'Insane!' Alex Armstrong brands Covid inquiry a 'complete establishment stitch-up' in blistering rant

In the inquiry's verdict, Chair Heather Hallet concluded that Britain's lockdowns "could have been avoided entirely".

She said: "There was a serious failure by all four Governments to appreciate the level of risk and the calamity that the UK faced and the need to inject urgency into the response."

Breaking down the cost of the inquiry, Miriam revealed to Alex: "It's extraordinary, Alex. This report works out at £171,000 per page, apparently, so the lawyers have been great winners from lockdown!"

Taking aim at the findings, Alex fumed: "I could have done it. I would have done it for them for half the price, and come up with better conclusions that we all knew already existed.

"She [Hallet] also said lockdown could have been avoided altogether if steps such as social distancing and isolating those with symptoms had been introduced earlier, and there was a toxic and chaotic culture in Government that impacted decision making. I just cannot get my head around this. I really, really can't."

He stated: "This is a complete establishment stitch-up this whole inquiry, as it's cost the taxpayer millions and millions of pounds, and it's come to the same conclusions that they came up with, which I think a lot of it is based on pseudo science, that lockdowns were good for the country and that we should have done them earlier, longer and harder."

Highlighting the questions he wanted the inquiry to answer, Alex said: "Actually, I would love to know why this inquiry didn't investigate how many deaths are impacted as a result of NHS waiting lists that went through the roof afterwards. How many people lost their jobs, the economy?

"All these questions we're just accepting blindly again, accepting follow the science blindly. Again accepting that we should just have listened to them and locked down longer and harder, when I think actually that cure was worse than the disease."

Weighing in on the inquiry, cohost Miriam Cates told Alex: "One of the arguments is that there wasn't a control, nobody could have known what would have happened if we hadn't have lockdown. But there was a control and that was Sweden. They didn't lock down and they had a lower death rate, and their economy has obviously got back on track much quicker than ours."

She added: "And I think also it's both too soft on the Government but too harsh at the same time, because I think the political pressure within No10 and within the Government was enormous.

"And we're a democracy, of course they're going to be listening to what people say and what the free press say, and I'm afraid some people in the media were the ones egging on for lockdown, 100 per cent egging on for lockdown."

Defending ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Miriam noted: "I think to be fair to Boris Johnson, it would have been unbelievably difficult for him to resist lockdown, the first one or the second or the third, because of the pressure from the public and the media. So I think it's unfair to completely blame him.

"And actually some of the WhatsApp messages that came out made clear that he was very nervous about the restrictions on freedom and his instincts were not to lock down, so I think it's both too harsh and misunderstanding the political reality, but also just following the blind kind of assumptions made at the time that lockdowns would work, that they would be worth it."

Agreeing with Miriam, Alex then concluded: "This is the problem, we treated everybody in the same blanket. And where is the where is the full blown criticism of Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance? That's what I want to know.

"We were told time and time again follow the science, well you should question science. The whole point of science is it's a debate, and we weren't even allowed to debate. People were censored en masse, it's completely insane."