It is not hard to understand why the British government tried to prevent the Covid-19 inquiry getting access to WhatsApp messages given what we heard this week.
They detailed expletive laden insults, bitter accusations of incompetence and lies flowing freely as the people tasked with managing the biggest health crisis in living memory instead turned on each other.
It would not have been a reassuring sight for British voters.
The irony is that the quote that best encapsulated the whole episode came from then prime minister Boris Johnson himself.
"This is a totally disgusting orgy of narcissism by a government that should be solving a national crisis," he stated in a message.
This quote was read out by Hugo Keith KC for the inquiry who wryly remarked that Mr Johnson "has a good turn of phrase".
There is a question whether the British people can still get shocked after all that happened in recent years, especially after Boris Johnson was elected prime minister in 2019.
We heard that Dominic Cummings did not think Mr Johnson was fit for office - even though he helped to get him elected. Mr Cummings also said it was "crackers" that he himself was made Chief of Staff in No 10.
Mr Cummings revealed that Mr Johnson was known as "the trolley" because, like a supermarket trolley, he kept veering and changing direction between competing ideas of lockdowns and herd immunity.
The then Director of Communications at No 10, Lee Cain, told the inquiry that the Covid pandemic was "the wrong crisis for this prime minister's skillset".
But was this really shocking?
Financial Times columnist Stephen Bush did not think so. "There may be more revelations about the religion of the Pope and what bears really do in the woods," he wrote sarcastically.
However, it was the details that continue to shock even though the broad facts were known.
And of course, it was not just Boris Johnson. He was recorded as saying in December 2020 that his party believed that "Covid is just nature's way of dealing with old people".
This attitude from the Tories seems hardhearted compared to the national mood at the time. It came just months after 99-year-old World War II veteran Capt Tom Moore became a national hero after he raised £9 million for the NHS by completing laps of his garden on a walking frame.
The Halloween horror show presented by Mr Cummings' messages and testimony included sustained criticism of the Cabinet Office (the equivalent of Ireland's Department of the Taoiseach).
He described it as a "bombsite" a "dumpster fire" and "terrifyingly s**t" because it had no plan to deal with the pandemic.
The head of the Cabinet Office, Mark Sedwill, was quoted as saying that people should be encouraged to catch Covid to get immunity like the chicken pox parties parents used to have for children.
His then No 2 Helen MacNamara told the inquiry there had been a "collective lack of understanding" about Covid at the time.
She, in turn, was critical of then health secretary Matt Hancock for telling cabinet members that plans were in place for Covid when in fact none existed.
Ms MacNamara said when she asked Mr Hancock about the difficulty of his job, he mimicked a cricket batsman's stance and replied "they bowl at me, I bat them away".
Mr Hancock who recently appeared on his second TV reality show - "Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins" - also apparently wanted to decide who lived or died if hospitals became overwhelmed during the pandemic.
Mr Cummings said in his messages that Mr Hancock was unfit for his job and was "killing God knows how many people".
"The incompetence, the constant lies, the obsession with media b******t over doing his job."
Mr Cummings also made foul mouthed remarks about Ms MacNamara saying he wanted to handcuff her and escort her out of the building.
Then there was Ms MacNamara's admission that there was never a day when all Covid rules were followed in No 10 - she herself received a fixed penalty notice for attending a gathering.
Mr Hancock of course had to resign as Secretary for Health after breaching Covid rules by kissing a female aide in his office.
And Mr Johnson resigned as an MP ahead of a finding he was in serious contempt of parliament by misleading the house about the No 10 lockdown parties.
Mr Cummings was again asked at the inquiry about driving to Barnard Castle with his wife and children during lockdown and he repeated that it was to test his eyesight.
He was later forced out by Mr Johnson and has spent the past three years criticising Mr Johnson.
However, his political capital has plummeted.
The New Statesman recently published a list of the 50 most powerful people on the Right in Britain.
Mr Cummings did not even make the list (Nigel Farage was number one).
However, even though so much was already known about the individuals involved there was still consternation in the British media at Tuesday's evidence.
Such was the scale of the dystopian vision being presented that the fear was being expressed that British people would lose faith in all authority - not just the Johnson administration.
It seems that Britain is still trying to process what has happened to its political life.
BBC's Laura Kuenssberg presented a three-part documentary series recently about the period since Brexit called 'State of Chaos'.
Ms MacNamara was interviewed in the documentary and summed it up by saying "I think we lost our minds".
Regarding Covid, the British government was reluctant to impose lockdowns believing that would damage the economy unnecessarily.
The worst irony is that Britain ended up not just with a higher death rate (it was roughly twice that of Ireland's) but also a damaged economy.
The hospitality industry is one sector where the effects remain obvious.
The early release of the Covid vaccine in Britain was originally touted as a benefit of Brexit. It is now admitted this could still have been done with Britain in the EU. And anyway, other countries soon overtook the UK in the rollout.
Currently the Covid booster vaccines are more restricted in Britain. For instance you have to be over 65 in the UK, whereas in Ireland it is available to the over 50s.
There will be more to come from the Covid episode with both Boris Johnson and current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak due to take the stand before the inquiry "before Christmas".
