The Covid Inquiry

[elbows]

Unlike Whitty she isnt rolling back on this stance now or describing this line of communication as a mistake, and is giving an absolute bullshit answer instead, awful.

The stuff about Italy probably isnt surprising given that one of her other famous errors was, when the WHO were telling countries to test, test, test, her excuse for the UK not doing so was that the WHO was providing advice for poor countries, not countries like the UK.

 

[elbows]

And now her bullshit about PPE from a press conference.

Claims she was misinformed, this wasnt her area of responsibility, relied on info from other people to help answer these questions, and apologised at her next press conference 10 days later.

 

[elbows]

And yet despite that apology, she was still bullshitting a month later, they are frying her over this right now. Especially as she started off by saying we needed credible and honest comms with the public.

No wonder they gave her the top UKHSA job, another 'safe pair of hands' that were unsafe for anyone other than the governments front.

 

[elbows]

Harries to be continued tomorrow.

I knew she was bad when it came to awful spin in public, but those comments about Italy were new to me.

There you have it, stuff like lockdowns dismissed as being short-termism. And arrogance about the UKs preparedness. A deadly mix.

 

[elbows]

I might skip tomorrow, or at least not bother to report on it. Because they likely wont grill Harries further in the way seen today since they got her dodgy public propaganda stuff out of the way. And its Javid and Raab tomorrow too. And maybe I should take a break in readiness for Hancock on Thursday and Friday.

 

[elbows]

I'll carry on doing Harries today but may stop later.

These are from the period in March where the plan was about to change.

 

[Petcha]

She's floundering

 

[elbows]

Tripping her up with her own excuses.

When reviewing draft advice on making your own face coverings in May, she still didnt believe in the merits of them. The excuse she gave the inquiry was that the weak evidence base at this stage was that you need at least 3 layers, so thats why she said this stuff. So then they asked her why she wasnt telling them to put 3 layers in this advice instead of just saying the following. lol. Her response to that was the usual bullshit waffle.

 

[elbows]

Sounds like some of Javids evidence is that Johnson set things up to concentrate power in the hands of Johnson & Cummings, and everyone else was chosen on the basis of loyalty rather than experience! But the treasury still had a lot of power to block stuff, with an emphasis on blocking some of Cummings decisions.

 

[elbows]

 

[elbows]

Oh dear, Vallance diary entries strike again...



(Cx = chancellor = Sunak, Vx = vaccine, CS = civil service).

 

[elbows]

Once he had been health secretary for a bit it sounds like Javid had a clue about taking the virus seriously.

When Omicron came along it caused a lot of alarm and again we see Vallance diary entries show that and also show what a shit stance Sunak & Johnson & some others had, and that Javid was excluded from some key meeting. (That period was still a challenge with more unnecessary death resulting, but in the end the booster campaign they went for did help dodge the worst possible potential outcome of that wave)




That final Johnson point, from someone who nearly died from the virus, what a shit.

 

[brogdale]

"Dover? Dover, Dover...yes, hang on a minute....Dover..."

 

[elbows]

I skipped Rab, will go back to him some other time.

Hancock is on now. The bullshit and spin is flowing thick already. He is clearly going to try to use the other evidence about the toxic centre of government as a big chunk of his defence, claiming the failings of others and this toxicity were the reason why others in government criticised his department, judged DHSC unfairly, spread lies about them including ones that reached the PMs ears.

 

[Serge Forward]

Top tip: try watching Raab with the sound off. He pulls some proper scary and evil faces while he talks.

 

[elbows]

If they dont turn up the heat on Hancock this session is going to be very tedious. At least we have evidence on the screen that contradicts his claimed stance.

He says he changed his mind about this stuff the next day, 13th March. That was indeed when the original shit plan started to get thrown in the bin, after failed desperate attempts to save the plan and win the propaganda argument. On the 12th and into the 13th some were desperately resorting to wanking on about herd immunity as a justification for doing nothing.

 

[elbows]

They are turning up the heat because he is claiming he told Johnson on 13th they'd need to lockdown, but his book doesnt mention this and there are no records that record that conversation.

 

[Serge Forward]

Top tip: try watching Raab with the sound off. He pulls some proper scary and evil faces while he talks.

