Did the government ‘ignore warnings’ about coronavirus? The evidence is weak

Boris Johnson has been accused of failings that ‘may have cost thousands of lives’. But does the charge stand up to scrutiny? Asks John Rentoul

Boris Johnson is accused of missing five Cobra meetings in January and February (Andrew Parsons-WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock “ignored warnings from scientists and lost a crucial five weeks in the fight to tackle the coronavirus”, claimed The Sunday Times. This is a serious allegation, of failings that the newspaper said “may have cost thousands of lives”, and it goes with the grain of public opinion, which supports the government’s measures but thinks they should have happened sooner.

But is it true? Ministers were certainly furious about it, and Hancock posted a point-by-point response on his department’s website. This was unusual enough, but what was striking was the tone of this document, which read in parts like an angry blog or a Twitter thread.

Rather than letting the facts speak for themselves, it adds opinions: “At a very basic level, this is wrong”, “that is plainly untrue”, and “it is ridiculous to suggest ...”. In the style of a keyboard warrior up at 3am because someone is wrong on the internet, it demanded to know whether The Sunday Times’s anonymous source was a Downing Street adviser or an adviser to Downing Street. “Which is it?”

This rather undermined the government’s case, which is that The Sunday Times provided no evidence that ministers had ignored warnings. It said that a committee that reports to Sage, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, had warned on 26 February that many lives could be lost in a “worst case” scenario if there was no lockdown. Sage met four days later and Johnson chaired a Cobra meeting the day after that, which launched measures to try to contain the outbreak.

All that is in the article, but it is presented alongside assertions that time was wasted and that the prime minister was either distracted by his private life or lazy. In particular, the line that the prime minister “missed” or “skipped” five Cobra meetings caught the eye of many of Johnson’s critics.

That charge is unfairly worded. Cobra meetings are often chaired by other ministers, and those were always intended to be – and they were reported at the time, mainly as a sign that the government was taking the threat seriously.

In hindsight, of course, things look different and it is easy to imagine that Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, and even David Cameron or Theresa May, might have insisted on chairing the meetings themselves. Had Johnson done so, a greater sense of urgency might have infused Whitehall. He might have asked tougher questions, and it is possible that more would have been done to provide a greater number of tests, protective equipment and ventilators.

But we cannot be sure about any of that, and the central charge against Johnson and Hancock, that they “ignored warnings”, has not been substantiated. They acted on the recommendations of Sage, chaired by Patrick Vallance, the government chief scientific adviser, at every stage. In fact, only one line of yesterday’s rebuttal was really needed: “The government followed scientific advice at all times.” It is possible that the scientists were too slow to realise the seriousness of the threat, but that is not the allegation.

Being right is not much use in politics, however. The last time the government issued a point-by-point rebuttal like this was in November 2018. The Spectator had published a 40-point howl against the moon, a tirade against May’s EU withdrawal agreement. It was full of mistakes and misunderstandings, but it was hugely popular on social media – or, at least, those parts of social media powered by a loathing of the compromise negotiated by May.

Her government’s rebuttal was patient, factual and detailed. It was a better document than yesterday’s effort. And yet it could do nothing to rescue May’s deal. In my view, her deal was a negotiating triumph that would have kept the UK in a customs union with the EU, but it was lost because Labour MPs hoping to cancel Brexit voted with Brexit purists who wanted to make trade more difficult between the UK and the EU.

The big differences between Johnson and May are that most people support the government’s measures against coronavirus, and that Johnson is popular while May was not. So Johnson is given the benefit of the doubt by most of the population, despite being hung, drawn and quartered by the Court of Twitter. And then declared guilty.