ArgumentMinisters Can’t Keep Hiding Behind the Science
It’s dishonest and cowardly to keep pretending that how and when the lockdown is lifted isn’t a political judgment call. Matthew Parris writes that the political leaders of the country – the U.K. in his case, but any country – must have the courage to share with the public the political — political, not medical — choices they must make, and take ownership “of the trade-offs that only politics can settle: trade-offs between deaths caused by one disease and deaths caused by others less immediately in the public eye; between the longevity of the elderly and the education of the young; between mortality in April 2020 and debt that will scar a whole generation; between loss of life and loss of livelihood.” Whichever side you come down on in this trade-off, Parris write. somebody’s got to say there’s a trade-off, and it isn’t ‘the’ science. “It is for the ministers who will make the judgment to be upfront with the public about the human cost. They can ‘follow’ the science, cite the science, be guided by the science, but in the end the science will lead them to a point where paths diverge.”
Science is still working on the fiendishly complicated interplay between medicine and mathematics that we call epidemiology. Matthew Parris writes in The Times that if you heard someone pronounce on what “the mathematics” or “the epidemiology” tell us about how to end the coronavirus lockdown, you’d raise an eyebrow. “So, when you hear ministers intone that they’ll be guided by ‘the science’ on this, raise both. Used as politicians and commentators are using it now, ‘the’ science is a myth. Great panics spawn great myths. In the shape of ‘the’ science, the crisis has conjured up a spectacular unicorn, and British politicians are hiding behind it.”
He adds:
Because they lack the courage to share with us the political — political, not medical — choices they must make, they’re afraid to take ownership of the trade-offs that only politics can settle: trade-offs between deaths caused by one disease and deaths caused by others less immediately in the public eye; between the longevity of the elderly and the education of the young; between mortality in April 2020 and debt that will scar a whole generation; between loss of life and loss of livelihood. They shy from levelling with us on these things and shy, perhaps, from levelling with each other too. Instead they pass the parcel to “the” science as if science alone will make the judgments they know must, in the end, be political. The evasion is not a pretty sight and if they think the public are not beginning to notice they are wrong.
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whichever side you come down on in this trade-off, somebody’s got to say there’s a trade-off, and it isn’t “the” science. It is for the ministers who will make the judgment to be upfront with the public about the human cost. They can “follow” the science, cite the science, be guided by the science, but in the end the science will lead them to a point where paths diverge.
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Any path ministers choose comes with risks. They range from gravely wounding the economy by excessive caution on the lockdown, to aggravating the pandemic by lifting restrictions too early. This can be explained to us. We are grown-ups. It doesn’t need a “conversation”, just an honest statement of the truth.
