The Government
The government was formed with a single track mind, composed of people with one political driver, having won an historic victory on the slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’. Brexit. Brexit. Brexit. As the Tory party celebrated its victory, not for one moment in a wildest dream anywhere among the singing and drinking multitudes, was there a thought that within weeks their jobs would be gone, they would be locked down in their homes, while a pandemic of biblical proportions would sweep away the world as we had come to know it. Yet that is what has happened. The depth and extent has not even begun to sink in.
So it is hardly surprising that the government made mistakes in almost every direction. But it did. It first did not take the risk seriously enough, following the ‘moderate’ rating of a misguided committee. They were then slow to gear up equipment of every sort and kind, they were seduced by abstract modelling and theories, like first year students years away from having to test them in practice, they ignored raw data coming from the front lines in Asia and they told us we would be okay if we washed our hands and sang happy birthday. Twice.
Yes . Well. So now we have more deaths than China and we have not reached the peak. The entire economy has been brought to a halt and daily we are told the worst is yet to come. I will not go on and on, because as the Queen will tell us later, now is not the time. But I am haunted by a thought which will not go away. Late in February I received a call from across the world, which set out with crystal clarity what was coming and what could go wrong, if the government, which was getting the same information, did not respond. When all this is over there will be an inquiry. When that happens it will be found that very many lives lost could have been saved if the government had acted when it was warned it should.
But for now we are where we are and we have to press on. There are signs that at last the government has got the message and is scrambling to catch up. Such is the determination of the nation as a whole at every level, in the midst of a mobilisation as great as any in war-time, that in the end, we will do better than at the beginning. And when we do, we shall find we own a quite different set of values.
Our enormous admiration and gratitude for those at the bottom of the income pile, under resourced and under paid, whom society was taught to regard as a burden upon taxpayers yet who together will have saved the nation, will ensure that never again will they be other than the first in line. For everything.
Labour Leadership
Sir Keir Starmer has won a landslide. Beside him is the formidable Angela Rayner as Deputy Leader. This will be a game changer for British politics. Just wait and see.