Of scientists, doctors, economists and politicians

Four years ago it was quite clear which part of the UK political spectrum was advocating listening to "experts" and which was prone to denigrating them.

When quoted in full the infamous comment by Brexiteer Michael Gove about the country having had enough of experts is rather more nuanced and less extreme than it appears in the version more often repeated. But if there had been any doubt of it, his comment comparing a group of Nobel Prize-winning economists, including one of my own teachers, to Nazi collaborators left everyone quite clear on what he thought at the time of economists who don't share his views. (He did apologise for and retract that remark but the damage was done.)

At the start of the Coronavirus crisis, concern was expressed by many of those who were not fans of Boris Johnson, especially those on the left and those who had been on the Remain side of the argument, that he and members of his government who had not paid as much attention as they thought he should to the views of Economists would similarly fail to pay attention to the views of doctors and of scientists such as epidemiologists.

Not only is this not how it has worked out, some of the very people who previously accused Boris Johnson and Michael Gove of not paying enough attention to economic experts are now accusing them of paying too much attention to medical and epidemiological ones.

I linked in another post today to Dan Hodges' article

"The inconvenient truth for Boris’s critics is that he did follow the science – and it’s working."

But Dan is far from being the only person to note this.

As "The Economist" magazine has pointed out,

"Ministers repeatedly emphasised that they were following scientific advice. Minutes from the government’s advisory committee support this:"

The magazine then itself demonstrated how positions have shifted on whether to listen to "experts" by continuing:

"Experts were not considering a complete lockdown, which was thought infeasible in a country like Britain, and worried about the impact of self-isolation. The concern is that scientists were trying to act like politicians (in judging what would be acceptable to a prime minister suspicious of government intrusion) and the politicians were trying to act like scientists (by doing exactly as the scientists instructed)."

In yesterday's Times arch Remain supporter Matthew Parris made a similar set of comments, pointing out with some justification that one should not refer to "The" science when science covers a multiplicity of disciplines and when on current issues like Coronavirus and how to deal with it there are scientists with a variety of views.

He went on to appear to infer that the government was paying too much attention to doctors and epidemiologists and not enough to business people and economists.

As write this the government have just been quoted on the BBC as saying that we must move "very carefully" and I think that has to be right.

We can't keep the lockdown in place forever but we have to take extreme care as we relax it. You can bet your life that some of the same people who are now calling for an "exit strategy" or for an end to lockdown will be quick to blame the government for every death after they do relax it should infections and deaths spike up again.

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