Explosive Covid testimony can hardly harm Rishi Sunak further

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Good morning. What impact will the coronavirus inquiry have on Rishi Sunak? That’s a question that often pops up in my inbox. Some thoughts on that topic below.

Contradictory speaking

A big day at the Covid-19 inquiry yesterday. It was shown the diaries of Patrick Vallance, who was chief scientific adviser during the pandemic. The significant part in terms of the government’s conduct is Vallance’s statement that Boris Johnson was “bamboozled” and “confused” by the data that was presented to him and struggled to grasp it, while central government was unable to get accurate information about the state of the NHS.

These are the big policy lessons from yesterday, though several ministers will say privately (and not, I think, wholly unreasonably) that both problems have been solved by the removal of Johnson as prime minister and the introduction of data analytics group Palantir, which many in government credit for helping fix advisers’ difficulties in getting updated figures on the NHS. (I wrote about this in my column back in February, and as Denis Campbell reveals over at the Guardian the US group is to be handed another big contract handling NHS England’s data this week.)

But the most explosive part in terms of British politics was surely Vallance’s evidence about Rishi Sunak. There are two big things here. First, the former chief scientific adviser told the trial that he would be “very surprised” if Sunak had not known that his Eat Out To Help Out scheme would increase the risk of people catching Covid-19.

The second is an extract from Vallance’s diary in which Dominic Cummings describes Sunak’s view as “just let people die and that’s OK”. Here’s the crucial extract:

Now, it’s true that essentially all of this was clear at the time. One reason I know this is I, and many, many, many other people wrote that there was a row between ministers who wanted to end most or all lockdown restrictions — their most powerful and influential backers being Sunak and Johnson — against those who favoured restrictions: with the key figures there being Michael Gove and Matt Hancock.

But you didn’t need to read any of that to come to this conclusion. That the government was bitterly divided on lockdown is reflected in the various contradictory bits of regulation and guidance. Nor did you have to receive scientific advice to know that paying people to eat out before the emergence of a Covid-19 vaccine was an endeavour with some risk.

How much does this matter politically? Well, it didn’t matter enough to stop Gove, Hancock or Cummings wanting Sunak to replace Johnson as prime minister. It did not matter enough for the Conservative party’s lockdown sceptics to fall into lockstep behind Sunak either.

At the moment, Sunak’s own standing in the country is already very bad. As such, there is little incentive for Labour to broaden its attack from the economy, public services and the fact the Conservatives have been in power for 13 years to litigate what Sunak did and said during the pandemic, a time that a lot of people would simply rather forget.

But — if something happens to turn around Sunak’s standing, and if Labour once again finds itself needing to specifically erode Sunak’s own standing, don’t be surprised if Vallance’s diary ends up on a Labour leaflet nearer the election.

Now try this

I very much enjoyed the London Jazz Festival this year: a particular privilege was getting to see a performance of Wayne Shorter’s symphonic music at the Southbank. Shorter, who died just months before his 90th, had picked out the selection so in a sense it was his “last” gig, though I’m sure his composition will endure. I’ve added his 1987 record Phantom Navigator and his 1969 collaboration with Miles Davis, both of which are very much worth your time, to the Inside Politics playlist.

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