Britain’s government says it is “following the science”. Which science?

WATCHING THE great and good trip up is a popular British spectator sport, and the lockdown offers a variety of banana skins which may bring eminent people down. First to tumble was Catherine Calderwood, who resigned as Scotland’s chief medical officer after twice breaking restrictions to visit her second home. This week it was the turn of Neil Ferguson (pictured), an epidemiologist whose bleak modelling spurred on Britain’s lockdown. He will no longer advise the government after flouting the rules by having his lover visit. The newspaper headlines were merciless. “Prof Lockdown broke lockdown to get his trousers down,” read the Sun’s splash.

The episode provides a fine example not only of Britain’s immature attitude to sex and scandal but also of the degree to which the covid-19 pandemic has thrust scientists into the spotlight. Eight weeks ago, hardly anybody had heard of the man whose extra-curricular activities graced the newspapers’ front pages; today, whether he likes it or not, “Prof Lockdown” is a public figure.

The roles of the government’s chief scientific officer and chief medical officer are normally “backstage jobs”, says James Wilsdon of Sheffield University, who has had trouble tracking down pictures of former office-holders with prime ministers for his lectures. Yet the incumbents—...