Neil Ferguson Debacle: a classic or modern domestic tragedy? // Don't let meritocracy get in the way of a good drama

Late on Tuesday evening, sensational revelations revealed Professor Neil Ferguson's illegal affair with married lover, Antonia Staats, 10 years his junior. His prompt resignation was as expected as the subsequent outrage at the hypocrisy and selfishness of his actions - which indeed were outrageous and hypocritical. It's one rule for us, and one rule for the elites. The lawmakers are telling us to do as they say, not as they do. That's all true, but it misses the point.

We love scandal. Throw in sex, illegal affairs, cuckolding, open marriages, high-profile rule-makers with younger women, and we've got the perfect ingredients for a media storm. I mean, the epidemiology professor's lover is even called Staats! But what should the consequences for such a big scandal be? We know, because we've seen this one before. It's a quick resignation if you've a PR advisor, or a nasty and long battle with the tabloids if you don't. And then you start your slow descent back into mediocrity. You go back to something close to your previous role, but for a different organisation, slightly worse than the last. You fade out of the public eye and you rebuild yourself, like an ex-convict apart from you've been judged by the public eye. But through it all, no matter what else you do (unless it's even worse), you'll always be 'that guy'. You'll be the XX scandal guy in the answer to pub quizzes ten years down the line.  Your reputation might get better but it won't recover.

So far, so obvious. These are the rules that we live by, and like them or hate them, once you go onto the media circuit, they're what you sign up for. They say politics is the show business for ugly people, and between showbiz and election time there's space for every single hue of attraction, no matter how ugly you are. If you're a politician standing for election, that's what you sign up to. If you're an actor promoting a new TV role, you know the deal. Heck, if you're a Hollywood actor marrying into the Royal family then quitting to live it large in LA, you know the deal too!

But what happens when coronavirus hits? What happens to the fame-for-privacy trade-off then? Ever since coronavirus hit the mainstream, the government maxim has been that they're following the scientific advice. And that has been the message, more than anything else, that has made them so popular amongst the public too. But to show you're following scientific advice you need to show the scientists. Especially if you're a politician with a perception of a problem handling detail!

That's why we see ministers give their daily briefing flanked by scientists, and it's why Professor Neil Ferguson's profile suddenly increased dramatically too. When the going gets uncertain, the people want experts to give insight into unknowns. And that's how scientists and academics like Professor
Chris Whitty CB FRCP FFPH FMedSci Hon FRCPCH Hon FFPM, Sir Patrick Vallance FRS FMedSci FRCP and Professor Neil Ferguson OBE FMedSci, become household names.

But these guys aren't politicians. They haven't spent years with media training, building carefully constructed media profiles. They've spent their time building their expertise and, by the wayside, the list of titles and qualifications to accompany their names! But the people they're up against, the people doing their bit for the national effort by "holding them to account" are the very same political journalists who cut their teeth on ministerial resignations and digging up politicians' troubling pasts.

We saw the first high-profile casualty of the new batch of targets for the media in Dr Catherine Calderwood, formerly Scotland's Chief Medical Officer. Like fresh-faced recruits going in to face well-trained machine guns, the slick and effective press had claimed its first scalp of the coronavirus age.  Initially, Nicola Sturgeon wanted Calderwood to continue in post; the calculation was clearly that, for all her personal failings, professionally she was still seen as providing value. But her presence at the next day's briefing changed the focus of the media questions completely. It had now become clear: the media could not overlook her personal flaws for her professional competence. She had to go.

We see the same weighing of the scales for Ferguson now. However important Ferguson is to helping the fight against coronavirus - he's on SAGE, and said to be very close to Number 10 - he will not be allowed to continue contributing to the public effort in fighting coronavirus. The public won't allow him. The public won't forgive him. So Professor Ferguson will go and he will probably be replaced by other scientists. Maybe someone else from his department at Imperial might step up, maybe they won't. In the end, in our minds, it won't really matter. The government still have experts who they can call upon to demonstrate they are 'following the science', and we can still hit them when they don't, or when the science is wrong, or when the science is right but still worse than we'd hoped.

