Chilcot panellist attacks government response

CHILCOT INQUIRY panellist Sir Lawrence Freedman has criticised the UK government’s response to coronavirus as “lacklustre”, adding that it was influenced by a view that the swine flu scare had been overplayed.

Sir Lawrence — Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London — also claimed Prime Minister Boris Johnson “underestimated the speed’’ at which covid-19 would hit the UK.

He added that in the critical week that began on March 9, “we started believing there was time and everything got held up because there was a budget — and a lot of other governments were doing things we weren’t doing.’’

Speaking on BBC Newsnight on Monday, Sir Lawrence said in response to a question from presenter Emily Maitlis about whether a Chilcot-type inquiry was appropriate, “There are lots of lessons that need to be sorted out that can’t wait for a public inquiry.’’

He added: “We need to go right back. One of the problems we had this time was the last big pandemic scare we had with swine flu — the general view was that it had been over-played, there had been too much alarmism.

“We spent too much money trying

Sir Lawrence Freedman

to prepare for something that didn’t happen. Maybe one of the things to watch for us is that maybe we learnt the wrong lessons from that.’’

In 2009 an estimated 540,000 people contracted swine flu in the UK, with the number of deaths at 214 — far fewer than originally feared.

Sir Lawrence added that the relatively limited spread of sars in 2003 might have also suggested to UK leaders that viruses of this type might not become a problem outside the Far East.

Speaking about the “critical week’’ in March, ‘“the response seemed very lacklustre compared with what others were doing.’’

He said the Imperial College study, warning of a need for a tougher lockdown to prevent mass fatalities, left the government “looking like it was following public opinion rather than leading it.’’

There are many lessons… this can’t wait for a public inquiry’