Cummings and goings...
Discussion
Red 4 said:
The "Mayor of Jaws" label relates to Johnson's attitude towards Lockdown 2.
The advice from SAGE (in September) was to lock down. Regional lockdown were not working. Johnson ignored that advice and actively sought counsel from anti-lockdown protagonists. He was looking for confirmation bias.
The second wave killed more than the first but feel free to add your mitigation to Johnson's shambolic handling of the crisis, Tuna.
Given that the topic of conversation was the rules regarding PPE provision, I think you're jumping in with both feet to suggest I'm defending Boris' handling of the September lockdown.The advice from SAGE (in September) was to lock down. Regional lockdown were not working. Johnson ignored that advice and actively sought counsel from anti-lockdown protagonists. He was looking for confirmation bias.
The second wave killed more than the first but feel free to add your mitigation to Johnson's shambolic handling of the crisis, Tuna.
But by all means use that strawman if you want to.
Tuna said:
Red 4 said:
The "Mayor of Jaws" label relates to Johnson's attitude towards Lockdown 2.
The advice from SAGE (in September) was to lock down. Regional lockdown were not working. Johnson ignored that advice and actively sought counsel from anti-lockdown protagonists. He was looking for confirmation bias.
The second wave killed more than the first but feel free to add your mitigation to Johnson's shambolic handling of the crisis, Tuna.
Given that the topic of conversation was the rules regarding PPE provision, I think you're jumping in with both feet to suggest I'm defending Boris' handling of the September lockdown.The advice from SAGE (in September) was to lock down. Regional lockdown were not working. Johnson ignored that advice and actively sought counsel from anti-lockdown protagonists. He was looking for confirmation bias.
The second wave killed more than the first but feel free to add your mitigation to Johnson's shambolic handling of the crisis, Tuna.
But by all means use that strawman if you want to.
The point is that he did not learn his lessons from the start of the pandemic and Lockdown 1. There is no strawman there. He undoubtedly made things worse and I would go so far as to say that he is responsible - personally - for deaths.
Cummings is on record. Perhaps you should refresh your memory.
In any case, you were the one who went off on a tangent.
MarkwG said:
brickwall said:
TL:DR - of course process went out the window. That was the correct decision.
You gotta love those defending procurement processes on here. Convenient failure of memory.
Does anyone remember what those days in early March were like? How fast things were moving? In the space of c10 days went from mass gatherings and free-flowing international travel to lockdown, empty supermarket shelves and rumours of roadblocks in/out of London.
PPE and ventilator shipments were getting intercepted by other countries at transit airports. NHS staff were wearing bin bags as protection. Schools were diverting DT machines to making visors for doctors.
Has anyone had the joy of actually going through government procurement? I did one recently - a few hundred £k. We had to submit >30 different documents. Only one of which was “here is what we will provide”, and a second “we will charge £x”. The rest were versions of “we’re kosher, honest”. Took 4 months.
Forget 4 months - in the early stages of COVID the government needed stuff in 4 hours.
In that period the only thing that mattered was speed.
Price? Irrelevant.
Slight chance it doesn’t turn up? Better that than ensuring it doesn’t turn up by not placing the order.
Happens to be Hancock’s mate? I don’t give a flying f
k if it’s Matt’s mate, Osama Bin Laden, or Donald Duck - if he’s can give me what I need, right now, I’ll take it.
So of course the rules were thrown out. Of course normal processes went out the window. Of course dodgy things slipped through as a result. Money got spaffed up the wall. It it didn’t matter. That was the right choice to make - to prioritise speed over all other things.
The £530k to Our World In Data is a prime example.
1. It was the best open source of internationally comparable data on CV19. A scarce thing, and exceptionally useful.
2. It’s a non-profit, run out of Oxford Uni. It’s a kosher outfit.
3. Skyrocketing demand for its services and data meant it was about to run out of money and would need to shut.
Faced with the above 3 pieces of information, can anyone say the correct response *in March 2020* is “please provide a business case, we’ll evaluate it in a committee, and get back to you?”
