Is he for real? Covid Inquiry

[Brigadier]

I’m not sure a virus cares much about your shared history.

But the politicians do: it (or lack thereof) underpins everything they do.

 

[blup]

What did he expect though, when asking about the "unique problems"?

A commentary on the quality of golf courses, or the fishing, over there?


Like a representative of the Honourable Guild of Restaurateurs taking the hump, when the witness starts to comment on the food........

He has to demonstrate to his paying clients, ordinary folk from both sides of the religious divide or none, that he will come down hard on anything approaching the unnecessary politicising of blame.

Blup

 

[Brigadier]

I didn't think Whitty was blaming anyone; he was answering a direct question.

 

[blup]

I didn't think Whitty was blaming anyone; he was answering a direct question.

Maybe not, but equally it wasn't necessary to analyse the situation by reference to individual political parties given the sensitivity of NI politics.

Blup

 

[Brigadier]

Maybe not, but equally it wasn't necessary to analyse the situation by reference to individual political parties given the sensitivity of NI politics.

Blup

Have you actually listened to what the KC said?

He specifically asked about Sage's recognition of "the unique problems" regarding Ireland.
He then went on to ask - reading out an email from Whitty's NI counterpart - which stated that a UK-wide approach would be less confusing, "notwithstanding the complexity of the politics".
He then went on to say that Whitty must have been aware of the !unique problems".......
And finally, that Whitty was likely aware that any controls would have been complicated by the "shared land border".

All of the above, across less than two minutes.


If the KC wanted to "keep the politics out of it", why did he keep referring to it?


He then - after rebuking Whitty - asked him if he agreed that "the early SAGE minutes contained no references to these difficulties".



Whitty reiterated that SAGE's role was for the science, not the policy.

 

[blup]

The KC was perhaps over sensitive in his comment, for the reasons I mentioned, but there is a difference between the approach of the NI assembly as a whole, and the attitude of individual group within it. Whitty didn't need to mention that.

Blup

 

[Brigadier]

Whitty didn't need to mention that

He didn't; he was directly asked about it.

He also left it as his secondary point (his first being the epidemiology).

And he did state, categorically, that SAGE was for the science.

FWIW, the KC completely undermined his whole point, and proved mine; supposed to be representing victims (dead people), yet getting all ****y about tribal rivalries.