His speech now confirms much of what many suspected. That the culture of fear, seen in the Orwellian propaganda that tried to terrorize the country, was implemented within the government. Challenging the lockdown, even in ministerial meetings, was seen as an attack on the Prime Minister’s authority. Asking even basic questions – about how many extra cancer deaths there might be, for example – risked coming across as one of the wranglers, the ‘Cov-idiots’, the people who wanted to ‘let the virus run wild’ . Hysteria had taken hold in the heart of Whitehall. The lockdown, says Sunak, was always a political decision, but No 10 wanted to dress it up as “following the science”. This meant elevating the sprawling Sage Commission to the status of a mini-government: don’t blame us, ministers liked to say, we’re just following the best scientific advice. For this reason, there was never an economic or social version of the Sage: a policy of seeing no evil was implemented. Which worked, until the aftershock of the lockdown began – with the evil there for all to see. This matters because it is not about the Tory leadership. Sunak has almost no chance: the race is almost over with the most votes. Polls show Liz Truss leading by two to one. Nor is it about settling the score: Sunak spoke to me on the condition that he was not going to name “the guilty”. He agreed to talk about the process (or lack thereof) because he believes that honesty will help correct mistakes for next time. Importantly, I suspect Sunak will be the first of many to speak out. As a Cabinet minister told me yesterday: “It wasn’t just Rishi. I needed my own network of spies to find out what was going on in the lockdown, because we were never told.” If this was the case, if there was no proper Cabinet scrutiny, if it is true that no overall cost-benefit analysis of the lockdown was ever seriously attempted, it shows a breakdown in the basic rules of government. At a time when high standards and rigorous analysis were most required. Maybe my nameless cabinet member will go on the record because the mood has cooled. Once, the dissenters of the lockdown were attacked – not only on social media, but by the government and its proxies in a manner reminiscent of Orbán’s Hungary. At one point Neil O’Brien, a Tory MP, set up a website to attack scientists who criticize the government. Today, it is hard to find anyone who defends the lockdown – given what we know about the exchanges. Gavin Williamson, for example, is blamed for canceling England’s Tests – with disastrous results. But what is his story? Was this really his personal decision or did he follow it? Was he presented with a Sage type “people will die” document which, if properly investigated, would turn out to be more rubbish than what the fear factory had become? What do scientists advise about March 2020’s now infamous Cheltenham races: have ministers been told to cancel? Or did the scientists say: Covid schmovid, go ahead? This matters because this point shows how much “science” was not really that. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance began by advising ministers not to lock down, saying public events were fine and face masks were pointless. They were talking about herd immunity as a way out. Then they completely overturned. But this reveals something crucial: the lockdown was never backed by science. It was about models and assumptions, educated guesses. It was driven by mood, emotion, fear – and, worst of all, politics masquerading as science. This is part of Sunak’s point. It doesn’t say the lock was a mistake. It’s just that, somehow, a silly idea, botched by scientists, became a national imperative whose necessity was indisputable scientific truth. So we have to ask: was the message of fear really necessary? Why were No 10 aliens sent to wild dissenting scientists? Why did Sunak feel, as he told me, that he was seen – even within government – as a callous money grabber when he raised even basic concerns? The revelations should start a major debunking of the lockdown myth, its pseudoscientific sheen stripped away and the shocking political abuse left exposed. Were Sage’s minutes falsified, with the dissent deleted? If Sage’s “scenarios” were cooked up with fundamentally wrong assumptions, we need to know, because that would mean the lockdowns were imposed or extended on a false assumption. An assumption that could have been exposed as false if there had been rudimentary transparency or proper scrutiny. It’s not just a virus. An authoritarian streak took over government and defeated a weak Prime Minister – and did so because our democratic safeguards failed. It should have been impossible to adopt policies of such enormous consequence without the strictest control. So many lives were at stake that any lockdown hypothesis would have to be broken down to see if it was correct. It should have been impossible for the government to suspend such control for more than a few weeks. I suspect that this authoritarian reflex is hard-wired into our system, ready to be triggered again. Life, after all, is easier without opposition, so if there are tools to stop it, we can expect them to be seized. If a flu virus comes out of Australia or a new variant of Covid emerges, there will be calls to shut down the country. But in the next crisis, we must protect transparency, debate, cabinet government and red team (ie, opposition) analysis of any science presented to government. Sunak doesn’t sound like a man who expects to end up at No 10. He said earlier this week that he would rather lose by being honest with people than win by telling half-truths. Opening the lockdown may not save or even help his campaign. But his honesty has provided important insights into one of the most important stories of our time – and one that is just beginning to be told.
