No.179 - Here We Go Again: Lockdown 2.0

Dear James, 

Last December Boris sold himself to the nation as ‘not Corbyn’ and won a massive 80-seat majority. The era of Mrs May’s U-turns, climb downs and continuous parliamentary defeats, seemed to be at an end. How wrong that has turned out to be!

On September 21st the government scientific advisory body, SAGE, advised Boris to introduce a two week, ‘firebreak’, circuit breaker to check the rapid rise in the Covid infection rate across the land. Boris disagreed. He decided to go for a zoning, whack-a-mole programme of local interventions. Three weeks ago the leader of the Opposition Kier Starmer, demanded that the government introduce the same circuit breaker. Again Boris refused. On October 31st, Halloween, the whole government policy collapsed in a heap of tangled wreckage in a U-Turn enacted on an 80mph political motorway. Now flying debris is coming from every direction including his own backbenches. Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the PM was "giving in to the advice of his scientific advisors" and warned of "dire consequences" for the economy. Others say it should have happened much earlier. The government is divided, its leadership all over the place. 

The key to success of those nations who have kept Covid under control has been to ‘act quickly and decisively’. Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand and Dan Andrews, the Premier of the State of Victoria, who closed down Melbourne in Australia, both acted decisively and saved many lives. Here, by the time that Boris, Vallance and Whitty faced us all at about 18.30 on October 31st, we knew pretty much what they were going to say. Out they trotted, the same dreary bunch, socially distanced but now intellectually divided. They had decided to reimpose a national lockdown because “we could see deaths running at several thousand a day”. The virus, Boris told us, “is spreading even faster than the reasonable worst-case scenario of our scientific advisers.” Why the U-Turn now, 40 days after SAGE had advised him to act! 

The gap between the medics and Boris is now clear to see and the result is a lockdown ‘lite’. The kids will stay at school, students will remain at university. When Boris told us that from today we must all stay at home, save lives and save the NHS, his credibility was shot. He made it worse when he refused to admit that his zoning policy of the last month had failed. It had been worth a try, he told us - a ‘try’ that had exposed the nation to more infections and deaths than were necessary? As ever the man revealed himself as a ditherer, unable to read the runes and pulled between Mr Sunak’s Treasury and medical opinion. Again he has acted too late. Another 40 days has been lost just like the 30 days prior to the first wave. And of course, the delay means that instead of a two week ‘firebreak’ we shall now have to endure a whole month’s lockdown at least, not to mention the number of extra deaths that the delay may have caused.  

Yesterday, thirty-four Conservative MPs voted against the new lockdown. Several said they could not support any extension beyond 2nd of December. Mrs May justified her own criticism by saying no data had been produced to support the new rules. With the schools remaining open won’t that surely mean more transmission of Covid to parents and staff?                            

From Gavin Williamson’s U-Turns on his education ‘algorithm’ in July, to Boris’s U-Turn on the visa surcharge for overseas NHS staff, to the Rees-Mogg voting ‘conga’, days before allowing remote voting in parliament, to the reintroduction of free school meals following Marcus Rashford’s intervention in June and Boris’s reversal of his decision to allow Huwei into the UK 5G market - the list of this government’s U-turns is endless. Indecision, delay, prevarication, inconsistent and confusing communication are the name of Boris’s game and his continuous demonstration of poor leadership only adds to the nation’s misery. Trust has virtually disappeared.

We have at least four more years of your government James. In the USA Mr Biden seems to be winning. Next week you have to agree a deal with the EU or crash out. We will soon be out there on our own. The future is grim.

Is it any wonder James, that today, eleven months after Boris sold himself to the nation, so many of us are suffering from buyer’s remorse?

Kind regards, 

BH - Your Concerned Constituent