Our death toll is so extraordinarily high (now over 40,000) because we had ten years of needless austerity, coupled with the least suited candidate for PM in memory. Had the Lib Dems or Labour or the Greens been in office for the last ten years, then we wouldn’t have lost so many people. This is painful for Tory voters to accept, but it is unarguable.
Thankfully, Keir Starmer is ramping up the pressure on the Government, though he is careful not to stick the dagger in. Ed Davey, temporary Lib Dem leader, explains his views on how to hold the Government to account here.
“Of course the Tories cannot be blamed for the coronavirus, but there are so many questions that will need to be answered, such as why, after the trial-run we had for a pandemic – codenamed Cygnus – four years ago, we hadn’t made the recommended provision for ventilators, PPE and critical care beds. We will have to ask also why big events such as Cheltenham [Festival] were allowed to take place.”
The article goes on to state: “Davey feels there is nothing to be gained by being “finger-pointingly party political”, and says that, while there are legitimate questions that need to be asked about, for instance, whether the government should have locked the country down earlier, they should be kept for the public inquiry.”
Cleverly, Reckless Boris (RB) has invoked the wartime spirit. In war, what matters is not so much the casualty rate, but whether victory is declared. History is written by the victors. If the UK overcomes the pandemic, victory will be proclaimed. This could be years away, though we may need to live with this spectre until a vaccine is found. Therefore, any public inquiry, which would need to trawl through thousands of pages of documents, cross-examining hundreds of witnesses, will take years. By way of comparison, the Iraq War Inquiry took seven years. The outcome of a public inquiry into the Covid disaster might be finished by 2030.
In politics, control of the narrative is crucial. Just look at the headlines on the red tops below, which went to press as we passed 30,000 deaths.
Most of these newspapers supported RB in the 2019 General Election, aiding and abetting our parlous predicament.
The Lib Dems, which I joined last year, have always been too nice. And a consequence of being too nice is that we haven’t had a majority in 100 years. For unfathomable reasons, many in the Lib Dems are basing their electoral calculations on the premise that the next General Election is five years away, as specified in the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011. Such thinking misses the obvious: that the recent General Elections occurred in 2015, 2017 and 2019.
With the UK the laughing-stock of the world, with British exceptionalism squashed, and with our service sector-heavy economy falling into a depression, a General Election should take place far sooner. To do so, to remove the chance of another disastrous Tory Government, with its associated risks to public health, the Lib Dems should lead the charge against RB and his Government of Brexit sycophants, now.
Opposition to RB and his cronies is being led by Piers Morgan, who described the slaughter as a “genocide”. His excoriating interviews of hapless Tory cabinet ministers are a national embarrassment. So much damage he is doing that the top Tories are refusing to appear on his show, leading to this awesome monologue. Dominating the political narrative now, tapping into Morgan’s line of questioning, may make the Tories political toast for a generation. It is our duty to ensure that they never rule again and are removed from office forthwith.
