Boris Johnson's plan to 'follow the science' is an illusion, warns William Hague
The idea that Governments can “follow the science” during a global pandemic is an “illusion”, Lord Hague has warned.
The former Foreign Secretary, who has previously been critical of Boris Johnson’s lockdown policies, said other countries like Germany that had accepted advice but not claimed to “follow the science” had been more successful in managing the pandemic.
Speaking at the annual Hands lecture at Mansfield College, Oxford on Tuesday night, Lord Hague implied that Mr Johnson had leaned too much on scientific officials and should have used local authorities more.
“When we think of the pandemic this year, we can particularly learn from countries which have accepted strong scientific advice but not been under the illusion they can ‘follow the science’, and where national, local and regional leaders have been able to work together in a way based on that advice,” he said.
“If you looked at the major European countries, you’d have to say Germany functioned better than the other big democracies in the face of this pandemic, although they have many serious problems, as we all do."
Lord Hague suggested the UK should have used its "island advantage" by closing its borders sooner to foreign travellers.
“You can point to other countries - I mentioned Taiwan for instance, or we could look at New Zealand, which of course inherited our own concept of democracy - which have used their island advantage, something we didn’t do," he said.
The former Tory leader previously warned that Mr Johnson’s national lockdown in the summer was an “economic catastrophe” and called for it never to be repeated.
“We now know therefore that a lockdown is not a temporary blip or a paid holiday, but a disaster for our society,” he wrote in The Telegraph in June.
“We have seen enough to know that a lockdown is so destructive that it can only ever be allowed once.”
Lord Hague said the major Western democracies had not performed well during the coronavirus pandemic and called for more international cooperation between states, including through bodies like the UN.
“It is a problem for democracy that the mature democracies have not coped very well in this pandemic. This underlines the fact that we do have a problem,” he said.
"Of course, many of the societies like our own are in demographic decline," he said.
"They have expensive welfare systems. The state has become very sprawling, very expensive and rather ineffective at what we really need it to do: to keep us safe, free and educated.
"It’s not doing very well at those jobs compared to more recent democracies like Taiwan and South Korea.
Asked about allegations that the Government used its fast-track PPE procurement service to hand contracts to political allies, Lord Hague said: “If that turned out to be true, that would be quite wrong that that could happen.
“Thankfully, I am five years out of Government so I don’t know whether it has but I would be very disturbed if it had.
“It is not surprising in crisis, in a war or a pandemic that a lot of money has been spent in a hurry, but it certainly shouldn’t be spent on the basis of favouritism or political connections.”
