Former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara criticises the government's "following the science" mantra, which she says was a "cop-out".
She questions why the government would blindly follow advice, especially when they "didn't understand what the science was" - they wouldn't "follow the economics" in an equivalent way.
To her, this approach just allowed ministers to avoid making decisions and putting unfair pressure on scientists.
She says she saw Boris Johnosn repeatedly misunderstand the science, pointing out that many key decision makers - her included - had degrees in History.
This "ignorance," she said, led to a lack of confidence in questioning scientific advice.
She believes it is “not right to abdicate responsibility to an unelected" group of scientists - these choices should instead belong to elected officials.
She's well spoken but if we're damning the government what are we meant to take from this? Now the problem is that the feckless government followed the science too hard?
Everything I've seen from the inquiry so far is people claiming that events proved they were absolutely right at the time, regardless of how incompatible their respective recollections are
Cabinet Office whopper whose judgement is so good she brought a karaoke machine to a party that wasn’t a party whilst the rest of the country was locked down
Her alarmed exchange - 10 days before the first lockdown - followed a conversation with Department for Health official Mark Sweeney, who according to her statement, "had been told for years that there is a whole plan for this". But there was no plan, he told her.
i mean surely this is explicitly the failure of the civil service, not the ministers
matt hancock is a khvnt but did the actual department of health official think he was carrying a pandemic lockdown plan around in his back pocket?
You could tell the politicians didn’t know what they were doing when they started Wheeling out shitty and twitty every night for PowerPoint presentations
so is she saying the govt should only have isolated the old and vulnerable and let everyone else get on with their lives? If so, correct
The point is that the shitty and twisty ppl didn’t get the memo that their job was to advise the govt to do what they wanted to do but didn’t want their fingerprints on, like any external advisor ffs
I think the suggestion is he should have known whether there was a plan when covid risk first eventuated a couple of months earlier"
Erm, maybe she should have as an official of the Department charged with planning for pandemics and leading responses!
This is a serious internal blame shift. Inevitable in inquiries like these which will take ages, cost loads, and from which we will learn little more than what we already know
In 2016 simulations of flu and MERS pandemics (Exercises Cygnus and Alice) were actually done, and several recommendations made. There would have been a plan - the real questions are whether the plan itself, preparedness for it and its execution were fit for purpose.
Yes, my understanding is that there was a plan but when it came down to it that plan - which entailed things like using ice rinks to store corpses - was deemed to be politically unacceptable.
Problem with "plans" are though is that they really are just words. I'm sure we had a PPE section in the plan. I bet underneath that it said something like "there's 100 million items in a warehouse in Acton". That probably gave some reassurance - 100 million items, wow, that's alot!. But, what about it's shelf life/in date timescales? How long would 100 million items last? What happens when we run out - where do we get it from? How would we handle a wordlwide bear market?
I bet a pound to a penny this inquiry will conclude "we were unprepared and needed a better plan". How is that helpful?
An appreciative, non-judicial inquiry might have led to some more novel and radical results: legal powers to force organisations in suitable industries to re-tool to produce kit, export bans, etc, etc.
This inquiry will not touch the dial on the practical stuff that will be needed for the future.
The only criticism I'd make of her is she is stating the bleedin' obvious that "follow the science" was populist BS, compounded with "rules" and "guidance" that was not enforced in case it made them unpopular. I still think vaccination, far from a strategy, was a massive hail Mary that came off when it became obvious that their other efforts were shit.
The real inquiry should be into how SAGE and independent SAGE were given so much airtime when, as HM points out, they had zero economic reference, so were free to spout bollocks.
Further to Banana's point, this has become a distasteful character assassination. It should be all about what information was sought, what was produced and by whom, where was the balanced debate and what was the framework for decision making - was it all adhered to and where was the judgement applied
The real inquiry should be into how SAGE and independent SAGE were given so much airtime when, as HM points out, they had zero economic reference, so were free to spout bollocks.
Because the government felt the need to "follow the science". If they'd acted in any other way than as though "saving lives" was the ultimate imperative, they would have been crucified in the press (including the right-wing press that BJ was in thrall to). We're seeing a bit of this with the headlines about Boris leaving the old to their fate.
This inquiry will be a brilliant lessons learned exercise if every member of the public is forced to watch the shocking testimony about the tozzas pathetic behaviour. The outrage would so great that Hancock, Johnson, Cummings et al would never be seen in public life again and the tozzas would disappear into obscurity forever.
Heh @ the rank apologists of the Pez Vela Tendency. “They weren’t allowed to follow the right policies because THE AWFUL LEFT!!!! would have CRUCIFIED!!!! them in THE MEDIA!!!
