If they "followed the science" and "got all the big calls right"

[verdantverdure]

And protected the people of Britain, and our economy...

Then Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Matt Hancock and all the Cabinet Ministers of the Conservative government since 2019 have nothing to hide

And can hand over any and all communications to the Covid Inquiry.

Some do. Others like to keep their heads firmly in the sand until they're slapped with something concrete. Like when the Hillsborough Inquiry was released, lots of people seemed to be genuinely shocked at discovering for real what many already knew and had been shouting about for years.

Yeah, you're probably right, but I feel like the people who want to make excuses for them will carry on doing so regardless of any evidence that is put in front of them. Wilfull ignorance if you like.

There is abundant evidence already in the public domain for anyone who is actually willing to engage with it.

Willful ignorance definitely applies to my mother and I don't think anything will change her mind until the Daily Mail tell her to.

I expect there's a few smoking guns re Rishi's covid support schemes and the 3 million self employed/freelancers he excluded, then lied about them in Parliament! Then the bounce back loan frauds. Eat out to help out is only the tip of the iceberg with the other Treasury failings during Covid.

This government is corrupt.

It’s not sleaze, nudge nudge, wink wink. It’s pure out and out corruption.

Covid was a gravy train where those in the know made billions. Test and trace, PPE, furlough. All paid for by a trillion pounds of borrowed and printed money.

That said, hysterical stupid people, even on this forum no less, wanted more Covid restrictions. They wanted more lockdowns, more spending, more draconian measures against a virus which for the majority was not even harmful, let alone fatal. Well, you got what you wanted. Now enjoy paying it back, with double digit inflation and sky high taxation.

I hope they do engage properly with the enquiry, I think they absolutely have a moral duty to do so.
This was a huge global event and of course there will be lessons to be learned from it, which will be pertinent to anything happening on a similar scale or even smaller scale in the future.

Honesty is the first step to being prepared.

I think they knowingly reduced the ability to respond to such a situation because they didn't believe it would happen during their time in power. There was a lot of dithering/missed opportunities at the beginning because of this reduced ability and also a 'people have had enough of experts' mentalility which filtered down to those who believe that spin is more important than actual knowledge and expertise in a subject.
We had the worst sort of Government at the worst sort of time.

Yawn

Covid was indeed a "gravy grain" due to instutionalised UK corruption.

But that does not change the realities on the ground as it pertains to the epidemiological impacts (mortality and morbidity) on the UK population due to covid-19.

The "two" are not the same thing.

We have a corrupt Govt in the UK, but we still have world class objective scientists in the aggregate sense. They were absolutely correct in their views about the pandemic situation.

Imagine messages from Whitty saying this is absolute madness and will lead to thousands of deaths and Sunak dismissing him as it's a price he's willing to let others pay, then Johnson piping up to hilariously point out it'd sort out the social care crisis.

I can imagine something like that all too well

I think they are using the Human Rights Act as part of the right to privacy to fight this.

Which is so ironic

There were vast quantities of damaging illogical rules and guidence that defied the known science of the time, particularly by autumn 2020 onwards where there was a fair amount known about the virus, who was vulnerable and how it spread. Stupid rules like two households exceeding 6 not being able to meet outside, even though it was considerably safer than 6 people meeting in a pub. Children spending vast tracts of a year being unable to meet with children beyond their household, and often prohibited from going to school. Now we see the consequences in delayed development and difficult behaviours, and there's no support to mitigate it.

Aside from corruption, profiteering and respect for the consequences of their decisions on the population, so, so many decisions were never about science and managing viral spread.

What irritates me beyond belief is that of all people, Rishi Sunak knows who recieved fradulant billions of pounds of taxpayer cash. He signed the fucking cheques. Yet they don’t seem to be doing anything to recover that lost money. Money which could have paid for the pay rises needed by schools and hospitals across the uk.

as someone who has part of the excluded freelancers, I will NEVER EVER forget being told by this government that I wasn’t deserving of any financial support despite being newly self employed and ten days away from filing a tax return.

And the bizarre grading system....cant remember what they were called. Different rules in different regions....no body knew what they were supposed to be doing. I was pretty confused anyway. I could actually cycle to a location where pubs were open....

The Cabinet Office refused to disclose some of the material by arguing it was not relevant to the inquiry, it would compromise ministers' right to privacy, and would set a precedent that could prevent ministers discussing policy matters in future.

Interesting paragraph from the news, how would it compromise ministers rights to privacy ? Are they asking for work phone messages or personal phone messages ?

@Sceptic1234 they were 'tiers' which had many people in tears! I was in a tier where everythnig was closed, but within walking distance of one where pubs, cafes and 'non essential' shops were still open.

I think the main issue I'm here is we are reflecting on a difficult event in history. At the time there was conflicts of information science snd opinion

Too right. And doing 10 tests a day - "why not, they're free?" Hardly free - we're going to all be paying for them for the next decade 😔

They were a bit like the control zones which are in use for bird flu, I presume there is some science involved with those too.

If I were minister, even in a hypothetical government who'd uncannily made all the right decisions entirely unburdened by personal failings, then yes I'd be really worried about having those inevitability brutal cost benefit calculations made public.

But there's no doubt at all that they should be within the scope of the enquiry.

What would be a more legitimate concern would be if a relevant WhatsApp message between cabinet colleagues was followed up by "My God Colleague X is getting on my tits on these committees. Do you think his affair with Colleague Y is going badly and that's why he's such a PITA at the moment?" Or even "I'm sorry I appeared brusque today and was late for the committee start - I think I should tell you that my teenager has just been admitted to an in-patient anorexia facility - it's been a hellish few days."

AND all the fraudulently claimed money that they cant be bothered to chase, WE have to pay for that😡😡😡
of course they cant be bothered to go after it, it's OUR money that they wasted, we the people at the bottom who do the actual work that keeps the wheels turning and keeps those greedy fuckers at the top of the pyramid.
Not me, not any more I'm a 'late 50's no longer willing to work to generate tax for those cunts' person now

We know the gov didn't follow the science as the leaked messages from MH said as much. Chris Whitty was thrown under the bus when in reality he said its unreasonable for people to not see their partners etc and to be more balanced, MH said no we can't as people will know we were wrong.

This. How anyone can say he was even a decent chancellor is unbelievable. He was criminally incompetent. Let’s not forget he was installed by Dominic Cummings as he was more willing to be a puppet than Savid Jarvid. Rishi was a dreadful chancellor who lost the country more money than Truss/Kwarteng.

Was it Sunak that forgot to pay some insurance bill that cost us millions/billions? I have vague memories of something like that.

Yep, £11 billion it cost us.

www.bbc.com/news/business-61754394

Rishi Sunak is the guy that enabled Johnson to truly tank the economy. The fact that he is now PM shows that lunatics are well and truly in charge of the asylum. The guy is everything you don’t want in a leader - incompetent, technocratic, a puppet on a string. How far the standard of leadership has sunk in this country in 30 years.