News and comment from
Roy Lilley


Dangerous journey...
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In the darkest days of the second World War, Churchill called his generals together, in the bunker, under Whitehall.

The mood was sombre. 

Troops had escaped the beaches of Dunkirk, with barely the clothes on their backs. Over 70,000 troops were left behind in France. Either dead, wounded, prisoner or stuck further south.

The beach was too shallow for the Royal Navy and the call went out for ‘the little ships’. Some 198,000 British and 140,000 French troops made it off the beaches, thanks to the armada.

They left behind 76,000 tons of ammunition, 400,000 tons of supplies, 2,500 guns and 64,000 abandoned vehicles.

Churchill and the war leaders met as the Nazis swept through France. Paris fell on June 14th. In the UK food was rationed, the economy broken, daily life destroyed by bombing.

Desperate to take the initiative, Churchill had a plan.

He turned to his dispirited Generals. ‘Gentlemen’ he said, ‘I have a plan…’ 

The Generals leaned forward in their seats, anxious to know how the great man would extricate the nation from defeat.

I’m going to reorganise the Army…

Stop… no, no, no… this is rubbish. Churchill never said any such thing.

Who, in their right mind, would reorganise a vital part of their defences in the middle of a battle.

Who, in their right mind, fighting a global pandemic, the economy in tatters, the schools in turmoil, infections popping up, migrants marching up our beaches, Covid restrictions beyond the understanding of a Mensa examiner, T&T barely touching the sides and companies shedding staff by the thousands…

... who would reorganise the leading agency helping to defend the nation, Public Health England.

Only a plastic Churchill.

Who would want to be disruptive, be deceptive, intimidate leaders and staff and be willing to alienate people, at a time like this.

Who, when the nation is at its lowest ebb for a hundred years, when decent honest people are facing debt, bankruptcy and ruin, who would want to preoccupy great swathes of Whitehall energy, on shuffling the deckchairs. Crashing together organisations that can perfectly well work together without the cost or palaver.

Perhaps it might be someone who has written about ‘amputating’ parts of Whitehall… just at a time when we need the arms of Government to be doing the heavy lifting.

At a time when the roads are full of potholes, our care homes full of people we cannot afford to keep there and our Universities worrying they may be full of students who will have no bed.

It might be someone who has been given £800m to set up the Downing Street, Advanced Research Projects Agency… blue sky funding for a skunk-works. 

It might be someone who is a fan of game theory and chaos; it's only at times of great pressure that real change can happen. At times of calm and equilibrium, change is all-but impossible. 

At a time when the principle player in public health has had its budget slashed and like the rest of Whitehall, unprepared for the pandemonium of a pandemic, struggled to respond and did its heroic best, is exhausted and trying to catch its second wind... it's a good time to strike. 

Breaking up PHE is a pyrrhic victory for Domonic Cummings.

The result will be a bigger organisation, with a bigger budget, more power and a minister in the firing-line if anything goes wrong.

Yet, let’s not kid ourselves… it is a victory. Cummings has shown he can break-up Whitehall. Next; look for what happens to the department for education, struggling with phantom exam results. Watch the Home Office fall.

I know No18 did not want to break up PHE. He wanted to get its funding back on track and get public health to the place it was, before Lansley ruined it.

Closing it is a smart move. Come the inevitable Covid inquiry, PHE will be like the embers of a scrap-yard bonfire. Wisps of smoke drifting into the evening air, no one can remember who lit it, what was burned on it and what secrets are in its ashes.

We haven’t seen smart government, or great thinking. A big brain at work. No, just a power play, opportunism and the first step in a long and dangerous journey.
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