By Trish Dennis at Brownstone dot org.

After four years, hundreds of witnesses, and nearly £200 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?

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.

It repeats the familiar refrain of "Too little, too late," 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 "abundance of caution," 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.

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, "I never had very high hopes for the Covid Inquiry…but I didn't think it would be this bad." Nearly £192 million has already been spent, largely enriching lawyers and consultants, to produce 17 recommendations that amount, in his words, to "statements of the obvious or utter banality."

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 "ensure confidentiality." Neither insight required hundreds of witnesses or years of hearings. Another recommendation, that devolved administrations should have a seat at COBRA, reveals, he argues, "a naiveté of the judiciary that doesn't understand how this country is governed."

Rees-Mogg's wider criticism goes to the heart of the Inquiry's 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 receives a single passing mention, as if it were an eccentric sideshow. The report's underlying message never wavers: lockdowns were right, dissent was wrong, and next time the government should act faster and with fewer restraints.

He also highlights its constitutional incoherence. It laments the lack of "democratic oversight," 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 "schizophrenic in its approach to accountability." 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.

The conclusions could have been drafted before the first witness entered the room:

Lockdowns were necessary.

Modelling was solid.

Critics misunderstood.

The establishment acted wisely.

It is the kind of verdict that only the British establishment could deliver about the British establishment.

The Inquiry treats the question of whether lockdowns worked as if the very question were indecent. It leans heavily on modeling to claim that thousands of deaths could have been avoided with earlier restrictions, modeling that is now widely recognised as inflated, brittle, and detached from real-world outcomes. It repeats that easing restrictions happened "despite high risk," yet fails to note that infection curves were already bending before the first lockdown began.

Here Baroness Hallett makes her headline claim that "23,000 lives could have been saved" if lockdowns had been imposed earlier. That number does not c...