The Long Shot: The Inside Story of the Race to Vaccinate Britain

by Kate Bingham, Tim Hames

How Covid-19 vaccines went from the laboratory to people’s arms – the inside story of an extraordinary national campaign against all odds

A Sunday Times bestseller and Financial Times Book of the Year.

The unmissable inside story of the race against the virus.

Catapulted into an international crisis, Kate Bingham knew the odds were heavily stacked against a workable Covid-19 vaccine.

From a remote cottage, Bingham juggled vaccine suppliers, Whitehall, the media circus… as deaths mounted and the world shut down. Political manoeuvring, miscommunications and administrative meddling nearly jeopardised the project. But perseverance and expertise paid off.

Bingham’s eclectic team secured the first vaccine doses administered in the West, saving thousands of lives in the UK as new variants struck. Now, nearly every adult in Britain has had the jab, lockdowns have ended and we can finally live with Covid.

This is the insider view into how the Vaccine Taskforce beat those long odds and delivered a scientific miracle.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science

336 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 20, 2022

Reviews

[Sharon Ferrari · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible account of the behind the scenes efforts of Kate and the VTF which secured for the UK early access to vaccines for COVID. The petty, sometimes malicious behaviour of Government officials and Departments is laid bare and they ought to hang their heads in shame, along with some sections of the British media.

We owe a great debt to Kate and her colleagues and the corporates who supported the VTF. Boris Johnson claims the vaccine roll out as his triumph. He can claim responsibility for appointing Kate and allowing her to work with who she chose but the real credit should go to Kate and all involved with the VTF. I for one give them my utmost thanks.

[James Widdicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book good, could have done without some of long winded stuff about her life etc.

Key points:
- HMG comms crap and needs massive change (cuts).
- Hiring of spads needs rethink.
- Business case process is broken; massive admin burden with basically zero benefit.
- civil service recruitment and promotions broken.
- you can just do stuff if process gets out of way.

[Sangam Agarwal · Rating 1 out of 5]

lockdown was world communism
complete control on everything

[Carole Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening account of vaccination implementation

This is a scary, engaging, no holds bar account of the project to identify and introduce the Covid-19 vaccine.

Kate Bingham and her expert team battle Whitehall bureaucracy and win. Frightening to think if a less talented and focused individual had got the job. Thank you, Kate.

[Diana Cheal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was torn in what to give this. It’s 5* for what an amazing woman Bingham is and what a fantastic job they did in sourcing the vaccines and spearheading the VTF. But it’s a tricky to book in read if you aren’t that interested in the detailed science of it all - great if you are!! A lot of different committees to remember and scientific detail. However, it shows how much the Civil Service needs to reform as it’s slow and unwieldy, how Matt Hancock isn’t particularly nice, but how we should be proud about how we were the First Nation to vaccinate in the world!

[Isaac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kate Bingham did a fantastic job leading the Vaccine Taskforce, but came out of it with a chip on her shoulder the size of Greenland, which seems to be the primary motivation for writing this book.

[Jakub Dovcik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Few things have acquired such legendary status in recent memory of technology policy discussions as the British and American drives to develop the COVID-19 vaccines. Called the ‘longest of long-shots’, these efforts were nevertheless successful and this book is a part of the story from the British perspective, by the Chairwoman of the Vaccine Taskforce (VTF), Kate Bingham.

This book has three main angles. Firstly, it is a kind of memoir of one external person (Bingham is a Venture Capitalist, and despite being the daughter of a legendary Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and the wife of a Tory MP, ‘does not care about politics’) being thrust into the most operational and process-heavy aspects of government functioning in the most critical of times. There are also snippets of her background and life during the lockdowns, which give it a human touch but sometimes (when repeated quite frequently) can feel a bit superficial.

Secondly, it is a story about the functioning of the Vaccine Taskforce itself. This aspect is exciting and puts the whole dysfunction of Whitehall in the spotlight. It shows the portfolio approach the VTF took, its strategy of being ‘the most desirable customer’ for the individual vaccines, the support it provided for Astra-Zeneca and Novavax vaccine developments, the interactions with other bodies (like the MHRA or the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI)) and with international partners.

