 The Office for National Statistics today released data showing that up to the eighth of May, there have been 55,000 more deaths than usual in the UK since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. Equivalent statistics haven't yet been published in Italy, but it is looking likely that Britain will be shown to have the highest death toll in Europe. Now, given the government had more warning than Italy, made active decisions which have now cost lives they are looking for people to blame. For a while, as we talked about a lot on this show a few weeks ago, it looked like the establishment were going to try and blame people breaking the lockdown rules saying that the reason why the death toll keeps climbing is because there are too many people visiting a park when they shouldn't be or spending too long walking outside on the pavement or whatever. The problem was that people were following the lockdown rules so precisely that that was no longer credible. So they've had to look for a different scapegoat. And now, at least this morning, it looks like they're turning on the scientists. Now, this is in a way not a surprise. They always justified all of their decisions by saying we're following the scientists, which did always, it was very obvious this was going to happen, made the scientists very vulnerable because if it all fucked up, they would just say, well, it wasn't us, it was the scientists we follow. Anyway, let's look at a clip this morning. This is Therese Coffey. So she's Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. She was doing the media round this morning. So every morning you have one government minister who goes on all the shows, apart from Piers Morgan. We'll talk about that later to put forward the government position. This is her speaking to Kay Burley on Sky. I'm sure that they would also be saying when this government has got it wrong, we would expect them to say so, bit like President Macron did in France. At the time, as I say, back in middle of February, the view very clearly expressed was that the transmission challenge in care homes was not one. But with hindsight, did you get it wrong? You can only make judgments and decisions based on the information and advice that you have at the time. I recognize things like testing capacity. Well, if this science was wrong, advice at the time was wrong, I'm not surprised if people would then think we made a wrong decision. If the advice at the time was wrong, I'm not surprised that people then think we made a wrong decision. So that's pretty clear, isn't it? That's not very subtle. She's saying if there was a wrong decision, it was because of faulty advice. Now, there are two, I think, very important points to make here. So one is about responsibility. Obviously, scientists only advise the government decide. So the idea that they can now pass the buck and say, it's got nothing to do with us, what the government policy was, it's all about the scientists. No, you're called the government because you make the government policy. So the buck stops with you. And the second that I think this is more important, actually, is that if you accept that wrong decisions have been made and that wrong advice has been given, then surely what you should conclude from that is you are going to have to change the way you get advice. And the obvious thing to do there is say, if it seems like the advice we were receiving was too narrow, let's make sage broader. So sage is the key group of scientists that advise the government, or at the very least, let's publish their advice in a timely fashion so that if there are faulty assumptions in it, like there were in the advice they got back in February and March, then they can be found before they cost thousands of lives. So for example, if back in March, the behavioural advice which said that people will never accept a lockdown, that was why they were going to accept 100,000 deaths, might end up being more than that, we don't know, because they said, well, a lockdown is not an option. There are plenty people who would have looked at that assumption and said, look, we've seen what's happened in Wuhan, we've seen what's happened in South Korea, we've seen what's happened in Italy. Why do you assume that Britons, when they see bodies piling up in the street, are going to be desperate to go out and socialize? It always seemed bizarre to me, but that was never published. So it was always very difficult to challenge the government would just say, we are following the science. In a moment, I'm going to talk about how the scientists have kicked back. So obviously, there has been a bit of a truce between the government and the scientists up to this point, they sort of go out and say exactly the same thing, but now the government are turning on the scientists. It's no surprise, really, that they are changing their tune also. But first, that wasn't the only notable intervention from Therese Coffey this morning. So as I said, she was doing the whole media round. And on BBC Breakfast, she made another big claim. This time, it was notable not because she was trying to shift the blame, not because she was trying to scapegoat someone else, but because what she said was completely false. So this is Therese Coffey answering a question about the government's failure to meet its own testing targets. The government cannot force people to book in and have tests, but the capacity is there. And again, the Health Secretary has announced even more eligibility for people who are showing symptoms, because let's remember these tests that we have only really work on people who show symptoms to indicate whether or not they've actually got the virus. So it's not a case you just can test everybody with that particular test. So there's a couple of things to note there. Remember, this is who the government have sent out this morning to go on all the shows, apart from Piers Morgan, to explain the government's position. And there's a couple of problems there. So first of all, I always find it a bit distasteful when they blame their failure for testing on people not getting enough tests. We can't force people to go and get tested. But that wasn't the point which was objectively false. The bit was objectively false. So she says, these tests we have only really work on people that have symptoms. Now, that's simply not true. So first, you can test positive for coronavirus before the onset of symptoms or even if you never develop them. So if you're an asymptomatic person, also the government know that that's that's been admitted by them or never denied, why would it be denied? And I mean, one, the most simple way of seeing this is that on the 1st of May, the government offered testing to all NHS staff with or without symptoms. That was clearly a decision coffee was unaware of despite being sent out to defend the government or just didn't understand. Secondly, and this is the more important one, is that testing asymptomatic people or pre symptomatic people is the most important method of suppressing and controlling coronavirus. Why? Because it is when