‘BUILD’ BID IS BLUSTER

NO SIGNS WE’LL IMPROVE

THE situation is serious, critical. Covid is again on the march, winter approaches, rapid and exponential growth seems imminent.

Why, how, in a country once rated amongst the most resilient, the best prepared for a pandemic, in the world, have we come to this?

If European countries as diverse as Finland, Greece and Germany have done better so far and Asian countries like Taiwan and Singapore, massively so, why have we been amongst the least successful? Is it that our governance, our government has been inadequate? Are there questions of competence, capacity, policy? Can we learn from experience and manage better?

Our families’ lives and livelihoods depend on it, but there are no signs this regime has the will or capacity to manage better. Perhaps this regime is itself the problem. The true agendas of the government appear to differ from what they preach.

They deny ever intending the unsound ideological herd immunity approach, yet they chose delays to action at every stage, distancing, masks, lockdown, and then slackened lockdown too early, with no capacity in place to effectively track and trace, no means to control spread and save lives.

Policy flips, with no open analysis, and statistics are delayed, manipulated, missing or untrustworthy, designed, it seems, to meet needs - political objectives and not to serve the common interest.

These are matters of wilful incompetence and ideology.

The reasons perhaps, lie with their strategic interests. The government and its key advisers come from an extraordinarily narrow faction - the Johnson ‘Leave’ campaign team. These dedicated campaigners thought nothing of lying, manipulating, misleading, actually cheating and committing electoral fraud to win at any price.

Such deliberate dishonesty is inconsistent with democratic values, it is the stock in trade of authoritarian and dictatorial regimes. The wilful capacity to lie and to outrageously deny the lie has become transparent even to many conservatives.

Matt Hancock struggles embarrassingly to defend failures in procurement or track and trace, Johnson’s incursions to the north demonstrate complete and careless ignorance of his brief, and Starmer exposes his deceits and incompetence at prime minister’s questions.

In some things the government is far from indecisive. It decided at the beginning not to create a forum of the brightest and most expert to help inform decisions, or a committee of national unity to give confidence.

Instead it behaved ideologically, listened to advice from allies, gave contracts to companies donating to Johnson’s party or owned by political mates, and subverted NHS capacity by contracting to private companies for track and trace, and apps that didn’t work. Why would they do that?

£450m on cancelled ventilator challenge, £133m on unusable test kits £230 m on delayed school meal vouchers, Serco getting £108m on broken tracing system. Rishi Sunak reportedly announced that overall £12 billion has already been spent on the coronavirus test-and-trace programme, millions on usable PPE whilst medical and care staff caught covid.

All this is covered up with worldbeating bluster and bluff, and false patriotism, flippant diversions, and blame, always blame, care homes. care staff nurses, us. Us not following the rules which appear complicated and irrational, whilst Johnson, his mates, his dad, ignore them.

This lazy incompetence has a sinister side when accompanied by a ruthless subversion of constitutional norms and law, essentially trashing our democracy as well as our national reputation. To the rest of the world Johnson looks increasingly Trump like, and from an outsider’s view, is inflicting similar damage on our country.

The clue lies in who Johnson’s funders and backers are, and so whose interests he is there to serve. American ultra right wing libertarians, Charles Koch, Robert Mercer fund think tanks backing Trump and Brexit, and with Bannon have connections with the data mining scandal of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.

The connections link with think tanks in the UK, the Leave campaign and Dominic Cummings and Johnson. Their fraudulent activity was critical in delivering Brexit and electing Trump.

Russian money from Russian UK citizens with Kremlin connections, and Russian subversion of democracy, was downplayed, dismissed and not investigated. It’s time for us, and decent conservatives, to wake up and challenge what is going on.

David Powell

CHANGE LIES IN ALL OF US

NONE of us need to be told that our country is divided. Nor do we need to be told we are in the midst of a period like never before. Sadly, at the time when we most need real leadership our politics has increasingly degenerated into demand fulfilment.

