3h ago
10.16 GMT
At the Covid inquiry Helen MacNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary, started giving evidence and is still going - her witness statement runs to more than 100 pages - and it’s an appalling indictment of BJ’s government … 
I’m hoping for a media summary soon.
13:00 Inquiry breaks for lunch
While we’re waiting …
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-67283378
Interim Summary
- The UK’s second-most senior civil servant says she would struggle to pick a day when Covid rules were properly followed in No 10
- Helen MacNamara tells the Covid inquiry a sexist and macho culture meant women’s perspectives were being missed in advice and decision-making
- Last year, MacNamara was fined for attending a 2020 lockdown party in the Cabinet Office. She tells the inquiry it “should never have happened”
- Earlier, she criticised Boris Johnson’s “breezy confidence” about the unfolding pandemic in March 2020
- And she recounted the “horrible” moment she realised the UK was heading for “total disaster”, 10 days before the first lockdown
I did not realise that every post on this thread has to be backed up by a quote or link and that anything I post must be in chronological order - after reading all the previous posts on this thread, with posts which are not strictly relevant to the Inquiry and links to older media articles, I think I can be forgiven for not realising this thread is supposed to have such restrictive rules!
I am following this enquiry by watching it for myself and I don’t always get chance to watch the live broadcast of it, so I catch up with it on iPlayer when I have time.
To be upbraided for disturbing the chronological order of the thread, just because I commented on something from the Inquiry a couple of days after it was first broadcast seems a bit unfair - but if the thread has now acquired these new restrictions, I’ll bow out now and won’t post on it again.
No media summary yet, so here’s the Guardian (in brief):
MacNamara tells inquiry she was concerned about Johnson’s ‘jovial tone’ about Covid threat in early March 2020 - Andrew O’Connor KC presents another extract from MacNamara’s witness statement, describing Boris Johnson’s approach to Covid in January and early February. MacNamara says at that point Johnson was “very confident” that the UK would “sail through” the Covid crisis. - O’Connor then quotes another extract from the witness statement (this time not shown on screen). In it she says the tone adopted at the No 10 early morning that she attended was that Britain was going to be “world beating and conquering Covid-19, as well as everything else”.
Matt Hancock (1), the then health secretary, told cabinet “time and time again” shortly before the pandemic struck that the government had plans in place to deal with Covid, MacNamara said in her witness statement to the inquiry. In her oral evidence, she says she heard Hancock say this in person, and assumed he was right, but that these plans never materialised.
O’Connor shows another extract from MacNamara’s witness statement in which MacNamara says this illustrated several general problems with the way Covid was being handled. One was the “absence of humanity”, she said.
O’Connor presents a page from MacNamara’s witness statement saying it took seven months for No 10 to arrange to place a hand sanitiser at the door between No 10 and the Cabinet Office, where people had to use a keypad to get the door to open.
MacNamara says ‘superhero bunfight’ culture at No 10 would never have happened under Theresa May - O’Connor asks MacNamara about the report she wrote on how No 10 was dealing with Covid in the early days of the pandemic. Here is an extract in which she talks about the “superhero bunfight” culture.
Women working in No 10 felt ‘invisible’ because of macho culture, inquiry hears - MacNamara says when she returned to No 10 in April, after her illness, she felt the macho culture had become more extreme. O’Connor quotes from her witness statement, in which she said: There are numerous examples of women being ignored, excluded, not listened to or talked over. It was also clear that the female perspective was being missed in advice and decision making. She said in the statement it felt as if women had become “invisible overnight”.
O’Connor asks about the “extremely crude” language used at No 10. He says the inquiry heard this yesterday. MacNamara also says it was “disappointing” that Boris Johnson did not try to stop Cummings using the sort of “violent and misogynist” language that he did. She says that language was “miles away from what is right or proper or decent, or what the country deserves”.
MacNamara says she does not think there was any single day when Covid guidance was fully followed in No 10 - MacNamara is now being asked about the Partygate behaviour at No 10.
MacNamara says it was hard for people working in No 10 to know exactly what was and was not allowed under the Covid regulations. She thinks there are “hundreds of civil servants and potentially ministers” who now in retrospect think that they did break the rules.
MacNamara says Matt Hancock was regularly telling No 10 things ‘they later discovered weren’t true’ - O’Connor asked about Matt Hancock. He produced an extract from MacNamara’s witness statement in which she said people were becoming increasingly concerned that, when he gave assurances about what the Department of Health was doing, he was wrong.
The hearing has now stopped for lunch. MacNamara’s evidence was due to finish by now, but O’Connor says he has more questions. They will resume at 1.55pm.
