Thread by @danielgoyal

Managed to catch up with Gove's evidence to the Inquiry. It was painful to watch! Politicking at an epic level - trying to obfuscate blame away from him but not overtly dropping others in it...but he did, and like all Ministers he tried to throw scientists under the bus

1/n

Gove was effectively head of the Cabinet Office from Feb 2020. As such, he was responsible for the office meant to take a leadership role during the emergency pandemic phase...

Even from Gove's evidence alone, it was clear the Cabinet Office didn't.

KC: Who was responsible for the failures of the Cabinet Office

MG: blah, blah…structural problems…not me

KC: asks where the failure was

MG: Not the civil servants - the finest in the country.

KC: The Cabinet Office was not fit for purpose?

MG: Yes.

He then apologises to the victims. Politicians make mistakes but he is sorry.

Gove then goes on to suggest these problems have been present for many years…trying to perhaps proportion some of the blame to preceding governments. Desperate.

Apparently, some of the Cabinet was “shielded” from him and his ability to affect or lead those parts of the Cabinet was impaired. He made several suggestions for reform to No.10, “including to Dominic Cummings”

So, it wasn't his fault they were hiding from him. Desperate.

KC: Why didn’t you change this before the pandemic? “Why did you take no steps to correct or improve the Cabinet Office?”

MG: I was too busy sorting out Brexit. He then talks of political theory…blah, blah.

KC: were you aware of the dysfunctionality at No 10?

MG: That’s just number 10….it is always the case by its nature.

KC: The govt response was deficient…significantly off the mark, wasn’t it?

MG: It was hard for all countries, but there were unique errors to the UK govt.

KC: But wasn’t there a failure due to the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of No 10 & the govt?

MG: We’re all individuals (or something like that)

In fairness, he does acknowledge that central govt should have taken on the cross-govt leadership earlier, although then blames DHSC that it wanted to hold onto the power and “rise to the occasion”. (Reference to Matt Hancock).

KC discloses a potential line of questioning the Inquiry may take with Hancock - they did not share information or decision making and that is not how govt works.

And this, from what we know of him, is likely to be true. He probably hoarded much of the decision-making.

MG gives a very clear line of attack for Matt Hancock and the DHSC without actually saying “Matt Hancock”. 'We trusted them'. 'We thought we were well-prepared'.

While probably true, as a Govt Minister to not be asking questions or know what's going on during a pandemic is odd!

KC kills him in his questioning…Gove says that the Cabinet Office should have taken a leadership role and been challenging other departments to ensure they are stepping up. A clear admission that the Cabinet was not doing that

Because “Hancock was marking his own homework”…there was no central scrutiny or challenge by central govt.

Hancock is going to get reamed on Thursday

They are trying to hang it on him...

KC makes the point that in reality you and other Ministers had not taken the time to review the govt’s pandemic plan [I find this extraordinary. Imagine being a govt Minister during a pandemic and not having familiarised yourself with the central plan?]

KC: There was no debate about how to stop or slow the virus, was there?

MG: There would have been debate in SAGE.

[Unbelievable!!! Govt Ministers were not engaged at all in the high-impact decisions about how to control a virus across the country.]

And then WhatsAPPs to the rescue! Gove basically tells a completely different tale in his testimony on 03/03/20 than he just spent an hour spouting in the Inquiry. Damning! Note, he is not blaming scientists here, he is clearly saying we the government are "fucking up".

Gove may have mitigated some of the deep water Hancock is facing by saying they both were pushing Johnson to act around 14th of March. That suggests the delay from that point in acting was purely on Johnson.

Hilarious, Gove says that Johnson was not oscillating on decision-making but he had a “Gladitorial style” sometimes arguing differing propositions out loud to test them and see which argument was best….my god! That is some slinky logic.

Gove claims that he thought a Lockdown should be taken on 10th March. But he didn’t suggest it in the COBR meeting he chaired the following week. He regrets not saying something.

That is as far as I have got, and now I need to wash my brain with detergent (or maybe blowing a hairdryer up my nose can wash away the eye-watering levels of bulls!ting I just witnessed).

In summary...

Gove failed. He failed to respond as a person in his position should have. He failed again to be open enough with the Inquiry for us to learn fully from those mistakes. He is not the principal assailant, but he was and continues to be an accessory, no doubt.