This part is interesting, but at various points, there are just too many names to keep track of, so that after some time, one remembers them more as ‘the civil service director general’(Nick Elliot) or ‘the submarine procurement expert’ (Ruth Todd) and so on and a lot of the insights from it are quite common in the discourse about the reforming Whitehall. Yes, it is focused on process more than on outcomes (I like the recommendation of postponing the honours for senior civil servants after their results can be judged more reliably as well as an emphasis on feedback for internal candidates in Whitehall recruitment), yes there are too many generalists and too few specialists with STEM degrees and yes, the procurement processes are slow and outdated.

I agree with all of that and often advocate for reforms myself (both in the UK and at home in Slovakia, where the problems with procurement are similar), but there is just not enough understanding given as to why it might be so - why the public risks are just inherently different to the private ones and why the VC approach cannot be applied to many aspects of government functioning. This is not to say that processes should not change or that spending public money is not disproportionately complicated to what it should be. But as the PPE and other covid-era scandals have shown, some rules exist for a reason and while shortening processes can be useful and necessary for some areas, it might not be for others.

Lastly, it the book is also about setting scores with the journalistic and SpAd elite, whom Bingham believes undermined her. This is probably the juiciest part, which includes also the defence of why the VTF chose not to buy Moderna vaccines and why it acted with others as it did so, with also more personal parts like descriptions of her interactions with Matt Hancock (“Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”: nice to her in private, but berating her in front of Cabinet members), Boris Johnson (who wanted British flag on the vaccines) and most of all, although at the very end of the book, with Lee Cain (who she believes undermined her despite being unwilling to understand what she was actually trying to do). She addresses the incompetence of government communications, and lack of overall strategy and fights back against the allegations that hiring an external comms firm for recruiting volunteers into the trials was her vanity project. Overall, this part has a lot to give in terms of explaining the completely absurd nature of how comms in Whitehall actually work.

I enjoyed the book and learned a lot about the developments of vaccines, trials and so on, but I was hoping for more insights into the workings of the task force itself. There is a lot about the science behind the vaccines, about the individual plans and the logistics behind it all. To really reform the government processes, one would, however, need a more thorough understanding of why some things work as they do, in order to understand how can they be reformed, alongside the recommendations from Bingham at the end.

[Rog the Jammy Dodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating insight into how the UK led the world in the selection, development and deployment of vaccines in response to the covid crisis. Kate Bingham chaired the Vaccine Task Force that drove the UK's response. On the one hand it is a reassuring testament to the intellect, drive and ingenuity that the UK was able to muster in a time of crisis. On the other it shines a shameful light on some politicians and their advisors who would actually brief against such a success as the VTF and its members to save their own faces, or newspapers who report on same without appropriate consultation and fact checking. And don't rest assured that lessons will be learnt so that we are better prepared in the future....should Kate's recommendations at the end of the book not be heeded then it will be the same all over again.

[Bodil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kate Bingham lead VTF, the Vaccine Taskforce that in about half a year managed to get Covid-19 vaccination started in the UK. It was an unbelievable feat brought about by the right people getting together and working extremely hard. And these people were chosen on their knowledge and ability to things done, which not surprisingly turned out to be the right way forward. Unfortunately, it also seems that this was achieved in spite of Whitehall! Incredible! I fully agree with Bingham that more people with a STEM education should be leading our countries!
The book is very interesting, although it could have been a bit shorter. And a list of all the acronyms would surely had helped med. Still it isn’t difficult to read.
Note: STEM means science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I am learning!

[Catherine Jobling · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a really interesting read and insight into the response to the COVID pandemic. I had not realised that one of the benefits of the NHS is the central database of patient records which proved useful for the clinical trials. I am shocked at the way Kate was attacked by the media. I loved the last chapter , looking back, I am shocked, but not surprised, about the quality of those officials in Whitehall and without STEM backgrounds. I hope they make a film based on this book so the wider population hears Kate’s story.

[Chris Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting read, diverted into what felt like personal payback at times (often justified, but distracted from the story) and interesting thoughts about what made the UK so successful in this area.