Dan Wootton: Covid Freedom Day 2.0 means we must never make the same mistakes again

In just one week’s time, the freedom so many of us have campaigned for these past 23 months will be returned – our God given civil liberties that should never have been snatched away by the state.

Barring the last-minute arrival of a new scariant, the UK will be free of legal Covid restrictions from next Thursday, under plans due to be announced by Boris Johnson on Monday.

I fully support the Prime Minister’s decision to set us free, but, folks, this is not over yet, not even close.

We need the Coronvirus Act repealed.

The English need to back our brothers and sisters in Scotland and Wales, where Scheming Sturgeon and Mad Dog Drakeford remain power and control mad.

And we need to support our allies overseas – in countries like Canada, France and New Zealand – where freedom from Covid tyranny remains a pipe dream.

And more fundamentally there needs to be a change in language within our government about lockdowns.

An acknowledgement that all of the pain we were put through wasn’t worth it; that lockdowns simply didn’t work.

As the John Hopkins bombshell analysis proved, with a reduction in deaths of just 0.2 per cent.

And the latest research that shows all the pain inflicted on Scots by Sturgeon - mask mandates, tougher social distancing measures, longer lockdowns - made no difference. In fact, Scottish mortality rates have actually been higher than England for the past six months.

Meanwhile, what about the deaths caused from lockdowns that will eventually number in their millions from missed cancer diagnoses, at home heart attacks, poverty and, tragically, suicide.

Of course, the usual suspects in the broadcast media have failed in their duty to properly question the efficacy of lockdowns from the start, so it’s little wonder they ignored that John Hopkins research.

In fact, throughout the entire pandemic, the BBC, ITV News, Channel 4 and Sky News have had a single-minded focus: We must lockdown harder.

Here’s an example of lockdown hysteria over the omicron variant on 29 November which turned out to be a total pussycat.

It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so disturbing that those broadcasters are currently demanding SAGE provide rock solid scientific evidence to justify the lifting of Covid restrictions – when they never asked for scientific evidence for any of the draconian lockdown measures that we’ve suffered over the past two years.

Restrictions that weren’t followed by those in power at Number 10 Downing Street – because they were never scared of the virus and knew the measures were ridiculous.

And restrictions that weren’t followed by the most pro-lockdown cheerleaders in the media – the likes of Kay Burley and Beth Rigby at Sky News – because they were never scared of the virus and knew the measures were ridiculous.

The broadcast media failed you during this pandemic.

They failed to ask the pertinent questions about lockdown and did all they could to bully the government into following an unproven totalitarian lockdown policy from Communist China – the very country that unleashed this virus on the world.

But, along with a limited number of heroes of mine in the media, I hope I have shone a light on the failure of lockdowns since March 2020.

And, with Freedom Day 2.0 coming, it’s essential we examine what went wrong so that we never make the same mistakes again.

So while the government plans its Covid Inquiry, which will no doubt try and suggest we didn’t lock down hard enough or soon enough, from Monday on this show I am launching The Lockdown Inquiry.

We will hear from the world’s leading lockdown academics like The Great Barrington Declaration’s Jay Bhattacharya and Oxford University’s Carl Heneghan.

The world’s most senior epidemiologists like Sweden’s Johan Giesecke, who hired Anders Tegnell and set his country on a far more effective path.

And brave politicians like Lord David Frost, the only Cabinet Minister to quit over Boris Johnson’s lockdown obsession.

The Lockdown Inquiry begins Monday night on GB News – because I’m determined that we must never repeat the deadly mistake of shutting down the country ever again.