The Tories' response to Covid in March 2020 was chaotic and indecisive, according to the official report on the issue.
The Guardian notes:
“Too little too late” is the key finding of Heather Hallett's second report from the Covid public inquiry, which focused on politicians and the decisions they made at important points during the pandemic.
It cost hundreds of millions to reach this conclusion.
You could have read my own real-time summary of what was going on to reach the same conclusion.
By 3 March 2020, well before lockdown, I was saying:
There is not a hope that cutting interest rates will, right now, do anything more than encourage markets to fly to safety since they are clear indications of concern that can do nothing to change anything at all about the underlying economic problems that covid-19 will create.
The need right now is not for monetary policy, excepting indication that QE will be used if necessary. The need is for there to be very clear fiscal policy, and there is still no sign of that. The chance that we are, in that case, heading for a major shock with regard to government finances, which might only be capable of being addressed via QE, is very real, but so far, it seems, unacknowledged.
Covid-19 has a horrible course to run, but so too mighty the economy unless Treasuries realise very soon that they have to intervene on a very big scale.
I was way ahead of the government at that time and remained so.
If I had worked out what was happening with very limited information, their incompetence with the data that they had is very clear. They deserve all the condemnation they get.
The first question is, why will they get away with it?
And the second is: should they ever be allowed to come back? At least there seems to be a clear answer to this second one.
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The Covid Inquiry was set up by the Johnson Government. Clearly, Johnson planned for an Inquiry that would seem to be thorough and professional, so it’s led by a judge. But already this morning it’s being widely discredited, largely because it has failed to put sufficient emphasis on epidemiological evidence. Johnson has lots of faults, and they were on display during the pandemic. But he has moments of shrewdness as we all know. He had one of those when he set up this Inquiry.
That’s not to question the points you’ve made this morning. Of course you are right.
The most damning part of Baroness Hallet’s report for me is that decisive governance in February 2020 to implement distancing and isolation could have avoided a lockdown in March. The Conservative government – with its unearned reputation for fiscal management – was then obliged to blow the economy out of the water with furlough and fraud eventually totalling £800b. I can’t envisage that this Labour government would have acted any more decisively or effectively. Which means that we are condemned by the system of governance in place in this country whoever is nominally flailing away at the levers.
Absolutely this. I actually went to the Liverpool vs Atletico Madrid game, perhaps against my better judgement (although it was in hospitality and so I wasn’t exposed to any Spanish fans), and I remember reading about the situation in Italy on Twitter on the train home and thinking “why on earth have we not locked down yet?”. They just sat on things for way too long.
An entire ecosystem has been meticulously designed over many years by this country’s establishment to ensure that people like the death clown are never held to account for the consequences of their actions (or in this case, inaction).
Lead story in virtually all the papers today on the 23,000 lives that shouldn’t have been lost and the toxic culture in No 10. Except the Telegraph, “£200m report shows lockdowns were unnecessary”. Have they no shame?
No, none at all
I don’t have the time – or the money – to buy and read any report by The Inquiry.
So my comment is based on the limited media reporting.
As much as I loathe the Tory party – I mean honestly, I hope I never ever meet any of them face to face because they will know they have met me for sure – the report is more of an indictment of the parsimony of British governance so inculcated it is by Thatcherism/Neo-liberalism.
Austerity is a lie – we know that, it does not deliver savings, it creates costs as Mark Blyth has pointed out and is just a method of castrating organised labour/employment to obtain a fair share of output as Clara Mattei has expertly divulged. Austerity benefits the rich who were still allowed to come and go as they pleased during Covid (mostly).
What I hope was reified by Covid was that you cannot have a strong country, able to protect its citizens on the cheap. That is what I hope has been rumbled.
Attaching Covid failure to any party in our Single Transferable Party (STP) system seems silly to me. What would Labour do now if Covid erupted again with Reeves at the helm?
Sweet FA I think.
And even though tax does not pay for everything if anything, if it is convenient that people see the sense now in tax if to avoid the sort of disgraceful failure, then I hope so.
Maybe that is something that is growing and unmet by mainstream politics; that people see the sense in tax and government’s role – want more government and less market – but are angry and confused as to why we have yet another government basically acting like a continuity Tory party anyway?
As much as I welcome people questioning the authenticity and effectiveness of their democracy, it is a risky business because what fills the vacuum? Now, what would Farage have done during Covid? I think he would have just called it a day and walked out back to his private life. But how many folk might realise that, because they are so desperate for real change?
An American friend sent me a link to the report by Congress on the pandemic chaired by Brad Wenstrup, a doctor and Republican politician. I have only scanned it but it seems to be pretty much one sided. These seem to be the findings. Operation Warp Speed was ‘a great success”. Much criticism of Biden. The virus was made in a Chinese lab. Masks and lockdowns did more harm than good.
Whatever the merits of the Hallett report, we have an independent inquiry which provides some accountability. Robert Peston, on ITV, thinks it will stop any return by Boris Johnson.
We had one with the Iraq War-the Chilcott Inquiry which was designed not to give a clear conclusion. Twelve volumes and over 2 million words which much of it redacted but the issues were examined and the recommendations may prove useful in the future. The US seems not to have had an equivalent.
We don’t live in perfect world. I take some satisfaction that we do have a way of examining our government’s action albeit somewhat later.
Maybe a reformed House of Lords or Senate could do more of this. Sadly our current media is not is often too partisan. I see a danger that Reform and the parties trying to be a ‘lite’ version of them, might want to scrap such inquiries.
We need to be on our guard.
And still a significant number of voters want right-wing governments despite over-whelming evidence they are usually incompetent because they put greed ahead of national well-being:-
https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/pandemic-preparedness-warnings-were-ignored-hears-inquiry
As Einstein is reputed to have said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but each time hoping for a different outcome!”