Is it at all surprising that journalists are even less trusted than politicians when the Daily Telegraph spews out a daily diet of poison and disinformation and the Guardian runs Ickeian conspiracy theories about Dominic Cummings’s presence at SAGE meetings ‘corrupting’ scientific advice to the public. Of course, journalists must ask probing and sometimes embarrassing questions. They would be failing in their duty if they didn’t, particularly when dealing with a Prime Minister whose notable omissions in his choice of bedfellows tends to be The Truth. But let’s examine the Guardian story with care. A good start is the opening paragraph.
‘Labour has urged the government to stop the government’s chief political advisor from attending meetings of the secret scientific advisory group advising on the Coronovirus pandemic amid concerns over whether it’s independence has been compromised’.
So we know the story is politically motivated as it’s source appears to be Bob Kerslake, a key Corbyn advisor and John Ashworth, giving it some political legs. John is a good guy, but in rather dangerous glass house territory. It’s a bit rich to have a crack at unqualified SPADS when you have spent your early political life being just that to a platoon of Blair ministers. He will have some difficult questions to answer from Andrew Marr and Piers Morgan. Oh, and the ubiquitous Richard Horton, the rather hyperbolic editor of the Lancet was in full throttle and in Death Star mode doing what he does best. Screaming hyperbollocks.
What makes this rickety piece of kite flying wobble off the runway before it crashlands into the baying Corbynitas, is that the SPAD in question is none other than government bogieman in chief, prince of Darkness, sperm of Satan and slayer of political dreams, Dominic Cummings. And to make the conspiracy even darker and deeper he is joined by a prepubescent NO 10 nerdling, Ben Warner. His job is to improve government decision making by the use of science and technology. So far so good. But his crime against humanity is that he once worked for the LEAVE campaign. So this is the story. Cummings and his weird (he must be because he understands tech and is a Brexiteer) assistant have been drafted on to SAGE to browbeat the experts and corrupt their advice into what the Prime Minister wants. The difficulty is that Johnson wants what we all want; an end to this bloody virus and getting the economy back on it’s feet. This requires an understanding of the science and the economy. It is enormously complicated. There are no black and whites. No universal truths. And only Boris can take this decision.
It would be a dereliction of his duty if Johnson didn’t task Cummings to have some input into SAGE. He has the mind to sift through the arguments and brief on why the advice is what it is. It makes for better decision making. If Cummings didn’t attend these meetings the story would be another COBRA angle, ‘PM doesn’t take this seriously enough by not sending his chief advisor to listen to the experts’.
The decision on how to handle the route to easing lockdown is political based on scientific advice. This means that there has to be a political perrspective in scientific meetings. If the PM flew in the face of his scientific advisors and ignored them all hell would be let loose. He won’t. But he has to show the nation that he is on top of this and the only way to be on top of it when you have just waved adieu to the grim reaper is to send your top advisor to the really important meetings. And report back.
It is not often that SPADS at Cabinet level are specialists. They follow their ministers from department to department. The many I have met over the years starting with Cameron and Osborne is that they are bright, engaged and can help ministers see the wood from the trees. Ministers are not experts. Theresa May and Gordon Brown bear the scars of trying to micromanage their departments. Ministers are bombarded with decisions that have to be made accompanied by flotillas of information. They need to be on top of their brief. And they need the information and the policy options distilled for them so that they can make informed and hopefully the correct decisions. That’s just the life of a Cabinet minister. To be Prime Minister multiply the decisions and the paperwork by about a hundred.
I really do hope that Keir Starmer doesn’t fall into the trap of following the Guardian line on this. A far better approach would be to ask why the membership of SAGE is secret. But that’s just Whitehall’s obsession with secrecy. It wasn’t all that long ago that the press wasn’t able to report the existence of cabinet committees. And they really run things.
It all is really Lamont’s First Law of press coverage. Way back in 1992 when Norman Lamont was Chancellor of the Exchequer he lived at Number 11 Downing Street. Unfortunately, a journalist discovered that there was a woman living his old flat still owned by him. It was leased to a Madam Whiplash who used it as a BDSM brothel. The press had a field day because everyone wanted to believe that a Tory Chancellor was up to naughties. He wasn’t and Carter Ruck put a stop to this nonsense.
So it is with Cummings. Everyone wants to believe he is up to no good. Well, he probably is. But not with SAGE.