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.”

They have a point, and Boris Johnson himself issued an oblique reprimand by stating that the government had no wish to tell people how to conduct their social lives. The official No 10 spokesperson expressed the usual confidence in the chief medical officer.

The problem is that Chris Whitty and his expert colleagues are trusted and respected in the way that the politicians are not. As Whitty stresses in his defence, chief medical officers have always, since the post was established in 1855, had two roles: first, to advise governments, but also the general public. He is keen to stress he is an “independent” adviser.

Usually these two aspects of the job are not in conflict. The government taxes cigarettes, for example, which a chief medical officer has no power to, but the chief medical officer will tell people that smoking is bad for their health.

In the case of Covid, though, things are trickier. As Whitty sees it: “Ministers reserve to themselves, rightly, anything to do with the law, anything to do with balancing against the economy. This is advice that I think any chief medical officer would have given, and I don’t actually think that any minister is feeling I am treading on their toes on this one. This is my job.”

The problem, not of Whitty’s making, is that his words have weight, whether he likes it or not. He has contributed to the general downturn in consumer and business confidence, with the consequences the MPs complain of. While Johnson told people to party on, though also vaguely adding that they should be careful, Whitty was more precise, trying to be helpful, no doubt, explaining how to balance the risks.

Still, to be fair to Whitty, it is hardly all his fault. It was the prime minister, after all, who used the phrase “tidal wave” in his downbeat TV broadcast on Sunday afternoon, and the mere fact of a mysterious new variant was enough to make many people think twice about their Christmas plans, long before Whitty opened his mouth. The Tory MPs might also turn their ire on the Queen, who has pointedly cancelled her great big pre-Christmas extended family lunch party. Or, for that matter, Brendan Rodgers and Antonio Conte, pleading publicly to postpone the football match between Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur.

Without being glib, the real reason why hospitality, entertainment and travel are being hammered is because of the emergence of the Omicron variant. Ironically, Whitty’s advice, if it flattens the coming spike in infections, might not only protect the NHS, but also the wider economy from a much harsher and longer emergency lockdown, if Omicron wins the race against the booster vaccine. In any case, it all suggests that people are still mostly responding to official signals, donning masks and getting jabs, and there’s wide consensus that that will save lives.