This is not about our wellbeing

JUST over 10 years ago, Jimmy Savile died.

Showbiz types rushed to lavish praise on the charity fundraiser and long time presenter of Top of the Pops and Jim’ll Fix It.

A year later, it was all aboard the back- pedal when it was reported Savile was a meganonce.

Even the suggestion he had sex with dead bodies, while working as a volunteer hospital porter, appeared to be true.

And it appeared his noncery was an open secret in certain circles.

As well as the back- pedalling, there was a lot of arse- covering.

Questions were asked of the BBC, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, all of whom had more than a good idea that Savile was a very bad bastard. But still did nothing.

Having allowed him to slip into hell without facing justice, these bodies had to be seen to do something.

The BBC turned paedo- hunter, airing untrue allegations about a senior Tory, to whom they later had to pay substantial damages.

And the police began pursuing various claims of kiddy- fiddling made against celebs and MPs.

These investigations were all backed by the prosecutors who, post- Savile, developed a new zeal for catching nonces in high places.

Many of these claims were, it later emerged, made by a lunatic who was a nonce himself!

Arse- covering

You would think that lessons had been learned from this fiasco.

Frenzied over- reaction long after the horse has bolted seldom makes good policy.

But here we are again, with our Government heading down that path once more.

Faced with a new strain of COVID with a suitably- chilling name, ministers have gone into full headless- chicken mode.

Even though symptoms appear to be little worse than a mild cold, face masks are on, travel bans are in place, coronavirus “passports” are on the way, and testing is being demanded to cross the f** king road!

There’s even talk, serious talk, about another lockdown in time for Christmas.

Don’t think for one minute that ministers are doing all this for our own good.

This is arse- covering.

When this shit is all over, there will be a public inquiry.

And that inquiry will show that throwing old folk out of hospitals and sending them to care homes at the very start of the outbreak hugely increased the death toll.

This is, after all, mainly a disease that sadly offs people in their twilight years.

Knowing that serious, justified criticisms of their actions at the start of the plague are coming down the track, ministers are now taking no chances.

But they are “taking no chances” with their own reputations, not OUR wellbeing.

I’m afraid, Prime Minister and your pals, that ship has sailed.

From shovelling cash onto Tory Party donors to Cummings’s trip to Barnard Castle, to that Christmas party, your reputations are pretty well f** ked.

And shoving us all into house arrest just before Santa arrives is not going to change that.