Time to move on – to the next crisis

By Pete North - May 28, 2020

The Tory establishment would have us “move on”. We’re happy to oblige. There is little more that can be rinsed from this story. The outline is simple. We are not dealing with a single outbreak. We’re trying to tackle multiple outbreaks around the country and prevent new ones. That’s why the rules were simple and clear. Stay at home. Isolate if ill. Don’t spread the virus. Most of us complied. The PM’s senior enforcer didn’t.

That evidently carries no consequences. We are instead to believe that a handsomely paid political functionary has just cause for travelling to the opposite end of the country when the option is not available to the rest of us. Make excuses for him if you like, but don’t take the rest of us for fools. We shall move on but we shall remember.

So moving on, the government’s new track and trace system will rapidly descend into farce. It’s based on a number of misconceptions and in fact is a substitute for a proper track and trace system along the lines of established outbreak control philosophy. It will start falling apart within days and the Tories are going to limp from one farce to the next.

The problem here is an eviscerated public health system, severed from local control and local knowledge, leaving the government to cobble something together in haste, reliant entirely on outsourcing and tech gimmicks. This is because Tories can’t be told anything. They’re arrogant to the core. That’s the central problem with this government, and it applies equally to Brexit. It knows nothing, doesn’t understand the concepts in play, but won’t be told anything and will press ahead regardless, then lie to cover their tracks when it all goes wrong. And we pay the price.

Meanwhile there are new lockdown easements, though unless you go out of your way to find out exactly what they are, there is no coherent public message we can abide with as there was earlier on. But that’s to be expected. There is no coherent state between lockdown and no lockdown. You either end it or you don’t. If you do, you need functioning track and trace, locally managed and applied through good old fashioned shoe leather. If you’re not doing that then don’t bother at all. Either way, please let’s end this charade.

As to where we stand with the virus, the ONS serological survey suggests only 7% of the UK public have had Covid-19. That’s led to 60,000 deaths. Without the lockdown it’s reasonable to assume it could have been substantially higher. It’s now all about how good our localised containment is. It could still kill anywhere up to our original estimates of half a million over the next few months. A second lockdown seemed a probability but the Cummings debacle may have made that politically impossible. Already the government is modifying its message to accomodate its favourite SpAd.

One way or another, the mishandling of the Cummings affair has massively damaged the credibility of this government but also made it harder to implement any public health policy. Tory activists can convince themselves Cummings has done no wrong, but the the majority of the public, if polls are to be believed doesn’t see it that way. As the lockdown collapses, so does Johnson’s reputation.

Next on the block, though, is Matt Hancock. The test and trace app is very much his baby, is already facing a backlash and the support system behind it does not command confidence. Serco call centre drones on minimum wage is just not how this process is done and that’s before delving into the data privacy issues. Twitterers on both sides of the Cummings divide are threatening a mass app boycott. We can “move on”, but there are more political landmines waiting to be stepped on.

More to the point I think the public has reach the limit of its patience and more than a few are rapidly running out of money. Social housing rent arrears are up to £100m. The lockdown is popular with those who can afford it and those paid most of their wage to do much less or nothing at all, but those of us without such guarantees, lockdown is unsustainable. Meanwhile universities are now looking at faculty layoffs, voluntary pay cuts and hours reduction. It also looks like a number of pubs may never reopen. How do we “move on” from that?

Even if the Johnson administration manages to avoid further unforced errors, the economic legacy of Covid will create endless problems. The only easement is fuel prices but that represents a major loss of tax revenue for the treasury at a time when demands on the coffers will soar. Air travel is not now expected to recover until 2023 and Boeing are laying off thousands of jobs. Airbus is sure to follow which will be a massive blow to Bristol, and with a bodged Brexit, a century of aviation in Bristol may come to an unhappy end.

It doesn’t seem that this government is going to catch a break any time soon. If there is any good news to be had it will be that things aren’t quite so bad as they could have been, but that will come as little comfort to the many who have sacrificed so much. This has to have cost Johnson, and though the media is presently held in low regard, the ranks are growing in the “plague on all your houses” camp. The PM had better hope his “genius” SpAd is as good as he pretends. I rather suspect, though, that genius is not enough. He’s going to need a miracle worker.