Dominic C Covid evidence 2

[Newtonianmechanics]

New thread for if old fills up.

Simon Case at the CovidInquiry deleted loads of stuff accidentally and now can’t remember the context of his messages, apparently. “I was obviously reacting to something, but I don’t recall what”.

Simon Case says he has only been able to hand over 30 of 39 group WhatsApp chat tranches, as nine were lost as they were being transferred, which he was doing himself. But - all the messages exist from other group members, so are not lost to the inquiry.

Hugo Keith asks why, as head of the civil service, Simon Case didn't get an IT expert/dept to do this. Case can't really explain why.

Thank you @DuncinToffee

I've been keeping up with Module 2.
Unfortunately, I can't watch Simon Case live, but I will watch later today

Gosh, what with the Post Office Inquiry, this is a full on week - I need to find some time to sleep and work.

Case is confirming that he thought that the behaviour of individuals at number 10 and the Cabinet Office was toxic

But he can't remember what he meant by writing "Crisis + pygmies = toxic behaviour."

Some damning exchanges between Simon Case and Helen Macnamara in April 2020.
Macnamara: "I'm so horrified by it. The arrogance and the waste. And the contempt for cabinet."
Case: "Real lives being played with here."

"This has beem the most actively sexist environment I have ever worked in."

Another WhatsApp snippet from Helen Macnamara about working in Boris Johnson's No 10.

Simon Case says it was "no secret they were very different personalities and took decisions in different ways".

But that they had a "good relationship" through Covid, one that was "pretty candid"

Case insists Sunak-Johnson's relationship did not afford "the chancellor an unfair advantage over Covid decision-making".

Case had texted Johnson: "Can't always be you agreeing with Rishi".

Case says that was him saying the PM needed to balance considerations beyond the economy

Wow

Simon Case sent a message celebrating the exclusion of Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty from a meeting with the prime minister - about the easing of lockdown restrictions - as "genius".

"It removed that dynamic,” he wrote

Inquiry counsel Hugo Keith KC to Simon Case: "In what way was it sensible or advisable to describe the government's own medical and scientific advisers as a dynamic required to be removed from a meeting to discuss the lifting of interventions?"

Simon Case, agitated, says the meeting was designed to get Rishi Sunak "on board".

"It's easier to get these things agreed with the chancellor - with something he may not like - if the PM is proposing it rather than Chris and Patrick"

Simon Case says he knew nothing about Rishi Sunak's 'eat out to help out' Covid hospitality scheme until the day it was announced - despite being both permanent secretary and the head of the government's taskforce.

Case says he also had no idea about the public health worries until August 2020, when it was already running.

Simon Case is being incredibly candid here.

His witness statement says Boris Johnson's government featured "the worst governing ever seen".

Another text message to a colleague read: "The state has failed and we have some massive questions to ask ourselves"

Simon Case says both the Dominic Cummings/Barnard Castle jaunt and No 10 parties would "feel like a terrible insult" to bereaved families.
He says government polling at the time showed Barnard Castle badly damaged public confidence in abiding by Covid rules.

Some of the twitter threads I have used as they summarise it so much better than I can

https://x.com/jim_reed/status/1793634058456449245?t=BIGmRzSjyrOQb48m5GcCvQ&s=19

https://x.com/jamiemroberton/status/1793569243155587425?t=BIGmRzSjyrOQb48m5GcCvQ&s=19

https://x.com/peterwalker99/status/1793569804575703123?t=BIGmRzSjyrOQb48m5GcCvQ&s=19

@DuncinToffee not all have Twitter so your summaries are awesome!

I am quite good at copying and pasting and a bit of editing

Watching and writing is not my forte

Bloody he’ll. never thought I’d think there could be a worse person to be in charge during a pandemic that Boris. But beginning to feel bloody lucky Rishi wasn’t PM at the time.

Thanks for this, OP. Just catching up now.

Simon Case, "This idea that it was fine for children to get covid because they bounce through it.. I recall Patrick Vallance being clear that it wasn't that straight forward.. And that there could be lasting impacts of covid"

https://x.com/implausibleblog/status/1793688891980955925

This is going to be an issue to keep an eye on over the next decade or so. And we absolutely shouldn’t let anybody be getting away with trying to argue there was no way we could have known there would be consequences for children’s longer term health.

Just catching up - thanks for pulling this together.

"But he can't remember what he meant by writing "Crisis + pygmies = toxic behaviour."

Pretty sure we all know what he meant.

The first Covid Inquiry report (module1) is due to be released today

https://news.sky.com/story/bowl-of-spaghetti-uk-pandemic-preparation-to-be-laid-bare-in-covid-inquiry-report-13179534

Report is now released and it states

there is "no hesitation in concluding that the processes, planning and policy of the civil contingency structures within the UK government and devolved administrations and civil services failed their citizens".

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13649561/lockdown-disaster-infectious-disease-expert-Kevin-Bardosh.html

Covid Inquiry resumes today examining the impact the pandemic had on patients, healthcare workers and the wider NHS

https://m.youtube.com/@UKCovid-19Inquiry

Bumping this thread, Matt Hancock is giving evidence today