Where are the scientists?

[StealthPolarBear]

Very odd

Oh dear oh dear oh dear after tonight's briefing

Tonight's briefing was worse than yesterday.
And yesterday's was woeful.
Oh, to be Beth Rigby: "I have a question, where are the scientists?"

Missed tonights. Anything interesting? Hope we see prof van tam back soon.

We won't see Prof Van Tam or any one of merit.
They tell the truth.
Our government opposes that.

Did Beth ask that?

No,
It was wishful thinking on my part. If I was Beth, I'd ask it!

Van Tam will have been blacklisted after his comment about rules for all.

The scientists are not in agreement with the government lifting the restrictions so quickly
We need to demand the scientists come back.

Alok Sharma's press conference
Alok Sharma, the business secretary, is taking the UK government’s daily press conference. It will be starting shortly. He will be appearing on his own.

(No 10 has in recent days stopped putting up scientists to appear alongside the ministers at this event. No 10 claims this is not because they have been banned for good. See 1.20pm. But the move has coincided with government policy increasingly diverging from the scientific advice. For example, Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, has refused to publicly back the quarantine policy, and Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical adviser, has refused to agree to lower the coronavirus threat level - which was supposed to be a precondition for lockdown measures being eased. Ministers are easing them anyway.)
cut and paste from Guardian

and at 1.20
The spokesman said it was wrong to say that scientists were no longer appearing at the daily government press conference. He was responding to a question pointing out that in recent days scientists have not been there.

that was the downing street lobby briefing.

I think I’ve read Boris is doing the briefing tonight. Let’s hope he has a scientist with him or who knows what he might come out with 🤣

Jenny Harries will be wheeled in her usual all-assenting blathering state.

PM tonight? I wonder why
Maybe he's going to tell us our alert level has moved from 4 to 3.999

I'm actually filled with a huge sense of dread

The Telegraph said last week that Boris will do one briefing a week - may be it coincides with him doing PMQ on a Wednesday, so he can go from one to the other.

"The spokesman said it was wrong to say that scientists were no longer appearing at the daily government press conference. He was responding to a question pointing out that in recent days scientists have not been there."

Have they created a potion - like Harry Potter's invisibility cloak? Or perhaps shrunk like Alice when she drank the medicine!

Waiting to see today. Hope prof van tam ok, had an image of him gagged somewhere.

Yay they are back!!! See what they say. Boris is easing this very slowly.

He's been very effectively briefed

The Telegraph said last week that Boris will do one briefing a week - may be it coincides with him doing PMQ on a Wednesday, so he can go from one to the other

And not have to interrupt the rest of his week with working like us pens have to. Thought the scientists were very honest tonight.

Plebs duh

Copy and paste from Guardian news feed:

"England’s chief nurse, Ruth May, was dropped from one of Downing Street’s daily coronavirus briefings after refusing to publicly back Dominic Cummings’ behaviour during the lockdown, according to the Independent.

A senior NHS source was quoted as saying:

A No 10 Spad [special adviser] asked her directly how she would answer the Dominic Cummings question and she refused to play along and told them she would answer the same way as Jonathan Van-Tam. She was dropped immediately from the press briefing."

Good for her. Explains why we haven't seen JVT also!

Disgraceful and utterly depressing

Good for her!

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/12/chief-nurse-dropped-from-no-10-briefing-for-not-backing-cummings