FACT CHECK: The tories were in charge throughout so literally everything that happened was their fault, with the second-order fault lying with the people who voted for them. Also, virtually the entire british media is right wing HTH
the point is that bodge and his corrupt cronies (and the tozza party as a whole) were desper7 2 abdic7 themselves from responsibility 4 ne errors in the response 2 covid, because they were purely self-interested. they didn’t want 2 govern, they wanted 2 self-promote. so when a genuine crisis came along and they could c no way of governing without potential exposure 2 a mistake, they decided they would rather not govern and instead hide behind the experts. even tho the experts were there 2 give expert advice, not govern. the government’s job is 2 make tough decisions in crises taking in2 account all expert views and wider morality etc etc.
the evidence proves wot was always suspected - the tozzas were an absolutely abhorrent shitshow and utterly unfit 2 govern, with all mistakes made in government being entirely their own. and they made this worse by trying not 2 get themselves blamed (and even trying 2 grab the credit 4 the handful of things that went well)
this tozza govt will, rightly, go down in history as the weakest, most disgraceful and incompetent rulers our country has ever had 2 suffer. this is simply a bit more evidence
The sooner we all agree that Farage, Cummings, Frost, Boris and the ERG need to be jettisoned from public life forever, the sooner we can heal and get back to being a competently run northern European semi-power. We need our Gareth Southgate. Is that sir beer?
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God there is hope.
She is how senior people running the country should be (but so rarely are).
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Matt Hancock is toast
Cummings gunning for him can be dismissed as sour grapes
but her testimony is damning
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what a contrast to cummings (and I don't just mean about how he referred to her so disrespectfully)
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Former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara criticises the government's "following the science" mantra, which she says was a "cop-out".
She questions why the government would blindly follow advice, especially when they "didn't understand what the science was" - they wouldn't "follow the economics" in an equivalent way.
To her, this approach just allowed ministers to avoid making decisions and putting unfair pressure on scientists.
She says she saw Boris Johnosn repeatedly misunderstand the science, pointing out that many key decision makers - her included - had degrees in History.
This "ignorance," she said, led to a lack of confidence in questioning scientific advice.
She believes it is “not right to abdicate responsibility to an unelected" group of scientists - these choices should instead belong to elected officials.
She's well spoken but if we're damning the government what are we meant to take from this? Now the problem is that the feckless government followed the science too hard?
Everything I've seen from the inquiry so far is people claiming that events proved they were absolutely right at the time, regardless of how incompatible their respective recollections are
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Cabinet Office whopper whose judgement is so good she brought a karaoke machine to a party that wasn’t a party whilst the rest of the country was locked down
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Her alarmed exchange - 10 days before the first lockdown - followed a conversation with Department for Health official Mark Sweeney, who according to her statement, "had been told for years that there is a whole plan for this". But there was no plan, he told her.
i mean surely this is explicitly the failure of the civil service, not the ministers
matt hancock is a khvnt but did the actual department of health official think he was carrying a pandemic lockdown plan around in his back pocket?
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You could tell the politicians didn’t know what they were doing when they started Wheeling out shitty and twitty every night for PowerPoint presentations
so is she saying the govt should only have isolated the old and vulnerable and let everyone else get on with their lives? If so, correct
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I think the suggestion is he should have known whether there was a plan when covid risk first eventuated a couple of months earlier
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The point is that the shitty and twisty ppl didn’t get the memo that their job was to advise the govt to do what they wanted to do but didn’t want their fingerprints on, like any external advisor ffs
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PS anything that increases the chances of Hat Mancock doing porridge has to be applauded. Thin skinned weaselly millennial shill should be locked up.
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"Heffalump01 Nov 23 12:04
Reply | Report
I think the suggestion is he should have known whether there was a plan when covid risk first eventuated a couple of months earlier"
Erm, maybe she should have as an official of the Department charged with planning for pandemics and leading responses!
This is a serious internal blame shift. Inevitable in inquiries like these which will take ages, cost loads, and from which we will learn little more than what we already know
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“They bowl them at me. I knock them away.”
What. A. Throbber.
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In 2016 simulations of flu and MERS pandemics (Exercises Cygnus and Alice) were actually done, and several recommendations made. There would have been a plan - the real questions are whether the plan itself, preparedness for it and its execution were fit for purpose.
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Yes, my understanding is that there was a plan but when it came down to it that plan - which entailed things like using ice rinks to store corpses - was deemed to be politically unacceptable.
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Oh and they looked at the plan?
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Oh we had plans! The WHO rated ours highly.