No - the obvious answer is to just wire the money. Normal “process” would have got to exactly the same outcome, but with a 2 week delay, having diverted the attention of people who had much more important things to do than evaluate a business case.
Faced with the same choice, I would hope any government would make the same decision again.
Except it didn't have to be that way at all, which is why it wasn't that way for the governments in many other countries - the UK is amongst the worst on the planet for Covid deaths, that's not an accident. Good sound emergency planning should be at the core of the governments responsibilities to the people who elect it - sadly lacking on this occasion, since Johnson removed it. Blaming the rules that he ignored is crass - he wouldn't have followed them anyway, not his style, but in ignoring them, he bears responsibility for the outcome he gets.You gotta love those defending procurement processes on here. Convenient failure of memory.
Does anyone remember what those days in early March were like? How fast things were moving? In the space of c10 days went from mass gatherings and free-flowing international travel to lockdown, empty supermarket shelves and rumours of roadblocks in/out of London.
PPE and ventilator shipments were getting intercepted by other countries at transit airports. NHS staff were wearing bin bags as protection. Schools were diverting DT machines to making visors for doctors.
Has anyone had the joy of actually going through government procurement? I did one recently - a few hundred £k. We had to submit >30 different documents. Only one of which was “here is what we will provide”, and a second “we will charge £x”. The rest were versions of “we’re kosher, honest”. Took 4 months.
Forget 4 months - in the early stages of COVID the government needed stuff in 4 hours.
In that period the only thing that mattered was speed.
Price? Irrelevant.
Slight chance it doesn’t turn up? Better that than ensuring it doesn’t turn up by not placing the order.
Happens to be Hancock’s mate? I don’t give a flying f
k if it’s Matt’s mate, Osama Bin Laden, or Donald Duck - if he’s can give me what I need, right now, I’ll take it.So of course the rules were thrown out. Of course normal processes went out the window. Of course dodgy things slipped through as a result. Money got spaffed up the wall. It it didn’t matter. That was the right choice to make - to prioritise speed over all other things.
The £530k to Our World In Data is a prime example.
1. It was the best open source of internationally comparable data on CV19. A scarce thing, and exceptionally useful.
2. It’s a non-profit, run out of Oxford Uni. It’s a kosher outfit.
3. Skyrocketing demand for its services and data meant it was about to run out of money and would need to shut.
Faced with the above 3 pieces of information, can anyone say the correct response *in March 2020* is “please provide a business case, we’ll evaluate it in a committee, and get back to you?”
No - the obvious answer is to just wire the money. Normal “process” would have got to exactly the same outcome, but with a 2 week delay, having diverted the attention of people who had much more important things to do than evaluate a business case.
Faced with the same choice, I would hope any government would make the same decision again.
Johnson has said how he admired the Mayor of Amity for not closing the beaches as the shark attacks continued; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/europe/co... ; he then shook hands with Covid doctors & patients, giving himself the infection, how ironic & idiotic. In contrast, my former company was triggering contingency plans put in place for just a scenario, back in February - which means the decisions were being taken in January to bring our people back from the Far East & from Continental Europe - no mean feat & at considerable expense, but that's how seriously we took it, having watched the effect of SARS & Bird flu previously. We ran stress tests in the company IT to check it could manage WFH tfn, & those that could, were wfh from early March. Consequently our Covid rates were negligible during the first lockdown, meaning we were able to provide the services needed with no need to panic - I take no credit for that, I only played a very small part, but if we were, why wasn't the government?
They were left to panic because they ignored all the warning signs they were given. Stupid debates about herd immunity, how the UK could "take advantage of the opportunities the pandemic may bring", then the Cheltenham races, & Liverpool vs Madrid, both were warned about, both continued against common sense & consequently brought infected people into the UK, heaping pressure on the NHS. The desperate need for PPE & Covid data was driven by their stupidity, not by bad luck. There's no excuse for that, & no credit for trying to create order from that chaos - they created it in the first place. I'd like to think any government would learn from this & never let it happen again, but I have my doubts. Any government that behaves that way again should be charged with genocide.
