Lack of transparency within SAGE

‘You lot’ *Jane^ what exactly do you mean by that? And you’ve missed the point completely - it’s how Cummins and Johnson manipulate what we are told is happening and refuse to allow us access to the minutes and research that concerns ‘us lot’. Doesn’t that worry you? At all?

Don’t expect transparency!.

Expect politics, expert advice is always going to be on the cautious side, which means ANY risk is bad. The government want to get back to normality quicker than that so there is always going to be some advice that is not taken.

Some people will always put the most negative twist on anything they hear if it's said by someone or some organisation they dislike.

Hello,
I'm not wanting to put any twist on anything to do with this very complex situation but we do need to have more transparency about who suggests what when and why....

OR we will end up in an Iraq war situation....

Jane , who is you lot ?

Davidhs. We live in a so called democracy, and so yes I do expect transparency.

Is you lot the same as the great unwashed?

Not me ?I had a shower this morning and have even washed my hair.

The media will always put a negative twist, if one so called expert happens to suggest a better path he will be a hero - with hindsight

Yup. 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing. As 'you lot' obviously know!

Still wondering who are the "You lot " referred to by Jane....;northeners ?blonds ? Mail readers ? It is very dismissive and also very bad mannered , but then there does seem to be a lot of this nasty attitude cropping up .
It's a shame but if they are" you lot " what should those who call them that be called ?

I don't understand why it's putting a negative twist on anything to want to hold the government to scrutiny.

Surely any responsible citizen would want to do this unless they can't because they live in a dictatorship?

Davidhs You're missing the point. I'm not qualified to judge whether mistakes were made, especially in the delays on lockdown, although I suspect they were. The point is the responsibility for delaying lockdown. Somebody claimed that Dominic Cummings argued for an earlier lockdown - if so, why isn't he shouting that from the roof now?

The government is claiming that it followed "the science", a group of supposed experts, but did it? I don't know the answer to that, but it does seem that the politicians have found themselves a scapegoat. But what if "the science" was actually being influenced by the government all along and wasn't actually independent advice?

It appears that SAGE has now been forced to be more publicly accountable by the pressure being put on it. Nobody would expect MI5 or MI6 to be transparent, but SAGE? What advice is it giving that's so secret? What happened to the "will of the people"?

Is Marc Warner's contact tracing app really the best way to stop the spread of infection? What about the 18,000 contact tracers people are saying are needed? Unfortunately, the people who would be best placed to do that aren't there because local public health services have been decimated.

It's always going to be a balance between losing lives and the needs of "business", so how are those decisions being made? What are the facts? How many lives is it estimated will be lost if shops and schools reopen? Who's making the decisions that the balance is right? On what basis? What part did "the science" play in the decisions?

Too many questions remain unanswered and there's too much scope for a blame game. The public deserves transparency.

Signed,

One of "the lot"

Anyone know if the Alice Cummings who has been given the contract for the trace app is related to Dominic or is that just a "strange co incidence" after all its only worth £250 MILLION !

Surely not jobs for the boys/girls ?

Please tell me that these guys are totally independent and there is no potential for a conflict of interest:

www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/vote-leave-firm-faculty-guardian-report-1-6637177

This is tax payers' money, so the public does have a right to accountability.

Jane10 ... Some people will always put the most negative twist on anything they hear if it's said by someone or some organisation they dislike.
You 're counting yourself as one of those I assume? Anything to do with SNP on here and you immediately jump in with a negative comment ..as do some others .."you lot" ,does that apply to you too?

Faculty AI, which was awarded the government contract for the contact/trace app, is run by Marc Warner. He was involved in the VoteLeave campaign and data harvesting. I don't know about Alice Cummings.

growstuff
Totally agree with your post at 20.29.

Why can't we just use the app that other European countries are going to use? Do the government have to make a point of not doing anything the EU does? Even when it's in the national interest.

Thank you maddyone. I really don't pretend to know the answers (I suspect there aren't any easy ones), but there's something not at all right about the government's handling of this. They all (including the so-called science gurus) look so shifty whenever they answer anything that it's difficult not to suspect that they're hiding something and not being totally honest.

MayBee70 I suspect you could be right, but also Marc Warner's company wouldn't pocket £250,000. The EU tracking app is subject to EU data protection laws - a UK app isn't.

Unfortunately, nobody told the Covid-19 virus itself that the UK has left the UK and it needs a visa (or a blue passport) for entry. The UK has to prove its exceptionalism.

Link to Independent SAGE meeting …

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7uBwyr0sdg

WARNING It's 2 hour 40 minutes.

“Somebody claimed that Dominic Cummings argued for an earlier lockdown - if so, why isn't he shouting that from the roof now”

There are always differences of opinion on any committee, when a decision is taken you accept it, to publicly dispute it is likely to get you sacked - collective responsibility.

Following the science was not always practical, those returning to the UK from overseas ideally should have been isolated, with hundreds or a few thousands that can be done. There was possibly half a million returning, it became impractical, so rightly or wrongly everyone was allowed in and socially isolated like the rest of us.

The irony is that many were returning from safe countries like Australia or NZ and would have been safer remaining - with hindsight. The one action that would have reduced virus spread was to stop travel from China immediately but the WHO experts advised against it.

I know people on committees don't always agree, but Dominic Cummings isn't even a scientist. He's an advisor to Johnson, as are the members of Sage. Johnson and his government should then have listened to all his advisors and made decisions, balancing all the arguments.

What should not have happened was scientific advice being influenced by Cummings and then for the government to claim it was following "the science" and thereby using scientists as scapegoats.

I have no idea what Sage advised about quarantining people coming from abroad. Were there really half a million? (I don't know.) If the Sage committee advised quarantining, or at least screening everybody entering the country, but it wasn't practical, the government should have admitted that and not hidden behind "the science".

I've now watched all the 2 hour 40 minute "Independent Sage" YouTube video, which I found very interesting. They have come forward with some positive ideas on a range of issues and I look forward to future meetings. It was refreshing to listen to different scientists being honest and pragmatic and not influenced by government stooges.

PS. They were critical (as are other public health scientists) of the centralised, top down approach to contact tracing - and they didn't even mention the ethics of giving the £250,000 contract to one of Dominic Cummings' mates.