Politicians and officials play their parts in the courtroom drama known as the “Covid inquiry”<\/p>\n
As Scotty once said \u201cI can\u2019t take it Captain!\u201d<\/p>\n
If I have to read, see or hear one more\u00a0legacy media<\/a>\u00a0report about the monumental farce that is the UK\u2019s\u00a0COVID-19 inquiry<\/a>, I fear my brain will batter my soul to death. Why on Earth is anyone taking it seriously?<\/p>\n I\u2019m starting to think millions of Brits have been hypnotised. Independent inquiry? Are you on acid?<\/p>\n Believing that the COVID-19 inquiry will reveal anything even remotely \u201creal\u201d is like trusting the outcome of internal police investigations into deaths in police custody. It is like asking Crippin to review food safety standards or requesting Tony Blair investigate war crimes. It is beyond ridiculous.<\/p>\n Of course it isn\u2019t an actual \u201cinquiry!\u201d It is a state cover-up and propaganda operation. As I recently discussed with\u00a0Rick Munn on TNT radio<\/a>, there is nothing of any value that will ever come out of it.<\/p>\n For a start, there is no such thing as an \u201cindependent\u201d inquiry established under the the UK\u00a0Inquiries Act (2005)<\/a>. That Act put paid to any vague hope of independent inquiries in the UK. It is a government cover-up and propaganda operation, run by the government for the government\u2019s benefit.<\/p>\n Under the 2005 Act<\/a>\u00a0the UK government establishes the inquiry, it sets the terms of reference for the inquiry and can change them whenever it likes; the government appoints the chair of the inquiry and the chair appoints the inquiry panel (counsel), as long as the government agrees; f the current crop don\u2019t toe the line, the government can dismiss and re-appoint a new chair and\/or the panel whenever it chooses; the government can determine which witnesses are called, it can withhold funding for areas of \u201cinvestigation\u201d it doesn\u2019t like the look of; the government can shut down the inquiry if it is starting to look a bit tasty and the government has\u00a0<\/em>carte blanche to approve, amend and redact the final inquiry report prior to publication anyway.<\/p>\n The word \u201cindependent\u201d is itself propaganda when it comes to the so-called \u201cindependent\u201d UK COVID-19 inquiry. There is no such thing as an \u201cindependent\u201d inquiry convened under the Inquiries Act. It precludes the possibility. That\u2019s why it was enacted.<\/p>\n Look who the government \u201cappointed\u201d\u00a0chair of the inquiry<\/a>? Hallett is seemingly one of the UK state\u2019s go-to cover up expert. It was Hallett who acted as the coroner for the 7\/7 inquests, which were a staggering\u00a0exercise in obfuscation<\/a>. The Hallett led inquests, allegedly into the worst loss of life to purported terrorism in UK history, seemingly excluding more evidence than it actually examined.<\/p>\n Despite pronouncement of guilt having nothing to do with a coroners inquest, Hallett decided she would pronounce the guilt of the four alleged bombers regardless. While none of them were declared dead at the scenes, she immediately ruled out any possible investigation of their deaths because reasons.<\/p>\n So far, Perry Mason doesn\u2019t have much to worry about if the standard of questioning at the alleged \u201cCOVID-19 inquiry\u201d is anything to go by. When the former chief advisor to the prime minister, Dominic Cummings was \u201cquestioned\u201d at the \u201cinquiry\u201d\u2014I can\u2019t even call it an inquiry anymore, its going to be \u201ccover-up\u201d from now on\u2014there were apparently\u00a0six shocking things<\/a>\u00a0that the \u201ccover-up\u201d supposedly discovered from him.<\/p>\n Tens of thousands of people died prematurely, and are\u00a0still dying in their thousands<\/a>\u00a0every month, because of so-called policy decisions of Cummings and his cohort of useless plumbs\u2014or so we are told. The cover-up apparently discovered that they are a bunch of petty,\u00a0self-serving kakistocrats<\/a>.<\/p>\n Go figure! This is like \u201cdiscovering\u201d water is wet.<\/p>\n Yet in May 2021, at the Parliamentary joint Science and Technology Committee and Health and Social Care Committee hearing,\u00a0Cummings testified to the following<\/a>\u00a0[go to 14:02:35]:<\/p>\n In March [2020] I started getting calls from various people saying these new mRNA vaccines could well smash the conventional wisdom. [. . .] People like Bill Gates and that kind of network were saying. [. . .] Essentially what happened is, [. . .] there is a network of people, Bill Gates type people, who were saying completely rethink the paradigm of how you do this.. What Bill Gates and people like that were saying to me and others in number 10 was you need to think of this much more like the classic programs of the past. [. . .] the Manhattan Project in WWII, the Apollo program.. But what Bill Gates and people were saying [. . .] was, the actual expected return on this is so high that even if does turn out to be all wasted billions it\u2019s still a good gamble [. . .] and that is what we did.<\/p>\n To be clear: the COVID-19 cover up panel had a man in-front of them, testifying under oath, who was not only a key figure in orchestrating the UK government\u2019s policy response to a supposed global pandemic but had previously admitted that the government\u2019s efforts were massively influenced by a gang of oligarchs and \u201cthat kind of network.