Sir Chris Whitty agrees with Hugo Keith KC that in general terms differences of opinion in Sage "were not, as a rule, reflected in the minutes".
He adds that what was provided to ministers was a "central view, not a consensus view" from the meetings.
From BBC reporting
I think that the fundamental problem is that when an ideology fails, such as communism, or the Chicago school of neoliberalism the incentives that are in place encourage denial of reality rather than reform of the ideology.
My experience has been that in all walks of life, people talk a good game in private, but in public very few are actually prepared to pay the cost of challenging the status quo, one of which is often not being promoted to positions of authority.
The denials start off small, but as they become dogma, they're inevitably amplified. After a while you get a professional political class who know no other way. The truth cannot be true because if it was it calls into question their whole identity and raison d'etre.
This phenomenon happens both on the left and right, especially as they drift away from pragmatic centrism and towards populism.
We had a cabinet that was chosen purely based on their ideological purity towards Brexit.
The fact that it was an emergency would have made things even worse in terms of their cognitive ability. When we're stressed, blood supply is decreased to the frontal cortex, which is the thinking part of the brain. At such times we tend to react instinctively and then justify it after the fact.
We had a bunch of people in leadership positions who'd never really been tested, and who had been chosen on their ability to follow dogma above all else. Is it any wonder that they then struggled to comprehend an inconvenient reality?
I’m interested in challenging and finding the truth but your position seems quite anti- – is there any reason why that would be, if it’s possible to say?
Perhaps it's a character flaw, or perhaps it's the normal result of a long history of being faced with denial, obfuscation, evasion and excuses when I present a fairly obvious but unwelcome truth. I've been saying this for a few years now, it gets old dealing with the same old merry-go-round of sealioning, tone policing, ducking and weaving over semantics.
Those who've known me a long time will have seen this process play out a number of times in a number of different spheres. I'd be very grateful if you could stick to the topic rather than focussing on my style.
@TiReD, you specifically said you knew that Vallance was sounding the alarm from the 14th. Your follow-up comment does not support that very strong claim in the slightest - asking you for some more data suggests he was somewhat curious in what you had to say, but your arguments for a short doubling time were very clearly rejected by SAGE on the 16th and again on the 18th March. This is directly contrary to Vallance's claims made to the S&T committee, where he specifically said that *SAGE* (and not just he himself) changed its mind by these dates.
If Vallance was really sounding the alarm from the 14th March, and SAGE was over-ruling him twice in the following week, doesn't anyone think he would bother to mention this in his testimony? Who in SAGE has the authority to over-rule him anyway? It's a nonsensical idea.
This phenomenon happens both on the left and right, especially as they drift away from pragmatic centrism
You seem to be confusing being a centrist with being pragmatic as opposed to just having an ideological position in the centre. A mistake made by many ideologues.
There is also the problem when you look at the key players the claims about them being ideologically brexiteers doesnt really add up.
It was just a pragmatic means to an end for them.
Johnson just wanted to be king of the world and failing that pm.
Cummings had his nuts dreams and the disruption caused by brexit plus the removal of some of the constraints was what attracted him to it.
Hancock had supported remain and I dont think there is any evidence for a damascene conversion vs a pragmatic switch in position. Certainly in the leadership contest against Johnson his position was a lot more moderate.
and so on.
will those that were so incompetent and contributed to excess deaths, whilst setting their chums up with ppe contracts and having parties face any actual punishment?
For the umpteenth time, this enquiry is not intended to punish anyone.
If evidence emerges of criminal activity, the Police will look at it. Maybe.
Whilst meeting notes may seem inconsistent, challenging the accuracy of a statement made by the guy providing the actual data at the time as to what was being said/discussed by him seems to a bit of an odd hill to fight on.
Those who’ve known me a long time will have seen this process play out a number of times in a number of different spheres. I’d be very grateful if you could stick to the topic rather than focussing on my style.
Will do. I've googled you now and can see the history you refer to and can well understand why you're bored of it by now!
