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…
After sleeping with as many Londoners as possible, Rory Stewart has just announced – in a yet to be released Evening Standard interview – that he is pulling out of the London Mayoral Election (which, of course, is not currently happening due to the Coronavirus). More to follow…
UPDATE: An email just sent to supporters explains:
“I am afraid it does not seem sensible in the context of Coronavirus to try to sustain our independent campaign for another year towards a delayed election.
I want to thank you particularly for your belief and professionalism. We really achieved something remarkable – probably the most successful and engaged independent movement in recent British political history – and I am only sorry that Covid prevented us bringing all that energy and passion into the 2020 election.”
Last night Rory Stewart had a conference call with volunteers to discuss the state of the delayed mayoral race. Rory’s strategy of being the Coronavirus Candidate has been scuppered with the election put off for twelve months and his hardline coronavirus position likely to be less salient by next May. Guido’s co-conspirator in on the call says it was not a happy one…
In the course of the call, Rory accepted the latest polling showing him in third place behind Sadiq Khan and Shaun Bailey was disappointing. The campaign team that had expected to have eclipsed the Tories by this point told activists it now expects the Conservative voter floor to be around 20% – meaning he has to look elsewhere for votes to squeeze. The new Rory strategy is to switch to targetting soft-left Khan voters and win second preference votes from the stubborn Tory 20%. It’ll be a long race…
On Westminster Hour this Sunday, Rory Stewart claimed that he had slept in 50 different homes around London as part of his ‘Come Kip With Me’ scheme. Wonder how his wife’s taking it…
Presenter: Rory, you are inviting Londoners to come and kip with you…..how many homes have you slept in now?
Stewart: I’ve slept in something like 50 different homes in London
Stewart also repeated the ’50 different homes’ statistic in the Sunday Times. While also claiming he wants to start sleeping at the homes of sex workers…
One small issue with his boast, however, is he only launched the campaign 27 days before Sunday – meaning Stewart would have to have slept in almost two homes a night every night, never spending an evening at home, for his claim to be true.
Later in the BBC interview Stewart explained “you learn an amazing amount because you’re spending 14 hours with somebody”, meaning he appears to be claiming he has spent 700 hours in other people’s homes over the last 27 days. 27 days is just 648 hours. Either he has discovered time travel, or he’s bending the truth…
Appearing on Sky News this morning, Dr Bharat Pankhania – Exeter University’s Senior Clinical Lecturer – served up some top medical advice for the panicking public: “Please don’t get infected… if you don’t get infected, you won’t make new cases”. Why has no one suggested this before?
Dr Pankhania also happens to be a LibDem councillor in Bath, and given the LibDems have been quiet over the last few weeks, Guido’s going to take this interview as an official party position. The LibDems are desperate to stop the spread of Coronavirus, if only because, as Guido revealed last week, their leadership election is currently under threat because of it…
Even with Guido’s cynicism, Cllr Pankhania’s position seems more sensible than Rory Stewart’s, who has bravely broken ranks with mainstream political science-based consensus to demand the country now goes into lockdown; calling for the:
Luckily he’s only called for ‘medium and large events’ to be shut down, so his political rallies should be fine…
Sadiq Khan’s been usurping TfL’s political advertising ban for months by plastering his name all over GLA information posters and highlighting his single ticket price freeze policy, described in large wording on posters as “part of the commitment by the Mayor, Sadiq Khan to make travel in London more affordable”. The Mayor’s opponents don’t have the same opportunities…
Guido was amused, therefore, to see Rory Stewart’s book, ‘The Places in Between’, (published in 2006) has begun being re-advertised to Londoners. Canny way of boosting name recognition among potential voters…
