The number 23,000 is etched in the public’s memory as a grim reminder of those who lost their lives due to the government’s delayed response under Boris Johnson’s leadership. As the COVID-19 pandemic loomed, with chilling scenes of makeshift morgues in Italy, Johnson chose to vacation, ignoring critical calls. While the NHS prepared for an overwhelming influx of cases, he indulged in leisure activities like riding his motorbike, walking his dog, and hosting friends at Chevening.

Johnson’s actions are unsurprising to many, given his eventual ousting from Downing Street and subsequent resignation as an MP, events largely tied to his partying and misleading parliament. His reputation as a self-serving leader surrounded by chaos was well-known. However, this issue transcends one individual’s behavior. It highlights a broader circle of right-wing libertarians and their influential stance within UK media.

This group has a storied past of opposing life-saving measures such as seatbelts, speed limits, smoking bans, sugar taxes, vaccinations, and welfare benefits. They have even been skeptical of sewers, clean air initiatives, the NHS, and efforts to combat climate change. During the 1980s and ’90s, the Sunday Times, under Andrew Neil’s editorship, published controversial theories on AIDS, questioning its link to HIV and downplaying its risk to heterosexuals. Neil has expressed regret about aspects of this coverage but does not claim direct responsibility.

Today, this anti-science sentiment persists. Lockdowns epitomize what right-wing science skeptics detest, and it was unfortunate that such a group was in power during the pandemic. Their responses were often criticized as “too little, too late.” Without the undeniable realities of the pandemic eventually overtaking their ideology, the UK might have faced an even greater death toll.

Lockdown skeptics have been vocal in challenging the findings of the COVID report led by former high court judge Heather Hallett, appointed by Johnson. From the outset, they argued that lockdowns were futile. On the fifth anniversary of the first lockdown, debates flared over who initially opposed it. Daniel Hannan of the Sunday Telegraph claimed he was among the first to resist, lamenting, “What the hell were we thinking?” He argued that the lockdown led to financial disaster and eroded public trust.

Toby Young of the Spectator swiftly countered Hannan’s claims, naming himself as one of the initial journalists to denounce the lockdown, alongside colleagues like Peter Hitchens, Allison Pearson, and others. Media outlets like the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Express, and Spectator, later joined by GB News, steadfastly supported libertarian views throughout the pandemic. As Nigel Farage and Richard Tice rebranded the Brexit Party to Reform UK, campaigning against restrictions, it’s crucial to remember the 23,000 lives lost. Public sentiment has consistently favored caution, including support for lockdowns.

Now with this report, virulent attacks by this cadre rain down on Hallett’s statistics and reasoning. The Telegraph contests the numbers. Toby Young’s outlet, the Daily Sceptic (successor to his Lockdown Sceptics blog), is on the attack. Shamefully, Johnson himself smeared the inquiry that he himself complied with as “hopelessly incoherent”, in the Daily Mail.

Maybe 23,000 is too many or not enough: but it’s an informed estimate. Sweden is the country constantly quoted by the right, as it relied entirely on a voluntary advisory approach, never compulsory lockdowns. In terms of deaths per capita, many fewer Swedes died than Britons: case proven? Hallett trounced? Alas, we are not Sweden in social structure, national wealth, vulnerable deprivation, health or social care, mainly due to the longterm malign influence of the right fighting tooth and claw against Swedish-style social democracy. But here’s the most telling research, comparing the socially and economically similar Norway with Sweden. Norway implemented lockdowns while Sweden refused. Many more died per million in Sweden (2,759) than in Norway (1,050).

The precautionary principle, putting safety first when the science is uncertain, is as alien to these ideologues as risk registers. To them, safeguarding regulations and public protections are comical, while officials who shield society are laughable blobs and plods. Johnson took a witty swipe at me back in 2006 exemplifying the great chasm between our sides. He said that I incarnate “all the nannying, high-taxing, high-spending schoolmarminess of Blair’s Britain” as “the high-priestess of our paranoid, mollycoddled, risk-averse, airbagged, booster-seated culture of political correctness and ‘elf’n’safety fascism’”. Fair enough and funnily enough, I wear the badge with pride; public wellbeing is a serious matter.

Johnson and his world were never serious: they play games and affect jocular mannerisms because they don’t actually believe in government. Brexit was another of their political games, with direst consequences. The report quotes Johnson saying, “let the bodies pile high” at the prospect of large numbers dying in care homes (he has denied saying it). More than 45,000 of them did indeed die, as hospitals tipped untested patients into care home beds.

That was an outrageously flippant and deeply revealing attitude, so objectionable that it instantly shuts down discussion. His faction are using their own bogus figures to reject Hallett’s and “prove” lockdowns don’t save lives, as so often decadently rejecting majority scientific opinion.

But their outrageous attacks shouldn’t deter a deep debate on the far more difficult question: was the mighty cost of lockdowns and government recompense to business and individuals worth the number of (mostly elderly) lives saved? How many QALYs – quality adjusted life years – ie years of good quality, were preserved and at what price?

Bereaved families are painfully clear in their view. But the gigantic cost has to be weighed in the balance, estimated by the House of Commons library at £310bn to £410bn. A Benthamite felicific calculus seeking the greatest good for the greatest number might compute how many more lives could be saved one way or another, how much more happiness could be created and unhappiness avoided if the chancellor now had that vast extra sum for her budget this week.

Understandably people are torn by such questions. It’s not easy, but it needs serious thought that will never be had from these extremist dilettantes. Future modules of Hallett’s inquiry will look at the terrible harm done by keeping children out of school for extended periods; leaving old people to die alone; domestic violence; loneliness; and the crippling blow to the economy, commerce and public services. Those life and death trade-offs need to be faced truthfully in the next pandemic. But always beware the deranged right’s predilection for “freedom” over even the most basic lifesaving health and safety measures.