An all-too-familiar trick when the establishment faces awkward questions on some controversial matter is to set up a committee packed with people who can be relied on to avoid the real points at issue and come up with the answer it wants. The Climategate inquiries were all examples of this technique. Another was the recent inquiry, headed by the Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir John Beddington, into the claim that thousands of people die every year from exposure to white asbestos. This scare story, which not only defies all the best scientific evidence but also the earlier findings of the Government’s own advisers, has become the basis for rackets costing hundreds of millions of pounds a year in bogus insurance claims and fraudulent contractors’ charges for work which is unnecessary.