UK politics live: Sajid Javid says ‘too early to know’ the lessons that can be learned from Covid crisis
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Version 0 of 13. Latest updates: health secretary says he is ‘sorry for the loss people have suffered’ but does not say what government could learn At the Royal College of General Practitioners’s annual conference Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, is taking part in a panel discussion now. Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the RCGP, is interviewing him. Whitty says polling show doctors have regained their place as the most trusted profession. He tells the audience that when people say that, they are thinking of GPs - “you” in the audience. Good morning. On Tuesday morning, following the publication of a parliamentary report describing the government’s early handling of the coronavirus pandemic was one of the worst public health failures in UK history, the minister doing the morning interview round on behalf of No 10, Steve Barclay, refused to apologise. It did not look good, and sincee then the line has changed. Oliver Dowden, the Conservative party co-chair, did say sorry on Wednesday, and Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has been using the same language in his interview round on Thursday. This is what he told the Today programme: But saying you are sorry about something is not an actual apology, which requires you to say you are sorry for something you did, and this was made clear when Today’s Martha Kearney asked Javid to explain what he was apologising for. Astonishingly, Javid could not say what lessons the government has learnt from the Covid crisis. This is how the exchange went. This is surprising because there is near consensus in the medical and scientific community about multiple lessons that can clearly be learnt from the governemnt’s handling of the pandmic. A good starting point was the report published on Tuesday (which was not over-harsh on the government), although Javid also told Today he had not read it in full yet. Here is the agenda for the day. 9.30am: The latest NHS England waiting time figures are published. Around 9.30am: Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, speaks to the Royal College of General Practitioners’ annual conference. 10am: Lord Goldsmith, the environment minister, gives evidence to a Lords committee about the contributions being made by government departments to the success of Cop 26. 11.30am: Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, is expected to respond to a private notice question in the Lords about the Northern Ireland protocol. 12pm: Peers debate the problems facing social care. And Sir Keir Starmer is on a visit to a steel plant today to highlight the problems faced by energy intensive industries. I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone. If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow. Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com |