IN THE opening 60 pages of today’s landmark inquiry report, there is just one paragraph highlighted in bold.

It stands out. It is meant to.

In it, the three independent and highly respected members of a £250,000 tribunal of inquiry get to the heart of the matter.

‘The system of government does not encourage either a corporate or collective responsibility. In our view there was a systemic failure to act in a corporate and strategic manner.’

It is not about individual failure by civil servants or politicians – although there was quite a bit of that.

It is not even about the airport firefighters, although, of course, it is ostensibly their tale.

It is about failure at the heart of this government.

Failure to act as a unit, failure by a succession of departments to even consider the bigger picture and see that the island as a whole might have different needs to their one fiefdom.

It is a stunning report, which undermines every aspect of our current non-functioning government. If its message goes unheard and another damning indictment of the island’s fudged system is buried it will be a major opportunity lost.

How many reports, from how many experts, have to conclude that this system is broken before deputies set about reforming it?

Of course, it was not supposed to be like this. That’s the trouble with commissioning independent reports from unimpeachable sources: you cannot control them, gag them nor later disparage them.

This inquiry was supposed to be a big stick with which to beat the chief minister. There he was, acting all powerful and authoritative when he should have stuck to kissing babies.

Instead, he comes out smelling of roses.

As, by the way, do the firefighters, who, the island can now see, were treated appallingly.

Faced with an utterly intransigent and anachronistic ‘negotiator’, they were bound to grow increasingly belligerent.

As the report says, changes must take place ‘at the highest level of the States’.

That day cannot come soon enough.