Baroness Helena Morrissey criticised the Government in the House of Lords yesterday evening, as England began its second lockdown. The Tory peer, a former financier, began by drawing parallels between how a FTSE CEO would make an important decision, and the government’s approach to making choices:
In business the higher the stakes, the higher the burden of proof on decision-makers. A FTSE CEO announcing a major change in strategy would need to bring along those who are affected by setting out the basis for the decision: the pros and cons, the likely impacts, both good and bad, across all parts of the business and groups that will be affected. And if it’s a particularly controversial decision, that CEO may also take the trouble to explain what other options were considered, and why they weren’t chosen. He or she will share the numbers and the assumptions behind them, share projections and take detailed questions. If you’ve ever attended an analyst day, or a companies results day, you’ll find it’s a spreadsheet heavy affair. And if it’s sobering news, if the case is well made, if the analysis is sound, shareholders and other stakeholders, such as employees, will tend to go along with the decision.
- Baroness Helena Morrissey
When faced with a difficult choice, a CEO respects the need to bring along their company with them. No, the country is not a business, Morrissey admitted, because the stakes are ultimately much higher in government, especially during a national crisis. That’s why proper scrutiny and detailed evidence is necessary at every stage of the decision making process. The government, according to Morrissey, had not provided either in its justifications for a second lockdown.
Now, at present, it seems although we have even more to lose — the economies already fragile — the less we are told, and the weaker the basis for the decision. There is, as we have heard tonight, vagueness and confusion around the medical evidence that’s being used to justify the second lockdown decree. On Monday when Conservative MP Huw Merriman asked why Sussex was being locked down when it had one of the lowest Covid rates of any county, the PM replied: ‘the medical data is, alas, overwhelming.’ Using my analogy, imagine a FTSE CEO saying, when challenged by an analyst about, say, a decision to close a factory: ‘alas we just have to.’
- Baroness Helena Morrissey
Graphs used in Saturday’s lockdown announcement were criticised by Professor Carl Heneghan, from Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, as provably “out of date”. Morrissey argued that “real data” not just “numbers around the virus” was needed.
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SubscribeIf you wish to know where the current data is at, look at the figures for Liverpool.
They show a decrease of 50% in 3 weeks.
They only entered Tier 3, which we were told takes 3 weeks to have an effect, 2 and a half weeks ago!
Pure magic, the virus obviously fled even at the thought of Tier 3.!!
Where are the Labour MPs who understand the data and who are able to challenge the negligible evidence base? There were only 38 Tories willing to oppose this unnecesary, futile and cruel lockdow policy which is shameful enough. But there were no Labour MPs with the wit and courage to oppose. Lockdown disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable and creates vast numbers of newly vulnerable people.
“Where are the Labour MPs who understand the data”
Well, I heard that Dianne Abbott is helping the PM put the numbers together to make his charts and graphs.
Ouch !
It’s becoming clear that even if this lockdown lasts the course there will be no tolerance of any more.
This may well be seen as the biggest act of national self harm ever.
Nah – the biggest act of national self harm was not appointing Brian Clough as England manager.
Made me smile!
I see what you have done there. As long as there is football and coronation street on tv, the sheeple will go along with it all.
No, it was making David Beckham England team captain. It is forgotten that, on his own admission, he deliberately got himself sent off to avoid an away game in one of the Stans.
“It’s becoming clear that even if this lockdown lasts the course there will be no tolerance of any more.” Not clear to me! Rather the opposite. If a hard core gambler loses every penny they have would you say they would have no tolerance for gambling ever again? Because I would guess they would be off trying to borrow against their house to try and get square at the table again.
Just imposing the first lockdown seemed crazy to me, and then every month doubling down on that bad bet, and again, and again, and now they are doing the biggest doubling down yet! I see no reason to think they will be able to stop themselves.
Since the hard lockdown in Wales, their Covid infections/cases have increased substantially.
Well, yes, that’s what happens if you lock people up in enclosed spaces. As with anything that any government does, across the world, lockdowns will only make things worse.
You make a good point. If they try to legislate for an extension the tory party will revolt and its a ruthless organisation when it turns as many former PM’s know. The opposition may well help it through so yes you may be right.
Has the Labour party lost sight of the people it is supposed to support? (if they hadn’t already) The most exposed people to the harms of lockdowns are the low paid, the manual worker or service industry worker who can’t work from home and the disadvantaged. We know they make poor people poorer.
The level of compliance however especially in December may be difficult to manage.
Where is the government’s report on the likely economic impact of lockdowns?
Hidden away no doubt. The ORR ( Rail Regulator) has some real hard numbers on the rail meltdown and they are horrifying.
Wales and Borders down to 4.5 % pre lockdown . Scotrail down to 5 %. Passenger numbers back to mid 19th centurt levels.
All the gains of the last 30 years wiped out. The network is bankrupt and has no chance of recovery any time soon. All that investment gone up in smoke. To go on with HS2 is lunacy.