(1) The more we hear about Hancock the more, I’m sure, that we are amazed that he held down a job for so long - he’s almost as big a liar as BJ … 
I sincerely hope that ex-PM BJ, “lording it” at home in Brightwell Manor, is seething at what he would presumably see as a misrepresentation of his administration … 
Strictly on topic does not oblige links to relevant news items to evidence the “on-topic”-ness of anyone’s post. Surely it simply means sticking to the core topic rather than spinning off onto a tangent or subject only loosely linked to the topic.
I can accept that my posts about how Johnson diluted the skills and experience of his cabinet the year previous to Covid is not directly related to the inquiry. Not strictly on topic and shan’t be raised again. I would however suggest, if I may, that breaking a strict chronological sequence with a post does not make it off topic. Such a post would surely be absolutely on topic (assuming it was a direct reference to the inquiry) and may identify a highly salient point missed earlier.
I’d also think that a post that is only made up of links to media summaries of the inquiry, that day only, is not really chat, or inclusive, or any more than media summaries we can find elsewhere.
Not my shout though. I’ll delete this post if requested.
I noted another part of MacNamara’s evidence where she said “It was striking that something that I felt personally was obviously deeply worrying, that there was a sort of de facto assumption that we were going to be great without any of the hesitancy or questioning or that sort of behind-closed-doors bit of government, which isn’t about saying ‘everything’s smashing and going brilliantly’, but actually being a bit more reflective and checking that everything’s going to be quite as great as we’d like it to be.” This is actually highly damning as it reflects a super-bullish culture and mindset - and utter lack of realism. No wonder the test and trace was a disaster and no-one worried about controlling & testing people arriving in the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-67283378
We’ve heard a lot from Helen MacNamara about her concerns about the culture in No 10; that it was toxic, macho and sexist.
MacNamara argues that the lack of women in the room for discussions meant that some issues were ignored; like the impact of school closures on childcare. MacNamara raises similar concerns about a lack of representation of people from ethnic minorities. In her spoken evidence, MacNamara says there wasn’t enough emphasis on trying to correct inequality. MacNamara continues: “I didn’t actually believe that decision makers were wilfully and deliberately deciding to cause harm to particular groups. But that it wasn’t even considered was a real problem.”
Inquiry lawyer Andrew O’Connor KC recalls that MacNamara wrote in her witness statement that not enough had been done by decision-makers to consider the impact on individuals vulnerable to abuse. MacNamara says she believes decision-makers were focusing on the wrong things and overlooking hidden harms.
In her witness statement, being talked about by inquiry lawyer Andrew O’Connor KC now, Helen MacNamara says there was an in-built reluctance to accept it was possible to get to a point where the NHS was overwhelmed and also a reluctance to acknowledge that this was something No 10 and the prime minister would need to be across. She said she was repeatedly told the NHS’s capacity was “elastic”. She says it was only later that she realised “elastic” meant the capacity of the people in the NHS to work themselves into the ground to keep people alive.
MacNamara says the interests of children during the pandemic were also not fully considered. As with other groups, there was an issue of “invisibility”, she says. There was a failure to consider things like the impact of lockdowns on schooling, MacNamara adds. She also says there was a “differential” in the experiences of kids in state schools - like her own - and those in private education.
MacNamara questioning ends
Former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara’s session finishes with a couple of questions from Baroness Heather Hallett herself on the relationship between special advisers and senior civil servants.
A scathing session from MacNamara … 
Those cabinet members with any spark of humanity must have despaired as others just juggled the numbers, played for time and planned WTF … 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-67283378
The inquiry hearing has started again, with inquiry lawyer Dermot Keating now questioning Prof David Halpern - president of the Behavioural Insights Team. (1) The organisation is better known to many as the “nudge unit” - and it is unusual in that it is now its own company, owned by the charity Nesta. It started off as a small, seven-person team in the cabinet office before being spun off so it could also take outside paid work.
It had a significant role in the pandemic, producing 41 policy notes for government and running more than 60 separate experiments. The unit was asked to conduct research on what government campaigns worked most effectively.
Prof Halpern, for example, said his team would show a poster promoting handwashing to thousands of participants, and then ask if they could recall the key message five seconds later. The poster would be tweaked if necessary as a result.
Expect more questions about those government campaigns, amid some criticism that “scare tactics” were used to encourage the public to comply during the pandemic.
(1) Who knew about the “nudge unit” … 
Halpern diplomatically answered a few questions but refrained from outright criticism, presumably because he owed his employment to BJ … 
In his statement, Prof Halpern says that there was an “arrogance that we knew better and that we would do better” than other developed nations had done.
Prof Halpern stands by this, saying this “over-confidence” made us slower at dealing with things, and there was less focus on other aspects.
