Britain’s ex-PM Cameron admits ‘mistake’ in pandemic preparation
- ‘The failing was not to ask more questions about asymptomatic transmission and what turned out to be the pandemic we had’, he said
- He is the first politician to give evidence at an inquiry that seeks to lay bare mistakes made and lessons to be learned from the UK’s handling of Covid
Former British Prime Minister David Cameron said his government made a “mistake” in focusing on potential influenza pandemics rather than preparing for other respiratory diseases.
“The failing was not to ask more questions about asymptomatic transmission and what turned out to be the pandemic we had”, Cameron, who served as premier from 2010 to 2016, told the country’s Covid-19 inquiry on Monday. “So much time was spent on a pandemic influenza and that was seen as the greatest danger. But why wasn’t more time and more questions asked about what turned out to be the pandemic that we faced?”
Cameron is the first politician to give evidence under oath at the long-awaited inquiry, which began last week and seeks to lay bare mistakes made and lessons to be learned from Britain’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 227,000 deaths have been logged in Britain with Covid-19 on the certificate since the virus was first recorded there in early 2020.
Critics of the government including the British Medical Association, which represents doctors, say senior Conservatives must be held to account for their decision to make deep cuts to public spending in the 2010s. The BMA said in a statement that the so-called austerity policies left the National Health Service “severely on the back foot” in the run-up and during the outbreak.
Cameron robustly defended his economic decisions, saying they were “absolutely essential” to get the UK finances under control. He insisted there were “real term increases” every year in health expenditure.
“If you lose control of your debt and you lose control of your deficit and you lose control of your economy, you end up cutting health services – that’s what happened in Greece,” he said.
Instead he pointed to the “real problem” of preparing for potential pandemics. “I think it was a mistake not to look more at the range of different types of pandemic,” he said. “How do we make sure that you’re not subject to groupthink, that you don’t plan for one type of pandemic because it’s very current, it’s very risky, it’s very dangerous? You need to have teams going in to question the assumptions.”
Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, said Cameron was “in denial about the huge damage caused by his austerity policies”. In a statement, he said the cuts “massively damaged the readiness and resilience of our public services”.
Cameron’s former chancellor, George Osborne, faces questions on Tuesday along with former minister Oliver Letwin, followed by former health secretary and current Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt on Wednesday.
