{"id":206259,"date":"2020-04-25T09:39:17","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T09:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=206259"},"modified":"2020-04-29T05:32:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T05:32:00","slug":"ministers-facing-calls-for-more-openness-over-covid-19-scientific-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=206259","title":{"rendered":"Ministers facing calls for more openness over Covid-19 scientific advice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction \u2013 April 25, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Dominic Cummings (right). Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

It now transpires that Boris Johnson\u2019s top political aide attended meetings of a key scientific group that gave advice on how to deal with Covid-19. Raising questions over how impartial and objective the advice being given to Boris Johnson on how to deal with the crisis actually is.<\/h5>\n
So why was the prime minister\u2019s top aide, Dominic Cummings sitting in on meetings that decided on the \u201cscientific\u201d advice given to Boris Johnson? Was he there to get an insight into how the advice could be best exploited politically?<\/h5>\n
The membership of the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) is secret but according to the Guardian<\/span><\/a>, Cummings has been attending its meeting since February. That\u2019s weeks before the lockdown was imposed.<\/h5>\n
According to Downing Street political aides have \u201cno role” in compiling scientific advice given to Boris Johnson on Covid-19 and Cummings only attended the meeting to gain a better understanding of the science involved.<\/h5>\n
However, the government\u2019s former chief scientific adviser Sir David King said he was \u201cshocked\u201d to hear there were political advisers on Sage.<\/h5>\n
\u201cIf you are giving science advice, your advice should be free of any political bias,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is just so critically important.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Told that Cummings was in the 23 March meeting, King replied: \u201cOh my goodness. Isn\u2019t this maybe why they don\u2019t want us to know who was there?\u201d<\/h5>\n
Other former members of Sage also said they could not recall political appointees being on previous committees. David Lidington, a former Cabinet Office minister and de facto deputy to Theresa May when she was prime minister, said: \u201cI\u2019m not aware of any minister or special adviser, certainly not in Theresa May\u2019s time, ever having been involved in the scientific advisory panels.\u201d (The Guardian<\/a><\/span>)<\/h5>\n
We reserve judgement and leave readers to decide whether Cummings was simply trying to get a better understanding, or gain an insight into how the advice could be tailored and exploited politically?<\/h5>\n

Ministers facing calls for more openness over Covid-19 scientific advice<\/h1>\n

ITN \u2013 April 25, 2020<\/h2>\n

The Government is facing calls for greater transparency over the scientific advice given to ministers on the coronavirus outbreak.<\/span><\/p>\n

Downing Street angrily dismissed claims the advice could be politicised following the disclosure Boris Johnson\u2019s top aide Dominic Cummings had been attending meetings of a key scientific group.<\/span><\/p>\n

Opposition parties, however, said political advisers had no business attending the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and called for its deliberations to be opened to wider scrutiny.<\/span><\/p>\n

The row came as the coronavirus lockdown was entering its fifth weekend with fears that the expected warm weather for much of the country may see people ignoring social distancing rules.<\/span><\/p>\n

More than 19,000 people have now died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK, with many more deaths expected in care homes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it emerged that talks have been taking place between ministers and the Premier League on re-starting the football season once the Government decides the conditions for easing the lockdown have been met.<\/span><\/p>\n

The controversy over Sage \u2013 which will advise ministers on the lifting of the restrictions \u2013 came after The Guardian reported that Mr Cummings and Ben Warner, a data scientist who worked with him on the Vote Leave campaign in the Brexit referendum, had been present at Sage meetings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Downing Street denied they were members of the group and said they were simply seeking to better understand the science involved and how it could inform government decision-making.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSage provides independent scientific advice to the government. Political advisers have no role in this,\u201d a No 10 spokesman said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe scientists on Sage are among the most eminent in their fields. It is factually wrong and damaging to sensible public debate to imply their advice is affected by government advisers listening to discussions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPublic confidence in the media has collapsed during this emergency partly because of ludicrous stories such as this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

However, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the disclosure raised \u201csignificant questions\u201d about the credibility of Government decision-making.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDominic Cummings has no place on the Government\u2019s scientific advisory group on the coronavirus,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a political adviser, not a medical or scientific expert. If the public are to have confidence in the Sage, the Government must make clear Dominic Cummings can no longer participate or attend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe also need full transparency on who is attending meeting of Sage what is being discussed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has been in talks with the governing bodies of a number of major sports, with football expected to be the first to get the green light to resume matches behind closed door.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is understood that detailed discussions have been taking place with medical officials from Public Health England on the criteria that would have to be met for games to go ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Political aide attended scientifc meeting to decide what advice was given on Covid-19. Raising questions over how “scientific” the advice was? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":194122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Behind_The_News","category-coronavirus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=206259"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206309,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206259\/revisions\/206309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/194122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=206259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=206259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=206259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}