Whatever your political stance, there is no satisfaction to be gained from seeing the current UK (well, English really…) government struggle with Covid-19. It is scary. Johnson and his team have lost the narrative. Over-blown boasts about a world class track and trace system followed by moonshots and constant references to beating the virus have been replaced by fear. Fear that they have lost control of the virus and with it, any semblance of competence. Those views about Johnson not completing a full term as Prime Minister don’t look so outlandish now.
How did this come about? We know this deeply un-Conservative, libertarian government, who decries established institutions and experts, drifted into the pandemic complacently, not treating it seriously enough and loathe to restrict people’s freedoms. The consequences of a failing track and trace and comprehensive nation-wide testing system are sadly self-evident. But the accompanying arrogance of not building bridges with devolved governments and regional mayors in keeping the virus at bay is what is doing for it now.
A reluctance to trust Nicola Sturgeon, for example, is perhaps understandable at any other time but not when confronting a deadly pandemic. This is not a time for party politics but this deeply partisan Johnson/Cummings led government has acted throughout with minimal consultation. Chaotic restrictions were imposed across England and were often inconsistent with what was happening in the devolved regions. Ministers couldn’t even remember what the regional restrictions in England were; one minister incredibly saying during a BBC radio interview that she represented a southern constituency and couldn’t be expected to know all the details of restrictions in the North-East!
Economically, the government has performed better and the recent moves to protect two-thirds of the income of those who lose their jobs through new lockdowns, however tough for those on minimum wages, is at least in line with best practice in continental Europe. But specifically in relation to the science, the government is failing and the economic fall-out alone is too large to repair, possibly for a generation.
The virus is running rampant. Trapped between scientific experts and libertarian backbenchers the government has lurched from Eat Out to Help Out, encouraging people to go to work and opening up the universities to belated sharp national and even sharper regional lockdowns, with SAGE now letting us know it warned a more comprehensive national lockdown was needed 3 weeks ago. Track and trace and comprehensive testing is still woefully inadequate. The government is afraid and Johnson looks haggard. This is not the premiership he hoped for and his style doesn’t work in this environment.
As the Tory Red Wall crumbles in the face of northern city mayors crying foul, the government is belatedly consulting them to spread the blame of further lockdown measures. Both mayors and the devolved regions know necessity means a belated government out-reach to all corners of the country needs meeting half-way as another national lockdown beckons.
But memories are long. One hopes the merits of local democracy and devolved government are a beneficiary of this dreadful chapter, but the origins of the disastrous mismanagement of this virus and the subsequent lack of consultation in managing it will not be forgotten. They lie squarely with Johnson and his government as it has lurched from arrogance to fear.
Inside Right Politics 