IMMEDIATE LESSONS ARE VITAL
Another pandemic of a virus akin to or different from Covid-19 (CV) can hit the world at any time, even tomorrow, and without any warning. Being as prepared as is possible will save lives, and that is why learning the lessons of this pandemic is so vital now. That learning is the sole purpose of the Joint Parliamentary Committee which interviewed Dominic Cummings (DC) on 26 May. DC’s contribution to learning could have taken half an hour. As his tweets and leaks over days leading up to that day predicted, this was in fact his stage to hurl his grenades, loaded with revenge and hatred, against his former employer, Boris Johnson. At the same time, with a veneer of false humility, DC explained how his own plan to save British lives was ignored. So, he says he finally had no choice but to resign his position.
DC was interviewed for some 7 hours. The time was dominated by constant repetition of his personal opinions, with scant objective truth, about the performance of those around him who he dislikes, disrespects and so it seems wishes to destroy, particularly Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, Carrie Symonds and one or two others. Extreme language, likening ministers to donkeys and Boris Johnson to a destructive shopping trolley, depicting chaos as the functional norm, was perhaps to compensate for lack of any evidence or analysis by a man whose intellectual arrogance, egoism and disdain for politicians is widely reported. DC is evidently consumed by a desire for revenge, having been forced out of his role as adviser to the Prime Minister. He was fully indulged running amok, and yet there was little new in his allegations and character assassination, except perhaps his view, with no evidence yet, that Matt Hancock is a serial liar. But he said there are lessons to learn, albeit his explanation of them absorbed about 15 of the 450 minutes performance.
LESSONS ACCORDING TO DOMINIC CUMMINGS
Abuse and accusations are not lessons that can be helpful against another pandemic. At the end of the session, he was asked to summarise the lessons to be learnt. They did not include any of the vitriol which had dominated the preceding 7 hours. He cited the reconstruction of the Civil service; reworking of its recruitment policies to include people who have the skills, such as in data analysis and technology, to meet today’s needs; revamping its promotion criteria; creating a culture of giving and taking responsibility for making decisions and delivering results in dedicated teams; incentivising performance; importing procurement expertise which is, according to DC, non-existent among officials. Is this recommendation surprising given that for years the wholesale change of the bureaucratic service was his declared main ambition?
He cited that plans and structures and an innovative approach to meet emergencies does not exist. Perhaps too he is right on many of these things; he observed how senior officials avoid hard issues, preferring to defer them; and how personnel are unable to adapt their pedantic slow methods and processes, which are tolerable at best only when urgency is not needed. The strategic and practical approach to the vaccination programme, taken out of the hands of the health authorities and left to a private squad led by Kate Bingham, was an example to learn from. Kate Bingham was given authority and responsibility to assemble a team and get on with the job. Rishi Sunak and the Treasury supported them. The rule book of vaccine procurement was discarded, and risks were allowed to be taken – notably the research and development of vaccine and conducting trials were done simultaneously in parallel with, not consecutively to, the investment in production facilities, supply of necessities and distribution channels; and the gamble of ordering vaccines from multiple pharmaceutical sources when the success of development was unknown was an expense risk worth taking. Boris Johnson and colleagues committed to remove any bureaucratic barriers that intervened.
The normal procurement processes of an it seems inflexible Department of Health, and of Health Service providers, had to be ditched as not fit in an emergency where decisions to order PPE or other supplies were required instantly as nations competed for scarce products. DC had no criticism for the practices adopted, though opposition MPs sought to lead him to suggest sleaze and profiteering and to implicate Michael Gove. DC’s big idea for speeding up vaccine delivery was a human challenge of volunteers to be infected deliberately and test the vaccine, on the basis that if they died their family would be given a 7 figure compensation. He seemed to think this could be a lesson for say an Ebola outbreak – would there really be volunteers for a dose of a disease which kills one in three?
For DC, the ideal answer to beat the pandemic would it seems be the authoritarian rule of a dictator handing down the orders for the public to follow to the letter, and so enforce strict lockdown until victory. Sadly, that could perhaps be out of tune with a democratic UK populace, for whom individual choice is a key life ingredient. DC’s opinions as to the failures of others resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths stem principally from his conviction that lockdown was the only real option – yet there are good arguments that lockdown might have done more damage than alternative approaches. That Boris Johnson saw lockdown as a very last resort is not unreasonable, even if his reluctance to lockdown early may be regarded by many as wrong. In addition, could it be that not everybody will share DC’s version of facts and put the same gloss on it as he does. For example, in the Daily Telegraph article headed “The crucial facts Cummings left out tell a very different story of lockdown”, Fraser Nelson states he saw the documents presented to the September high level meeting when lockdown was rejected, and he makes clear they do not reflect DC’s recollection of total chaos as he described it.
