Boris Johnson should have challenged scientists harder and put UK into lockdown earlier, says Rory Stewart

Rory Stewart spoke out from late February on tougher restrictions to combat the coronavirus
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Boris Johnson should have “challenged harder” scientific advice and put Britain into lockdown faster, a former Cabinet minister said today.

Rory Stewart was one of the leading voices who spoke out from late February on tougher restrictions to combat the coronavirus.

The former international development secretary believes the Government was acting on advice from scientific and health chiefs, but argued it should have followed the lead of countries such as South Korea which have been more successful in fighting Covid-19.

“The job of politicians is to challenge — and challenge also on the basis of what’s happening in other countries,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“So I think it’s right that they did follow the scientific advice, but I believe that from the end of February they should have been challenging it harder on the basis of what they could see was happening elsewhere in the world.”

With questions being asked about the Government’s handling of coronavirus, one of Mr Johnson’s former supporters said he had predicted a “car crash” of mismanagement at No 10.

Tim Montgomerie said he turned down the offer of a “great project” made to him by the Prime Minister because he felt problems were being stored up.

“I could see the car crash coming and I couldn’t bear to be part of it,” Mr Montgomerie, a former editor of ConservativeHome, wrote in the New Statesman.

He said that in a string of private calls he had urged Mr Johnson to improve the No 10 operation by bringing in outsiders and improve discussion about policies which he had heard was often cut short or overruled by Dominic Cummings.

“All these private calls for a course correction went unheeded,” he wrote.

This year’s Cabinet reshuffle was a key moment in the rot, he said. “It took six years for Margaret Thatcher’s governments to begin to stop listening to alternative voices. The same patterns had emerged within six months of Johnson becoming Prime Minister, and within six weeks of his general election victory last December.”

Amid the row over lockdown timing, Mr Stewart said it was “striking” that by the start of March China and South Korea “had managed to suppress the disease” and other countries were “moving very quickly to do things like shut down schools and shut down transport systems”.

Minutes of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) show it believed on March 13 that it was a near-certainty that countries such as China would suffer a second wave.

However, Mr Stewart argued: “Even if there’s going to be a second peak that doesn’t mean that you don’t move to suppress the first peak. Because if you don’t suppress the first peak you impose intolerable pressures on your health system and you lead to tens of thousands of deaths.”

Mr Stewart, who dealt with the Ebola crisis as a minister, spoke out today after Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London told MPs that “had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half”. It currently stands at around 52,000.

Professor Ferguson added: “Whilst I think the measures, given what we knew about this virus then in terms of its transmission and fatality, were warranted, certainly had we introduced them earlier we would have seen many fewer deaths.”

His modelling of the infection was instrumental in the lockdown being introduced, but he later quit Sage after flouting a social distancing rule.

London during Coronavirus lockdown - In pictures

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Mr Johnson told last night’s No10 press briefing: “There are lots of things, lots of data, things that we still don’t know, and this epidemic has a long way to go, alas.”

Local government minister Simon Clarke this morning rejected claims that the Government had made mistakes in not introducing the lockdown until March 23.

“We acted in good faith on the guidance we received,” he told Sky News. “Everyone can go and look for themselves at the Sage papers… I don’t think for a second that Government failed to listen to our scientists.”

He said the Government had responded in a ”proportionate” way based on guidance, adding: “No government could or would have done otherwise.”

He denied that scientific advisers had made errors, saying: “The truth is Britain was always going to be hugely exposed to this virus… We are a global travel hub.”

Mr Clarke signalled that pub gardens and other parts of the hospitality industry will be allowed to reopen on July 4. He told LBC Radio: “There is real light now at the end of what has been an awfully long tunnel for that sector and we’re all looking forward to that.”

He said the two-metre social distancing rule needed to be maintained “at this point,” adding: “We would love to make progress on this point but we are not yet in a position to do that.”

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