And the truth turned out to be that Kate Bingham did offer her time and talents in service of the public good, and the cv that was published with the announcement of her appointment made it clear what experience and skills - all omitted from the sneer here - she had for that role https://twitter.com/BristOliver/status/1355072554592043010

@afneil rightly excoriates the everyday sexism reflected in much of the response of the supposed intelligentsia and its licensed court jesters to Kate Bingham’s appointment https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1355527716334956545

“There is an England of my mind” wrote the man who sneered at Kate Bingham as an ignorant crony. There is also an England in which even half a century ago, girls were educated to the highest academic standards and encouraged to be determined in pursuit of their aspirations

“How not to be wrong” - a simple lesson. Too much attention given to so many confident opinions expressed here by people who believe themselves to be right, but turn out to be completely and utterly wrong

I’m pleased to see the level of engagement with this short thread explaining in more detail the gross mistakes made by the author of “How To Be Right” and “How Not To Be Wrong” here https://twitter.com/rtrnicholl/status/1355907563959840768

And here’s a professor of human rights law, world trade law and EU law with over 100,000 followers offering his mature and well-informed insight into Kate Bingham’s appointment

Next, a man complains that the information about Kate Bingham’s appointment “does not appear to be readily available” after a FOI request to the Cabinet Office drew a blank.

The information was readily available on http://gov.uk  on 16 May 2020

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/kate-bingham-appointed-chair-of-uk-vaccine-taskforce

The legal director of the Good Law Project, which is suing for a declaration that the appointment was unlawful, concedes that Kate Bingham, disparagingly described as “your mate”, might have “ended up doing a good job”. There’s nothing as underwhelming as faint praise

“Some wives of Tory MPs ... turn out to do a great job” opines someone who, if he has a first class degree in biochemistry from Oxford and a Kennedy scholarship for an MBA at Harvard Business School, is modestly hiding it. A respondent to him doesn’t even concede “a great job”

English actor, writer, comedian and presenter Stephen Mangan picked up almost 70,000 “likes” for this tweet on 1 November 2020, again echoing the presumption that the appointment was venal and the appointee incompetent for the role

Quite apart from information he could have found on http://gov.uk  website when her appointment was announced in May 2020, only a few days earlier, Kate Bingham had published this article in The Lancet about the work of the Vaccine Taskforce https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32175-9/fulltext

Some MPs who enthusiastically retweeted Stephen Mangan’s tweet have been deleting it from their timelines now that it’s clear to them how embarrassingly wrong it was

But the Good Law Project still has this 21 November 2020 page, which describes the crowdfunded anti-cronyism litigation it is pursuing, live on its website. Its legal director conceded that “your mate ... might end up doing a good job” but, like the GLP itself, has now blocked me

Why does an organisation which solicits public contributions to its work, and describes itself as speaking the truth and acting with integrity, not simply acknowledge it has made a mistake here?

It’s only fair to say that Stephen Mangan did delete his tweet, unblock me, and discuss it civilly

Not deleted. These tweets, which describe Kate Bingham as “... buggering the country up for the rest of us” and “so incredibly grim”. There was no substance in the negative headlines and accusations of conflict of interest and leaking confidential information quoted either

I am blocked by this individual, who refers to me as “an account that doesn’t engage in good faith”, a favourite phrase

Not deleted. The wisdom of “actor, writer, director, fool” as he describes himself in his bio, David Schneider

“No relevant experience or expertise” simply reveals the ignorance of the soi-disant fool, as a first class Oxford degree in biochemistry and long experience of venture capital investment in the products of the life sciences industry was highly relevant to the VTF’s objectives

Not deleted. A QC finds this “completely incredible”. She was right. It was incredible, because untrue, as Parliamentary records from 4 and 10 November clearly show. But a smear still live on the Twitter timeline of @GoodLawProject legal director @gem_abbott (I’m blocked by both)

I think lawyers who choose to tweet politically and polemically should have a duty to do their best to update and correct information they have relied on to make a point, especially when it is shown to have been wrong by the official Parliamentary record, as it has been here

And it’s surely flagrantly inconsistent with the high standards that the Good Law Project holds out for itself for this to remain live on the Twitter timeline of its legal director, having been shown to be untrue in evidence and answers before both Houses of Parliament

I’m blocked by the Twitter accounts of the Director, Legal Director, and Good Law Project itself, apparently because I “don’t engage in good faith”. This thread is in absolute earnest, and isn’t only about them, although they alone are asking the public for money to litigate here

Yesterday, two European newspapers, la Repubblica and die Welt published a joint interview with Kate Bingham in English https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/02/07/news/kate_bingham_interview_vaccines_covid_astrazeneca_uk_coronavirus_johnson-286384093/

Consistent with other interviews in the press and on the radio/podcasts it expands on the skills and experience she brought to the role, which any fair-minded reader could have discerned for themselves. As for the Guardian “there’s very little they’ve written that is correct”

It was the Guardian which published the article in the first tweet in this thread and which included this allegation, on which the Good Law Project was then proposing to litigate, but which was completely baseless https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/16/covid-19-contracts-cronyism-government-court

As a Parliamentary answer, the annual report of the VTF published in December 2020, and an i/v made clear, the contract with this consultancy was made by the VTF with normal process, and the work was done in connection with setting up a registry of participants in vaccine trials

Even though the achievements of the Vaccine Task Force under Kate Bingham’s leadership had had greater publicity and recognition by the end of January, the man who described her appointment as “so unbearably grim” does not acknowledge its role in the success of vaccination now

No fair-minded, reasonably well-informed person could attribute the success of the vaccination programme to the public sector alone. The attitude shown by the Good Law Project, its director and legal director towards Kate Bingham as chair of the VTF has been shameful throughout

The Vaccine Taskforce published its year end report on 8 December 2020, including an independent review of its work by the chair of the Royal Institution. Not a single mainstream journalist or activist commentator appears to have noted its publication or its contents https://twitter.com/bia_uk/status/1336253044112101377

@Gabriel_Pogrund - the report contains a list of VTF members, and information about the communications work done in connection with the new NHS citizens’ registry for vaccine trials. I’m a Times subscriber, have read your other articles. Did you write anything on this report?

“How Not To Be Wrong” by James O’Brien, revisited

And no, this isn’t an example of an impressive change of mind on reflection on the evidence, because the evidence was always there for anyone willing to look at it without prejudice or the sneering presumptions manifest in his earlier comments

Another QC proclaiming himself to be a “do gooder, leftie lawyer” makes an over-simplistic distinction between public and private sector contributions to the response to coronavirus, omitting to mention the VTF at all. Its role was well described in KB’s 8 January i/v on Radio 4