Laurence Hodge has a worthwhile TCW piece on the UK Covid inquiry.
Why squander £200million on a foregone conclusion?
AT SOME point before (and possibly long before) the Diamond Princess sailed into our consciousness like some ghost ship with its quarantined cargo of elderly cruise-goers, something unthinkably odd was taking place.
Wherever you have been getting Covid-related information apart from the official and media channels over the last three years, the same litany of questions concerning the who, the why and the how will inevitably apply. As month succeeds month and new credible but unapproved information emerges, it feels increasingly as though the house of cards must be on the verge of collapse.
And yet as the Hallett Inquiry reaches the 18-month mark since its inception, its complacent and self-satisfied machinery grinds inexorably on at a cost to the taxpayer passing £100million around now, and there is no obvious sign that the expert applecart is about to lose a wheel.
AT SOME point before (and possibly long before) the Diamond Princess sailed into our consciousness like some ghost ship with its quarantined cargo of elderly cruise-goers, something unthinkably odd was taking place.
Wherever you have been getting Covid-related information apart from the official and media channels over the last three years, the same litany of questions concerning the who, the why and the how will inevitably apply. As month succeeds month and new credible but unapproved information emerges, it feels increasingly as though the house of cards must be on the verge of collapse.
And yet as the Hallett Inquiry reaches the 18-month mark since its inception, its complacent and self-satisfied machinery grinds inexorably on at a cost to the taxpayer passing £100million around now, and there is no obvious sign that the expert applecart is about to lose a wheel.
The whole piece is well worth reading as a suggestion that the official Covid narrative is fragile, a house of cards which at some point could collapse.
The inquiry has established that Matt Hancock should not have delayed his television career so long, and that the experts bamboozled Boris Johnson, which is a failing on Johnson’s part (too dense to understand) rather than that of the experts. (Sir Patrick Vallance said in his evidence that the science had bamboozled Johnson. What we can readily believe is that they did their best to confuse him. A game of Blind Man’s Buff with Boris blindfolded and the experts spinning him round to make him dizzy! It worked.)
It has been carved into stone that Neil Ferguson is very good at making predictions without commenting on how accurate his predictions have been, or on whether a priapic rule-breaker deserves praise.
What if The Narrative changes in the year ahead? Perhaps it will need only a slight twist of the kaleidoscope through which the country views its last three years to produce an entirely different interpretation of past events and their causes?
10 comments:
Regarding the attempts of "experts" like Valance to influence Boris. Why don't they minutely examine his notes and communications to find out what he actually believed, and what he actually said? I think we need to know in what sense is he an expert, and to what extent he lies. You'd think signed minutes would be taken, just for such an eventuality.
Sam - yes it's a surprise if signed minutes weren't taken. At this level I sort of assumed that every word of formal meeting would be recorded, but it sounds as if it was more casual than that. We'd expect informal conversations of course, but not when making key decisions.
"the experts bamboozled Boris Johnson, which is a failing on Johnson’s part (too dense to understand) rather than that of the experts." Exactly wrong. The whole and sole point of the Chief Scientist is to explain bits of relevant science to the scientific ignoramuses who staff the civil service and Houses of Parliament.
You don't want the niftiest wielder of a pipette as Chief Scientist unless, by some unlikely chance, he's the best explainer-to-chumps in the country.
dearieme - I agree, a good explainer is essential to the position. Some who makes the explanation fit the audience and knows the message has got through. It sounds as if that was a responsibility the scientific bods didn't want.
"We'd expect informal conversations of course, but not when making key decisions."
You've hit the nail on the head, AK!
That's what they were all doing in those non-parties in the garden of No10 Downing Street!
The 'key decisions' came a bit later on, after the booze had settled!
Scrobs - yes that's how I see it. They had to knock ideas around informally, but also had to sit down and settle on policies in a formal way, as we know they do.
I'm very surprised at how it appears the scientific advisors didn't appear to know very much about the spread of viral diseases and epidemic mechanisms. Surely there should have been others with the expertise to consult? Oh, wait, of course, the politicians have such a paucity of intellectual background, they would have been unable to identify the right experts to ask. Silly me.
Tammly - I'd be surprised if politicians select their experts. When they realise the experts they are stuck with aren't necessarily the best available it's too late. It would require enormous political courage for politicians to choose their own during a crisis.
More to the point would they know any 'experts'most of them don't even know what day it is, thinking they are much better at expert extraction of public monies as this inquiry certainly is.
Wiggia - they probably don't know any experts but might know somebody who does. Their outlook seems to be entirely political though, so it's not clear if they value expertise except politically.
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