The overarching view of the British Covid inquiry is that lockdown did not need to happen.

Their inquiry is different to our two For a start, the key players turned up. Boris Johnson and co got grilled.

Ardern and Hipkins and co never did because they refused.

It still seems to me an astonishing act of arrogance that the same people who made such profound decisions on our lives refused to participate in a public way at the official look into the way they acted.

It's a version of moral bankruptcy.

Also, it's different in Britain in that it was adversarial. It's a mistake, I think, that we didn’t take their approach.

Also, it appears our inquiry, part two at least, has issues with a number of resignations. So who knows how our's pans out. It's due first thing next year.

But although the British report says much, it's inescapable that a major observation is if the British Government had got its act together faster, if it had been more coordinated - lock downs were not necessary.

Just think about that for a moment and apply it here. Lockdowns here started pretty much the same day they did in britain; March of 2020.

If the British hadn't got their act together and were locking down in March, then surely it can be argued the same applies to us.

Obviously their lockdowns were nowhere near as hard as ours, and that’s another mass failing on the control freaks like Ardern and Hipkins. But just think about how Covid would have been, and our view of that period, if a lockdown had not been a part of the experience.

Masks, rules, contact tracing, vaccines and respiratory hygiene could have stopped the need for lockdowns. That's the British conclusion.

That’s a pretty profound finding.

It's profound for mental health and the economy. Think of the ensuing years-long damage that came out of the lockdowns, especially the Auckland ones that lasted months on end.

Jobs lost, lives lost, recession after recession for something that, quite possibly, we didn’t need to do.

I can't see how, if they can conclude it in Britain, you can't conclude it here?

Same virus, same approach, same outcome and same mistakes.

It is a failing of historic proportions.

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Mike's Minute: Britain's COVID enquiry highlights Labour's mistakes

The Mike Hosking Breakfast