But he added that he was mindful not to undermine senior figures.
This is more detailed coverage today’s evidence:
Matt Fowler, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK (1), said the evidence coming from the inquiry was “worse” than feared.
He said the evidence showed “special advisors from privileged backgrounds” were not interested in “how their decisions would impact the disabled, low-income households, at-risk children and others who weren’t like them”.
The group threatened litigation to force ministers into an inquiry, including a pre-action letter of judicial review by the High Court of Justice, as they argued that the government “serially failed to take reasonable steps to minimise the effects of the pandemic, leading to massive, unnecessary loss of life”. They have dismissed claims by Prime Minister Boris Johnson that ministers “did everything [they] could … to minimise loss of life and to minimise suffering” as “an insult to the memory of everyone we have lost and a kick in the teeth for bereaved families who deserve acknowledgement that our loved ones were failed”.
(1) Well done, that small group … 
As they feared at the time, the government was failing to control a deadly virus - what they didn’t know, and what has become clear since, is the the Tory government, led by BJ the Buffoon, was not just shambolic but chaotic with no plan, no strategy and no idea of the damage they were doing … 
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/nov/02/
The hearings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week have all been embarrassing for Boris Johnson, but they have also been bad for the reputation of Matt Hancock, health secretary during Covid. Dominic Cummings and Helen MacNamara did not agree on much, but they both accused Hancock of misleading colleagues about what the Department of Health was actually doing about the threat posed by the virus (see here and here).
Stevens, and Sir Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, who is up later this morning, are both likely to be asked about these claims.
> Stevens says Cobra meetings on Covid were not ‘optimally effective’
Q: You says in your statement these meetings were not “optimally effective”. What do you mean?
Stevens says the meetings were very large, which did not help. And sometimes ministers there did not have full authority.
Q: You say when Matt Hancock was chairing them, sometimes other departments sent junior ministers.
Stevens says is not saying that was cause and effect.
Q: That is what you imply.
Stevens says he is just saying what he observed.
Q: Would more senior ministers have attended if the PM had been chairing those meetings?
Stevens says, if Boris Johnson had been chairing the meeting, other secretaries of state might have attended. But he says he is not sure that would have made a big difference to the substance of what was decided.
Patently, Hancock was universally despised … 
O’Connor says the inquiry has heard evidence of difficulties in the decision-making process, and claims the PM oscillated between those decisions. What was your view?
Stevens says he was not involved in decisions like those over lockdown.
Q: But you had frequent meetings with the PM.
Stevens says he would be there for a meeting about the NHS. But then, in further meetings, decisions were taken, taking account of what they had learnt about the NHS.
He says, because of that, he cannot give good commentary on the decision-making process.
Hancock and Cummings discussed forcing Stevens to quit as NHS England chief executive in early 2020, inquiry hears
O’Connor then brings up some text exchanges between Matt Hancock, the health secretary, and Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief adviser, in which they discussed getting rid of Stevens in January 2020.
O’Connor says the inquiry has heard claims that Matt Hancock was dishonest. (See 10.01am.)
Q: Was Hancock someone who you found you personally could trust?
Stevens replies: “Yes. For the most part, yes.”
What about this shocker:
O’Connor is now asking about discussions about what might need to happen if the NHS was overwhelmed, and care had to be rationed.
Stevens says Matt Hancock thought that, if decisions had to be taken about who would live and who would die, that should be a ministerial matter.
He says Hancock “took the position that in this situation he, rather than the medical profession or the public, should ultimately decide who should live and who should die”.
A moron wants to be a god … 
Bethan Harris, counsel for Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru, is asking questions now about hospital discharges.
Stevens says Matt Hancock decided on 11 March that people being discharged from hospitals into care homes would not be prioritised for testing. He says Hancock took this decision on the basis of clinical advice. (1)
I wouldn’t be surprised if Hancock actually made an arbitrary decision … 
Stevens has now finished his evidence.
The next witness is Sir Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care. Wormald has submitted four statements to the inquiry running to hundreds of pages.
I wonder how many of those pages refer to Hancock …
Wormald does not accept Hancock lied during Covid, but he says he challenged him over repeated claims he ‘over-promised’. Hancock’s leadership style involved setting challenges to get the system to deliver, he says. He was always clear that he was doing it for a positive reason. So setting a very aspirational target, not necessarily expecting to hit it, but to galvanise the system to do more.
Wormald’s defence of Hancock is robust and positive …
He says he personally did not come across cases where Hancock said things that were actually untrue. He says Hancock will be “surprised” at how many people were saying he said things that were not untrue. He knew Dominic Cummings thought he did not tell the truth, but he is likely to be surprised Helen MacNamara thought that. Wormald says he personally was surprised to hear MacNamara say that, because he had not heard that from her before.
