• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Toby Was Right and Gove Was Wrong on Lockdown

by Will Jones
13 March 2025 3:31 PM

Back in March 2020 Toby found himself among a depressingly select group of journalists who opposed the lockdowns. The other side included erstwhile Brexit comrades, including his now Spectator Editor Michael Gove, who has let him write about it in this week’s magazine under the heading ‘I was right – and Gove was wrong – on lockdown‘. Here’s an excerpt.

I thought I could count on the Tufton Street mafia to weigh in on my side – after all, aren’t they wedded to the principle that ‘government is best that governs least’? Surely, paying people not to work, forcing businesses to close and increasing public expenditure by £400 billion was anathema to them? But most of the Right-wing policy wonks became enthusiastic supporters of the Covid restrictions, a group I dubbed ‘libertarians for lockdown’. Boris Johnson passed the initial test with flying colours, urging the public to ‘take it on the chin’, but soon fell into lockstep with the more cautious people surrounding him, including my political lodestars Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings. As someone who’d shared foxholes with them during the Brexit wars, that was heartbreaking.

I’d like to say all these people now recognise the error of their ways and come bounding up to me at parties to tell me how right I was, but as Mark Twain said: “It’s easier to fool people than convince them that they have been fooled.” The only person I’ve received any kind of mea culpa from is Boris, who sheepishly told me at the end of a long evening last year that I may have been right about lockdown. At least, I think that’s what he said. As friends of his will know, he rarely looks you in the eye and half-mumbles, half-gabbles when admitting to a mistake, so I may have misheard. I give him credit for standing his ground in December 2021, refusing to cancel Christmas, and I’ve no doubt Sir Keir Starmer’s response to the pandemic would have been worse.

I was initially sceptical about the official Covid Inquiry, worried that Baroness Hallett had already made up her mind that we should have locked down sooner and harder. But after seeing her Module 1 report, which was more nuanced than I’d anticipated, I’m optimistic she’ll condemn some aspects of the lockdown policy, such as the decision to close schools. On the other hand, I don’t think it matters very much what she concludes, because a future government, when faced with another pandemic, will just ditch all our carefully laid plans and do whatever is politically expedient, like the Conservatives did in 2020. The influenza pandemic preparedness strategy, which cautioned against locking down, was unceremoniously dumped within weeks on the grounds that it was designed to manage an outbreak of bad flu rather than something more serious. In fact, the fatality rate of COVID-19 was comparable with that of the Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968-70. Sweden, which did follow our strategy, experienced fewer Covid deaths per capita than us.

In fact, the Government’s Pandemic Preparedness Strategy didn’t just “caution against locking down”, it ruled it out: “The U.K. Government does not plan to close borders, stop mass gatherings or impose controls on public transport during any pandemic.” The jettisoning of this mostly very sensible plan is perhaps the most egregious error of all.

Toby concludes by letting the weak politicians off the hook, saying he’s decided to forgive them “because their room for manoeuvre was constrained by the public’s limited appetite for risk. They might now accept that locking down caused more harm than it prevented, but still argue they had no choice”.

Though doesn’t that just doom us to repeat the debacle next time around? We can only hope lessons have been learned. In Gove’s case at least it seems they have.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: COVID-19LibertarianismLockdownMichael GovePandemic Preparedness StrategyReckoningSpectatorToby Young

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Starmer Abolishes NHS England

Next Post

Covid Bias at the BMJ

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

73 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

The Sceptic EP.37: David Frost on Starmer’s EU Surrender, James Price on Broken Britain and David Shipley on Lucy Connolly’s Failed Appeal

by Richard Eldred
23 May 2025
7

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

News Round-Up

28 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

How to Defeat the Westminster ‘Blob’

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Tommy Robinson Released From Prison

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

GB News’s ‘Anti-woke’ Comedy Show Faces Axe After Thousands of Complaints

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

What is ‘The Movement Forward’?

28 May 2025
by Charlotte Gill

News Round-Up

19

Tommy Robinson Released From Prison

32

What is ‘The Movement Forward’?

13

GB News’s ‘Anti-woke’ Comedy Show Faces Axe After Thousands of Complaints

33

Tory MPs to Boris Johnson: Thanks, But no Thanks

22

The Net Zero Agenda’s Continued Collapse Into Chaos

28 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Alasdair MacIntyre 1929-2025

27 May 2025
by James Alexander

Lies, Damned Lies and Casualty Numbers in Ancient History

26 May 2025
by Guy de la Bédoyère

Lord Frost: “The Boriswave Was a Catastrophic Error”

26 May 2025
by Laurie Wastell

The Legal Case Against the AfD Has Collapsed

25 May 2025
by Eugyppius

POSTS BY DATE

March 2025
M T W T F S S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  
« Feb   Apr »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

POSTS BY DATE

March 2025
M T W T F S S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  
« Feb   Apr »

DONATE

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

News Round-Up

28 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

How to Defeat the Westminster ‘Blob’

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Tommy Robinson Released From Prison

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

GB News’s ‘Anti-woke’ Comedy Show Faces Axe After Thousands of Complaints

27 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

What is ‘The Movement Forward’?

28 May 2025
by Charlotte Gill

News Round-Up

19

Tommy Robinson Released From Prison

32

What is ‘The Movement Forward’?

13

GB News’s ‘Anti-woke’ Comedy Show Faces Axe After Thousands of Complaints

33

Tory MPs to Boris Johnson: Thanks, But no Thanks

22

The Net Zero Agenda’s Continued Collapse Into Chaos

28 May 2025
by Ben Pile

Alasdair MacIntyre 1929-2025

27 May 2025
by James Alexander

Lies, Damned Lies and Casualty Numbers in Ancient History

26 May 2025
by Guy de la Bédoyère

Lord Frost: “The Boriswave Was a Catastrophic Error”

26 May 2025
by Laurie Wastell

The Legal Case Against the AfD Has Collapsed

25 May 2025
by Eugyppius

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment
Perfecty
Do you wish to receive notifications of new articles?
Notifications preferences