Rishi Sunak has told the Spectator that Britain’s coronavirus lockdowns, the most important decisions taken by the Boris Johnson government, of which Mr Sunak was such a key member, went too far. The interview shows that you can take the man out of the Treasury, but not take the Treasury out of the man. But it will be music to the ears of many on the right of the Conservative party, not least the Spectator itself, where lockdown scepticism long ago hardened into a dogma of adherence to the true libertarian faith. Nevertheless, Mr Sunak’s claim is not true.
The former chancellor and Tory leadership candidate makes three substantive points, all of them questionable. The first is that the lockdowns went on too long. If anything, the very opposite is true. If the first lockdown, in particular, had come sooner and lasted longer, some of the later damage (including some that was inflicted by Mr Sunak’s own “Eat out to help out” scheme) might have been less severe.
Mr Sunak’s second claim is that the government’s scientific advisers had too much power. That is certainly not what the advisers think or say. Their scientific advice, which offered a consensus from differing views not a rigid doctrine, reflected the reality (then as now) that some things were known about Covid and others unknown. It was ministers who had to decide. Sometimes they followed the science. At other times, they manifestly did not.
The final claim is that ministers should have been more open about the pros and cons. This sounds reasonable, but the reality is that emergency times required emergency measures. The downsides of lockdown were not a secret. But excessive hesitation would have led to more serious cases and deaths and might have overwhelmed the NHS. One sceptic, David Davis, said in parliament in March 2020 that the lockdown was “three-quarters vital and one quarter horrible”. In other words, it had to be done.
Britain’s coronavirus lockdowns were obviously controversial. The powers taken by government under the Coronavirus Act 2020 were draconian. The state was able to control and reorganise people’s lives and work, and to set many traditional freedoms aside. Ministers were given sweeping authority to govern by regulation. This newspaper called from the start for proper parliamentary scrutiny of the powers, for sunset clauses when they would lapse and, later, for a full inquiry into which lessons could be learned.
Nevertheless, the powers were necessary. The country faced an unprecedented health emergency. Cases, hospitalisations and fatalities were all rising fast. The future could not be foretold. After a decade of austerity, Britain was badly prepared. The NHS was stretched to the limit. There was no vaccine for Covid-19. Overwhelmingly, the public responded positively to the sacrifices they were called upon to make. They were right.
The World Health Organization reports that a million people have died of Covid this year. The pandemic was, and continues to be, one of the most difficult threats that this country has ever faced. It challenged individuals, households and communities, and placed immense strain not just on the NHS and care services but also on businesses of every kind. The government, not least Mr Sunak, got some things right. But major blunders were made too.
These are all now being scrutinised in Baroness Hallett’s inquiry. This is potentially the most consequential examination of a tragic national crisis in the modern era. It is an insult to the victims of Covid and their families to pretend, as Mr Johnson does, that he got the big calls right during the pandemic. But the paranoid pretence on the libertarian right, to which Mr Sunak has now lent his support, that the whole lockdown was avoidable and wrong is, if anything, even worse.
