A nice little row is developing about whether Boris misled the House when Keir Starmer asked about a document in place until March 12th. Here is the Hansard entry:


Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
I join the Prime Minister in thanking our nurses and all those on the frontline, and send my condolences to all the families of those who have died of coronavirus, including Belly Mujinga, as the Prime Minister referenced—a ticket officer who we learnt this week died from covid-19 in awful circumstances.

In his speech on Sunday, the Prime Minister said that we need to rapidly reverse the awful epidemic in our care homes, but earlier this year, and until 12 March, the Government’s own official advice was—and I am quoting from it:

“It remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home…will become infected.”

Yesterday’s Office for National Statistics figures showed that at least 40% of all deaths from covid-19 were in care homes. Does the Prime Minister accept that the Government were too slow to protect people in care homes?

The Prime Minister
No, Mr Speaker, and it was not true that the advice said that.

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Keir Starmer then sent a letter asking for the statement to be corrected, quoting the exact document of concern.

The Downing Street lobby briefing has now rejected that letter because in his question Starmer talked about it remaining the case that people in care were unlikely to be infected (the document does not use the word “remains” at that point) and the source said the full quote made it clear that this assurance covered a period where there was no community transmission. Starmer did not include the word “therefore”, the source said.

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People will of course form their own conclusions, but it doesn't seem much of a defence that he left out the word 'therefore'. The section quoted in the letter is:

This guidance is intended for the current position in the UK where there is currently no transmission of Covid-19 in the community. It is therefore very unlikely that anyone receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected.

So we really need to decide what 'current' means. If it meant the instant the document was issued, then it becomes vacuous: the phrases cease to have any significance as soon as there is any transmission in the community at all, and of course there was already some at the time it was published, albeit at a low level. A more sensible interpretation is that it would continue to apply until the government withdrew it, because you could make the case it was only at that point the government considered the community transmission to be at the level it was significant.

But the government spokesman appears to be following a third path: some person decides when the transmission rate in the community is high enough, and at that point the clause not longer applies. With no warning or statement at all from anyone, suddenly sections of the advice no longer apply but you as a reader have no way of telling whether it does or not.

I hardly think the spokesman defence is going to stand the test of time.