Challenging behaviour

Updates on the government’s Ventilator Challenge leave many questions unanswered—literally

Just as news was breaking on Friday of the involvement of Dominic Cummings and former Vote Leave data analyst Ben Warner with the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, another story broke about the withdrawal of the Dyson company from the government’s Ventilator Challenge. This second story appeared almost simultaneously in The Telegraph and on the BBC website.

It came as something of a surprise to Playbook, which had been asking the government questions about Dyson’s role in the Ventilator Challenge since Wednesday and, just moments before the story broke, was being directed by the Cabinet Office to the Department of Health and Social Care for answers. Those questions remain unanswered as we go to print this morning, while the government is struggling to account for thousands of ventilators it says have been procured since the start of the challenge.