Westminster is rife with ‘entitlement syndrome’. During Covid it cost lives

‘Those with entitlement syndrome can challenge others, but are affronted when they face challenges themselves. as Dominic Cummings’ messages showed.’ Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters

In her evidence to the Covid-19 inquiry, the former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara said that the narrow backgrounds of both ministers and civil servants meant they were taking decisions for the whole country without a real sense of the wider public’s lives. She highlighted a lack of recognition of the inequalities that vulnerable and disadvantaged people face, alongside “superhero” egos and “nuclear levels” of confidence on the part of the decision-makers.

I recognised those points from my time in government, and I had a name for it: entitlement syndrome.