How Lee Cain has the temerity to try to transfer the blame for this government’s shortcomings is beyond me (PM’s former aide blames Whitehall for Covid ‘mixed messages’, 4 September). Blaming the civil service for a lack of expertise is unforgivable and wrong, when most were working flat out into the night and over weekends to implement ever-changing policy decisions.
It was the prime minister and others in government who sent mixed messages, with Boris Johnson shaking hands and not having the guts to stop people mixing at Christmas. I suspect the press conference slides that Cain refers to were often sent moments before the start of conferences because so many advisers wanted sight of the final versions.
There was previously a Central Office of Information, which acted successfully for 65 years as the government’s communications agency, reporting directly to the Cabinet Office from civil service departments. It was closed in December 2011 – axed in the coalition government’s austerity drive.
Civil servants communicate government policy. If Cain wishes to seek a scapegoat for the mixed messages, his time would be better spent looking at disordered government policy.
Sue Hardman
Woodbridge, Suffolk
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