Is Boris Johnson still following the science?

A cabinet minister once said the British people ‘have had enough of experts’. Now, writes Sean O'Grady, it appears the government has too

Chris Whitty, Boris Johnson and Patrick Vallance deliver a press conference on coronavirus at the start of the pandemic (Getty)

The phrase “guided by the science”, or some close variation, was the constant refrain of ministers at the start of the coronavirus crisis. The parroting of the line was reflexive, almost comical.  Even though there was never any such monolithic thing as “the science”, the idea was to reassure the public that lives and health (and not money) were being put first – hence the original Covid campaign slogan, “Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives”. 

The daily Downing Street press conferences would normally find a politician flanked by a couple of public health experts. Boris Johnson would usually appear in the distinguished company of Sir Patrick Vallance, chief scientific adviser to the government, and Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England. Parallel arrangements were made in the devolved administrations. The idea was to stress how closely political leaders were being guided by scientific expert advice.

Not so much now, however. There is some suggestion that neither the “rule of six” nor the new 10pm lockdown for pubs and restaurants has been modelled by the experts, including behavioural experts, to see whether the various measures now in place will actually reduce the R infection rate sufficiently to bring the spread of the virus under control. 

Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, has suggested the 10pm curfew will have a “trivial” effect. Prof Edmunds points out that only a full lockdown in the spring pushed the R rate from about 2.7 – a rapid spread – to 0.7, a slow gradual rate of decline. The professor thinks the mistakes of the spring are being repeated. 

Other experts have echoed his doubts. As for Sir Patrick and Prof Whitty, their contribution has been confined to “setting the scene” and providing warnings and an “example” of how quickly an epidemic can re-establish itself when infections double every week. Some say the rate may be slower than that, but what the prime minister calls the “iron laws of geometrical progression” still yield frightening scenarios for doing nothing. But what Sir Patrick and Prof Whitty have not done is endorse the government’s new measures as fully effective. There are no benchmarks to test success by, beyond the vague potential six-month span of the new regime.  

Yet the experts themselves are also coming under attack, accused of scaremongering and botching the advice they have given government throughout the experience. Prof Whitty and Sir Patrick, the “two gentlemen of corona”, as once they were dubbed, have morphed in the popular media to become “More Glum and Wise”, “Dr Doom” and “Professor Gloom”. Their former colleague Neil Ferguson is routinely ridiculed as “Professor Lockdown” and his breach of social-distancing rules used to undermine everything he says. 

A Freedom of Information request has revealed how large a part “herd immunity” played in the early thinking of Sir Patrick. The delay to the initial lockdown, the lack of protective equipment, the temporary abandonment of testing, the Cummings affair and changing advice in travel quarantine and masks have served to weaken the authority of both officials and the politicians. People do not always discriminate between which branch of government has let them down. If the politicians always claim to be guided by the science, but their policy proves wrongheaded, then they can blame their advisers for setting them on the wrong track, fairly or not. Voters might prefer and expect both groups to take responsibility.

In the early summer, as a formal signal of the shifting balance of power, the new Joint Biosecurity Centre was given a prominent role in coordinating the pandemic response, under the ultimate control of Baroness Dido Harding, who is not a scientist but who is close to Downing Street. She was personally defended once again by Mr Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions for her handling of NHS Test and Trace. In the view of some, the PM’s loyalty to her (and Dominic Cummings), is unjustified if not actually inexplicable.  

In short, the politicians and the scientists have drifted apart, and ministers are no longer sticking so closely to scientific advice (to the extent that they ever did). The stresses of non-Covid healthcare, the economy, education, social life and individual liberties, and at least some shortcomings in policy and advice, have driven this divorce. Those pressures have steadily intensified in recent days as the second wave and infection rates have accelerated. 

Even though more is known about coronavirus, much is still mysterious, and medics, statisticians and scientists can disagree. Like lawyers and economists, a scientist of some sort can usually be found to back even the most eccentric of theories, and the gullibility of the public remains unfinished. Next week, restless Conservative MPs, terrified at the damage to the economy and public finances, will add to the pressure on the remaining shared assumptions of the ministerial-scientific complex, and will press for a relaxation of the new Covid rules. They probably won’t succeed, as the opposition parties will resist relaxation, but, plainly, it is increasingly politics and economics that is guiding policy, rather than that always-mythical force “the science”.