Cabinet Coup Stopped Boris Cancelling Christmas

Boris deserves little credit for the decision not to impose tighter Covid restrictions over Christmas. On the contrary, he was planning to do the bidding of SAGE hysterics until an intervention by David Frost, Rishi Sunak and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Mail on Sunday has more.

Boris Johnson was forced to abandon his plans to cancel Christmas after a revolt by furious Cabinet colleagues who warned that the idea was “insane”, anti-lockdown Ministers have told the Mail on Sunday.

They described how a three-pronged attack by former Brexit Minister David Frost, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg forced the Prime Minister to ignore demands by his scientific advisers for families to be banned from mixing over the festive period.

Their account of how close the country came to another lockdown in December can be revealed now for the first time, at the end of a week in which the Cabinet’s anti-restriction Ministers have been vindicated.

Plan B restrictions such as compulsory face masks in indoor venues have now been lifted in England and new economic data predicts the UK will have the fastest growth of any of the world’s leading economies this year.

Allies of Mr Johnson contest the claims that the PM was determined to lock down the country, insisting that he kept an open mind throughout the discussions.

But other insiders have painted a detailed picture of how political pressure from Cabinet colleagues ultimately persuaded him to overrule dire warnings from experts.

The drama started on December 15th when the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, used a press conference to warn that the NHS faced being overwhelmed because of the “absolutely phenomenal pace” at which the new Omicron variant was spreading.

Prof. Whitty also claimed that there would be an “inevitable increase in hospitalisations”, because cases were doubling every two days. Although there was evidence from South Africa, where Omicron had first been identified, that the variant was actually linked to a substantial reduction in the number of patients ending up in hospital, the adviser urged “really serious caution” over those reports.

Prof. Whitty, in tandem with Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and experts on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), stands accused by senior Whitehall figures of taking a selective approach to the data which was emerging at the time.

As one insider said: “When the early evidence from South Africa suggested that Omicron cases were rising dangerously fast, Whitty and the scientists took it seriously, saying ‘the South Africans are very good at data’.”

The actual evidence showed that it wasn’t translating in hospital admissions or into deaths. Despite this, the advice was to lock down.

“But when subsequent data then indicated that rates of hospitalisation and deaths were not increasing, their stance changed: they argued that the data was highly unreliable, and we should look instead at the increase in our own hospitalisation rates.”

The anti-lockdown Ministers – known as Covid ‘hawks’ – were particularly angered by Prof Whitty’s advice to limit social mixing in the run-up to Christmas, which they knew would have an immediate impact on the hospitality industry.

When Prof. Whitty made his remarks, Mr. Sunak was 5,000 miles away in California, having flown out the previous day for his first holiday in two years.

Fearing that the Prime Minister would cave in to the scientists and cancel Christmas, the Chancellor rang Mr. Johnson to urge restraint; he then made immediate arrangements to fly back to London.

Mr. Sunak, who has been the most consistent opponent of Covid restrictions since the pandemic first broke out, arrived back in the UK on Friday December 17th.

He went straight in to No 10 to see the Prime Minister, who was, it is claimed, preparing to use a press conference that weekend to impose new restrictions on social interactions.

Worth reading in full.