In reality we should be look at closing 90% of the network. No lines in Scotland or Wales or west of Bristol . No East Coast line at all.
This is the logic of the numbers. And this is just one industry, The same devastation is everywhere and the government will not publish the figures. Shipping? Retail ? Hospitality ? Tourism? All dying and all defunct in reality.
No wonder Johnson looks worried. 60 plus million people in a small country without work, money and seriously depressed. What does he think about at 4 AM?
Dave, something very odd is happening here in USA. I bought some plywood for a job, what was $14 in spring was $26 now! PVC Sewer line $14, now $24! I ask at the lumber yard and the only thing I have heard is social distancing at the plants making it cut production. But they are not crowded in those! It is not shoulder to shoulder work like a chicken abattoir, yet chicken has not gone up at all.
Building materials like those tend to be global commodity priced. There is a residential building boom going on here right now, which amazes me, but those could be back ordered houses. Wiring seems to not have done this, nor paint. I was to start a big project in the new year but it would not be affordable, so why? Are any other commodity prices acting odd?
A friend of mine runs a housing association. He told me a similar thing, that the prices of timber and building items are rising very fast. He assumed it was associated with problems of supply now because of covid, plus post-Brexit.
My understanding from various WSJ articles is that, at least in the U.S., some sawmills were temporarily closed earlier in the year due to COVID concerns. Right now, though, it’s a demand story, not a supply story.
Production levels have been back to normal for several months, though the impact of earlier closures cut into inventory. Demand has boomed due to everything from people doing DIY projects during stay-at-home orders to strong housing starts to restaurants adding outdoor seating areas.
The Baroness is a hero and a beacon of integrity,courage and intelligence. She is speaking for those she has been tasked to serve. History will prove she is on the right side of truth and humanity.
But why so few voices like hers? The evidence of moral and intellectual bankruptcy is terrifying.
Perhaps if there was an opposition party in parliament worthy of the name, we might get some of the answers. Sadly, Starmer is a lily-livered, spineless jellyfish of a man whose only criticism of the lockdown is that it didn’t come soon enough and should have been stricter.
The Democrats appear to have won the Presidency on using C-19 as the excuse to drive the economy into the ground. Presumably Labour’s strategy too.
Helena Morrissey is quite correct. By Government however she should mean both Ministers and the Civil Service. Even if they had the experience, Ministers don’t have the time to draw up spreadsheets etc. (Nor do CEOs spend their time preparing graphs on Excel; they have staff to do that for them). Ministers have to rely on Civil Servants. The question to ask is whether these people are capable of doing their jobs. My suspicion is that Blair’s politicisation of the Civil Service has taken 20 years to bear its rotten fruit.
Making sure that I understand the situation from the U.S. – a new lockdown in England started as of November 5?
From what I see at the UK govt coronavirus stats site, daily COVID hospital admissions (across all the UK, not just England) had leveled off a full week before that, at roughly half of the spring peak.
Well, yes, but I could have told you that in March. Can I have a seat in House of Frauds?
Let’s face it … Boris panicked. Last Thursday I saw Dominic Raab insisting that the tiered lockdown framework was the best way to curb the spread of the virus and on Friday we hear that we are going into total lockdown. We had a hunch that Boris was good as a front man but poor at strategy and detail, but his handling of this pandemic has been poor and justified the label. Good for after dinner speaking but not so good at running a country. Just when we need a technocrat with a tough edge, we get him. And you think it’s bad now ? Just wait when we have queues of lorries at Dover in the New Year !!
This lockdown is not supported by data or science and it is accepted that colossal harm, much in excess than lives saved, will be done to Britain’s physical,mental and economic health.
So one has to ask what is really driving this? Perhaps it’s time to listen to Piers and some of the conspirasists? Maybe not so far fetched after all. No one else has come up with a better explanation.
The Coronavirus had already peaked and was plateauing when Boris Johnson introduced the 4 week lockdown on 5th November. This proves that the previous 3 Tier system was working and only needed to be extended.
We do not know the results of the vaccine trial yet but we do know that they had to recruit 44,000 people in order to get 94 symptomatic infections. As half of these 44,000 people were given the vaccine and if we assume that 6 or 7 of the vaccinated people got infected (90% efficacy) that means of the 22,000 that were not given the vaccine less than 90 (0.4%) got symptomatic infections (probably nobody died but I do not know). Quite clearly, we only need to vaccinate the vulnerable and those under the age of 60 (or conservatively 50).
Our conservative government could save face by welcoming the vaccine as a way of saving our elderly and vulnerable population and shortening the lockdown to a 2 week firebreak which might be an appropriate face-saving compromise over the disastrous decision to introduce a 4 week lockdown (and becoming obviously disastrous) and the need to limit damage to our economy and quality of life.
Obviously, the scientific and medical advisors to COBRA can also take the blame and be sacked!