No.147 – The Way Ahead? ‘Too Little, Too Late’ becomes ‘Too Much, Too Early!

Dear James,

What a pig’s breakfast! Last night Boris made his latest feeble attempt at statesmanship when he announced his ‘first sketch for a road map of the way ahead’. Fists clenched together in grim purpose upon the desk before him, he did his best at self-control only to lose out when his arms escaped skywards to the security and beauty of the downward curve of all the bad news. Beware Boris’s waving arms. They usually mean that he has lost contact with detail. And last night, this is what happened. If this was truly a roadmap, the country is in for one great big snarl up in the very near future. 

The new messaging is clearly the confused message of the warring factions in his cabinet - the commercially urgent versus the medically cautious. Last week we heard rumours of Hancock clashing with the PM. ‘That’s not fair,’ he’s reported as saying. ‘Give me a break!’ after he was criticized for his handling of the testing and PPE crisis. You’re a marked man Matt and Boris and Cummings are not known for the quality of their mercy. Sacking of a senior minister would be a great distraction from their own panic for it is clear that they have little idea of where to turn next. What is clearer is that while Boris lost his mojo many months ago, Dominic has now lost his touch. All he could come up with in this time of crisis was ‘Stay Alert!’ which replaces, ‘Stay at Home’. What on earth does ‘Stay Alert’ mean Dominic? You can’t reduce everything to two words when you’re governing. It doesn’t work. Your usefulness was as a campaigner. Not as a governor. Might be a good time to consider your position, don’t you think? 

It doesn’t take much imagination to know that for the man in the street, the substitution of, ‘Stay Alert’ for ‘Stay at Home’, means only one thing i.e staying at home is over! For many of a more subversive disposition, that means the genie is out of the bottle. I can just imagine the policeman asking the driver of a car, ‘And why aren’t you at home today sir?’ “Sorry gov but Boris told me to ‘Stay Alert’. I’m in the new Neighbourhood Watch and I’ll let you know when I’ve found the virus!” A police source, asked last night how easy the new rules would be to enforce, said: “Not a chance in hell!”. So the medically cautious has been replaced by the economically premature. ‘Too little, too late’ has been replaced by ‘too much too early’. This is a confused government governing by confusion.

James, the charge sheet is long and growing. The government was too late to take heed of the 2019 NSRA report warning of a pandemic, too late to take the virus seriously, too late to lockdown the economy, too late to organise PPEs and too late to acquire test kits. Perhaps most of all, it was too late to see the Care Home sector as crucial. And now to cap it all, it is has swerved to the other extreme. It is unlocking too much, too early. 

There should be no relaxation of the lockdown until an adequate test, track and trace system is in place. Yet last night Boris told us that if anyone can’t work at home they ‘should be encouraged to return to work’. Some school children could be back in school by June 1st and some parts of the hospitality industry could be back by July 1st.  How can he say this when our daily new infection rate is still just under 5,000, care homes are still reporting lack of PPE and testing is far below what is needed? Those are not the conditions for relaxing the lockdown. Again Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are ahead of the curve making Boris look semi-comatose in his reaction to the virus. To hear the simple logic from the First Ministers of those nations who are refusing to replace the existing ‘Stay at Home’ instruction, was like a breath of fresh air. It should put Boris to shame. But booster Boris persists. He is doing his own version of Trump and Bolsonaro across the pond. He is putting the economy first because he is scared stiff, or ‘frit’, to use one of his more formidable predecessor’s favourite pejoratives. The coronavirus crisis is putting his ideological subtext at risk. And for that more people will die. 

Today South Korea reported a new outbreak in Seoul where 85 newly infected people resulted from one spreader entering nightclubs after the government had relaxed the their nation’s lockdown. That should be a warning to us all. Every day back at work prematurely risks spreading the infection further. Replacing ‘Too little, too late’, with ‘Too much, too early’, is a dereliction of any government’s prime duty. The protection of its citizens. 

Think about it James. For everyone’s sake! 

Kind regards, 

BH - Your Concerned Constituent