The Covid enquiry is unfolding gruesomely. The chaos, lack of strategy, general poison between those who were meant to keep the country safe and disregard for the fate of older people in particular is shocking. But add to that a PM going AWOL in the run-up to the pandemic and then the Downing Street parties during it, and it is a shameful exposure of attitudes and behaviour at the highest levels of public administration.
A horror show at the top of government…
As this week unfolded, it actually got worse. ‘Nicknamed ‘Party Marty’ for organising a bring your own booze gathering in Downing Street, Martin Reynolds, who headed the private office of the Prime Minister, described planning for a Covid type pandemic as ‘grossly deficient’ but couldn’t explain why he didn’t chase down Johnson when he disappeared for 10 days in February, presumably to write his book on Shakespeare. Meanwhile, he appeared confused about why his future WhatsApp messages to senior colleagues were mysteriously set to disappear, failing to provide any valid explanation. Yesterday, in a display of breathtaking narcissism, we heard Matt Hancock, the former Health Secretary, now turned celebrity TV wannabee, wanted a final say on who lived or died from Covid if health resources needed to be rationed.
If no crimes have been committed, we should change the law. On show so far has been a shocking dereliction of duty, incompetence, and a failure of anyone in the system to take responsibility for mistakes made. Third-rate politicians, second-rate civil servants, and no responsibility taken either by earlier senior figures such as former health ministers or chief medical officers to explain why we started this pandemic so unprepared.
Sweden, which mostly didn’t lock down has completed its Covid enquiry.
Ours will go on for years until everyone has forgotten its purpose in true British governance style.
We have yet to hear directly from Johnson, Sunak et al, but it hardly matters. You can forgive the British public for believing nobody will be held accountable. They are used to it. No one was held accountable for the crash of 2007/8, which wreaked so much havoc on the economy as a whole and disproportionately on people at the bottom of the economic pile. Mounting cynicism of the governing class in its wake partly led to Brexit.
The only silver lining of this very dark cloud is the fate of Boris Johnson. We have all met people like him. Glib, superficially charismatic, a believer that rules were to be obeyed by “little people,” not themselves, he attained a position he was never suited for. This enquiry has and will continue to finish him politically. For that reason and that reason alone, it is probably just about worth it.
Inside Right Politics 