Don’t blame our government for Covid crisis

Although I do not agree with many of the policies of the current government, I believe that many of the attacks concerning the Covid emergency directed against Boris and his ministers are absurd.

Judging by many of the comments made one would think that he was sitting in his office rubbing his hands in glee, as he devised new ways to deepen the crisis, rather than doing his best in a terrible situation. The attitude of much of the media is that they should do their best to criticise and condemn, this being particularly true of the BBC. Presenters adopt tones of incredulity when asking questions, sum up the answers given by the interviewees unfairly and even demand that ministers apologise to those affected by the pandemic, as if they were incompetent, uncaring or both. One wonders what right these arrogant unelected inquisitors think they possess to inflict their personal prejudices on the audience.

It may very well be true that arrangements to meet the situation we now face have been inadequate but this is hardly the sole fault of a government which has only been in power for a relatively short time, as previous administrations have failed to take such action over decades.

Of course, were a government to have announced that it intended to spend billions on PPE, to increase massively the number of intensive care beds and to build numerous new hospitals, no doubt those now complaining would have decried the expense to prepare for what seemed likely to be a once in a century event.

If we survive this viral plague any future Royal Commission should investigate not merely the immediate causes of the crisis, targeted at those who were unfortunate enough to draw the short straw by being in power when it arrived, but at the failures of the national bureaucracy, in particular that of the NHS, to deal effectively with the tasks arising, the politically motivated teaching unions, who did their best to obstruct the continuation of education and the disinformation propagated via social media.

It is totally understandable that people who may have lost loved ones seek to find someone to blame, other than the workings of fate, but they should direct their anger at the true guilty party, the Chinese Communist regime, which is using lies to cover up its culpability in failing to warn the world about the danger.

Had they done so we might not now be in this dreadful mess.

Colin Bullen