I didn't mean to criticise tone, and certainly not content - as a scientist myself, albeit one in the foothills compared to some around here, I'm interested in the facts as well. To me those facts include why there may be differences in eg: PV's thoughts at that time vs what SAGE minutes say, but equally there is a difference and it hasn't absolutely been answered (or questioned even yet). It was an observation, that's all, noting that on first reading (and i confess, second and maybe third too before actually taking time to understand the issue) that your position comes across like that and runs the risk of being "another anti-scientist view". One I retract, completely, just to be clear.
Who in SAGE has the authority to over-rule him anyway? It’s a nonsensical idea.
Wasn't there, can't comment. SAGE is a consensus committee not a chairman's forum. But PV was clear about the doubling time after my first communication with him (and it wasn't the only communication that week). That the news was reporting a 5-6d doubling time on the Tuesday was pretty incredulous to me (and you too). I imagine turning the SAGE groupthink tanker was a challenge. To be fair, one member of SPI-M also conducted a nice comparative analysis using Italian data to come to the same conclusion about the UK a week later.
Most of my time on SPI-M was spent challenging the status quo of SEIR-based epidemic modelling in the absence of immunity data, notably in the first few months.
Thank you very much for your kind comments @theotherjonv. Perhaps I'm also a bit sharper than usual because I really expect better behaviour from scientists.
I've just read some of Vallance's written testimony. The reference to the SAGE meeting of 16 March is a bit of a zinger. He quotes from the summary:
1. On the basis of accumulating data, including on NHS critical care capacity, the advice from SAGE has changed regarding the speed of implementation of additional interventions.
2. SAGE advises that there is clear evidence to support additional social distancing measures be introduced as soon as possible.
3. These additional measures will need to be accompanied by a significant increase in testing and the availability of near real-time data flows to understand their impacts.
and uses this to bolster his claim that SAGE was basically recommending lockdown. It does sound a bit like it, don't you think? However, he omits the very next point from the summary, which is:
4. SAGE will further review at its next meeting whether, in the light of new data, school closures may also be required to prevent NHS capacity being exceeded.
Note the *may also be required*. That is, far from being something close to lockdown, the *additional social distancing measures* that SAGE were recommending at that time were more minor even than school closures! I wonder how many people would realise that when they read his testimony that only quotes points 1-3 above?
Two years ago when he was being asked about this same period, he was very insistent that SAGE's change in position (from mitigate/delay to suppress/lockdown) was driven by their change in the estimated doubling time. Now he is claiming that they were asking for lockdown (that fell short of school closures!) a week before they accepted the shorter doubling time.
Though, of course, he doesn't find the space to address this curious discrepancy.
I'm not going to try and defend the govt decisions. The only part of it done well was the vaccine rollout. Everything else was cack.
However, we have to appreciate the UK just doesn't have the mechanisms to successfully implement lockdowns. Obviously, it was too much for the Police to handle. So, local councils? We just don't have powerful regional or local officials who can implement and enforce such a measure.
Compare it to China where there have always been members of govt on every street corner. That's oppressive in 'normal' times, but effective in helping with lockdowns.
Again, closing borders - the UK is a major international air hub and an island with several seaports. We have never checked anyone or anything for pests/diseases at ports of entry. Imagine trying to shut all of this down overnight.
The enquiry is a foregone conclusion. Nothing will change as a result of it.
We just don’t have powerful regional or local officials who can implement and enforce such a measure.
In the main, very little “enforcement” is required, it’s more about supporting people.
If Vallance was really sounding the alarm from the 14th March, and SAGE was over-ruling him twice in the following week, doesn’t anyone think he would bother to mention this in his testimony?
I think he testified that the advice (that there might need to be a lockdown) wasn't received well by senior civil servants; from his testimony yesterday reported in the Guardian
Questioned by Andrew O’Connor KC, Vallance said he had been reprimanded for calling in meetings around mid-March for action to be taken immediately, agreeing that at least one official had been “incandescent” with anger.
This had, he said, been Chris Wormald, who was and remains the top civil servant at the health department, as well as Mark Sedwill, then-cabinet secretary, the UK’s most senior civil servant.
Had we had a flu pandemic, with a virus that had a mortality of, for the sake of argument, 1% to 2%, which is what we were thinking of at this point in time, it would also have been woefully deficient."