Edited by MarkwG on Thursday 24th June 00:56
Desperate need for covid data - how do you get something like this when almost no data exists? There's still lots of discussion about it now, with huge amounts extra data available. It was the scientists at the time talking about herd immunity, because of the lack of data. You clearly have not been involved in large projects where something unexpected happens. You can never plan for all scenarios. A new virus appearing for example in the western world would be very different on procurement of supplies, as we wouldn't have the producers of most of that sort of stuff stopping making it and at the same time using all they can. That's just one possible option in many which would lead to a very different response and way forward.
Probably those using hindsight would have complained about wasting huge sums of money on PPE that was sitting around useless and being thrown out due to not matching the latest regulations etc. until the thing hit.
I work with something that has huge ranges of uncertainties with both big economic and safety impacts. The main thing I've learned from it is despite the very intelligent people involved and the thinking about lots of scenarios is sometimes we get it right, but many times something we didn't expect happens. Then people turn up later and wonder why you hadn't planned for it before as it was obvious. It just so happens to be it wasn't obvious until it happened.
APontus said:
Tuna said:
Cummings had the square root of bugger all to do with Brexit during that stage of the pandemic as far as I'm aware.
Why would you be any more aware of what Cummings was doing day to day than any of us (as in, not at all)?Tuna said:
APontus said:
Tuna said:
Cummings had the square root of bugger all to do with Brexit during that stage of the pandemic as far as I'm aware.
Why would you be any more aware of what Cummings was doing day to day than any of us (as in, not at all)?NRS said:
A few questions - how do you plan for an unpredictable emergency like this, with no data existing before, and almost no data available at the time? If you recommend locking down the country immediately did you post on PH that the country should have been locked down with ebola outbreaks and SARS etc too? Those were outbreaks with almost no data that could have been a repeat of Covid for example.
Desperate need for covid data - how do you get something like this when almost no data exists? There's still lots of discussion about it now, with huge amounts extra data available. It was the scientists at the time talking about herd immunity, because of the lack of data. You clearly have not been involved in large projects where something unexpected happens. You can never plan for all scenarios. A new virus appearing for example in the western world would be very different on procurement of supplies, as we wouldn't have the producers of most of that sort of stuff stopping making it and at the same time using all they can. That's just one possible option in many which would lead to a very different response and way forward.
Probably those using hindsight would have complained about wasting huge sums of money on PPE that was sitting around useless and being thrown out due to not matching the latest regulations etc. until the thing hit.
I work with something that has huge ranges of uncertainties with both big economic and safety impacts. The main thing I've learned from it is despite the very intelligent people involved and the thinking about lots of scenarios is sometimes we get it right, but many times something we didn't expect happens. Then people turn up later and wonder why you hadn't planned for it before as it was obvious. It just so happens to be it wasn't obvious until it happened.
A good post^^^^^^^Desperate need for covid data - how do you get something like this when almost no data exists? There's still lots of discussion about it now, with huge amounts extra data available. It was the scientists at the time talking about herd immunity, because of the lack of data. You clearly have not been involved in large projects where something unexpected happens. You can never plan for all scenarios. A new virus appearing for example in the western world would be very different on procurement of supplies, as we wouldn't have the producers of most of that sort of stuff stopping making it and at the same time using all they can. That's just one possible option in many which would lead to a very different response and way forward.
Probably those using hindsight would have complained about wasting huge sums of money on PPE that was sitting around useless and being thrown out due to not matching the latest regulations etc. until the thing hit.
I work with something that has huge ranges of uncertainties with both big economic and safety impacts. The main thing I've learned from it is despite the very intelligent people involved and the thinking about lots of scenarios is sometimes we get it right, but many times something we didn't expect happens. Then people turn up later and wonder why you hadn't planned for it before as it was obvious. It just so happens to be it wasn't obvious until it happened.
