No. 267 - The Covid Inquiry Confirms the Disaster of Tory non-Government.

Dear James,

As a junior minister you are subject to the rule of collective responsibility which, in simple terms, means that whether privately you agree or disagree on policy or collective behaviour, publicly you have to toe the government line. This should always bring up the question of principle.  Simply put, how much can a private individual sacrifice to keep his job? Well, in the last few days I assume that you have been witnessing the revelations at the Covid Enquiry? I’d like to think that you were shocked but, on the other hand, being so close to government you probably knew it all along. If so, did you ever consider your position?  Are you considering it now? And, if not, why not?

This Tuesday and Wednesday Messrs Cummings, Cain and a senior civil servant, Helen McNamara, blew whatever shreds were left of your Party’s reputation for sound government, out of the water. Their submissions to the Covid 19 Inquiry detailed a government in 2020-21 that was not a government. Absence of leadership, a toxic culture of male narcissism, misogyny, grandstanding and outright lying combined to crush the lone female voice of Helen McNamara attempting to speak truth to power. Cummings demeaned himself with that reflexive male put down of her gender by uttering the immortal phrase, "We cannot keep dealing with this horrific meltdown of the British state while dodging stilettos from that [expletive deleted].” The Inquiry respectfully listened to McNamara’s description of her failed attempt to change the tunnel thinking of ‘Boris triumphant’ in the white male, privileged wilderness of Number Ten. The nation was appalled.

How well we all remember those daily press conferences with the blabbering Boris shuffling his papers, desperately trying to project an image of control over the chaos behind him, within him and around him. As Lee Cain said, Boris was unfit for purpose and had ‘the wrong skills set’ for the situation he faced. The government was in melt down. Some weeks before, Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s` Chief Scientific Adviser said that Boris Johnson’s decision-making during the coronavirus pandemic was “bipolar” and “completely inconsistent”. He talked of the “chaos” in Downing Street and Johnson’s “flip-flopping” when making decisions about restrictions.

Every so often, the world throws up individuals with over weaning self-regard. These are often large men with boisterous temperaments, back slapping their ways in to positions beyond their competence. Think Boris, Trump, Mussolini. The sub-type of this phenomenon is the physically smaller man overcompensating  with self-regard and a golden tongue - think Nigel Farage. Or Dominic Cummings. Both big and small of these types find it easy to gain prestige in a world of populist solutions to complex problems. Boris had both the physical self-certainty combined with the gift for journalistic ‘bon mots’. After the election of December 2019, the good time boy had reached his moment of supreme triumph. Never happy with detail, it was now unimportant and he strutted the stage like a stand up comedian. Boris had conquered all. All, that is, except himself. He could not transform into a fully blown Mussolini because he was constrained by our institutions and long developed political culture both of which he attempted but, thankfully, failed to change. Yet Tweedle Dum needed his Tweedle Dee. Boris’s ingrained optimism bias needed a ‘brain’ to deliver the promised brightly lit uplands. Enter Dominic Cummings. It turned out that Cummings was the anti-matter to Boris’s matter and, as any physicist will tell you, when matter and antimatter meet there is a blinding flash followed by total destruction of everything.  Cummings was the ‘anti-Boris`, identical in political persuasion to Boris yet with an opposite ‘charge’. It was this lethal combination that resulted in the 2020 débacle. And who suffered? Many of the 238,669 fatalities of the worst pandemic since Spanish Flu.

The lie ridden circus of the 2016 Brexit referendum had been transfused, through the election of 2019, directly into the centre of government by a group of malcontents lead by Boris Johnson with inevitable disaster that resulted. Seeing themselves as the white knights of change, all they could manage was a list of vague notions about the reorganisation of Downing Street without a single plan in sight. And that was before Covid! That first arrived in January 2020 but Boris’s optimism bias would not allow him to see the truth. He mocked the Italians for ‘overreacting’, believed Covid would be ‘over by May’ and dithered until March 23rd to impose the first lockdown. By that autumn we were into the second wave. Total UK deaths by Covid today are just under a quarter of a million souls.

James, surely any politician worthy of  respect, should feel shame that he or she has been a part of such a disgraceful period of British history? You have supported Boris and his like all the way since 2015. Principle? In your case it’s clear. Your job always comes before the common good. In any other public institution you’d have been out on your ear long ago!

Don’t your long suffering  constituents deserve at least an apology?

BH - Your Concerned Constituent