I'm going to respectfully disagree with you on this matter. First quoting articles in the The Telegraph and The Spectator to demonstrate Ferguson's lack of competence is not credible. Both these publications are quite anti-science, sensationalist and contrarian in nature. Furthermore the authors of these articles are have no scientific qualifications what so ever. First of all we have Steerpike, the Spectator's gossip columnist and Snide Sniper in residence trying to take swipes at Ferguson over several disease outbreaks going back 20 years. I'm aware of all of these epidemics and I fail to see why best and worst case scenarios are wrong. All modeling has a margin of error. Also Steerpike (is this Toby Young or his doppelgänger?) seems to be attributing blame to government decisions (not even wrong) made well before Ferguson was an advisor. I'm not sure what point The Telegraph's Sherelle Jacobs is trying to make as the article is behind a paywall and I can only read the first couple of paragraphs. However she is has been an ardent climate change denier and yet uses the term "junk science" like a hand grenade and in the same way we hear the term "fake news" being thrown around. Also her lack of civility about Ferguson, referring to him as "Professor Lockdown", is rude and adolescent to say the least -such dripping condescension is unworthy journalism.
Overall though I still don't understand the criticism. The UK was late going into lockdown when the we were having approx 600 cases and around 50 deaths a day. The infection rate at the time was doubling every 3 days. Regardless of Ferguson's worst case predictions, the country was late going into quarantine and it was this slow decision that has cost us dearly, not Ferguson's science.
