I do not apologise for framing this article in terms of some unseen but anticipated evil. It is my concern that the actions of our Government, throughout this pandemic and particularly of late, are setting the scene for an unprecedented disaster for this country. The line from Macbeth seems appropriate in the circumstances. The full line is;
“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”
Macbeth-Act 4-scene 1
To frame this in a somewhat different light we can consider that;
“The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe and the country secure.” (Home Office)
It is not difficult to argue that, from the start of this Covid19 outbreak, our Government has failed in this duty. Mainly because it wanted, through political ideology, to put our economy before the lives of our people but also because it failed to take the evidence of the scientific community as seriously as it should have. We did not lock down for an unconscionably long time and indeed have only introduced restrictions on visitors to this country today the 1st of June.
This inevitably lead to the chaos that was typified by testing services being withdrawn and elderly patients (untested) being discharged from Hospitals into community Care Homes, with the devastating results that followed. Despite the trends and the warnings from Italy, as the Virus rampaged through Europe, we were urged to “Take it on the chin” and only the prospects of hundreds of thousands of death as a result, diverted this Government from taking a “Herd Immunity” approach.
The lockdown arrived too late and the impact was therefore mitigated. We locked down when the deaths per day hit 200 and they were soon over 1,000, even now they hover somewhere between 200 & 400 per day, whilst new cases (official figures so probably about half of the real figures) are still stubbornly in the 2,000 per day region. The new cases peaked in excess of 8,000 and remained above 4,000 for the whole month of April. Data from Public Health England reported here , downturn blips after weekends are not unusual so worth waiting for the ongoing trend.
Throughout the approach of Government seems to have been one of lying or avoiding the scrutiny that this crisis demands. Essentially deceiving, dissembling & disinformation. So why am I talking about the potential for a new disaster and the '...something wicked...' comment? This is because two weeks ago the Government decided that the worst was over, we could amend the official guidance from 'Stay Home' to 'Stay Alert', though ask anybody what that means and you'll get different answers every time. We were also told it would be safe for children to go back to school and they created a way of spotting how we could ease lockdown restrictions over time.
Looking at this representation of that system, make your own mind up as to whether we should be looking at easing anything at this time.
Over the last few days this Government has systematically accelerated the easing of lockdown, we might want to ask why? The answer is simple, to protect and defend an unelected Special Adviser (Svengali?) to the Prime Minister, after he breached the lockdown rules to visit his mother on her birthday and take his wife to a Castle for her birthday. I am sad beyond measure that 350+ MP's (Conservatives) are allowing our country and it's people to be sacrificed on the alter of one man's ego.
I tweeted on 25th May that if Cummings survived the Rose Garden press conference then we had suffered a coup and he, not Bojo was effectively Prime Minister. This seems to have come to pass and from some sources the reason for this is to 'Get Brexit Done' in the midst of one of the most serious existential threats this country has ever faced. We are undone as a viable democracy and a laughing stock around the world.
The latest announcements have been met with concern by medical experts throughout the nation, yet we will be telling the most vulnerable in our society that they no longer need to 'Shield' to protect themselves from the virus. Though how they may feel about this when we have seen the damage that Cummings', actions have done to our public willingness to social distance is a different matter.
This weekend has been a disaster for social distancing and for the idea of any 'Common Sense' in the British public. Beauty spots locally and seaside destinations have been blighted by crowds and bad behaviour, causing injury and damage.
There has been so much wrong with the way our Government has approached this Pandemic, I'm sure there will be volumes written eventually, that it is difficult to summarise but here's an attempt.
HMG priorities were;
Economy over people –
Defend Dominic Cummings & Bojo –
Get Brexit Done
To achieve these goals they have been willing to sacrifice the first duty of Government and throw away the lives of the public, under the Brexit Bus. They are willing to gag the press, throw out the evidence of science (whilst claiming to follow it) and to dismantle the democracy of the country.,/p>
We are of no consequence to these politicians and they simply do not care whether we live or die. They will feed us to the wolves and lie to our faces as they do so.
The Government has broken any trust the public had for their advice by defending the indefensible Cummings and by blatantly lying at every conceivable opportunity about their record dealing with Covid19.
So yes “...something wicked this way comes...”, welcome to the second wave.
