With mounting scandals and inconsistencies over the Government’s handling of COVID-19, Stephen Colegrave and Peter Jukes have compiled a list of its biggest falsehoods so far
Since the Coronavirus arrived in the UK, Boris Johnson’s Government has often contradicted itself, often within days, from one press conference to the next. Some of these contradictions were half-truths, U-turns on policy, or the result of missed targets. But among these contradictions were lies so big they are symptomatic of an entire populist political project. Here are the ten biggest so far.
Lie 1: The Government Never Pursued ‘Herd Immunity’
Downing Street has denied that ‘herd immunity’ was Government policy. However, on 13 March, the Government’s Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance joined other members of SAGE (the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) and the Behavioural Science Unit by telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the Government’s approach to tackling COVID-19 had the benefit of creating ‘herd immunity’ across the UK.
On the same day, according to Channel 4’s Dispatches, Boris Johnson told the Italian Prime Minister during a phone call that ‘herd immunity’ was the UK Government’s aim. The Italian Health Minister Pierpaolo Sileri said Guiseppe Conte had recounted the conversation to him: “He told me that he’d spoken with Boris Johnson and that they’d also talked about the situation in Italy. I remember he said ‘he told me that he wants herd immunity’.” At the time, up to 500,000 deaths were being forecast in the UK.
Lie 2: The Government Initiated a Speedy Lockdown
At the first Coronavirus COBRA meeting Boris Johnson attended on 2 March, he was told there were already 11,000 COVID-19 infections in the UK and that Imperial College modelling indicated that 250,000 people could die without a severe lockdown. The Government ignored the call for another three weeks
Meanwhile, Imperial College and Oxford University modelling indicates that infections soared to 1.5 million before social distancing measures were introduced.
In the week before lockdown, large events such as the Cheltenham racing festival – attended by 250,000 people over four days – went ahead. On 18 March, Johnson was still prevaricating. When asked when the virus’ epicentre London would be shut down, he said: “We’ve always said that we are going to do the right measures at the right time”.
Lockdown was eventually enforced on 23 March. Statisticians have argued that, if the Government had instituted these measures just seven days earlier, as many as 27,000 deaths could have been avoided.
Lie 3: The UK Wanted to be Part of the EU’s Ventilator Scheme
On 19 March, the Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said that the UK had joined the European Union’s procurement scheme for ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE). He told BBC’s Question Time that the Government had “engaged with that process today”.
However, on 26 March, the Government said it was not part of the scheme because “well, we are no longer members of the EU”. That was amended later the same day by a Downing Street statement that claimed an email inviting the UK to join the scheme had not been received. On 21 April, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office reported to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that “it was a political decision”. That evening, Hancock stated at the daily COVID-19 briefing that there had been no political decision. Later that night, the Permanent Under-Secretary issued a retraction, stating that ministers had not been briefed by the mission in Brussels about the scheme.
Lie 4: 100,000 Tests A Day
On 2 April, Matt Hancock stated that the Government would conduct 100,000 COVID-19 tests a day by the end of April. He said that the 100,000 target was “audacious” but that testing was required to get Britain “back on her feet”.
By the end of April, the Government claimed that it had miraculously reached its target. However, 40,000 of the tests included in its figures had been sent out to people’s homes and not yet taken. Soon after, official testing numbers dropped below 100,000.
In July, the Government quietly published fig