Former Tory Leadership and London Mayoral candidate Rory Stewart has re-appeared in the national conversation today, reminding everyone of his lone calls for the Government to do more to suppress the virus weeks before the lockdown came about. In the wake of Professor Ferguson saying that locking down a week earlier could have halved Britain’s death toll, Stewart’s armchair epidemiology is not looking bad after all…

Unlike many partisan snipers, Stewart told the Today Programme this morning that “the Government was absolutely doing I think what the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Officer were telling them to do”. SAGE scientists unanimously opposed Covid suppression measures as late as mid-march, concluding:

“SAGE was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid19 will cause a second peak. SAGE advises that it is a near certainty that countries such as China, where heavy suppression is underway, will experience a second peak once measures are relaxed.”

Last night Stewart tweeted a BBC interview with Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries from 10 March, fervently disagreeing with Stewart’s calls for a shutdown , saying the Government’s response is “founded entirely on scientific advice”. We’ve reached the bizarre point where a consensus is building that the Government relied too much on experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best…