PRESS RELEASE – 3 OCTOBER 2023 – 250 WHATSAPP’S GROUPS, DIARIES & A GOVERNMENT IN CRISIS
Core UK Decision-making & Political Governance (Module 2)
SCOTTISH COVID BEREAVED
PRESS RELEASE – 3 October 2023
250 WHATSAPP’S GROUPS, DIARIES & A GOVERNMENT IN CRISIS
‘Let it rip, they’ve had a good innings’
‘You are going to have to lock down, but there is no lockdown plan. It does not exist’
‘We’ve got big problems coming. The Cabinet Office is terrifyingly shit. No plans. Totally behind the pace.’
Statement by Aamer Anwar – Lead Solicitor Scottish Covid Bereaved
Today at the start of Module 2 our Senior Counsel Dr. Claire Mitchell KC will make an opening statement on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved at the UK Inquiry.
(https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/modules/core-uk-decision-making-and-political-governance-module-2/)
We will hear in the coming days testimony from the bereaved in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. Many do not know what the future hold and lives continue to be shattered by the impact of Covid-19. Some say, ‘isn’t it time we moved on’, for those who lost a loved one that is not an option- it’s the how and why that needs to be addressed.
On the very day that families were unable to attend funerals for their loved ones, those in Government were busy having parties, their loved ones deserved better.
If the protection of life is the pre-eminent duty of every government owed to the people, then the massive numbers of those who died is the marker against which each government must be judged. Why did we lose life on a such a devastating scale? These are the questions this module must answer.
In Module 1 we learned that, despite experts and pandemic planning exercises, we were in no way prepared for the pandemic which struck the UK. Health Care workers had on so many occasions sounded the alarm that the NHS was already beyond breaking point: Austerity had bitten so hard that the NHS was mortally wounded.
Brexit put an end to preparations for the inevitable pandemic and no plans were put in place at all for the economic impact of the pandemic on people and businesses in the United Kingdom.
Module 2 will need to explore the UK Government’s relationship, or lack thereof with the Scottish Government. On so many occasions constitutional strife, petty squabbles and territorial power struggles dictated decision making rather than the needs of people facing death on a devastating scale.
We will hear from the likes of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his then Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Dominic Cumming, Matt Hancock, Chief Scientific/Medical Advisers, and so many more who had key roles to play in the decisions made by the UK Government.
However from the substantial disclosure of evidence we have received so far, including the ‘controversial’ WhatsApp’s and diaries, we have managed to prise open a Pandora’s box at the heart of our Government in the critical early days of the pandemic, revealing a Government in crisis, on its knees, scared and slow to act on expert advice, crawling behind other countries in protecting our population, and as we now know thousands of lives could have been saved.
By the 24th of February the World Health Organisation published a report of its mission to Wuhan advising countries to immediately activate the highest level of national response management protocols to ensure the all of government and all of society approaches needed to contain COVID-19 with non-pharmaceutical public health measures. Yet it was not until one month later, 23rd of March, lockdown was declared.
On the 26th of May 2021 Dominic Cummings once at the heart Boris Johnson’s Government gave evidence to Parliament about what has been described as a crucial time – between Thursday 12th March and Sunday 15th March 2020.
At 07:48 the morning of the 12th March 2020, Dominic Cummings sent a text to the Prime Minister saying:-
“We’ve got big problems coming. The Cabinet Office is terrifyingly shit. No plans. Totally behind the pace. We must announce today, not next week, ‘If you feel ill with cold or flu, stay home’. Some around the system want a delay because they haven’t done the work. We must force the pace. We are looking at 100 to 500,000 deaths between optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. You’ve got to chair the daily meetings in the Cabinet Room, not Cobra”—because the Cobra system could not work; we could not get all the data in properly. It did not work for a kind of open thing.”
Having looked at the data, it was clear that the tsunamic effect of the lack of preparation was about to hit the UK shores. By Friday the 13th of March 2020 it was clear that the data showed that even on a best-case scenario, the NHS was going to become completely overwhelmed.
On the 14th of March 2020, Dominic Cummings said to the PM “You are going to have to lock down but there is no lockdown plan. It does not exist. SAGE haven’t modelled it. The Department of Health and Social care don’t have a plan.”
On the 11th March 2020 Matt Hancock briefed Cabinet ‘that without symptoms it was highly unlikely thar someone was suffering from coronavirus’.
A significant number of WhatsApp and diary entries refer to Matt Hancock. It appears that the Prime Minister and a number of officials and advisers held him in low regard. In particular on account of an apparent tendency, ‘to use their words, get over excited and then make stuff up.’
At a meeting on the 25th October 2020 and argument began before the PM, the proponents of one side of the argument was ‘to let it rip, they’ve had as good innings’.
As we have seen in the thousands of pages disclosed in evidence to us, despite advice from the WHO, despite the experience of other countries, despite 16th March 2020 being the date SAGE eventually advised the Government to embark on a lockdown, it was not until 23rd March 2020 that the Government announced it: where case numbers were doubling every three days, every minute counted, never mind every day.
The Scottish Covid Bereaved want to know the truth of what took place in those early days, to know about the decisions which directly impacted on the death of their loved ones. The knowledge of what happened can never take away their grief, but it may save the lives of many in the next inevitable pandemic, that at the very least is the legacy they are entitled to expect.
