Andy Richardson: 'Sir Patrick starting to come out of his shell'
The punk icon Johnny Rotten used to have a great line in interviews when talking about the late Sex Pistols manager, Malcolm McLaren.
The impresario was never present at the same parties as Johnny, because he didn’t like the truths that Johnny would have to tell. Like, for instance, Malcolm always being missing on the most important days – like those when band members were due to get paid.
Sir Patrick Vallance is no Johnny Rotten. The UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser is usually dour and business-like, like his bandmate Chris Whitty, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer. It’s interesting, however, to hear what he has to say when he’s not in the company of his manager: one Boris Johnson.
For some months, Sir Patrick has stood beside Mr Johnson at the Downing Street Podium during a series of daily press conference. He’s looked on, seemingly aghast, at some of Mr Johnson’s pronouncements, while he was memorably shut down on questions relating to the lockdown-breaking Special Adviser, Dominic Cummings. Chief Scientific Advisers, presumably, don’t recommend sight tests that involve driving a car.
Now, however, it seems he’s tired of being Mr Johnson’s human shield and as it becomes clear that there’ll be a public inquiry into the Government’s disastrous handling of the pandemic – or, to use its real name, a blame game to assign responsibility for the tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths – he’s starting to come out of his shell.
In evidence to a Commons Science and Technology Committee this week he frequently disagreed with the message of his master.
No, we shouldn’t be returning to offices if we were still able to work from home: why would we, if productivity had not fallen and there remained a high risk of disease transmission? No, we hadn’t been exceptional, or world beating; quite the reverse.
We’d fared badly with too many deaths. No, there ought to be no debate over masks – indeed, Sir Patrick was wearing one to a room containing three people who were all more than 2m away. No, we weren’t ready for a second wave this winter and still didn’t have the testing capacity we needed … all these months on.
Other scientists are warning that a second wave, this winter, will be worse than the first – and that crippled the economy, saw debt rise to more than the value of our economy and caused some 65,000 deaths.