It's all very well the 'Mr Hindsights' saying the govm have done a poor job - but would Mr Hindsight have done better? I think not.
Someone said to me a few weeks ago "It's crazy that we didn't have massive warehouses full of PPE, why were we not ready"? My response (which I don't think he expected was). "So if we had many years' supply of PPE in a warehouse which was wasted because it degraded or rats got in and ran riot through the stock, would you be praising the govm or saying they'd got it wrong?"
It's like haveing 2000 snowploughs in UK just in case we get that 1 in 100 years bad fall of snow - just doesn't make sense. What does make sense (and I think is a useful lesson which has been noted ) is that we need to have nimble resources for redeployment of manufacture in the UK if an emergency happens,
APontus said:
You don't get out of it that easy. You said Cummings had 'bugger all' to do with Brexit during that stage. Now you're admitting you don't know whether he had bugger all to do with it or not. In other words, you made it up.
Seriously? The claim I was responding to was that Cummings 'cancelled' the pandemic response to focus on Brexit - a completely evidence free comment - and you're challenging me to prove my point that there was no evidence of his involvement?You need to loosen your tinfoil hat a little.
Tuna said:
Seriously? The claim I was responding to was that Cummings 'cancelled' the pandemic response to focus on Brexit - a completely evidence free comment - and you're challenging me to prove my point that there was no evidence of his involvement?
You need to loosen your tinfoil hat a little.
I'm challenging you to support your claim that Cummings had nothing to do with Brexit in that period. It's very simple. Can you support it, or did you make it up?You need to loosen your tinfoil hat a little.
Fastpedeller said:
NRS said:
A few questions - how do you plan for an unpredictable emergency like this, with no data existing before, and almost no data available at the time? If you recommend locking down the country immediately did you post on PH that the country should have been locked down with ebola outbreaks and SARS etc too? Those were outbreaks with almost no data that could have been a repeat of Covid for example.
Desperate need for covid data - how do you get something like this when almost no data exists? There's still lots of discussion about it now, with huge amounts extra data available. It was the scientists at the time talking about herd immunity, because of the lack of data. You clearly have not been involved in large projects where something unexpected happens. You can never plan for all scenarios. A new virus appearing for example in the western world would be very different on procurement of supplies, as we wouldn't have the producers of most of that sort of stuff stopping making it and at the same time using all they can. That's just one possible option in many which would lead to a very different response and way forward.
Probably those using hindsight would have complained about wasting huge sums of money on PPE that was sitting around useless and being thrown out due to not matching the latest regulations etc. until the thing hit.
I work with something that has huge ranges of uncertainties with both big economic and safety impacts. The main thing I've learned from it is despite the very intelligent people involved and the thinking about lots of scenarios is sometimes we get it right, but many times something we didn't expect happens. Then people turn up later and wonder why you hadn't planned for it before as it was obvious. It just so happens to be it wasn't obvious until it happened.
A good post^^^^^^^Desperate need for covid data - how do you get something like this when almost no data exists? There's still lots of discussion about it now, with huge amounts extra data available. It was the scientists at the time talking about herd immunity, because of the lack of data. You clearly have not been involved in large projects where something unexpected happens. You can never plan for all scenarios. A new virus appearing for example in the western world would be very different on procurement of supplies, as we wouldn't have the producers of most of that sort of stuff stopping making it and at the same time using all they can. That's just one possible option in many which would lead to a very different response and way forward.
Probably those using hindsight would have complained about wasting huge sums of money on PPE that was sitting around useless and being thrown out due to not matching the latest regulations etc. until the thing hit.
I work with something that has huge ranges of uncertainties with both big economic and safety impacts. The main thing I've learned from it is despite the very intelligent people involved and the thinking about lots of scenarios is sometimes we get it right, but many times something we didn't expect happens. Then people turn up later and wonder why you hadn't planned for it before as it was obvious. It just so happens to be it wasn't obvious until it happened.
