Monthly Archives: April 2020

Behind the Shield

Day 33 of shielding. Here’s a collection of pandemic-related thoughts.

shield

Good Deeds, Bad Deeds

Politically speaking, Boris Johnson has only ever committed one good deed. That was to catch a moderately severe case of coronavirus, and recover. When Johnson is fit to return to work – and he is fully entitled to a period of recuperation in line with medical advice – perhaps, just perhaps, we may all benefit from his experience. We can only hope that he has learnt to be a little less cavalier with the nation’s health, having been close-ish* to death himself. The idea of Johnson being a voice for caution is truly bizarre, but then stranger things have happened in these past few weeks.
(* We may not know for a long time just how close he was. The idea that anything that may emerge from Number Ten’s spokesperson bears any resemblance to the truth is just plain fanciful.)

In all other respects, Johnson has been a disaster in all phases of his adult life.

  1. As a journalist, Johnson’s utter indifference to the difference between truth and lies has caused real and lasting harm. His spell as the Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent in the 1990s is an obvious case in point. Almost single-handedly, he invented a whole series of myths (lies, in plain speaking) about the EU and its workings. This laid the foundation for the disaster of the 2016 referendum result. Under his editorship of The Spectator, a thousand far-right poisonous columns were encouraged, further polluting the political discourse in the UK.
  2. As London mayor, he first took the glory for all the hard work done by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, in the 2012 London Olympics. As mayor, he was lazy, never on top of the detail and despised by the majority of GLA staff – information from a former GLA staffer. His tenure was all photo-opportunities (see, for example, Turd On the Wire), no substance (except for a legacy of failed vanity projects: Boris Island, Garden Bridge, etc.).
  3. So is it any surprise, then, that these same deep personality traits have been repeated during his months as Prime Minister? Missing five Cobra meetings is unprecedented – to use a much-overworked word in these times. So add “holidays” to “photo-opportunities” to the previous paragraph.

So, no. I can’t think of a single thing to add to the “good” pile apart from falling ill.

Clowns and Pygmies

And don’t get me started on the sick, sick, joke laughingly called the UK’s Cabinet.

I have to keep pinching myself to remember that the de facto acting Prime Minister is one Dominic Raab. Raab: a man so far out of his depth that even the Mariana Trench doesn’t cut it as a metaphor. Raab: a man so useless he didn’t make it into the last round of voting for Tory leader last year. And the rest of the Cabinet, too rubbish to be worth remembering their names, are just a ragbag of zealots and yes-men (and a smattering of women).

We should never forget that Johnson chose his team on the basis of loyalty to the cause of Br*xit: courtiers and sycophants at the Court of the Man Who Would Be World King. Not one single member of the Cabinet was chosen on the basis of their knowledge, skills or even basic competence to do the job.

One Grownup in the Chamber

Which brings us to the one grownup in the room. Or at least in the chamber of the House of Commons. I cannot begin to describe my relief that, at long last, we have an effective, intelligent and capable Leader of the Opposition. By all accounts Kier Starmer wiped the floor with Raab at PMQs in the Commons last week. He struck just the right tone and balance between supporting the Government’s efforts to combat the pandemic and forensic examination of their many errors. It’s reasonable to expect those who govern us to be held to account, not least because (with honourable exceptions) the media are doing such a piss poor job of it.

To be fair to the BBC, critical and intelligent analysis does get airtime, even in the BBC’s news bulletins and high marks to Emily Maitlis and Newsnight for some sharp reporting. I look forward as various members of the Shadow Cabinet – not least David Lammy, of whom I’m a big fan – get more fully to grips with their briefs. Good decision making and competent governance depend upon good Opposition.

(Non-) Testing Times

The woeful lack of Government preparedness and lack of attention to warnings in the January to early March period is now becoming clearer. The lies, cover-ups and attempts to shift goalposts and rewrite history undermine our trust in those in whom we must perforce place it. Ten years of austerity has left the public realm in a weakened state – but some of the catching up has been quite impressive. The problem is that it is the heroic efforts of thousands, possibly millions of ordinary workers – many low paid – which are putting right the policy failures of years of Tory rule.

The worst fears of ventilator shortages and hospital ICUs becoming overwhelmed seem to have passed – for now. But the continuing struggle for PPE remains a national disgrace and an international laughing stock. Ministers and senior officials have given at least four versions of the reasons behind the UK failing to participate in joint EU purchasing schemes. So we know that at least three of them are lies. A recurrent theme of over-promising and under-delivering is wearing thin the nation’s patience.

As a member of the “shielding” fraternity, I await evidence of any Government thinking on an exit strategy. Do I really have to stay at home until there’s a vaccine or effective treatment?

