Rishi Sunak was described by his now most senior scientist during the pandemic as “Dr. Death’, it turned out today during the Covid investigation.
Dame Angela McLean, who replaced Sir Patrick Vallance as Number 10’s chief scientific adviser this year, sent the WhatsApp message to a fellow government adviser during a crucial meeting with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and then Chancellor Mr Sunak.
At the time of the meeting in September 2020, the rule of six was in place following Mr Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out plan and Mr Johnson had confirmed that Britain was ‘now seeing a second wave coming’.
Government advisers urged Johnson to cut the circuit breakers, but Sunak raised concerns about the impact on the economy.
At the same meeting, Dame Angela, then chief scientist at the Ministry of Defense, also called one of the scientists who argued against a shutdown a ‘f***wit’.
Dame Angela Ruth McLean, then chief scientist at the Ministry of Defence, sent the WhatsApp message to a fellow government scientist during a crucial meeting with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and then Chancellor Mr Sunak
WhatsApp exchanges between Professor Edmunds and Dame Angela were shown during the meeting, in which she referred to ‘Dr. Death the Chancellor’ and said ‘in US you would see it’
Professor John Edmunds, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the inquiry today that he attended the meeting on Sunday, September 20, along with officials including Mr Johnson, Mr Sunak and Sir Patrick.
Email exchanges between Sir Patrick and Professor Edmunds say the meeting was so that Mr Johnson could hear a ‘range of views on the future’ from the ‘let it rip brigade’.
Professor Edmunds told the inquiry that this involved ‘vocal people who felt that we shouldn’t have locked down in the first place and that we shouldn’t think about it again’.
Among them were Oxford University professors Sunetra Gupta and Carl Heneghan, and Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, whose advice shaped the country’s controversial decision to avoid a blanket lockdown.
The scientists were given 15 minutes each to argue that a lockdown was not necessary at that time, Professor Gupta later revealed.
In an email to Professor Edmunds, shown to the inquiry today, Sir Patrick said: ‘We have tried to put together a balanced group with different views and so I think he needs your views on the future direction of the epidemic has’.
WhatsApp exchanges between Professor Edmunds and Dame Angela were shown during the meeting, in which she referred to ‘Dr. Death the Chancellor’.
Lead barrister Hugo Keith KC asked Professor Edmunds: ‘Did you understand that these were references to the Eat Out to Help Out campaign that you had spoken about?’
Professor Edmunds said: ‘To be honest, it’s been so long that I don’t know, but it could well be.’
The brief WhatsApp exchange was introduced after Professor Edmunds criticized the Eat Out scheme, which was introduced in August 2020. It offered a 50 percent discount on food and non-alcoholic beverages to customers dining indoors at participating restaurants.
Professor Edmunds, who attended almost 100 SAGE meetings during the pandemic, told the inquiry: ‘To be honest, it (the plan) made me angry and I’m still angry about it.
“It was one thing to take your foot off the brake, which we did by easing restrictions, but to put your foot on the accelerator seemed perverse to me.
‘To spend public money on this, when 45,000 people had just died… the optics of it were terrible. This was a plan to encourage people to take an epidemiological risk.”
The lawyer said that after the meeting, Professor Heneghan and Professor Gupta argued that they had ‘not had a fair trial’.
Professor Edmunds told the inquiry: ‘I had interrupted Professor Heneghan at one point because he was making some really fundamental epidemiological mistakes – the kind of mistakes we teach our students from day one.
“And I couldn’t let it go after a while, so I interrupted him, and that took the wind out of my sails a little bit, and so yeah, and he hadn’t interrupted me, so it’s fair enough that they complained.”
Mr Keith said: ‘I think you described his arguments as half-baked. But in any case, your argument and your positions found – to use your own words – ‘no favor with the Prime Minister’.”
While giving evidence to the inquiry this afternoon, Professor Heneghan (pictured) was asked about email exchanges in which he was said to have been ‘half-baked nonsense’, called a ‘bastard’ by Dame Angela and accused of didn’t understand. ‘basic epidemiology’
The brief WhatsApp exchange was introduced after Professor Edmund criticized the Eat Out scheme, which was introduced in August 2020 and offered a 50 per cent discount on food and non-alcoholic drinks to customers dining in at participating restaurants
Mr Johnson then introduced new restrictions, including a return to working from home and a 10pm curfew for the hospitality sector.
It was not until October 14 that he introduced a second national lockdown, which lasted until November 5.
While giving evidence to the inquiry this afternoon, Professor Heneghan was questioned about email exchanges in which he was said to be ‘half-baked nonsense’, called a ‘bastard’ by Dame Angela and accused of not understanding ‘basic epidemiology’ . ‘.
He said: ‘I would never use such language in a professional capacity about other individuals.
“It’s not unusual to be in a position of disagreement, to be in a position of disagreement.
‘We call it uncertainty and the job of an evidence-based approach is to try to reduce uncertainty so that you can make an informed decision.
‘The very fact that you have opposing views shows that there is a problem with interpretation.’
He said he was asked to provide views that challenge the views of those who are members of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE).
Johnson’s notes after the meeting show that he was ‘certainly willing to be persuaded by the lockdown skeptics, but found that in reality they were reluctant to make such a case’.