people are asymptomatic or pre symptomatic that they are most likely to pass on the infection. And it's obvious why, isn't it? If you feel like you've got a flu, you're more likely to stay in your house. If you don't, you're going to go outside. And people think that this is the pre symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission of coronavirus, which has really driven this epidemic out of control. The whole principle, the whole point of mass testing is to stop that, stop that pre symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission. And we have a government minister sent out on TV who doesn't know the basics of this disease. I know she's the Department of Work and Pensions Secretary. We don't expect her to know the genetic makeup of this virus. I don't even know if viruses have genes, but whatever. But we do expect her to know the basics of how a testing system is going to work, the basics. Obviously, because she was on BBC Breakfast, that mistake was not picked up. And that wasn't the only mistake she made that wasn't picked up. We are now going to go, as we often do, it's a bit embarrassing, but we're going to go to a clip of Piers Morgan, who was challenging an error which the BBC did not notice. This is Theresa Coffey on BBC Breakfast. She's the Pension Secretary. We have increased the capacity hugely. I recognise that there have only been a handful of days where more than 100,000 people have gone for that test. So she recognises that there's only been a handful of days when more than 100,000 people have gone for a test. Theresa Coffey, if you were on our programme, if you had the guts to come on, I would have said to you, there's been no days, zero, nada, nil. What you just said was a lie. Explain why. You just told BBC viewers that there have been a handful of days when over 100,000 people have been tested. No, there have been a handful of days when you've conducted, apparently, over 100,000 tests. There hasn't been a day when you have tested 100,000 people. Because some people require two, three tests. Several tests to establish whether they're negative. So that's another government minister avoiding us lying through her back teeth to the country about what they're doing with testing. And she's the one that said how proud she is of the testing. So that's one 10-minute appearance on BBC Breakfast with Dan Walker. Two lies. So the lie I just talked about, which was this idea that you can't test people if they don't have symptoms. And that second lie, where she's saying there are many days when we tested over 100,000 people, there hasn't been a single day. There's been some days where they've claimed 100,000 tests have been done, even though that only involves posting them. But two lies, neither of them were called out. So who is that more embarrassing for? Is that more embarrassing for Therese Coffey, who's gone out defending the government, lying on a whim? Or Dan Walker, the host of BBC Breakfast, who didn't call her out? And obviously it's, I mean, I don't need to tell you why the government are not going on the Piers Morgan Good Morning Britain show because they know that it will be a bit harder to lie than when they go on the BBC. I want to finish this section, sort of rounding it up by the backlash by the scientists against the government. So obviously, you know, they're probably a bit concerned now that they kind of really went out batting for the government. And now it is being thrown back in their faces, the government are now trying to blame all of their mistakes on them. And I think some of these tensions were visible at today's daily press conference. So often these daily press conferences are quite dull. It was more interesting today because there was some real tension up on the platform. I want to go to one clip now. So it was George Eustis, sorry, the Environment Secretary and Angela McLean, who's the Deputy Chief Scientific Advisor, they were who were speaking in front of the press. And here is McLean's answer to a question as to whether the government were being premature in sending children back to school. Scientists have been very clear in our advice that changes to lockdown as we model them need a highly effective track trace and isolate system to be in place. And we're also very clear that any change the social distancing measures should be based upon observed levels of incidents in places that those are going to be changed, not on a fixed state. Okay, I made sure Fox included the awkward silence before George Eustis says, okay, because there were some some awkward comments there for the government, because the Deputy Chief Scientific Advisor there has asked, are the government being premature in sending kids back to school on the 1st of June? And what does she say? She says, well, changes to lockdown need a highly effective track and trace system in place before they before before it's safe. And what don't we have at this point, a highly effective track and trace system in place. And the government spokesperson actually yesterday told journalists that we can reopen schools even if the track and trace system isn't yet fully in place. So she's directly contradicting him. She also says, which is potentially, I think more significant, she says changes to lockdown should be based on observable changes in prevalence of disease in the R right and track and trace, not on arbitrary dates. So it sounds like she won't be endorsing sending kids back to school on the 1st of June. I wonder if there's going to be a new pattern emerging where they don't just stand up there and agree with everything the government says or cover for them. There's one more though. So this is McLean responding to a question as to why many people are waiting over two weeks to get their coronavirus test results. I think really running a rapid and reliable testing system is an entirely operational issue. And so the science advice would be, you need to have a rapid and reliable testing system. Okay. So she was saying there, she was asked, why is it taking some people, it was in Plymouth, the question was asked about it's taking two weeks for them to get their test results back. She says, look, I mean, the scientific advice is to have test results that come back quickly. If they don't come back quickly, that's the government's problem. That's, but we give the advice, the advice is to do it. The next bit was interesting as well, because when she was asked whether or not the government were capable of having a timely track and trace system, she said, well, it's kind of improving, but we have seen from other countries that it is possible to get it back within 48 hours. So one, she said, you know, this is nothing to do with us if the testing system isn't working. Two, she said, we've looked to other countries and we can see that you can have a timely system where results come back in 48 hours, but we don't have that. So take that, Teresa Coffey. The scientists are fighting back, although I wouldn't be surprised if it's a while before the government let Angela McLean back in front of the nation's media.