LOL yeah I'm sure there is no way the government are not making policy adjustments based on what's politically expedient at the given moment. I mean, these are top class professional politicians we are talking about - not some rank amateurs.
TBF there are other reasons one or more important person may change their minds at any given moment.
Or alter the emphasis of the briefing.
FWIW, I've always thought 'Science-Led' means as close to fuck all as humanly possible. And a good number of Doctors are absolute grade-A narcissistic cunts with an empathy deficit. I first realised that when I heard the stories of medical students dressing up their cadavers and taking them to the Uni Ball.. In later years, you look at some of what has happened in the name of medicine. And even in the mainstream, couple of years ago I read some absolutely startling letters from senior doctors in, as it happens, The Times, one very lazily postulating that people with real mental health problems were outnumbered dozens to one by malingerers and the work-shy, and the other with some frankly back of the beermat argument as to why another group nearing 5% in our population WOULD have been shed by natural evolution if it wasn't for arranged marriages (I'm laughing now thinking about how shocking his reasoning was). One (very nice guy) GP I chatted to was absolutely categoric that above average narcissism was an essential trait for Doctors to be able to do their job, he wouldn't have survived without it.
I bet you could find hundreds of senior doctors in this country who would happily argue for outright culling - if it was politically acceptable for them to do so (with the GMC and everything). It's not alien to them. It just isn't. But due to the GMC / BMA, there is usually a canonical response to these sorts of situations, the result of considered ethical investigation of the type they don't routinely get into... when there is, they will all follow that. I'm pretty clear that there is no such professionally authorised response in this occassion.
Couple more things.... this Govt have a definite thing for looking lazy and arrogant for effect cos they know the resulting arguments only make the core support even more bloody minded because they can't stant what they see as shrill over-reactions (Rees-Mogg stretching out on the benches anyone?). And they do - already - have a reputation for bullying. I'm perfectly settled with the idea that this guy might have realised things came accross a bit harsh yesterday, maybe was under a little bit of pressure in one way or another. You put a load of clever idiots in an crisis bunker with a lunatic egging them on, and it's easy for them to emerge with a presentation and attitude that might appear to some like the evidence of people appearing to get a little carried away with their 'rational' approach. The answer of course, is that any decision is a balancing act of rationality and acceptibility.
I think it's neccessary to point out that Doctors are in a strange political situation right now. Cummings - who basically is public enemy number one with the teaching profession (the achievement of being hated even MORE than Chris flippin Woodhead is hard to overstate), has widely been percieved as having put them in his sight (along with the BBC). I think it was GMC leader Clare Marx who recently sent her OWN membership a warning to 'stop complaining' about NHS issues and funding or they would lose control and autonomy in the same way Teachers have over the last twenty years. Do you know any GP's, Doctors? They just couldn't ever deal with that sort of thing. Authority and autonomy is the entire point of the gig.
Seriously, if you need to believe everything is rosy and this is the best approach of all in this the best of all possible worlds... I understand, these are uncharted territories, and there isn't an easy answer. But really... you've got to be pretty deaf to other voices to maintain that this is approach is unanswerably, demonstrably correct, and that everyone involved is so immune to any second thoughts, criticism, there's no way they are looking at the response one little bit (given that the public's good faith and continued belief in them is utterly central to the idea working).... that it's all completely and utterly settled and there's absolutely no way that Donald upped the Ante tonight and left our lot looking a bit out of place in having collectively manspread accross the today's front pages.
