{"id":2512783,"date":"2025-11-28T07:00:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/?p=2512783"},"modified":"2025-11-28T07:54:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T12:54:41","slug":"how-the-covid-inquiry-protected-the-establishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/2025\/11\/28\/how-the-covid-inquiry-protected-the-establishment\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Covid Inquiry Protected the Establishment"},"content":{"rendered":"

How the Covid Inquiry Protected the Establishment<\/a>
\nby Trish Dennis<\/a> at Brownstone Institute<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

After four years, hundreds of witnesses, and nearly \u00a3200 million in costs, the UK Covid Inquiry has reached the one conclusion many expected: a carefully footnoted act of self-exoneration. It assiduously avoids asking the only question that truly matters: were lockdowns ever justified, did they even work, and at what overall cost to society?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Inquiry outlines failure in the abstract but never in the human. It catalogues errors, weak decision-making structures, muddled communications, and damaged trust, but only permits examination of those failings that do not disturb the central orthodoxy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It repeats the familiar refrain of \u201cToo little, too late,\u201d yet anyone paying attention knows the opposite was true. It was too much, too soon, and with no concern for the collateral damage. The government liked to speak of an \u201cabundance of caution,\u201d but no such caution was exercised to prevent catastrophic societal harm. There was no attempt to undertake even a basic assessment of proportionality or foreseeable impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even those who approached the Inquiry with modest expectations have been startled by how far it fell below them. As former Leader of the UK House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg recently observed<\/strong><\/a>, \u201cI never had very high hopes for the Covid Inquiry\u2026but I didn\u2019t think it would be this bad.\u201d Nearly \u00a3192 million has already been spent, largely enriching lawyers and consultants, to produce 17 recommendations that amount, in his words, to \u201cstatements of the obvious or utter banality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of those recommendations relate to Northern Ireland: one proposing the appointment of a Chief Medical Officer, the other an amendment to the ministerial code to \u201censure confidentiality.\u201d Neither insight required hundreds of witnesses or years of hearings. Another recommendation, that devolved administrations should have a seat at COBRA, reveals, he argues, \u201ca naivet\u00e9 of the judiciary that doesn\u2019t understand how this country is governed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rees-Mogg\u2019s wider criticism goes to the heart of the Inquiry\u2019s failures, as it confuses activity with accountability. Its hundreds of pages record bureaucratic process while ignoring substance. The same modeling errors that drove early panic are recycled without reflection; the Swedish experience is dismissed, and the Great Barrington Declaration<\/a> receives a single passing mention, as if it were an eccentric sideshow. The report\u2019s underlying message never wavers: lockdowns were right, dissent was wrong, and next time the government should act faster and with fewer restraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also highlights its constitutional incoherence. It laments the lack of \u201cdemocratic oversight,\u201d yet condemns political hesitation as weakness. It complains that ministers acted too slowly, while elsewhere chastising them for bowing to public pressure. The result, he says, is \u201cschizophrenic in its approach to accountability.\u201d Behind the legal polish lies an authoritarian instinct, the belief that bureaucrats and scientists know best, and that ordinary citizens cannot be trusted with their own judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conclusions could have been drafted before the first witness entered the room:<\/p>\n\n\n\n