If anyone thinks I'm kidding, at one point he does this:

 

[elbows]

Bullshitting back in Jan 2020 when asked questions by Cummings about preparedness.

 

[elbows]

Stuff they put on the screen earlier to set the scene about DHSC shitness.

 

[elbows]

One of his main excuses is still a lack of understanding about asymptomatic infection, and that he was a hero on this theme, suspected there was, wanted to take a precautionary approach. Blames science and the likes of the WHO for sticking to the idea there was no evidence. His timetimes dont add up given what is clearly stated in SAGE and NERVTAG minutes.

Its certainly true that the likes of the WHO were a disgrace on this issue and the scientific approach to getting solid evidence caused delays in changing policy. But one of the reasons this happened and the precautionary approach wasnt taken is the huge ramifications for policy and operational response that asymptomatic infection poses. It wa an inconvenient possibility that was to be denied for as long as possible. But Hancock further distorts this picture to cast himself in a positive light.

The fact he would use asymptomatic stuff as an excuse was already clear by press conferences in mid 2020. But we saw on the screen what Whitty and Vallance thought about that when the PM and Hancock came out with these lines in a press conference (unknown is Vallance):

 

[elbows]

He had to resort to claiming he didnt see the following from NERVTAG on Feb 21st:



He also relies on still getting advice from PHE long after that date that there was no good asymptomatic transmission evidence. That might possibly be true, since PHE were shite, and like I said the implications of asymptomatic infections on policy were huge and incompatible with neoliberal crap.

 

[Petcha]

You clearly know a whole more about this than me, and Hancock seems like a petulant child but his central allegation seems to be that the main fault lies with 'central government'. Ie Boris? Which is my instinct as well having dipped in and out of this inquiry. I mean we all knew the fucker was useless. He has a lot of blood on his hands and I look forward to these KCs working him over next week.

 

[elbows]

No wonder so many of his colleagues concluded he was a bullshitter who couldnt be trusted, such a slippery performance today on these issues. They are grilling him about why he told cabinet tests wouldnt work on asymptomatic cases. Blaming PHE again. Wanks on about linguistic debate. Fuck you Hancock.

 

[elbows]

You clearly know a whole more about this than me, and Hancock seems like a petulant child but his central allegation seems to be that the main fault lies with 'central government'. Ie Boris? Which is my instinct as well having dipped in and out of this inquiry. I mean we all knew the fucker was useless. He has a lot of blood on his hands and I look forward to these KCs working him over next week.

In the first wave blame can fairly be shared far and wide. The experts made mistakes, the data was shit, the longstanding UK pandemic plans were to let a pandemic happen and just deal with the consequences such as getting more bodybags. There were failures all over the place, including the cabinet office, the department for health and social care, and shit priorities stretching back throughout the history of this country and embedded within the neoliberal world order and indeed the attitudes, assumptions and sense of balance of top medical officials including Whitty. Johnson was an extra dollop of shit on top of that picture, he added to the delay in moving away from the default deadly plans but didnt create it on his own.

In later waves the blame was much narrower - should all fall on the likes of Johnson, Sunak, the right wing media and their influence over Johnson, the extent to which the economy is prioritised in a narrow and ultimately self-defeating way.

 

[elbows]

Hancock blaming Cummings and the toxic culture for others concluding he was a bullshitter.

 

[Petcha]

TBF, Cummings is a massive cunt and undeniably a bully, so Hancock speaks truth on that

 

[Petcha]

Loving watching him being told off by the KC

 

[brogdale]

Quick question to elbows if that's alright? Do you know if/when Helen Whately might appear?

 

[elbows]

Quick question to elbows if that's alright? Do you know if/when Helen Whately might appear?

Based on the fact we've got into grilling the very top level ministers now, and this module doesnt have long left to run, I suspect they wont call her to give verbal evidence in this module. Maybe they will call her in a later module that will look at things like care homes specifically. Module 6 looks at the care sector.

I could be wrong, I'm only guessing and the timetable for witnesses only comes out one week at a time (next weeks will come out today). Expect Johnson and Sunak to give evidence next week, not sure about any others.