Worshippers at the Shrine of Science

The UK Government’s repeated mantra of “following The Science” obfuscates the glaring fact of the UK repeatedly not following WHO advice. Rules for the wearing of PPE change depending on the level of supply shortages, so, in this aspect at least, “following The Science” is a lie. The secrecy surrounding the membership of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) committee and the revelation that the mad zealot SPAD Cummings has made several appearances further undermines the Government mantra. And as anyone with any insight into things scientific knows, “The Science” is always uncertain, tentative, confusing and sometimes contradictory.

So WHOSE science Ministers are influenced by is of utmost importance. The screeching U-turn on 23rd March when “herd immunity” was dropped in favour of lockdown is the most obvious example so far. This was the day when one lot of scientists were so alarmed at government policy that they actually shouted loud enough to be heard over the siren songs of the behavioural scientists who had hitherto held the Prime Minister’s (short-spanned) attention.

Public Health Announcement

Finally, talk of short attention spans brings me inevitably to the one country which is making a bigger mess of this than the UK: the United States of America. So, in the best traditions of Public Health Announcements, here’s my contribution.

Want to cure yourself of the coronavirus? Just follow these easy steps.

  1. (a) Procure yourself a sun-bed or (b) travel to one of your own resorts or golf courses in a hot, sunny part of your country.
  2. If (b), find a lounger in a sunny spot.
  3. Pour yourself a long, cool glass of bleach or household disinfectant. (As you are American, try not to put too many ice cubes in your glass, as this will dilute the beneficial effects.)
  4. Ask a minion to get you a powerful light source: an industrial strength laser is ideal.
  5. Settle comfortably on the sunbed or lounger.
  6. Shine the light source directly onto your oversized abdomen (ignore any burning smells).
  7. Drink the contents of the glass in one go.
  8. Lie back and relax, contented with how much joy you have just brought to the world.

Health warning: do NOT attempt this at home, unless your name is Donald Trump.

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Gove in the Time of Corona

And so it has come to this.

Last Monday, Michael Gove stood in for the self-isolating Boris Johnson at the No. 10 pandemic briefing session. The country found itself dependent on the most duplicitous, scheming Cabinet Minister to explain the current situation and to tell us what the Government – collectively the most incompetent in my lifetime – is doing to tackle the outbreak. And yet we have no choice but to – sort of – believe he is speaking the truth.

Playing Catch Up

testing for coroavirus
Testing…

There’s wide agreement, including in some traditional Tory supporting newspapers, that the government screwed up its handling of the crisis, at least in the first few weeks. So the UK has been playing catch up since Johnson’s U-turn on 23rd March. The lack of testing kits and ventilators are the two most glaring examples. But the food supply industry, and in particular the supermarkets, have not exactly bathed themselves in glory. The government seems to be still too ideologically inclined to believe that the private sector can do more to adapt than is actually the case.

We’re in the psychologically disturbing phase where all the key numbers, and in particular deaths, are still rising daily. It helps me personally not to over-obsess on them. I also look out for good news stories to act as some kind of reassurance. As “MD” in the latest Private Eye points out, since January 1st, 159,987 people have died in the UK, 158,759 from causes other than the coronavirus – and therefore not newsworthy. (I guess the article was written on Monday: the numbers have changed, but the broad point still stands.) It’s clearly important that we keep a sense of proportion in all this. I’m sure that’s a struggle for a lot of people, including me at times. I’m hoping that the fear factor, which affects behaviour such as panic-buying, will subside, once the numbers start to stabilise and then subside.

Irrelevant

It’s a tragedy for the country that the Labour Party has boxed itself into a corner of irrelevance as a result of the extraordinarily extended self-indulgence – as it now feels – of a leadership contest. The result is due to be announced later today as I write. Everybody expects Keir Starmer to win. It would be great if he and other talented Labour Party leading figures were invited to join a government of national unity, at least until the crisis is over. Stranger things have already happened in the past two weeks, announced mainly from the lips of the new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. He’s the only Cabinet member who has emerged in this crisis for whom I have any grain of respect. He has been clear in his announcements, bold in some decision making and shown a willingness to rethink as new information emerges – or there’s a strong backlash from sections of the community: small businesses, for example.

There’s a sense in which the people and the formerly hated “experts” have pushed the government away from a disastrous policy stance up to 22nd March into something more in line with what is needed. There’s a wish in the air that somehow, sometime, we may all end up living in a kinder, fairer world when this is all over. But any further thoughts on that must wait for another time.

Testing, Testing

I think we all agree that the key to getting out of this is testing. That’s both much more testing for live coronavirus cases, starting with all frontline NHS staff, and a reliable, easy-to-use antibodies test kit to retrospectively test those who’ve had symptoms but has not yet been positively tested owing the current lack of kits. Matt Hancock has promised 100,000 tests a day by the end of April. We, the people, aided and abetted by the right politicians and the media, must hold his feet to the fire to deliver on this one.

Stay safe, stay well.

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