‘Show us all your scientific advice’

SIR Keir Starmer may well be right to call for a national lockdown, even though not as harsh as the first one, but it is sad that it has come to this.

The government has issued many diktats varying in detail, mostly not very effective and without sharing the scientific advice on which they have been based.

The one about a 10pm curfew for pubs in some places is very puzzling, and has often made matters worse. So why have they not told us their detailed reasoning for these diktats?

The latest revelation about Sage advising a national lockdown three weeks ago suggests they are afraid to share their reasoning because it is not robust enough.

Most of us would understand that it may not be right to follow every piece of scientific advice – the responsibility for decisions rests with the government, not the scientists. But we should have been told what is going on – even Parliament does not know.

One of the key mistakes is their arrogant attitude that local authorities should not be involved in decisions, except for a bit of consultation about implementing the diktats.

Local leaders complained for many months that government had not allowed them to see the local data, and worst of all is the government’s performance on testing, tracking and tracing.

Way back in April on Newsnight, a former government adviser pointed out the urgent need to use local authority environmental health officers to implement track and trace, and local public health leaders to organise testing.

Other experts have repeated that, citing evidence from other countries that it works better than a centralised system.

At long last the government has realised how overcentralised our government is, and have now produced a report on local government re-organisation. Yet should that be a priority for civil servants’ time in a crisis?

The Local Government Information Unit produced a report on October 9, saying that this re-organisation is ‘blinkered and badly timed’.

It could have waited until we were truly easing our way out of the pandemic.

NIGEL JONES NEWCASTLE