Grant Shapps has claimed he had to do his own research and bring his spreadsheets to Cabinet meetings to counter the partial and skewed information being supplied by SAGE scientists and block plans for a Covid lockdown last Christmas. The Telegraph has the story.
Mr. Shapps, the Transport Secretary, told the Telegraph he made his own spreadsheets based on international data and sometimes presented his findings at Cabinet and Covid-O ministerial meetings to bolster resistance to further restrictions.
He said this proved effective in countering pressure for a potential lockdown last Christmas in response to the threat from the Omicron variant.
“I was able to present data based on three South African studies which wasn’t available from the standard SAGE presentation. In a close-run discussion, we didn’t lock down. The NHS wasn’t overrun,” said Mr. Shapps…
Mr. Shapps, who is supporting the former Chancellor [Rishi Sunak] in the leadership contest, said that at the start of the Covid crisis “there was of course no instruction manual for dealing with the first pandemic of modern times”, adding: “We all learnt as we went along.
“As ministers gained in confidence, we did get to the point of being able to understand and analyse the data much better. In fact, I would construct spreadsheets based on international data and sometimes present my findings at Cabinet and Covid-O meetings.
“This analysis was particularly relevant when it came to talk about a Christmas 2021 lockdown.”
At that time, Boris Johnson was under pressure from Sage scientists to go further than masks in shops and public transport and home working, but rejected calls for the cancellation of Christmas parties and other festive events.
“I’d taken the time to read three South African research reports into Omicron. I checked the research and then turned the data into my own spreadsheet to come up with my own version of the likely trajectory,” said Mr. Shapps.
Worth reading in full.
Note that Shapps is only claiming to have been against lockdown for Omicron owing to its reduced virulence. He is not rowing back on earlier lockdowns, adding it “wasn’t a decision that ministers would have been able to make earlier in the coronavirus crisis”.
Shapps’s account of having to counter the skewed doom-mongering of SAGE shows once again the urgent need for Government to introduce much better ways of receiving scientific advice during emergencies. There is a clear need to ensure wider perspectives both from other disciplines like economics and other scientific voices who look at the data differently to ensure ministers are getting a full picture and not just the one preferred by those on a particular committee. The next Prime Minister, whether Rishi Sunak or, more likely, Liz Truss, should be pressed on a commitment to put in place a better scientific advisory process than the one which let us down so badly during Covid.
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Note that Shapps is only claiming to have been against lockdown for Omicron owing to its reduced virulence. He is not rowing back on earlier lockdowns, adding it “wasn’t a decision that ministers would have been able to make earlier in the coronavirus crisis”.
…Pity you didn’t have a trade union to represent the cabinet’s views, Grant. It might have saved us the lunacy of the last 3 years since there seems to be so many scaredy-cat ministers unwilling to speak out. Shapps just has no credibility for telling the truth. He always blames someone else for his decisions … It’s the French, it’s Covid, it’s the unions fault … It’s the scientists, it’s the spreadsheets! Grow a backbone Shapps. You’ve been in government 12 years!
It’s only a matter of time before Boris writes in The Telegraph (that newspaper that did so much to report the truth and give dissenters a platform during the Fakedemic) that he was totally against lockdowns, fought hard to prevent them, but was overruled in Cabinet and by SAGE.
Soon it will be a wonder how lockdowns actually happened since everybody was against them and nobody for.
Maybe we just imagined them.
I’m sorry? The Telegraph? Global Health Security ‘sponsored’ by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation? with their ‘Editor’ Paul Nuki? These are the current headlines on the GHS page
The Telegraph, a ‘paper’ I used to be subscribed to is as culpable as the rest, they just did it with a more small ‘c’ Conservative tone but the fear was ramped up by their furnding partners and they played the tune.
Ever notice how comments are disabled on all GHS reports.
..and they are still at it right now, see above, fear, fear, fear.
You should have stopped reading or listening to any msm media two years ago. Fearmongering, lead to mass formation psychosis. MSM had a major role in this. So many other sources for well researched data and covid findings, by scientists and researchers who MSM did their best to suppress and censor.
Nobody expected The Inquisition, but that’s what we got or at least a taste of it.
I’m still surprised we didn’t see any actual burnings of non-believers.
Thankfully the Javid vax mandate for the NHS was stopped just prior to implementation by brave doctors telling Javid publicly, he’s an idiot – unlike these people in the cabinet rubber stamping the scientists plans. Many people resigned and threatened to resign, but it was actually law people could be sacked if they weren’t vaccinated!