This was interesting - so anything more than a pandemic of the common cold and we'd still have been stuffed.
That's the level of planning and preparation that was in place by a government whose priority should presumably be the safety and well being of the population.
That’s the level of planning and preparation that was in place by a government whose priority should presumably be the safety and well being of the population.
despite
Vallance completely busted, explicitly describing a 5 day doubling on the 16th March, which according to his recent testimony was *after* he had seen the data that convinced him that the doubling time was 3 days:
He's reinventing history to make himself look good.
I think he testified that the advice (that there might need to be a lockdown) wasn’t received well by senior civil servants; from his testimony yesterday reported in the Guardian
The likes of Wormald and Sedwill were never part of SAGE, it was scientists with a couple of govt observers. If the argument is that SAGE's recommendations were spiked by civil servants, to the extent that they even put fraudulent numbers into the minutes that the SAGE members didn't agree with, this would be incendiary stuff. However he's never so much as hinted at anything like that, and neither has anyone else involved in SAGE. It doesn't seem a very plausible idea.
That's always the problem with trying to reinvent history, when there is real documentation. You end up having to create epicycle after epicycle to explain away every inconsistency. At some point surely it's easier to just accept the simple truth which is that SAGE - including the chair Vallance (it's mentioned in his testimony that he has this formal role) got it wrong right up to the 23rd March. Specifically, they thought the doubling time was 5d and the peak was some way off, until after the SPI-M meeting on the 20th (Friday) which is the first time 3d doubling appears in the minutes, and then the next SAGE meeting was the 23rd, and the rest is history. I suspect his mistake might have started out by him conflating the two weekends, the 14-15th where there was some initial concern from some people like @TiReD and I believe some other modellers and probably Cummings too (which was all airily dismissed by SAGE) and then 21-22nd where there really was an Oh Shit moment.
But no, he has to be a hero and pretend he worked it out a week earlier, which then forces all sorts of bizarre contortions that just aren't remotely plausible, and are totally incompatible with the written evidence.
The only part of it done well was the vaccine rollout. Everything else was cack.
Not quite, the treasury IT roll-out for working from home for HMRC and the income support, was an object lesson in getting things right first time (or right enough to have a functioning work-force). From memory it was all going very well after a month, the first couple of weeks had some wrinkles to be ironed out.
I believe TiRed on the R number calculations around the beginning as there must have been absolutely huge political pressure from the top to play those down, keep events like Cheltenham Races etc going and for Johnson, Sunak and Co to try and ride it out to come out of the other side looking like heroes. There was lots of talk in the press of the vagaries of everything at that time and also an immediate resistance to Following the Science until it was obvious that the experts were on the right track. It's quite possible that the R range was 3-5 days across a few reports, leading to two different answers to the same question at the time. Just go look back at the original thread and TiRed explaining the vagaries of existing models with the limited data even a few weeks later and you can see how this situation would arise.
Whitty was specifically worried that people wouldn’t follow the advice or would only do so for a limited time.
This is the only positive part so far, hitty and the govt didn't think the general public would adhere to any lockdown rules for very long and we all proved them very wrong on this. I remember the adherence for the first few weeks of lockdown one being incredibly well obeyed by nearly everyone. It was the one beacon of hope for a lot of people that following the rules would keep us safer than other countries like Italy and gave rise the NHS pan banging etc.
Don't forget that Atletico Madrid played Liverpool around the sma etime as Cheltenham and over 5000 fans came here from Spain which was many weeks ahead of us. They were touting herd immunity early on too. I think that Vallance was involved early on too.
Not quite, the treasury IT roll-out for working from home for HMRC and the income support, was an object lesson in getting things right first time (or right enough to have a functioning work-force). From memory it was all going very well after a month, the first couple of weeks had some wrinkles to be ironed out.
I wasn’t with HMRC at the time, but it was a heck of an achievement.
.
explicitly describing a 5 day doubling on the 16th March, which according to his recent testimony was *after* he had seen the data that convinced him that the doubling time was 3 days
He had two roles, surely. One was a spokesperson delivering a consensus position to the public, the other was seeking and evaluating the best new evidence available and working with others to constantly improve that consensus. That the very public role would be falling behind the private role is no surprise.