But that all negates the point of these experts. SAGE's 50 odd members are presumably all there for a reason: they're useful experts in fighting COVID, or they're pointless. And taking away parts of expert advice weakens it. The national effort to tackle coronavirus, or mitigate its effects, is undoubtedly harmed by what Ferguson has done. Yes, more people will oppose the lockdown measures, with greater ammunition this time. But also, the government has lost a key voice in the room in its analyses and preparations.

But that is the very nature of today's scandal-loving and cancel-culture. One of Theresa May's most popular messages (back when she was popular once) was about building a 'great meritocracy'. The public love that. Meritocracy. Or, they love the concept of it at least. "The holding of power by people chosen on the basis of merit (as opposed to wealth, social class, etc.)" Everyone signs up to that in principle, but in practice that means putting the best people where they are most needed. And the best people in particular spheres cannot necessarily be the best all round people.

The greatest and most celebrated people have never been the most rounded personalities. But history doesn't care about someone's gambling habits, sexual profligacy, backstabbing way to the top, if they can back it up with the goods. If a general can win a battle, they're a hero; if an inventor can cure a disease, it overwrites personal problems. You can see where I'm going with this. If a scientist can save lives, surely we can forgive human error.

Evidently, we can't. And that's not necessarily the wrong thing to do in this case. It's hard to tell the public to follow advice from somebody who directly contradicts it.

But just how bad has Ferguson been? Having an affair with a married woman in her thirties is exciting; it adds to the scandal, but we could forgive that. And even when we look into the details of the lockdown-flaunting, we see Ferguson was immune to coronavirus, having already caught it and isolated for two weeks once the symptoms had worn off. Antonia Staats reportedly even told her friends she was continuing meeting the Professor, considering him part of her 'household'. On a very primary level, Ferguson does not seem to have put people on danger: the issue is one of hypocrisy and trust.

Ferguson's real failing and fatal flaw, the hamartia to his classical tragedy, has been a naïveté in his understanding in the repercussions of his new media-friendly role. Just as Dr Catherine Calderwood made mistakes because she was unused to media scrutiny, Ferguson acted as if he was somehow different to the rest of us. And indeed, it turns out he was - there are probably few people better qualified than himself to assess his own individual ability to transmit the disease: to all intents and purposes, he was and is immune. Epidemiologically (his area of expertise), he was safe to meet Ms Staats; politically he was not.

Human error and mistakes like these are always inevitable when we as a public ask experts in specific fields to step up into the public eye. We need them, and would shame them were they to reject their public duty in favour of continuing private projects or whatnot. But the standards that we, through the media, hold them to are the same as those we hold politicians to the rest of the time. It takes great skill for a journalist to get the 'gotcha' moment with a politician, or get that killer scoop into something they've done in the past, or some inconsistency. It's a lot easier with today's new celebrities, straight out of academia and the labs.

A lot of these people aren't frontline politicians for a reason, but if we go after them like they are, then they won't stay frontline contributors spokespersons for very long. You can argue about the value of Professor Ferguson to the COVID effort, and expelling him from SAGE is probably the best defensive action to hold together message discipline. But every moment spent putting out fires and fighting authenticity questions and conspiracies by the government is a moment lost developing measures to fight against, or better live with the disease. Sure, media scrutiny can work very well - PPE and care homes are two areas concerted media attention is bringing perceivable change. But taking out meritocratically selected scientists behind the government can only affect their output in a detrimental way.

Exposing Professor Neil Ferguson's lockdown love sexcapades has every element of a public interest piece, and though as a public it definitely does interest us, is it really in our best interest regarding the coronavirus challenge? Neil Ferguson's tragedy is classic: his own errors and own flaws are his undoing, but it is also partly a domestic tragedy too. We as a society are responsible for some of the hysteria surrounding his total removal from the fight, when you feel he may have otherwise had more to give.