\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>hat number will stay fixed for ever in public memory: 23,000 people died because Boris Johnson resisted locking the country down in time. As Covid swept in, and with horrific images of Italian temporary morgues in tents, he went on holiday and took no calls. With the NHS bracing to be \u201coverwhelmed\u201d by the virus, he rode his new motorbike, walked his dog and hosted friends at Chevening.<\/p>\n Nothing is surprising about that: he was ejected from Downing Street and later stepped down as an MP largely for partying and lying to parliament about it. Everyone knew he was a self-aggrandising fantasist with a \u201ctoxic and chaotic culture\u201d around him. But this is not just about one narcissistic politician. It\u2019s about his entire rightwing coterie of libertarians and their lethally dominant creed in the UK media.<\/p>\n They have a long history of rejecting things that save lives \u2013 seatbelts, speed limits, smoking restrictions, sugar taxes, vaccination, benefits, sewers, clean air, the NHS itself and, of course, stopping climate breakdown. Recall that during the 1980s and 1990s, the Sunday Times under the editorship of Andrew Neil promoted the strangest gay plague theory, publishing pieces suggesting that Aids wasn\u2019t caused by HIV, and that it was almost impossible for heterosexual people to contract it. (Neil has said he regrets certain aspects of the paper\u2019s coverage, but does not take personal responsibility for it.)<\/p>\n That anti-science tradition is alive and well today. <\/strong>Lockdowns are the quintessence of everything rightwing science-sceptics abhor: what misfortune that a tribe least equipped to cope was in power during the pandemic. In the circumstances, the interventions from those in charge were \u201ctoo little, too late\u201d. Hard to imagine, but Covid in the UK could have been even more deadly, had unavoidable facts about the pandemic not eventually overwhelmed their fact-free ideologies.<\/p>\n Naturally, lockdown sceptics are out in force to demolish the <\/strong>latest module of the Covid report chaired by Heather <\/strong>Hallett, the former high court judge appointed by Boris Johnson. From the start they had proclaimed lockdowns worse than pointless. On the recent fifth anniversary of the first lockdown, they were contesting who denounced it first: Daniel Hannan in the Sunday Telegraph boasted he was the only one to \u201cstand in the way of a stampede\u201d. \u201cWhat the hell were we thinking? Five years ago, we were sliding towards the most expensive mistake ever made by a British government, a mistake that led to our financial ruin, the annihilation of our basic freedoms and the obliteration of public trust,\u201d he went on.<\/p>\n Toby Young in the Spectator dashed to outdo Hannan: \u201cI\u2019m happy to name myself as one of the first journalists to oppose the lockdown policy, along with Peter Hitchens, Allison Pearson, Ross Clark, Julia Hartley-Brewer and a handful of others.\u201d The Daily Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Express and Spectator, joined mid-pandemic by GB News, were among those who kept the extremist libertarian flag flying, with no relenting since. The public needs reminding constantly of those 23,000 deaths, as Nigel Farage and Richard Tice were among lockdown\u2019s fiercest opponents, hastily rebranding their Brexit party as Reform UK to campaign against all restrictions. None of this can be called \u201cpopulist\u201d: the public always favours precaution, as they did in lockdown.<\/p>\n Now with this report, virulent attacks by this cadre rain down on Hallett\u2019s statistics <\/strong>and reasoning. The Telegraph contests the numbers. Toby Young\u2019s outlet, the Daily Sceptic (successor to his Lockdown Sceptics blog), is on the attack. Shamefully, Johnson himself smeared the inquiry that he himself complied with as \u201chopelessly incoherent\u201d, in the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n Maybe 23,000 is too many or not enough: but it\u2019s an informed estimate. Sweden is the country constantly quoted by the right, as it relied entirely on a voluntary advisory approach, never compulsory lockdowns. In terms of deaths per capita, many fewer Swedes died than Britons: case proven? Hallett trounced? Alas, we are not Sweden in social structure, national wealth, vulnerable deprivation, health or social care, mainly due to the longterm malign influence of the right fighting tooth and claw against Swedish-style social democracy. But here\u2019s the most telling research, comparing the socially and economically similar Norway with Sweden. Norway implemented lockdowns while Sweden refused. Many more died per million in Sweden (2,759) than in Norway (1,050).<\/p>\n The precautionary principle, putting safety first when the science is uncertain, is as alien to these ideologues as risk registers. To them, safeguarding regulations and public protections are comical, while officials who shield society are laughable blobs and plods. Johnson took a witty swipe at me back in 2006 exemplifying the great chasm between our sides. He said that I incarnate \u201call the nannying, high-taxing, high-spending schoolmarminess of Blair\u2019s Britain\u201d as \u201cthe high-priestess of our paranoid, mollycoddled, risk-averse, airbagged, booster-seated culture of political correctness and \u2018elf\u2019n\u2019safety fascism\u2019\u201d. Fair enough and funnily enough, I wear the badge with pride; public wellbeing is a serious matter.<\/p>\n Johnson and his world were never serious: they play games and affect jocular mannerisms because they don\u2019t actually believe in government. Brexit was another of their political games, with direst consequences. The report quotes Johnson saying, \u201clet the bodies pile high\u201d at the prospect of large numbers dying in care homes (he has denied saying it). More than 45,000 of them did indeed die, as hospitals tipped untested patients into care home beds.<\/p>\n That was an outrageously flippant and deeply revealing attitude, so objectionable that it instantly shuts down discussion. His faction are using their own bogus figures to reject Hallett\u2019s and \u201cprove\u201d lockdowns don\u2019t save lives, as so often decadently rejecting majority scientific opinion.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Matters of Opinion<\/span><\/p>\n Guardian columnists and writers on what they\u2019ve been debating, thinking about, reading, and more<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n But their outrageous attacks shouldn\u2019t deter a deep debate on the far more difficult question: was the mighty cost of lockdowns and government recompense to business and individuals worth the number of (mostly elderly) lives saved? How many QALYs \u2013 quality adjusted life years \u2013 ie years of good quality, were preserved and at what price?<\/p>\n Bereaved families are painfully clear in their view. But the gigantic cost has to be weighed in the balance, estimated by the House of Commons library at \u00a3310bn to \u00a3410bn. A Benthamite felicific calculus seeking the greatest good for the greatest number might compute how many more lives could be saved one way or another, how much more happiness could be created and unhappiness avoided if the chancellor now had that vast extra sum for her budget this week.<\/p>\n Understandably people are torn by such questions. It\u2019s not easy, but it needs serious thought that will never be had from these extremist dilettantes. Future modules of Hallett\u2019s inquiry will look at the terrible harm done by keeping children out of school for extended periods; leaving old people to die alone; domestic violence; loneliness; and the crippling blow to the economy, commerce and public services. Those life and death trade-offs need to be faced truthfully in the next pandemic. But always beware the deranged right\u2019s predilection for \u201cfreedom\u201d over even the most basic lifesaving health and safety measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" That number will stay fixed for ever in public memory: 23,000 people died because Boris Johnson resisted locking the country down in time. As Covid swept in, and with horrific images of Italian temporary morgues in tents, he went on holiday and took no calls. With the NHS bracing to be \u201coverwhelmed\u201d by the virus,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[3955,1839,5333,11664,357,96,1127,5180,16264,1128],"class_list":{"0":"post-35180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-antiscience","9":"tag-attacks","10":"tag-covid","11":"tag-delusion","12":"tag-inquiry","13":"tag-lost","14":"tag-polly","15":"tag-prove","16":"tag-shameful","17":"tag-toynbee"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}