Problem with "plans" are though is that they really are just words. I'm sure we had a PPE section in the plan. I bet underneath that it said something like "there's 100 million items in a warehouse in Acton". That probably gave some reassurance - 100 million items, wow, that's alot!. But, what about it's shelf life/in date timescales? How long would 100 million items last? What happens when we run out - where do we get it from? How would we handle a wordlwide bear market?
I bet a pound to a penny this inquiry will conclude "we were unprepared and needed a better plan". How is that helpful?
An appreciative, non-judicial inquiry might have led to some more novel and radical results: legal powers to force organisations in suitable industries to re-tool to produce kit, export bans, etc, etc.
This inquiry will not touch the dial on the practical stuff that will be needed for the future.
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It’s more likely to make noises about stuff like that than actually string up the culprits
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The only criticism I'd make of her is she is stating the bleedin' obvious that "follow the science" was populist BS, compounded with "rules" and "guidance" that was not enforced in case it made them unpopular. I still think vaccination, far from a strategy, was a massive hail Mary that came off when it became obvious that their other efforts were shit.
The real inquiry should be into how SAGE and independent SAGE were given so much airtime when, as HM points out, they had zero economic reference, so were free to spout bollocks.
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Further to Banana's point, this has become a distasteful character assassination. It should be all about what information was sought, what was produced and by whom, where was the balanced debate and what was the framework for decision making - was it all adhered to and where was the judgement applied
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Cry more
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This absolutely should be, and is, in part about giving Boris Johnson and his cronies kicking they very richly deserve.
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What is really shocking is that they only let the Covid group for the bereaved ask two questions yesterday.
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It's trivia. Whilst it may be entertaining for you, this 'enquiry' is costing millions. Amusement over value for money = left economics
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how many questions did they give the covid group for the people whose perfectly good businesses were ruined by lockdown?
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In what world would vaccination not be pursued as the best strategy???
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Gr8 casting tbf. I can see the similarities.
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Wot Cookie said.
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What bananaman says. It’s all so what and is just her opinion in any event.
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Because the government felt the need to "follow the science". If they'd acted in any other way than as though "saving lives" was the ultimate imperative, they would have been crucified in the press (including the right-wing press that BJ was in thrall to). We're seeing a bit of this with the headlines about Boris leaving the old to their fate.
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This inquiry will be a brilliant lessons learned exercise if every member of the public is forced to watch the shocking testimony about the tozzas pathetic behaviour. The outrage would so great that Hancock, Johnson, Cummings et al would never be seen in public life again and the tozzas would disappear into obscurity forever.
This needs to happen.
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because value for money was a consideration for test and trace and the VIP lane corruption? (just a couple of examples that spring to mind)
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Heh @ the rank apologists of the Pez Vela Tendency. “They weren’t allowed to follow the right policies because THE AWFUL LEFT!!!! would have CRUCIFIED!!!! them in THE MEDIA!!!
FACT CHECK: The tories were in charge throughout so literally everything that happened was their fault, with the second-order fault lying with the people who voted for them. Also, virtually the entire british media is right wing HTH
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heh at FACT CHECK
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pancakes that’s a dumb point
the point is that bodge and his corrupt cronies (and the tozza party as a whole) were desper7 2 abdic7 themselves from responsibility 4 ne errors in the response 2 covid, because they were purely self-interested. they didn’t want 2 govern, they wanted 2 self-promote. so when a genuine crisis came along and they could c no way of governing without potential exposure 2 a mistake, they decided they would rather not govern and instead hide behind the experts. even tho the experts were there 2 give expert advice, not govern. the government’s job is 2 make tough decisions in crises taking in2 account all expert views and wider morality etc etc.
the evidence proves wot was always suspected - the tozzas were an absolutely abhorrent shitshow and utterly unfit 2 govern, with all mistakes made in government being entirely their own. and they made this worse by trying not 2 get themselves blamed (and even trying 2 grab the credit 4 the handful of things that went well)
this tozza govt will, rightly, go down in history as the weakest, most disgraceful and incompetent rulers our country has ever had 2 suffer. this is simply a bit more evidence
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The sooner we all agree that Farage, Cummings, Frost, Boris and the ERG need to be jettisoned from public life forever, the sooner we can heal and get back to being a competently run northern European semi-power. We need our Gareth Southgate. Is that sir beer?
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I should point out that I ❤️ Charlotte Ritchie, so might be biased.
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I AGREE!!
I HATE THIS VILE WOMAN HOW DARE SHE BESMIRCH THE GOOD NAME OF THE MAN I LOVE!!
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wokey. I totally agree that people who had their businesses ruined should be able to questions.
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