We have toxicity and abuse manifested through accusations of ‘betrayal’ along with the labelling of those with differing views as ‘traitors’ whenever certain groups feel that they have failed to be given exactly what they wanted.

Whilst we might live in an increasingly consumerist society politics is not a retail experience. Politics cannot work on such a basis. Politics is all about recognising and reflecting the reality that we all want different things. Politics is all about accepting that conflict is innate and working at delivering ways in which we can best serve all in spite of this.

In a functioning democracy, however much we might desire an outcome we have to accept the existence of absolute obstacles. Alas too many of our politicians fail to be honest about this. Politics is about working with what is malleable to persuade for what is achievable.

Good politics is rational - it operates around the art of the possible. Without question, bubbles do not cultivate consensus environments. Equally, the best politicians realise they are not there simply to “fulfil orders”. The best politicians have a powerful sense of the big picture and are able to help others envision it. This involves working to bring understanding where there are differences and building on the things we have in common. Demand is now all too evident in today’s politics with many seeming to only care about their own wants. Moreover, entrenched positions seem tO dominate the agenda with differences being played up to create permanent barriers against consensus.

In truth, fair and sustainable ways forward are only possible when society as a whole act on shared desire for change.

For example, the peace process in N Ireland was delivered not by the gift of a few politicians but by the whole community, people from all jurisdictions, being willing to embrace a shared purpose.

Effective politics explores such hopes and seeks to influence for such outcomes. Ineffective politics, by contrast, howls about ‘betrayal’ and ‘never voting again.’

Politics is not about what we want, it is about meeting need. By definition, politics is about how we manage conflicts between the different attitudes and how we resolve rather than reinforce disagreement. The ability to deliver change lies in us all and we must be prepared to be flexible and properly appreciate views other than just those from our own place on the spectrum.

Our country faces a catastrophic economic period as a result of the pandemic and possible no-deal Brexit. The struggle to make ends meet is already an everyday reality for millions, including sadly key workers, and now millions more face looming unemployment and hardship. How we go forward as a society from the pandemic is vitally important for social cohesion and citizen well-being. When our country badly needs an Atlee, with his focus on maintaining full employment, a mixed economy, state social services, nationalised utilities and the vision to create the National Health Service, we have instead an incompetent and clearly out of touch old Etonian whose deceit brings the credibility of high office into disrepute.

Mick Roberts

THREE months ago, the Prime Minister stood at a podium bearing the words ‘Build build build’ and announced what he called a New Deal for Britain with £5bn of capital investment projects to upgrade infrastructure, create jobs, and spur on the UK’s economic recovery from Covid-19.

But when the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies investigated this ‘New Deal,’ the amount of new money was precisely zero. Every penny had been taken from other worthwhile projects.

Boris can bluster all he likes but he is unable to tell the truth about anything.

Ian Gibson

MUCH-NEEDED SUPPORT

CHILDLINE is providing a crucial lifeline for children and young people in these uncertain times, and has done throughout lockdown.

This summer, I sponsored One Unforgettable Day – donating £30,000 to fund the Childline service for a whole day. Childline hears from children every day who are being abused, suffering from mental health issues or struggling to cope, and so for me it was a no-brainer to do what I could to help.

One Unforgettable Day brings you closer to Childline, providing a real-life experience of supporting children like no other. I’ve got to know the Childline teams in Cardiff and Prestatyn well and I really believe that the specially trained counsellors can help a child recover from whatever has happened to them, or better still, prevent abuse in the first place.

This pandemic is the greatest challenge the NSPCC has faced in decades, but it continues to provide much-needed support to children who need them more than ever. As it looks to move from crisis to recovery, the charity is launching a new partnership to fund Childline for 100 days, in partnership with The Financial Times, and I would encourage wholeheartedly for businesses and individuals to consider getting involved in the ‘FT 100 Unforgettable Days Campaign’.

In doing so it will provide the urgent support the charity needs to be there for children who need a safe space to talk.

Visit nspcc.org.uk/100days or call 020 3772 9615 for more information.

Alan Peterson OBE