Episode 2 - Unpacking the UK Covid Inquiry’s Module 4 Report

In this episode of Broken Custodians, lawyers and campaigners Molly and Ben Kingsley from UsForThem examine the UK Covid Inquiry’s Module 4 report and contemplate the official account of that era now being constructed by the Inquiry.Drawing on their work during and after the pandemic, Molly and Ben discuss school closures, children’s health policy, government secrecy, the premature sidelining of the Government’s official ethics committee, the role of censorship, corporate influence and the long-term consequences of decisions made in those circumstances. They ask why the Inquiry is failing to confront  what went wrong, and examine how that threatens to embed a version of events that leaves the most uncomfortable questions unanswered.This episode considers why the Covid Inquiry matters not only as a record of the past, but as a guide to future policy-making, including policy impacting children. It looks at how children’s interests were weighed, what happened when senior government advisers raised ethical concerns, and why some pandemic decisions remain difficult to discuss in mainstream public debate.Broken Custodians follows paper trails, interrogates official claims and asks what went wrong, who benefited, and what it would take to do better.1. For details of the polling commissioned by UsForThem which revealed that less than a quarter of UK parents of under-18s had understood that the JCVI had declined to recommend rolling out the Covid vaccine programme for 12 to 15 year olds, see page 62 of The Accountability Deficit, 2023, by Kingsley, Skinner and Kingsley.2. All of the PMCPA case reports concerning Pfizer and Moderna, among other pharmaceutical companies, including those for complaints commenced by UsForThem, can be located via the PMCPA case reports portal at https://www.pmcpa.org.uk/cases/completed-cases. A short video published by UsForThem in March 2025, detailing the 53 serious rule breaches by Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca in relation to Covid vaccine products between 2020 and 2024 is here: https://x.com/UsforThemUK/status/1901921340996620689?s=20.3. The role of the Moral and Ethical Advisory Group is explained at https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/moral-and-ethical-advisory-group.Hosts: Molly Kingsley, Ben Kingsley Senior Producer: Francesca Gilardi Quadrio CurzioVideo Editor & Audio Producer: Andrija Klaric