It's all very well the 'Mr Hindsights' saying the govm have done a poor job - but would Mr Hindsight have done better? I think not.
Someone said to me a few weeks ago "It's crazy that we didn't have massive warehouses full of PPE, why were we not ready"? My response (which I don't think he expected was). "So if we had many years' supply of PPE in a warehouse which was wasted because it degraded or rats got in and ran riot through the stock, would you be praising the govm or saying they'd got it wrong?"
It's like haveing 2000 snowploughs in UK just in case we get that 1 in 100 years bad fall of snow - just doesn't make sense. What does make sense (and I think is a useful lesson which has been noted ) is that we need to have nimble resources for redeployment of manufacture in the UK if an emergency happens,
Fastpedeller said:
A good post^^^^^^^
It's all very well the 'Mr Hindsights' saying the govm have done a poor job - but would Mr Hindsight have done better? I think not.
Someone said to me a few weeks ago "It's crazy that we didn't have massive warehouses full of PPE, why were we not ready"? My response (which I don't think he expected was). "So if we had many years' supply of PPE in a warehouse which was wasted because it degraded or rats got in and ran riot through the stock, would you be praising the govm or saying they'd got it wrong?"
It's like haveing 2000 snowploughs in UK just in case we get that 1 in 100 years bad fall of snow - just doesn't make sense. What does make sense (and I think is a useful lesson which has been noted ) is that we need to have nimble resources for redeployment of manufacture in the UK if an emergency happens,
The 2000 snow ploughs argument is an easy one. You can’t manufacture them fast enough. So you have to analyse the cost of not having them vs the cost of having them. A part of that cost calculation is political cost - what price a population who feel like their Government is in control?It's all very well the 'Mr Hindsights' saying the govm have done a poor job - but would Mr Hindsight have done better? I think not.
Someone said to me a few weeks ago "It's crazy that we didn't have massive warehouses full of PPE, why were we not ready"? My response (which I don't think he expected was). "So if we had many years' supply of PPE in a warehouse which was wasted because it degraded or rats got in and ran riot through the stock, would you be praising the govm or saying they'd got it wrong?"
It's like haveing 2000 snowploughs in UK just in case we get that 1 in 100 years bad fall of snow - just doesn't make sense. What does make sense (and I think is a useful lesson which has been noted ) is that we need to have nimble resources for redeployment of manufacture in the UK if an emergency happens,
For my money, you buy the snow ploughs. But whatever happens you do the analysis.
Re the warehouses full of PPE, we *used* to do just this. But not a mouldering stockpiling; a first in first out strategic buffer stock. It was deliberately run down not so very long before Covid. We endured all the cost & then scrapped it just before it was useful.
That is the sort of National-scale stuff that only Governments can do. When Governments don’t do it, it erodes our faith in them. We had world-class pandemic preparedness which we *scrapped* shortly before the pandemic. That was shameful.
Regarding nimble manufacturing, yes, we had that too. Unfortunately, Government chose to give PPE contracts to chums with a mate in China instead of giving them to those nimble U.K. manufacturers.
You’re right, you can’t plan for every eventuality. But you can plan for generalities. Or you can wind it all down & hope for the best. How many died, how much must we all now pay, because hope became the strategy?
APontus said:
I'm asking YOU where you got YOUR claim from, Tuna?
I don't know quite what you're struggling with here. Cummings was playing games with his Darpa plans, Covid and all the other stuff. There was a separate team, led by Frost, running the Brexit negotiations. I don't recall any news items, government briefings, or papers produced by Frost's team that referenced Cummings during the negotiations. I said very clearly that this is as far as I'm aware, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.Now, unless you have any evidence to the contrary, that seems to be true, doesn't it? You've had the whole day to find any evidence, and all you've done is repeat the question.
Right on cue
More evidence on how the PM's & Hancock's negligence killed people
https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/more-eviden...
More evidence on how the PM's & Hancock's negligence killed people
https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/more-eviden...
Edited by J210 on Friday 25th June 14:54
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