Dominic Cummings Covid evidence

[Newtonianmechanics]

Is anyone going to watch this man give evidence today?

Apparently there is a vigil in Barnard Castle ahead of this.

The shopping trolleys emoji seems to mean they think Carrie was controlling Boris from the last few days. Wonder if this will feature.

Valance confirmshat Sunak's 'Eat out to help out' scheme was not known to him or SAGE until it was announced

https://x.com/peterwalker99/status/1726587835426525194?s=20

Patrick Vallance politely throws Sunak under a bus. Inquiry shown this extract from Sunak's witness statement were he says he did not recall any worries about eat out to help out. Vallance, asked about this, says he would be "very surprised" if Sunak not known about worries.

Patrick Vallance giving evidence seems to be getting more traction in the news than the previous five months of the Covid Inquiry combined.

Keep contemporaneous notes people!

I hope to catch up on YouTube or BBC Iplayer later on.

So, it might appear that:

1. Boris Johnson was either too stupid to have been admitted to Oxford (even for Literae Humaniores) through any normal, honest route; or, since Oxford, he has suffered brain damage.
2. Rishi Sunak has lied in his witness statement about EOTHO not being objected to by CMO (Whitty) and CSA (Vallance).

This is why the "people have had enough of experts" idea is so wrong. A scientifically and mathematically illiterate PM should accept that he is just that, and listen to the people who do understand the concepts.

I don’t see better outcomes for Sturgeon’s harsher approach

Or Drakeford

Same high numbers, just more damage

Lunch break

good timing as I have to be on a call shortly

Patrick Vallance says Boris Johnson's Government's claim to be "following the science" during the pandemic was very damaging as it absolved ministers of responsibility for their own decisions. Says ministers tried to "hide behind" the phrase.

@AutumnCrow / or perhaps, more plausibly given his character, Johnson was too lazy to use his mind. He is not intellectually lacking, but he is said to be chronically lazy and I expect that will come out too in due course.

I'm intrigued by the way that Vallance remains a believer in democracy and wants ministerial decision-making and ministerial responsibility to be central to the democratic process, and for it not to be replaced with modelling and inevitable outputs, having endured the experience of a Prime Minister who couldn't understand graphs and his two times table.

Vallance is a principled man. Looking forward to Whitty and Van-Tam.

A bit slippery perhaps? If Whitty and Vallance didn't know about it they couldn't object to it. Doesn't mean they were OK with it but what could they do once it was announced.

It's important to democracy that civil servants, even ones with great expertise are not the ones who decide on liberty and the steps to take.

Advisers advise, ministers decide. An old one but still true and still true if your PM is NBG. That is why you don't vote for a clown like Johnson; because there isn't a special civil service that can do this unless we all like idea of someone unelected making decisions for us. Political leadership matters so much.

So we have politicians, scientists and behavioural experts giving evidence

Who turns up for businesses and their livelihoods, women and children?

If they weren’t in place who actually gives the evidence?

Feels like a hole that gets cemented with an inquiry

I really envy Sweden on this, bar care homes, good approach and fast evaluation 😫

Were excess deaths high?

Sunak's witness statement says that the CMO and CSA were at a meeting where EOTHO was discussed prior to being announced. Vallance says they knew nothing until it had been announced, directly contradicting Sunak's statement.

And people looked up to Sturgeon and Drakeford more on here for the Covid draconian measures

That’s even worse

So he was lying about them being at the meeting.

Sunak? It looks like it.

And still Vallance believes in the political democratic process. Good for him. Just because you sometimes get utter shits elected to office doesn't mean that democracy is wrong. (Or that you need to hand it over to AI.)

Quite, countries that locked down earlier, had shorter LDs, less economic damage and less issues with MH schools.

If the Govt funded schools catch up and MH services properly, we have these issues, instead its tax cuts.

Sweden suffered and is suffering worse side effects and a higher death rate than other Nordic countries.

Bollocks to Aus being an example of how to do it in U.K.

Zero knowledge of border control in that view. Still

The point below was even with huge restrictions in place covid spread and put towns and cities in prolonged lockdowns

That we could get close to controlling it here as they did was a pipe dream. Covid spreads even when it’s a couple of cases and test and trace from committed people following up

So many demanding lockdown on here

And did Scotland and Wales even come out better?

With their ‘circuit breakers’ and stopping women using nursery and harsher measures?

https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1726615875921272973?t=Ui1FsScB2zaVQFL621AFOg&s=19

Johnson in meeting in Oct 2020: “most people who die have reached their time anyway”.

Vallance says important to note that he might go and say opposite the following day.

This note ends with Cummings telling them "Rishi thinks just let people die and that's okay."

Vallance says there was a "complete lack of leadership" in run up to second lockdown.

https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1726616795870834901?t=lc35WyJOdzsLckD1Ew-DVQ&s=19

Andrew O'Connor KC: People didn't find Matt Hancock a reliable, trustworthy colleague... what's your experience?

Sir Patrick Vallance; He had a habit of saying things which he didn't have a basis for..

AO: He said things that weren't true?

PV: Yes

https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1726617342875172980?t=yYeW9BBr9WJrRD_NG9BJQg&s=19

More from Patrick Vallance diaries, on the delay on a circuit-breaker lockdown in autumn 2020: "The right wing press are culpable and we have a weak,, indecisive PM."

Asked if he still stands by this view of Johnson being weak and indecisive, Vallance says he does think the PM "was influenced a lot by the press". So that's kind of a 'yes'.

Sounds like a hell of a meeting just before Nov 20 lockdown

Gove says worse for the economy not to lock down, Sunak disagrees.

PM is talking about the fall of Icarus…