He said that in one meeting he tried to express his misgivings about closing schools, adding: “I was very emotional about it. I was like, “Forget the economy. Surely we can all agree that not having kids go to school is a big nightmare,” or something like that. “There was a long silence afterwards. It was the first time anyone had said that. I was so furious.” The self-described “outsider” in the race to become the next prime minister explained how minutes from Sage meetings were edited so that dissenting voices were not included in the final draft. “The Sages didn’t realize for a long time that there was a Treasury person on all their calls. A beautiful lady. She was great because it meant she would sit there and listen to their conversations,” he said. He said the Treasury official was able to brief him on what was said in the meetings but omitted from the minutes, including disagreements with a conclusion or why people were unsure about it. Mr Sunak recalled the moment Professor Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London presented their Report 9, which claimed that the death toll from Covid could reach 500,000 if no action was taken, but would be reduced to 20,000 with lockdown. But he said any discussions about the cost of imposing such draconian measures on society were suppressed. Mr. Sunak also said he regretted the messages of fear that his officials believed at the time could have long-lasting effects. “In every brief, we tried to say, ‘Let’s stop the fear,’” he said. “It was always wrong from the start. I kept saying it was wrong.” He revealed that the closest he came to defying the government’s messages was a speech he gave in September 2020 in which he said it was time to learn to “live without fear”. He said he chose to use that phrase in direct response to the Cabinet’s approach, adding: “They were very upset about it.”
