According to Covid’s mastermind, Britain’s civil service “groupthink” is holding it back.
Kate Bingham stated that ministers and mandarins were unable to have a scientific understanding of the virus, leaving the nation ‘woefully inept’.
Und she claimed that the jab rollout might have been delayed if not for normal government operations.
In The Times, Dame Kate stated that “The machinery of government” is more about process than outcomes.
Kate Bingham (pictured), said that ministers and mandarins were unable to have a scientific understanding of the virus, leaving the country “woefully unprepared.”
“There is an obsessional fear of criticism and personal error, and culture of groupthink.
Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser said that ministers lacked the scientific understanding necessary to realise the threat of the Covid pandemic and that senior civil servants did not have the scientific and technical comprehension needed to be ‘operationally effective’.
This left the country vulnerable to cyberwarfare and climate change threats, she said.
She said: ‘There is an obsessive fear of personal error and criticism, a culture of groupthink and risk aversion’ (File image)
Civil servants were also accused of treating business with ‘hostility and suspicion’ in her criticism of their lack of skills in science, industry and manufacturing.
This 56-year old venture capitalist, in the life sciences was appointed to lead the vaccination task force in last year.
The decision to buy jabs deemed most likely to succeed before results were available has been widely credited for helping Britain to start the western world’s first vaccine programme.
According to The Times, in a speech at Oxford University, entitled lessons from the vaccination task force, she will suggest that the outcomes of the vaccine program could have been different without Sir Patrick Vallance as chief scientist advisor.