\u201d<\/p>\n So, you would imagine that the UK cover-up might be at least mildly intrigued to know a bit more about this.<\/p>\n Nope! Not interested.<\/p>\n Off you trot Dominic.<\/p>\n Which brings us to the cover-up show piece: Boris Johnson\u2019s\u00a0cringe-worthy testimony<\/a>. While stomach-churning, it revealed the true purpose of the UK government\u2019s \u201cindependent\u201d COVID-19 cover-up.<\/p>\n Once again, the whole episode of his alleged \u201cgrilling\u201d was a charade that didn\u2019t ask him, or seek to understand, anything of any particular interest. The former PM was pitched a succession of soft-ball questions about a string of irrelevant issues.<\/p>\n For example, he was quizzed about so-called \u201cPartyGate<\/a>.\u201d Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry\u2014effectively selected by the government to ask the government questions\u2014suggested that the Johnson did not care about the rules. Johnson was free to pontificate on how the parties were misrepresented by the media and how he \u201creally\u201d did care about the rules.<\/p>\n At no stage did any \u201ccounsel\u201d at the cover-up ask anyone, like Cummings or Johnson, whey they weren\u2019t bothered about a supposedly lethal pandemic disease. It is as if the fact that they were evidently not in the least bit concerned about either contracting or transmitting a disease, which they all claimed to be lethal, was an line of inquiry worth exploring.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know about you, but if I was interrogating these alleged \u201cdecision makers,\u201d I would definitely want to know why they didn\u2019t believe COVID-19 was a threat, either to themselves or their families. Especially seeing as these were the very people closest to the so-called \u201cbest scientific advice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you believe the pandemic was real\u201d<\/em> seems like a blindingly obvious question to have asked.\u00a0But we\u2019re talking about the UK government\u2019s official COVID-19 cover-up, so it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n The only thing that is potentially of any interest about the cover-up is\u00a0Module 5<\/a>\u00a0which is due to consider procurement. Given the extensive evidence of widespread\u00a0government corruption<\/a>, you never know, something worthwhile might come out of it, but I doubt it. There will probably be a couple of patsies hung out to dry. Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, whose\u00a0extramarital affair<\/a>\u00a0and party-going exploits during lockdown demonstrated that he couldn\u2019t be arsed to pretend there was a pandemic either, looks like a firm favourite.<\/p>\n Ultimately, what the UK government\u2019s subservient cover-up is really about is reinforcing the official narrative about, what was in reality,\u00a0a pseudopandemic<\/a>\u00a0. It is propaganda attempting to justify the destruction wrought by the government\u2019s own policies by claiming they were all necessary to \u201ckeep us safe.\u201d<\/p>\n We already know where it\u2019s heading. It is written in the cover-up\u2019s\u00a0terms of reference<\/a>.<\/p>\n It aims to \u201cproduce a factual narrative,\u201d to identify \u201clessons to be learned\u201d and, most crucially, \u201cinform preparations for future pandemics.\u201d Despite thousands of years of human history suggesting that pandemics come along every century or so, that\u2019s not true anymore. Now they\u00a0come in clusters<\/a>\u00a0apparently. So this cover-up will be used to impose more\u00a0biosecurity state<\/a>\u00a0restrictions on us when the next one\u00a0is organised<\/a>.<\/p>\n The chances of the cover-up ever seriously tackling key questions like why the government were allowing a network of international oligarchs to lead on policy decisions, or why no one in charge thought there was a real pandemic, or why they implemented a lockdown and social distancing regime that had absolutely\u00a0no epidemiological basis at all<\/a>, are nil.<\/p>\n So far the questioning during the cover-up has practically asserted, without any offered rationale whatsoever, that the main identified \u201clesson to be learned\u201d is that the government didn\u2019t lockdown hard or soon enough. Even some of the legacy media have started to wonder if the question about whether or not we should have locked down at all\u00a0will ever be asked<\/a>.<\/p>\n Perhaps it will, but I think we all know what the answer will be in the final report. We should have locked down more, we should have suffered more restrictions, we should have shut more businesses, reduced hospital bed numbers even further, killed more people, made death registration even more opaque and adopted even tighter economic and behavioural controls. It is, after all, the UK government\u2019s cover-up.<\/p>\n I guess my hope that I can somehow avoid any more of this drivel is a forlorn one. This thing could rumble on for years. What a monumental waste of time and taxpayers\u2019 money?<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n You can read more of Iain\u2019s work at his blog IainDavis.com<\/a> (Formerly InThisTogether) or on UK Column<\/a> or follow him on Twitter<\/a> or subscribe to his SubStack<\/a>. His new book Pseudopandemic<\/em>, is now available, in both in kindle and paperback, from Amazon<\/a> and other sellers. Or you can claim a free copy by subscribing to his newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Support Off-~Guardian:<\/p>\n Ko-fi<\/a><\/p>\n\n