We had the Shapps inspired Covid passports and ludicrous transport restrictions (while letting over all and sundry on small boats) like masks on public transport and supermarkets.
We had government appealing to people to snitch on their neighbours. Police and drones following people on their walks. We had police regularly raiding people’s homes without a warrant. Incredible what was allowed in the name of ‘public health’.
No, I’m not buying this. There is something else going on here. First Spineless Sino comes out bleating “I told them not to do it but they wouldn’t listen” and now Shameless Shapps tries to pretend he spent his lockdown evenings under a study light laboriously putting together his own spread sheets like a pre finals student.
Do me a favour.
What exactly is motivating the volte faces I’m not sure but the stories Shapps and Sino are telling are simply lies.
Is there some early backside covering going on so that when it become socially acceptable to talk about the abject failure (and danger) of the ‘vaccines’, they will have got in early, and positioned themselves to be viewed as sceptics from the off? I am keeping my fingers crossed btw, because six months ago you would be pilloried for suggesting lockdowns were a bad idea, I am hoping that narrative creep re clot shots will appear.
“Is there some early backside covering?”
No, I don’t believe there is. The story is being changed but I suspect the apparent arse covering is part of the new story. Arse covering is too obvious.
Quite. Why didn’t these senior Cabinet members actually speak out against the lockdown fanatics and do something about it at the time? It’s rather reminiscent of post-War Germany where it was virtually impossible to find anyone who had actually been a Nazi!
Yep, they all voted for the measures, and the stab mandates.
No way back in my book. Never forgive. Never Forget.
Seconded.
MPs who:
Voted for lockdowns,
Voted for Net Zero
Clapped Zelensky
Deserve to spend the rest of their lives their lives in prison.
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Ok, so there is the beginnings of an attempt to try to pin it all on SAGE.
It will be interesting to see if it results in a pile on or not
I’m so angry about what has been done to us over since March 2020 that I would very much like to see some of the people responsible for it mauled in a very bad way.
But I also keep reminding myself that scapegoating means many of those responsible get away with it and lessons aren’t fully learned.
I suppose if the choice is between SAGE getting all the blame, their careers, lives and credibility completely destroyed or nobody facing any consequences (like Iraq, or the financial crisis of 2007) then I guess I reluctantly chose the former. But very reluctantly.
Baby steps
When Johnson kept insisting he was “following the science”, it was obvious he was covering himself not his Sage handlers
Johnson wouldn’t know ‘science’ from a horoscope. Never underestimate how dumb he is. Not that that’s an excuse.
“there was of course no instruction manual for dealing with the first pandemic of modern times”,
Yes there was, at least there was a well established plan, which got chucked out the window on Day 3. I wonder what changed..?
Schapps never lets a day go by without finding a way into the news. Perhaps if he had time he could sort out the DVLA. No publicity in that? Oh, well, don’t bother.
Little squirt!
For normal industrial product development we’ve also got ‘scientists’ doing really clever stuff.
We filter them through a layer of engineers who are really good at risk assessment. “This proton stream powered car is brilliant but what if someone crosses the road behind it?”
The pandemic was completely lacking the engineer layer that protects the population. Instead we had scientists giving advice to Classicists who wouldn’t have a clue how to interpret or question the information.
“Classicists who wouldn’t have a clue how to interpret or question the information”
Not sure about that – I never got beyond O Level maths and I worked out this was all nonsense in March 2020.
Ditto.
same here.
As an enigeering-scientist, ‘hear hear’ Thing is with engineers, it has to work. That’s a pretty stubborn task master at times, at least one which can’t be ignored.
Absolutely perfect analysis. Thank you
Shapps with his traffic lights that hobbled the transport industry is a See You Next Tuesday.
“There was of course no instruction manual for dealing with the first pandemic of modern times.”
BS[1]
And several other similar documents that are hidden in plain sight.
The trick was to rename Covid as an unprecedented, unknown alien life form, and hence to assert that traditional management along the lines of influenza could not work. Coincidentally, or not, the WHO declared influenza to be extinct[2] when they launched the new Covid product.
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf (2011) (especially section 4.15)
[2]
Funny how there were so many lockdowns when every politician was against it.
Funny how they kept completely silent in public about their opposition as well.
Sorry grant, too little too late. I was doing as I told is no longer a defense in court.
Just to be clear, this is the same Shapps who barely a year ago threatened people with 10 year jail sentences if they failed to declare having been in a COVID ‘red list’ country.