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The Covid Inquiry

Sunak is boring me to death. Doesnt even want to criticise Johnsons regime, decision-making etc.

And when he's not boring me its the inquiry pulling up shit Spectator articles which used Sunak interview quotes to try to paint a bullshit picture of how Sunak wasnt allowed to discuss the tradeoffs between lockdown and the economy. Even Sunak had to point out that what was being referenced there was the public comms strategy in the first wave, not what he was allowed to say behind the scenes or the evolved public comms strategy later in the pandemic. At the time of that article I expect Sunak knew exactly what he was doing and was happy to be a hero to the anti-lockdown shit publications by saying whatever he could that appealed to them.
 
Only vaguely interesting stuff on the screen so far is still rather dry because its internal treasury emails. Mostly self-congratulatory stuff about what special access the chancellor had with the PM, how well prepared Sunak was for certain meetings, and how many jobs the department were saving by influencing Johnson decisions when he was under pressure to actually do something more meaningful as the second wave grew.
 
eg this sort of thing from June 2020 when easing restrictions (gives some idea about bargaining methods and countering public opinion):

JuneReadout.png

and this from October 2020

ReadoutOctober1.png
ReadoutOctober2.png
 
Sunak avoids some of the big questions such as what advice he gave Johnson when London lockdown was on the agenda with'I dont recall'.

Its now come up that we are a consumption based economy and they were concerned by polling showing that British people were more fearful of the virus and less keen to return to activities after the first wave. TO which I would say, well theres probably a relationship between peoples levels of fear about that and their attitudes to how good a job the government did, how well they protected people, the state of our NHS etc.

The treasury were also unhappy that we apparently 'overshot' the targets for staying at home, eg less outdoor construction work going on in UK compared to Europe. That sort of thing is another reason not to have a really shit plan at the start of the pandemic, so you can manage things appropriately and not end up bouncing from one extreme to the other.
 
Whenever schools have previously come up in this module, theres been no mention of the behavioural effect on adults of closing schools. Today we finally got a brief reference to that, since Sunak was prepared to say that of course the Treasury looked at how reopening early years in schools would have a bigger impact on parents being able to go back to work than reopening older age group classes in schools would.

Meanwhile he is trying to do a more sophisticated version of bullshit than many other witnesses. Has clearly tried to swot up on SAGE minutes from various key periods and spin them in his own favour. Some of the questioning still manages to expose the bullshit for what it is though.
 
eg when trying to dodge repeated questioning about whether Treasury were aware that package of restriction removals for summer 2020 were at the riskier end of the spectrum, he's got a load of other points lined up, including with specific SAGE dates.

eg some data issues that may have affected transmission estimates (although its then pointed out that SAGE think this may only have affected the figures by 5%.

Raises the idea that nosocomial (hospital etc) transmission might have been 25% of the total transmission (an area I am fond of exploring and raising but not when used as an excuse to reopen everything else)

Even goes on about some later analysis that first lockdown did more harm than good.

Often relies on claiming that he hasnt seen internal Treasury emails that they bring up on screen and doesnt know what certain sentences could possibly be referring to.
 
elbows said:
Sunak avoids some of the big questions such as what advice he gave Johnson when London lockdown was on the agenda with'I dont recall'.

Its now come up that we are a consumption based economy and they were concerned by polling showing that British people were more fearful of the virus and less keen to return to activities after the first wave. TO which I would say, well theres probably a relationship between peoples levels of fear about that and their attitudes to how good a job the government did, how well they protected people, the state of our NHS etc.

The treasury were also unhappy that we apparently 'overshot' the targets for staying at home, eg less outdoor construction work going on in UK compared to Europe. That sort of thing is another reason not to have a really shit plan at the start of the pandemic, so you can manage things appropriately and not end up bouncing from one extreme to the other.
Click to expand...
I would say government did a good job ramping up the fear (about the one thing they did well) . Though it was Cummings and his trip to the opticians that really rammed the message home
 
elbows said:
The treasury were also unhappy that we apparently 'overshot' the targets for staying at home, eg less outdoor construction work going on in UK compared to Europe. That sort of thing is another reason not to have a really shit plan at the start of the pandemic, so you can manage things appropriately and not end up bouncing from one extreme to the other.
Click to expand...
They could have fixed EVERY pothole in the country
 
gosub said:
I would say government did a good job ramping up the fear (about the one thing they did well) . Though it was Cummings and his trip to the opticians that really rammed the message home
Click to expand...

The initial plan wasnt to do that at all, they wanted people to carry on with their lives. Such plans involve reassuring bullshit that should not be believed if it doesnt match the science. That caused unintended fear because people werent up for that approach, and when trying to save that original plan on 9th-13th March government messaging only made people even more skeptical of the shit plan. Then that plan died, and because the government had also fucked up the timing of what stage of the wave we were actually at compared to where they had thought we were at, the messaging and the measures had to be harsher and longer, and fearful mood music was certainly involved at that point.
 
I suspect the 'SAGE advice was excellent' is a reference to the Treasury having their own people take SAGE stuff and try to spin it or construct counters to it in ways that favour Treasury priorities.

