James O'Brien questions why right wing papers are "pooh-poohing" Covid science
3 November 2020, 10:39 | Updated: 3 November 2020, 10:45
James O'Brien questions why right wing outlets are dismissing science
James O'Brien could not wrap his head around why right wing outlets seem to be "pooh-poohing" Covid science and are implying the SAGE advisors are "acting in bad faith."
This comes after the PM's announcement that England will enter a second national lockdown from Thursday and will last until 2 December.
Reflecting on right wing media, James said, "There's almost an accusation in the air that SAGE and independent SAGE that they're somehow pulling the wool over our eyes."
He found this especially hard to understand as a YouGov poll has found the British public support a second lockdown in an excess of 70%.
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"Yet I turn to my media... and this attempt now to sort of pooh-pooh the science or to say 'well this graph doesn't do what it's meant to do' or 'why are they doing this with the numbers?'" James said.
James asked: "Why would we not put our intelligent trust, our scrutinising trust in people who have spent their lives studying this stuff? And people who have risen to the top of their various professions looking specifically at the stuff that's under discussion?"'
James said that, obviously, no one wants a month-long lockdown as is a "nightmare for all of us."
"Where does this idea come from that it's been inflicted upon us in bad faith?" James asked, when originally following the science was the defence - a view which has morphed almost 180 degrees in the papers.
