CHERNOBYL

is already being hailed as one of the most incredible television programmes ever made. The five-part thriller launched on Sky Atlantic earlier this month. We are only half way through, but the efforts by Russian officials in 1986 to hide the truth of what had happened at Chernobyl is appalling and plumbs the depths of human behaviour. It makes me furious that officialdom and politicians here in the UK behaved no better — in some cases, even worse — in trying to hide the haemophiliac blood disaster. What were they thinking? That it would save money and these lives didn’t matter? No right-thinking British citizens would have wanted to save a few quid off our taxes. It is shaming to think millions of us are fractionally better off while the dead, the dying, the bereaved and their stricken families had to battle so hard for such little help.