Chris SmythVerified account

@Smyth_Chris

Whitehall Editor of The Times. DMs open

Joined September 2009
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  1. Oct 25

    Medicines regulator praised by ministers as world’s best slashing staff to deal with Brexit budget shortfall. Insiders say patients will suffer from slower or less rigorous drug assessment as a third of doctors cut.

    1 reply 7 retweets 3 likes
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  2. Oct 22

    SAGE is cautiously optimistic that a successful booster campaign will keep hospital admissions around current levels. So minister hope public caution and half term will avoid the need for plan B

    4 replies 1 retweet 4 likes
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  3. Oct 21

    Another way of looking at it: about 40% of people being admitted to hospital in the past couple of week are not fully vaccinated You can see the need for another push. And for boosters for much of the vaxxed 60%

    The UKHSA has published the latest vaccine surveillance report, and still hasn't corrected the denominator (see here: ) Question: is the hospitalisation and death data any more trustworthy, even if it looks less wrong? Given same issues apply?
    2 replies 4 retweets 6 likes
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  4. Oct 21

    Why calls for restrictions this year are different to the same calls last year

    4 replies 4 retweets 26 likes
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  5. Oct 21

    Will Jacob Rees-Mogg "set an example" by wearing his mask today? He previously said Tory MPs didn't need to wear them as they worked harder than Labour MPs, so in the Commons weren't mixing with people they don't normally meet

    1 UQ and 3 Statements in the Commons today: - Health UQ from on Govt's Covid-19 Response - Trade Statement on New Zealand FTA negotiations ( / ) - Business Statement ( / ) - Health Statement on Covid-19
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  6. Oct 20

    199,008 booster jabs in England yesterday. Getting faster but still lot of frustration from older people yet to be invited

    7 replies 6 retweets 14 likes
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  7. Oct 20

    Cabinet minister at Tory conference: "We thought we might get criticised for not wearing masks but then saw Labour weren't wearing them and realised we didn't have to bother"

    Labour Party mask policy: During At Conference
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    1 reply 6 retweets 25 likes
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  8. Oct 20

    Asking for Covid restrictions now is qualitatively different to asking for them last winter. Then it was to stop utter implosion of NHS. Now it’s to ease a very bad winter. That’s a very different social bargain.

    133 replies 264 retweets 1,649 likes
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  9. Oct 19

    Boris Johnson still relaxed about the Covid numbers. He told Cabinet that " our autumn and winter plan continues to keep the virus under control and that hospital admissions remain broadly flat"

    265 replies 192 retweets 944 likes
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  10. Retweeted
    Oct 18

    Sorry to learn of the death of Nigel Hawkes. He was a lovely guy, and an excellent journalist.

    2 retweets 4 likes
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  11. Oct 14

    Head of civil service acknowledges faults identified by Cummings as he pledges to "rewire government"

    1 reply 3 retweets 9 likes
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  12. Oct 14

    Simon Case echoes many of the criticisms had of the civil service - cumbersome, confused responsibilities, risk averse, poor use of data, lack of specialists But tone of his call for deep reform is v different: "the loudest voices for change are coming from within”

    And here’s Case’s speech - worth a read if you’re interested enough to have got this far down the thread…
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    4 retweets 5 likes
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  13. Oct 14

    Seemingly because his other option was to appear by video link to tell them all to get back to face-to-face appointments ... Or "doing a Gavin Williamson" as it's known

    Health secretary has pulled out of speaking to GPs at their annual conference this morning, on the day the Govt and NHS publish its GP 'rescue plan'
    2 replies 15 retweets 36 likes
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  14. Oct 12

    Will the inquiries change this? Perhaps, although our success in coming out of the pandemic probably makes it less likely. Right now, though, the overwhelming desire is not to pore over the nightmare of the past 18 months, but to get back to normal and forget about Covid.

    1 reply 1 retweet 5 likes
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  15. Oct 12

    But whether the next disaster is a nuclear meltdown or solar flares, can we be sure that somewhere in Whitehall, the same mistake is not being made today?

    2 replies 2 retweets 16 likes
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  16. Oct 12

    Westminster media culture is certainly part of this problem - obsessing about pandemics when there was a more pressing crisis always seemed a bit Lembit Opik

    1 reply 1 retweet 6 likes
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  17. Oct 12

    Sure, plans were there on paper, but remember Tony Blair yawning through pandemic meetings, or departments not bothering to turn up to planning: because it wasn't urgent, it wasn't seen as important

    2 replies 1 retweet 8 likes
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  18. Oct 12

    Part of this is short-termism: theoretical future threats are not taken seriously in government. Pandemic planning was allowed to drift into acceptance of mass burials because politicians did not engage deeply enough to think critically in advance about strategy and trade-offs.

    2 replies 3 retweets 14 likes
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  19. Oct 12

    Failures in September 2020 may be more culpable, but exactly for that reason they are much easier to fix. The question then was about who politicians should listen to. The problem earlier in the year was about trying and failing to present the right advice for a crisis

    1 reply 2 retweets 10 likes
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  20. Oct 12

    This is not just a political failure, a scientific failure or an official failure. It was all, but worse it was a failure of all three worlds to interrogate each other properly

    3 replies 4 retweets 20 likes
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