i mean, that is the animating force, really, not some mere principle. we are coming to policy in just a second but when i said you like the whiff of cordite, i was struck by the fact that last summer, you texted members of the covid recovery group with a quote from the great escape. do you remember what you said to them? yes, it is the duty of every officer to try and escape. was it that one? it is the sworn duty of all offices to try to escape. if they cannot escape, it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them and their sworn duty to harass the enemy to the best of their ability. i lljust remind you, when you say the enemy, you were talking about people in your own party in your own government, including the chief scientific adviser and chief. nick, this is humour, and i know humour is always risky, particularly when it is quoted back to you in an interview but look, in the royal air force, whenever you went on an operation or an exerc
to find in the enquiry that a large proportion of deaths resulted from infections in care homes and hospitals, not, for example, amongst young people. so, it might well be that actually, a policy of focused protection might have worked much more successfully without the huge collateral costs of the restrictions that we took, but that remains to be seen. but many of the scientists i speak to say that the delay to the second lockdown, when the prime minister was worried about people like you and your covid recovery group objecting, cost they claim tens of thousands of lives, while there was indecision. and they say, actually, more people died in that period than had died in the first one. do you accept that, what one scientist put to me, that you guys are sometimes interested in politics led evidence, not evidence led policy? no, actually, iwould make the same criticism of them. i mean, let s i desperately don t want to have a row
and i suppose it is rage against injustice and rage against suffering. we talk about the covid stuff, it is not an in principle. the main motivating factor is not just a mere in principle desire to be free, the main motivating factor is people are suffering terribly from the collateral damage from restrictions on them being able to see their wife of 50 years in the care home before she dies is one story. i mean, that is the animating force, really, not some mere principle. we are coming to policy in just a second but when i said you like the whiff of cordite, i was struck by the fact that last summer, you texted members of the covid recovery group with a quote from the great escape. do you remember what you said to them? yes, it is the duty of every officer to try and escape. was it that one? it is the sworn duty of all offices to try to escape. if they cannot escape, it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them
the main motivating factor is notjust a mere in principle desire to be free, the main motivating factor is people are suffering terribly from the collateral damage from restrictions on them being able to see their wife of 50 years in the care home before she dies is one story. i mean, that is the animating force, really, not some mere principle. we are coming to policy in just a second but when i said you like the whiff of cordite, i was struck by the fact that last summer, you texted members of the covid recovery group with a quote from the great escape. do you remember what you said to them? yes, it is the duty of every officer to try and escape. was it that one? it is the sworn duty of all offices to try to escape. if they cannot escape, it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them and their sworn duty to harass the enemy to the best of their ability. i lljust remind you, when you say the enemy, you were talking about people in your o
in care homes? that it s desirable to prevent you sitting on a park bench or going for a walk with a coffee? or, indeed, leaving your house for exercise more than once ina day? i really don t think anyone thinks these things are desirable and if you i think we are going to find in the enquiry that a large proportion of deaths resulted from infections in care homes and hospitals, not, for example, amongst young people. so, it might well be that actually, a policy of focused protection might have worked much more successfully without the huge collateral costs of the restrictions that we took, but that remains to be seen. but many of the scientists i speak to say that the delay to the second lockdown, when the prime minister was worried about people like you and your covid recovery group objecting, cost they claim tens of thousands of lives, while there was indecision. and they say, actually, more people died in that period than had died in the first one.