The Accountability Deficit

THE ACCOUNTABILITY DEFICIT

How ministers and officials evaded accountability, misled the public and violated democracy during the pandemic

The result of months of painstaking research covering thousands of pages of official records, reports and contemporaneous commentaries, THE ACCOUNTABILITY DEFICIT exposes a catalogue of serious failures of governance, ethics and — ultimately — accountability in the UK’s corridors of power during the pandemic period.

While the Covid Inquiry continues to avoid asking the questions that so many of us want asked, this important critique of the UK’s pandemic response confronts the issues head on.

With a trail of evidence lifted from official published records, they have documented the brief life and premature demise of the Government’s expert group of moral and ethical advisors known as MEAG. Two former members of MEAG agreed to be interviewed and quoted about what happened, provided they were not named.

Many of the grim facts exposed in this book are not yet widely known.

Although our analysis has been centred around key decisions in the pandemic response, we believe the deficits of governance and ethics which so marred the period of the pandemic was and is symptomatic of deeper maladies affecting our country’s democratic institutions and safeguards.

THE ACCOUNTABILITY DEFICIT includes a powerfully candid afterword written by parliamentarian Danny Kruger MP.

The Accountability Deficit explains how the normal systems of decision-making fell apart in the pandemic.
As the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee reported in 2021, official processes were more or less abandoned in the urgency of the crisis, replaced by WhatsApp groups and ad hoc committees of ministers, advisers and civil servants.

A graphic picture of how accountability has all but vanished from politics and public service.
The admirable and brave authors of this work have fearlessly examined the failings of governance since March 2020. The research is exhaustive and rigorous.

Devastating and necessary read.
Absolutely brilliant analysis of every decision the government made during covid and what manipulated them, from the opportunities for profit from the pharma companies, to political competition. Really important book for anyone now wanting to understand how the last three years happened, and extremely important for the future so that new generations of politicians can understand and avoid the same failures.