Perhaps because he’s, seemingly, an admirer of Hancock …
Wormald rejects claim DHSC was chaotic and dysfunctional during Covid
Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, wrote in his diaries about the “chaos, operational mess, inefficiency, lack of grip in the DHSC”. Vallance also described the department as “ungovernable and a web of competing parts”.
Asked if he thought DHSC was chaotic or dysfunctional, Wormald said he did not agree at all.
Wormald seems to be evading all responsibility by claiming “ignorance”, i.e. there was a lack of knowledge about any pending pandemic.
Wormald says poor relations at top of government did affect its ‘efficiency’ during early days of Covid
Keith asks what the relationship was like with No 10 and the Cabinet Office in late February.
Wormald says, at officials level, relations were good. At the political level, they were “more up and down”, he says.
He says he does not think, and has never thought, that core decisions about what lockdown measures to implement were affected by these relationship issues.
Was Wormald living on a different planet at the time … 
Hi
He is a glorious example of the type of person who gets to the top in many instances.
Nothing will ever stick to him.
Much talk about responses from the government - “squashing the sombrero” or herd immunity or lockdowns - and much evasion from Wormald …
Wormald defends Feb 2020 advice saying care home residents ‘very unlikely’ to get Covid, saying it was based on advice at time
Brenda Campbell KC is now asking questions on behalf of Northern Ireland Covid Bereaved Families for Justice. She asks why the Department of Health and Social Care was telling care homes on 25 February 2020 that the risk of infection in care homes was very low, when at that point it was spreading around the world.
The advice said:
It is therefore very unlikely that anyone receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected.
Wormald says that was the clinical advice at that time. The number of cases in England was very low. So that was the description of how things were at that point. “It was not a prediction of the future,” he says.
“Clinical advice” … my R’s …
I blame Hancock and Wormald for an arbitrary decision, probably based on panic … 
Q: What was done to ensure that PPE was appropriate for all staff, incuding black, Asian and minority ethnic healthcare workers?
Wormald says that is a huge question. He says a module coming later will cover PPE, and he says it would be better to address that there, rather than give a short answer now.
And that is the end of Wormald’s evidence.
Heather Hallett, the chair, says that won’t be the last time they meet. He is likely to give evidence in further inquiry modules.
I hope that he’s given a much harder time … 
This in ‘The Knowledge’via the Telegraph.
Lockdown: a wrecking ball that never needed to swing
The Covid Inquiry is more interested in finding swear words in people’s WhatsApp messages than uncovering the truth about lockdowns, says Fraser Nelson in The Daily Telegraph. “But it’s starting to creep out anyway.” The written evidence submitted by Dominic Cummings, for example, revealed that the UK scientists advising the Sage committee were, at first, “unanimously against” lockdowns. Even doomsters like Prof Neil Ferguson fretted that they could be “worse than the disease”. But with Britain and Sweden the only major holdouts against Wuhan-style shutdowns, and “disaster-graphs” circulating online, public pressure mounted. Ferguson dutifully published his “doom models”, and Britain’s scientists “fell in behind”.
It was a different story in Sweden, where former state epidemiologist Johan Giesecke was “reading Ferguson’s models in disbelief”. He recalled Ferguson saying 200 million might die from bird flu, when just 455 did. Modellers had been “calamitously wrong” before. “Should society really be closed now on their say so?” Giesecke and his protégé Anders Tegnell pulled Ferguson’s models apart, finding “flaw after flaw”, and successfully argued to keep the country open. Yet no one was pulling apart the models in Britain. One internal report showed that 600,000 hospital beds would be needed; the actual number peaked at 34,000. The PM was told 90,000 ventilators were required; demand for them peaked at 3,700. And the wasted money is nothing compared to the millions of children needlessly denied education, and the economic and mental health impact of lockdowns. What we now know is that the virus was already in reverse before lockdown started, due to people behaving sensibly of their own accord. It was a “social and economic wrecking ball that never needed to swing
This is a highly optimistic, after the event, looking back and forgetting key issues view of the pandemic. It assumes that hospitals would not be overrun. It assumes that all people would safe-distance, wear masks and behave responsibly. It makes many false assumptions and ignores many risks. But lots of people seem to think in the way Johnson thought for weeks - the economic impact of a lockdown would be worse than no lockdown and a bunch of old people & already sick people dying.
There’s a long way to go with the evidence yet (35 days between 3 October and 14 December) so, IMO, that statement by Nelson is somewhat presumptuous. Lockdowns will, no doubt, feature prominently when those responsible for activating them, i.e. BJ and his cabinet, are interviewed in later sessions.