What happened today at the inquiry?
Prof JVT went into great detail about the death threats he and his family received while he tried to save lives. Conspiracy theory nut jobs can get in the sea.
We were informed by Jonathan Van-Tam that the first time anyone outside numbers 10 & 11 Downing Street heard about Rishi’s Eat Out To Kill Everyone scheme was when they saw it on the news.
As Chris Whitty volunteered yesterday, Rishi didn’t think he’d like the answers he’d get if he asked the questions, so he just never bothered and went ahead anyway, just like Truss with the OBR and her mini-budget.
When they said they’d had enough of experts, they really meant it
We've now had Patrick Vallance, Chris Whitty and Jonathan Van-Tam all state categorically they were neither consulted nor told about sunak's Eat Out scheme.
Can't wait to see lil rish! attempt to talk his way out of that one.
It is, of course, perfectly possible that 3 eminent scientific and medical leaders got together and agreed to lie and shift the responsibility when it was clear they would be asked about this.
In fact, as I think about it that's what must have happened...
Sunaks a politician with slightly more brain than BOJO, so he didnt downright lie in his written statement. He wrote that nobody had voiced any concerns to him about EOTHO. Which I guess is true, because none of the scientists knew anything about it!!
He had two roles, surely. One was a spokesperson delivering a consensus position to the public, the other was seeking and evaluating the best new evidence available and working with others to constantly improve that consensus. That the very public role would be falling behind the private role is no surprise.
Do you seriously think he stood up there and said something purely scientific (not policy-related) that he, and the other scientists in SAGE, believed to be false, and that SAGE was pressurised (by whom?) into writing something that the scientists present believed to be false into their minutes, and he didn't think to mention this at any stage in his written or spoken testimony to either the current inquiry or the select committee back in 2020, or in any other interview? And none of the other scientists involved have mentioned this complete breakdown of normal ethics and behaviour either? If you think SAGE weren't prepared to speak the scientific truth about the doubling time, how on earth can you believe that they were nevertheless asking for lockdown (a highly political statement)?
It's a hell of a conspiracy theory, but also completely absurd, especially when there is a very simple explanation for the contradiction, which is that he's confused the two weekends in his mind, and managed to misread (selectively read) the SAGE minutes in such a way as to obscure the contradiction. SAGE changed its mind over the weekend of 21-22 March, as is very clearly documented in the minutes of 16, 18, 20 and 23 March. There was surely some debate about the doubling time earlier than that (as @TiReD mentions, but lots people up and down the country were shaking their heads at this point), but the arguments for 3d doubling were very firmly rejected by SAGE on both the 16th and 18th of March. They didn't credit this value with the hint of a possibility, even saying on the 18th that actions already recently taken (such as the measures announced on the 16th) would likely be slowing the doubling time beyond the 5-7 day estimate they quote. 5-7 days! They even had an uncertainty range!
Vallance has not produced a single document, email, WhatsApp or anything else to back up his claim to have changed his mind over the weekend of 14-15 March. There are numerous documents demonstrating the converse, that the belief in 5 day doubling persisted at least though the 16-18 March (SAGE meetings on those days) and was first changed by SAGE on the 23rd, following the SPI-M meeting on the 20th. He doesn't try to put so much as a fag-paper between his views and SAGE's views, BTW, considering them broadly interchangeable, using "we" to mean the scientists generally etc. If SAGE had imposed views on him that he strongly disagree with, he'd hardly have kept that a secret, it would be an important part of explaining his actions.
I know no-one else is really interested in getting at the truth, but I've now written to the inquiry outlining the repeated discrepancies between Vallance's testimony, and what the contemporaneous records actually show (ie, the SAGE and SPI-M-O minutes around that time, together with the press conference on the 16th where he directly refers to the 5 day doubling time that SAGE was continuing to assume).
Good for you. In fact I suggested you do it a week ago.
Have you sent any of this [edit – your blog info which I have read for the first time] to the enquiry? Seems reasonable to be asking them directly?
and
I assume there’s opportunity to call them again once evidence is gathered and inconsistencies identified?
which makes
I know no-one else is really interested in getting at the truth
not the truth 😉
not the truth
It's essential to always remember that no-one is infallible, not even me, which is why the documentary evidence is so important. The way in which scientists' statements have been taken as gospel truth (by journalists reporting on the inquiry), without any rudimentary fact-checking, is quite alarming.
