Few governments will come out of any pandemic investigation well, but Boris Johnson has more reason than most to be feeling nervous about it.

This week, his former right-hand man, Durham-joyrider Dominic Cummings hinted that he is ready to reveal all about the UK Government’s mishandling of the crisis.

In evidence to a Commons Science and Technology committee this week, Cummings described the Department of Health as a “smoking ruin” and a “total disaster” in how it procured personal protective equipment during the pandemic.

This evidence session was merely a warm-up to the main event, however. In May, Mr Cummings will appear before a joint committee investigating the lessons that need to be learned from Covid-19 and it is that appearance that will have Mr Johnson in a panic.

There are reports that Mr Cummings’s evidence will hone in on a key five days back in September, when the Prime Minister ignored advice from his scientists that England needed to go into a two-week lockdown to halt rising case numbers.

One Downing Street source told the Sunday Times: “Those five days were critical. We could have got ahead of it. Instead, we let Captain Hindsight [Keir Starmer] become Captain Foresight when he called for a lockdown.”

Another told the paper: “The reality was even worse than the projections.”

In recent weeks, the Prime Minister has enjoyed a boost from the success of England’s vaccine roll-out. Any criticism of him and his government has been dulled by that renewed sense of optimism, as well as the drip-drip nature of revelations about early Downing St Covid strategy.

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In this, Boris Johnson may prefer to get any public inquiry over and done with – while the English public is distracted with the fruits of restrictions easing and greater freedom.

We know how much stock the Conservative party puts on Boris the Brand. That worked well for them at the last general election but, as we have come to learn, it is not the kind of leadership that is useful during a pandemic.

Time and time again, our thin-skinned Prime Minister put public opinion and political calculations ahead of public health. He’s a notoriously short-term thinker and the damning evidence of that will come out in any future public inquiry.

Downing Street is said to be worried about the impact that Dominic Cummings’s evidence will have and the spotlight it will shine on the Prime Minster’s personal failings.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? One of the most shameful and reckless acts of the entire pandemic was the way in which Tory bigwigs retrospectively re-wrote public health guidance to protect Dominic Cummings and inure him from the consequences of his rule-breaking.

Now he is back and ready to talk. And he is uniquely placed to cause real and permanent political damage to his old pal.