Well it seems we've all been suckered by the swine flu hysteria. Surprise, surprise!

Swine flu? Remember that? All those confident seemingly scientific scenarios of thousands upon thousands dead and everybody wearing a little mask?

The Government drawing up contingency plans for the Army to quell the rioting as law and order broke down? The morgues ordered to prepare for the pandemic? All round, the end of civilisation as we knew it.

Now Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, has accused the makers of flu drugs and vaccines of hyping up the virus and influencing the World Health Organisation's decision to declare a pandemic.

Calling for an EU inquiry, he described the H1N1 outbreak as “one of the greatest medical scandals of the century. We have had a mild flu — and a false pandemic.”

Swine flu so far has taken the lives of 251 people in Britain. Yes, each death is sad but this is not what we were lead to believe would happen. Millions (billions?) have been wasted.

Money that could — should — have been spent saving lives. Even as the virus winds down, the Government is sitting on up to £1bn of vaccines it cannot get rid off.

The swine flu madness should be an object lesson in the true cost of paying heed to the hysteria merchants for whom the End of the World is always nigh.