I have just searched for the SAGE minutes on the inquiry website. You might think they would be considered are an important part of the evidence base, and they are frequently but selectively quoted from by various participants in their written and spoken submissions
The SAGE minutes of the 13th March are there, as are the SAGE minutes of the 23rd March.
The SAGE minutes of the 16th and 18th March are not on the inquiry website, ie they have not been submitted into evidence, and therefore will not have been read by the inquiry team. It's almost like no-one wants them to be read in full. Given the specific focus of this part of the inquiry on that specific week, and the presence of minutes either side of that week, this seems a remarkable omission, but I realise that drawing attention to this makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist. The minutes are available from the SAGE website itself, fortunately.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham up today.
Khan already saying that the Government completely sidelined him in the early days.
That was surely the issue from day one though?
Pretty much everyone was sidelined by the real PM, Dominic Cummings, and his 'I know best' philosophy on pretty much everything as he centralised control and decision-making.
Its the same story with everyone. I doubt Andy Burnham is going to be very complimentary. It was obvious that by the time the second lockdown was approaching, relationships with Number 10 hadn't just broken down as entered a war footing. You could probably say the same about all the devolved assemblies, who weren't consulted at all and just received dictats fired out by Cummings
I doubt Andy Burnham is going to be very complimentary.
https://twitter.com/implausibleblog/status/1729173629127237720
A 'punishment beating' for Greater Manchester proposed because Andy Burnham opposed Tier 3 without additional financial support for the lowest paid.
I knew it was bad, but I am staggered by the incompetence, the pettiness, the political games. The opposite of decent government at a time of crisis. Imagine threatening to impose additional restrictions on an entire city's population out of pure spite at its elected mayor...
That sums up the whole levelling up agenda. Vote Blue and we'll give you funds. Vote for anyone else and we will give you nowt, then blame the opposition for your lack of money.
Exactly - the priority is mot serving the people and place that is the United Kingdom, it is holding on to power and personal gain in any way you can. Horrid.
A ‘punishment beating’ for Greater Manchester proposed because Andy Burnham opposed Tier 3 without additional financial support for the lowest paid.
JC.
That sums up the whole levelling up agenda. Vote Blue and we’ll give you funds. Vote for anyone else and we will give you nowt, then blame the opposition for your lack of money.
That's been the agenda for years. Why do you think the Red Wall went Blue?
Life is shit, everything is closing down, the town is on its arse, there's a Labour council (starved of funds).
Government says "oh, look at your council, they're a bit shit!"
Also they love small boats and the EU like a bunch of woke communist bastards. Vote for us!
Meanwhile all the money has been redirected to nice leafy Kent and Surrey.
Covid just helped all that along a bit.
Raab this afternoon. Should be enlightening...
Raab this afternoon.
I'm sure we'll all be overwhelmed by the empathy and compassion that pours forth
His only regret is that he didn't get to kill them all personally.
He always has the air of of a man who's just been disturbed while cutting up the body of a dead prostitute in his bath
Can't see any feedback here on Gove yesterday?
From the highlights I read, he seems to have made all the right noises apologising for mistakes and their consequences, without trying to upset anyone he may want to support him going forwards.
So just his slimly little ****er act?
It’s on YouTube, and yes.
Matt Hancock about to start his evidence this morning.
This should be the greatest work of fiction since the last time Boris opened his gob
I hate myself for this, but from the 'highlights' I heard on the radio he actually came across 'OK'
Nuclear levels of self-confidence - yes, he said, I was fighting hard for what we believed at the DoH and I can see how that came across
Ring around Care Homes. Yes, we failed in that and it wasn't an unbroken circle
Called for lockdown sooner - can't seem to prove he did this but admits that in hindsight they were 2 weeks too late and cost lives as a result.
Clearly got stuff wrong as we know they did, but actually seems willing to admit it.
Suspect normal service to be resumed next week when Boris is up.
