When experts break the rules: blame games, denial and resignations (or lack thereof) during Covid-19

This article analyses four blame games during the Covid-19 pandemic. Three cases in which UK experts broke the government rule – to stay at home and help limit the spread of the virus – during the lockdown. It focuses on three case studies: Catherine Calderwood (Chief Medical Officer for Scotland); Neil Fergusson (a government advisor on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE)); and Dominic Cummings (Chief Advisor to UK PM Boris Johnson). The fourth case is a Dutch incident post-lockdown where the Minister of Justice, Ferdinand Grapperhaus, failed to abide his own policy to maintain sufficient social distancing at his wedding. In each of the four case studies there was a public outcry, but resignation occurred in only two of the cases, as Dominic Cummings continued to maintain his innocence and remained in post and Ferdinand Grapperhaus remained in post following his apology and promise that those breaking the social distancing-rule would receive a fine and no longer a criminal record. This paper analyses whether the media reaction and the strategies employed by the experts can account for the differences in outcome. It draws from the existing literature to study the politics and strategies of blame games in a comparative perspective (Hood et al. 2016; Resodihardjo et al. 2012, 2019; Resodihardjo 2020). Methodologically, we construct an original coding framework for structured comparison and apply it to four UK newspapers and three Dutch newspapers from across the political spectrum (respectively The Guardian, The Sun, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail; and De Volkskrant, De Telegraaf, and NRC Handelsblad)). Using qualitative and quantitative analysis we account for the different outcomes of the four case studies and provide a unique codebook that can be applied to future research.