Are Conservative MPs right to be sick of Covid experts?

Professor Chris Whitty is exceeding his authority, according to some in Westminster. Sean O’Grady considers the charge against England’s chief medical officer

Whitty and the PM at the Omicron press conference on Wednesday (AFP/Getty)

According to a number of furious Conservative MPs, Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England and chief medical adviser for the UK, is exceeding his authority – and with disastrous results. Steve Brine, Conservative MP for Winchester, has accused Whitty of “effectively” putting the country into lockdown with his advice for people to “prioritise” their social contacts and avoid spending time with those they really didn’t need to, supposedly prompting a wave of cancellations of Christmas parties and work lunches.

As a side note, it suggests that the British are so polite that they feel obliged to socialise with people they don’t care for that much. Brine was outraged that “because advisers are now running the show – I’ll bet none of them run businesses facing complete ruin as the result of what was said last night – the Treasury is going to have to do more because otherwise we risk ruining and wasting the amazing support that Her Majesty’s Treasury gave last year”.

Still more exercised is Joy Morrissey, MP for Beaconsfield, who accused Whitty of wanting a “public health socialist state”, though it might more accurately be styled a public health anti-social state. Her tweet was deleted but she later repeated her essential gripe in more measured terms: “I am increasingly concerned at public health pronouncements made in the media that already seem to exceed or contradict decisions made by our elected representatives.”