The gagging of chief nurse Ruth May does little to inspire public confidence in our leaders

Editorial: It seems to be increasingly the case that the exit from lockdown is being driven by economic considerations and the views of Conservative backbenchers, rather than science

Matt Hancock and Ruth May at the Nightingale hospital in London earlier this year (AFP )

Ministers are often heard praising the NHS heroes that have helped get the country through the first months of the coronavirus crisis. The prime minister has paid personal tribute to the nurses at St Thomas’ Hospital in London who saved his life. He and many other members of the government have dutifully turned out on a Thursday evening to clap for the carers. But when it comes to allowing the chief nurse for England, Ruth May, to speak out on behalf of herself and her team, it seems to be quite another matter.

The refusal of a No 10 adviser to allow Ms May to attend her scheduled media briefing with Matt Hancock on 1 June was for one reason and one reason only: to protect Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s top aide, then in the very eye of a media storm.

Downing Street was concerned that Ms May might make some disobliging remark about Mr Cummings. Only two days before, another senior public health official, Jonathan Van-Tam, had delivered some thinly veiled criticisms about the way Mr Cummings broke lockdown rules, and he hasn’t been seen in the briefing room since. The next day the deputy chief medical officer for England, Jenny Harries, endorsed Mr Van-Tam’s view. Hence Ms May’s metaphorical N95 mask being repurposed as a gag by No 10 when it looked like it might be three in a row. It is also rumoured that the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and the chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, were unwilling to support Mr Cummings’s creative interpretation of the rules.

Indeed the scientists and clinical experts have been generally seen less often at the Downing Street briefings and in public in recent weeks. True, Mr Whitty and Sir Patrick were Mr Johnson’s wingmen when he announced his “bubble” policy, but it is now more often a less clinically qualified figure – such as Baroness Dido Harding, in charge of the testing programme, or Sarah Albon, chief executive of the Health and Safety Executive – who attends to support the politician.

It is a further indication of how far the thrust of policy is drifting away from the science. Although policy cannot ever be purely and exclusively driven by science, it seems increasingly the case that the exit from lockdown is being driven by economic considerations and the views of Conservative backbenchers.

In fact, the opinion polls suggest that measures such as the two-metre social-distancing rule enjoy strong public support, and particularly from the older and more vulnerable sections of society who may depend on it to help keep them alive.

In any case, the gagging of the chief nurse is a particularly petty business, entirely indicative of a government at odds with its own experts about the best way forward. Arguments about the advice given on lockdown in March have broken out.

So far, though, the scientists and the politicians have collectively kept their show on the road through a series of uncomfortable compromises. The next test will be if the expert Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies and the Joint Biosecurity Centre sanction any perceived or real premature reduction in the coronavirus threat level (from 4 to 3). If that were to happen the nation would want to hear all about it from the experts, and in the most candid and honest terms.