No.154 - The Revolt of the Experts - Truth Fights Back

Dear James,

Following Boris’s on-air censoring of his scientific and medical advisers last week, something most interesting has just happened. Firstly, the two gagged advisers, Professors Vallance and Whitty, members of SAGE, the government’s committee of 50 expert advisors, seem to have refused to reappear at the press conferences. Then, at Saturday’s conference, Professor Van-Tam, another of the government’s advisers, was asked the question that will not go away. ‘Will the government listen to the public and sack Dominic Cummings or will it simply ignore them? Van-Tam replied, “In my opinion the rules are clear and they have always been clear. In my opinion they are for the benefit of all. In my opinion they apply to all.”

With those carefully chosen words, Van-Tam gave the reply that Boris Johnson had prevented Van-Tam’s associates from giving last week. Dutiful Oliver Dowden, the minister on duty on Saturday, put his best cardboard face on it. “The prime minister accepted his (Mr Cummings’s) explanation and on that basis kept him in post and that remains the position.” But the truth was out. The split was there for all to see.

James, you and your government preside over a false narrative of ‘getting on with the job’ while ignoring the awful facts of the covid-19 crisis, much of which is down to your government’s negligence and mismanagement. Its falsity is the reason why your ministers and particularly your Prime Minister, continue to look embarrassed and shifty during their self-imposed ordeals at the press conferences. But with this weekend’s ‘revolt of the experts’, is it just possible that Covid-19 has brought us to a watershed? To the final showdown between truth and fake news?

Those who seek truth know that truth is only ever contingent. If we want ultimate truth, read the quantum physicists i.e. ultimate truth is not available to human beings. If you want human truth, read the psychologists, biologists, the novelists and the naturalists. If you want the truth about humans in groups read the philosophers, and the social scientists. Science is not infallible but it’s the best we’ve got if we wish to base our actions upon ‘truth’. But surely everyone lives by their own ‘truth’?  Since the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, mankind has had the happy option of the ability to combine mind, heart and experience to allow study, balance, tolerance of other opinions and conclusions based on the best evidence available. However, for those who don’t have that happy disposition James, they have Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and everyone’s anti-hero of the moment, Dominic Cummings to listen to. Much easier than thinking for yourself eh?

There is one truth however, that cannot be faked. That truth is ‘death’ and that is the ultimate problem that Cummings and Boris are facing. Death cannot be avoided and it is personal to us all. It can be measured in its consequences and its progress through another consequence of the Enlightenment; statistics. Today we have Infection rates, the R rate, the K rate, time lines, the number of deaths in care homes, and so on. Nature is providing facts courtesy of our amazing statisticians to a government that is based upon false news. Your government however, has chosen which facts to ignore and which to exaggerate. You ignore the dilatoriness of your response to the crisis and exaggerate your ‘world beating’ testing and your ‘fantastic’ development of vaccines. But your advisers, thoroughly grounded in the history of the enlightenment, have now put up a big red sign, saying Stop!

On Saturday, science peeled away from its political masters. In a terribly British way, the fig leaf of ‘We are following the science’, was unceremoniously ripped from the government loins exposing its sheer bungling incompetence. Boris is not up to the job and the government is in damage control.  Yesterday we were told that Boris scolded Dominic Cummings and warned him to stay out of the public eye. Oh, so that’s ok then. All sorted? But also we hear of a letter by 26 advisers for SAGE saying that Cummings’s role had damaged public confidence and adherence to the rules.

The experts have revolted James. Now you’re on your own. Your long winded exculpation of Mr Cummings last week, was sad. Do you have no self-respect? Are you just a drone, responding to the latest instruction from the Boris/Cummings diarchy? Have you never heard of principle? No need to respond. Your record is now very well known by all.

Kind Regards,

BH - Your Concerned Constituent