Admitting Mistakes

Private Passions yesterday was a delight, and a corrective to crude simplification. The lefty version is that Test and Trace was a disaster, dependent on chumocracy and the private sector, while vaccination was a triumph for collaboration and the NHS. Part of that’s true, but the embarrassing complication is that Kate Bingham, chair of the vaccination board, was - like Dido Harding - the wife of a Tory MP, shoved into power without a competitive process, by a government to which she was close.

The difference is that Bingham is a talented and clear-headed operator, good at assessing problems, and skilful at working with others to develop solutions. So when Michael Berkley asks if there are things she wishes now that she’d done differently she’s got a clear, rational list - but she’s also rightly proud of the things they got right. It helps that she’s a scientist. The Guardian a couple of weeks ago had a page in which medical experts listed the things they got wrong in assessing the pandemic. They weren’t grovelling; just doing the necessary thinking, to try to be clearer next time. And part of that involves an honest look at what they got wrong.

Miles away, of course, from the world of politics. Early in the pandemic, when briefings had a whiff of originality, Matt Hancock earned brownie points by saying “…and if we get things wrong, we’ll admit it.” But he didn’t mean it. Later, a journalist (who’d done serious, sustained work on care homes, and knew what he was talking about) asked if the government had miscalculated. No way, says Hancock, we had our arms round them night and day. Yes, the political arena is tougher, and there’s always opponents who might take advantage, but we lose so much if people in charge aren’t allowed to say they got things wrong.