Comment

The received wisdom of the Covid Inquiry

The conclusion already appears to be that Britain was led by an idiot and handled the pandemic uniquely badly. But it may now be unravelling

Sir Chris Whitty

Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, told the Covid inquiry that nobody looking at the way Britain handled the pandemic “could say it was ideal”. A flabbergasted official counsel, Hugo Keith KC, replied: “That is, if I may say so with the greatest respect, quite an understatement.”

So has Mr Keith already decided that the response was a debacle and is just seeking confirmation? The received wisdom, which the inquiry’s questioning appears to embrace, is that Britain was led by an idiot and was uniquely bad in the way it dealt with the biggest peacetime crisis for decades. 

But this is not true, as has become apparent over the past few days, which have seen both Sir Chris and Sir Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientific adviser, give evidence.

Sir Patrick, while acknowledging that Boris Johnson found it hard to grasp some of the scientific concepts, said his colleagues found the same in governments across Europe. Perhaps the scientists should have explained them better.
For his part, Sir Chris disputed the notion that, had it not been for the nincompoops in charge, Britain would have sailed through a pandemic that afflicted the entire world. He was “not convinced that had we done things differently, it would have led to a different outcome”.

This was an unprecedented event for which the country should have been better prepared, undoubtedly, but even the best-laid plans were likely to go awry. Moreover, the UK was not the worst country in terms of fatalities by a long chalk. Our biggest problem is what has happened since – arguably, because we locked down not too early, but for too long.