The ruling Conservative Party is choosing a new leader after Johnson was forced to resign when dozens of ministers quit in protest over a series of scandals and blunders. Party members are voting to choose either Sunak or Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who will take over next month. Polls show that Sunak is back in the race. The handling of the pandemic has become an issue, with Truss saying this month she would never authorize another lockdown and also claiming that as trade secretary at the time she was not involved in making key decisions about how to respond. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Sunak said the government was making a “mistake to scare people” about the coronavirus. He said he was barred by officials in Johnson’s office from discussing the “replacements” of imposing coronavirus-related restrictions, such as the impact on missed doctor’s appointments and lengthening waiting lists for health care at the state’s National Health Service. “The script was to never recognize them,” he told Spectator magazine. “The script was, ‘Oh, there’s no trade-off, because doing this for our health is good for the economy.’ Sunak said scientists from the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies, the group that helped tackle the outbreak, were given too much influence by ministers in making decisions such as closing schools and daycares. Sunak said that at the start of the pandemic, when scenarios were presented by scientists about what would happen if lockdowns were not imposed or extended, his requests for the underlying model were ignored. Sunak said it is unfair to blame civil servants because ministers are elected to make decisions. “If you empower all these independent people, you’re screwed,” he said. Sunak himself was widely popular at the start of the pandemic because the then finance minister launched a furlough program that kept many people on the payroll even when lockdowns meant they couldn’t work.
‘VERY EMOTIONAL’
Asked why polls showed the public was looking forward to the country going into lockdown, Sunak said: “We helped shape that: with the messages of fear.” Sunak said it was wrong for the government to publish posters showing patients on ventilators and claimed the Cabinet Office was “very upset” when he gave a speech in September 2020 urging people to “live without fear”. Britain under Johnson was slower than most of its European counterparts to lock down in early 2020. After suffering some of the highest death rates at the start of the pandemic, it later became one of the first major economies to reopen. Asked about Sunak’s remarks, a government spokesman defended her record on COVID, saying the economy and children’s education were central to difficult decisions made during the pandemic. Sunak, who resigned from the Johnson government last month, suggested schools could have stayed open during the pandemic. He said that during a meeting he tried to express his opposition to closing schools, saying he was “very emotional about it”. “There was a lot of silence afterwards,” he said. “It was the first time anyone had said that. I was so furious.” The lockdown “could have been shorter” or taken a “different” approach, he said. A public inquiry looking at the government’s preparedness as well as the public health and economic response to the pandemic is expected to begin receiving data next year. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Reporting by Andrew MacAskill Editing by Kate Holton and Frances Kerry Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