These were his learnings for the future plus his observation that the media reported so much fake news about what was going on in Downing Street that he advised not trusting journalists.
THE MEDIA HITS THE ISSUES, INCLUDING NO REPORTING OF LESSONS
Is it a little surprising that the media, broadcasters and newspapers, made little or no reference to DC’s thoughts on learning? However, as perhaps DC intended, the headlines and hours of TV and radio time and columns of newspaper inches were dedicated to DC’s opinions: tens of thousands of people died needlessly; Boris Johnson unfit to lead; Matt Hancock should have been fired for 15 or 20 reasons and lied to everybody; how the Government failed the public in its hour of need. The sole interest seems to be to shame and blame, discover or at least allege mistakes and connect them with deaths that might have been prevented (though proving what deaths and suffering would have occurred had different decisions been made is nigh on impossible perhaps).
Analysing the reaction of the BBC on the day of the interview illustrates the wider media story: the introduction of the 6pm BBC news accompanying the normal musical fanfare declared how the news would look at what lessons can be learnt. The presenter, George Alagiah, went on to emphasise with great excitement how thousands died needlessly, Government failure, Boris Johnson’s unfitness to govern, and the lies of Matt Hancock. Turning to Laura Kuenssberg, she majored on the list of accusations against Matt Hancock, and the “most important verdict” of thousands who lost lives unnecessarily. How does DC’s mantra for lockdowns against other choices and his desire to discredit qualify as “verdict”? It was a statement with no evidence produced. Then Vicky Young emphasises that these allegations cannot be dismissed by Downing Street. Then “Outside Source” – Ros Atkins and Rob Watson, all repeating the same themes as the earlier news. No mention of lessons learnt; with Rob Watson concluding with his fact that the UK has pretty much the worst death toll in Europe – when the league tables of death rates show 7 other European countries with sadly worse rates, including Italy and Belgium. What was the motive behind this untrue message? Should we heed DC’s own advice on journalism?
That knowledge of similar facts can lead to polar opposite opinions among reporters is illustrated by the Sunday papers on 30 May. Presumably all journalists read the same Sage documents leading up to “lockdown or not” decisions. The Observer concluded “The only conclusion to be drawn from the first wave of the pandemic was that the Government took too long to introduce social restrictions” and “Those who backed Johnson are complicit in the death of tens of thousands of people”. Matthew Syed in the Sunday Times concluded that the Government “was not dithering in March 2020 but acting in accordance with the advice of its scientific committee”, and he quotes from Sage documents on numerous topics. He also cites how various scientists such as Jeremy Farrar and Neil Ferguson have been seeking to change the story on what they advised towards a “delayed lockdown” narrative. He is clear that UKGOV followed the science then, and that the current vogue campaign to paint delay as costing lives is untrue. But Matthew Syed and the Observer both conclude that the Government delayed wrongly in September, but Fraser Nelson concludes otherwise in the Daily Telegraph having reviewed documents to see that Dominic Cummings’ report is incorrect. The point is that the same facts bring different views and spins: so, the public needs to beware.
No doubt mistakes and errors of judgement were made in emergency decision-making, as was so throughout Europe. It will be another thing to conclude deliberate disregard for, or recklessness towards, human life, which conclusion seems to be the passionate goal for so many: the motivation for that is perhaps truly sinister.
Is the Downing Street response correct that the public want it to focus on beating the pandemic, rather than now spend its energy on fighting accusations and assertions by a disgruntled ex-adviser about a past year which people would maybe prefer to consign to history? There is an economy to revive on the way and lives to rebuild: is it not better to devote scarce resources to these things to build a future rather than wallowing in the past, and causing retreat into defensive justification for past decisions?
ARE LESSONS BEING LEARNT?
The UK perhaps does not need a public enquiry to get prepared for tomorrow’s problems, though it may need one for a cathartic experience to satisfy those who obsess with fault and have an agenda. A public enquiry, whether started now or in Spring 2022 as proposed, will likely take years: the UK needs the practical lessons to be learnt now in readiness for the next pandemic. Does the average person really care about such an enquiry? Cannot the Health Services now learn best practices and apply them as it did in the pandemic? Cannot officialdom and public health devise a plan of how to deal with emergencies, procure supplies quickly? Where the UK relies excessively on single nations for key supplies, can diversification and independent domestic facilities not be created now? Cannot lessons of the vaccination strategy be applied elsewhere now? Hopefully all the important lessons to save future lives are being examined now, while those who wish to dedicate energy to destroying those they hate can wallow in their miserable swamp of accusations and assertions.