The idea that what happened to A&E attendance during the first lockdown was something positive to attempt to bank for the longer term as far as the Treasury were concerned says much about their priorities and disconnection from reality.
 
elbows said:
The initial plan wasnt to do that at all, they wanted people to carry on with their lives. Such plans involve reassuring bullshit that should not be believed if it doesnt match the science. That caused unintended fear because people werent up for that approach, and when trying to save that original plan on 9th-13th March government messaging only made people even more skeptical of the shit plan. Then that plan died, and because the government had also fucked up the timing of what stage of the wave we were actually at compared to where they had thought we were at, the messaging and the measures had to be harsher and longer, and fearful mood music was certainly involved at that point.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Sports events such as football rugby Cheltenham could have happened without live spectators (they didn't have insurance) and too many things were ruled out ciz of ineffective for - if it was asymptomatic - if it picked out the symptomatic it still lowers the R rate
 
elbows said:
I suspect the 'SAGE advice was excellent' is a reference to the Treasury having their own people take SAGE stuff and try to spin it or construct counters to it in ways that favour Treasury priorities.

The idea that what happened to A&E attendance during the first lockdown was something positive to attempt to bank for the longer term as far as the Treasury were concerned says much about their priorities and disconnection from reality.
Click to expand...
In Scotland we now have TV adverts telling people not to go to A&E unless they have explorered alternatives. JustPrior to covid my then local GP (england)fudged its rating saying it was open at weekends when reality you had to go to A&E
 
They should all know that overloaded A&E is a sign of failures elsewhere in the system, a lot of them systemic.

Meanwhile Sunak is so fucking slippery. They grilled him over Eat Out To Help Out but he had all his lines well prepared, if not entirely convincing. The same is the case now they have come to regional measures, he loves to use selective quotes from others such as Whitty when they appear to serve his point. And on to the 2nd lockdown, where Sunak was trying to argue to Johnson that non-essential retail should stay open in the second lockdown but ultimately lost that argument.

When it came to things like the meeting with the let it rip shitheads in September 2020, he gives useless answers about not really remembering that meeting, not finding it weird to hear from them, not having been the one who organised the meeting.

Unsurprisingly defended the Treasury from the characterisation of them being a a pro death squad.
 
A half-hearted stab at finding out whether the chief whip or Sunak was responsible for a comment Vallance noted in a meeting about kids meal vouchers over holidays. They didnt bring the Vallance diary entry up on the screen but it was along the lines of ‘good working people pay for their children to eat and dont want freeloaders’.

Sunak says he didnt say it and doesnt remember anyone else saying it.
 
And later 'cannot remember' his own attitude to free school means when the Rashford stuff made the government look very bad. I dont think the 'I cant remember' excuse went down very well.

Clings to 'covid secure' shit when accused of placing a vulnerable workforce at risk via eat out to help out.
 
Being an absolute cunt about self isolation payments too. Admits to being skeptical about it, still happy to suggest that implementing it didnt have much impact, quibbles about all other detail and how his opinion on it was characterised by some such as Vallance, and points to all the stuff they did do later.
 
To quote the BBC live updates page:

The frequency with which Sunak has said he is unable to recall particular meetings has become a source of irritation in the public gallery — the sighs and groans from some of the relatives of the bereaved became louder during the morning session.
Click to expand...


We can only really hear the public gallery over the video feed when it gets especially loud, which I believe happened when he used the I dont remember shit in relation to free meals for kids in the afternoon session.
 
elbows said:
I suspect the 'SAGE advice was excellent' is a reference to the Treasury having their own people take SAGE stuff and try to spin it or construct counters to it in ways that favour Treasury priorities.
Click to expand...

Turns out they had someone from the Treasury listening in on the SAGE meetings themselves.

In the awful Spectator interview article (that Sunak gave when running for the Tory leadership) this was turned into a tale of having a mole inside SAGE who SAGE participants didnt know was there. But the less exciting version of the story that came up when this was mentioned today was that Vallance encouraged someone from the Treasury to sit in on SAGE, and that the list of participants was known.

In any case it did amount to the Treasury being able to see beyond the bland 'consensus minutes' that summarised SAGE meetings. So they were able to make use of any dissent with SAGE on particular topics, were able to arm Sunak with stuff that allowed him to make various points in other meetings that would be helpful to the Treasury agenda.
 
Today was not fun, but at least we got some live update headlines such as:

PM: Not fair to call Treasury a 'pro-death squad'
 
Although the oral evidence sessions for this module are done, on Wednesday and Thursday there are still the closing statements from core participants. Judging by the first module some of these will be very dull, but a few should be suitably scathing and well put. If I recall correctly, the main UK bereaved families for justice group did an especially good job with their closing statement for module 1, so I will probably tune in for more of the same from them for module 2.
 
elbows said:
If I recall correctly, the main UK bereaved families for justice group did an especially good job with their closing statement for module 1, so I will probably tune in for more of the same from them for module 2.
Click to expand...

It was good, I will post it in some form later once available in a form I dont have to transcribe myself.

It wasnt completely perfect, it was kind to certain scientists at the top of the government structure. And it shied away from the fact that it wasnt exactly the case of this country having no plan, it was that our default pandemic plans are to let it happen and just deal with things like getting more body bags and deploying propaganda, and we didnt have any useful operational plans that could be used if that default approach was deemed unworkable.
 
Its always depressing listening to the Long Covid evidence and group setup to represent those affected. Todays closing statement from them was no exception, with references to the children left with disabilities as a result of this side of the pandemic. They also did a better job of highlighting the shit priorities and miscalculations of the Treasury than other statements heard so far have done.

The UK response to Long Covid and the lack of messaging about it during the waves demonstrate another version of this countries 'cold calculations', with predictable results on individuals lives.
 
The chairs role inevitably leaves them uttering statements which show up the narrow confines of this establishment inquiry. And so after the excellent statement I just mentioned in my previous post, which I intend to discuss further later, the chair asked people not to reference party politics.
 
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