J'accuse.
J'accuse the governments of the UK, whether in London or Edinburgh, of hiding their abject failure to protect the public from coronavirus behind a pretence of competence in their daily news briefings.
Be in no doubt, when this pandemic is largely over, the UK death toll may well be the worst toll per head of population of any country in the entire world. There is a reason for that.
Do not be fooled that the USA has 2-3 times the death toll of the UK. The USA has approximately 6 times the population of the UK, so its death toll per head of population is less than that of the UK.
Matt Hancock and Nicola Sturgeon stand at their podiums in front of the TV cameras every day, looking and talking remarkably seriously, confidently and knowledgeable, indicating that they are planning every move with the greatest of thought put into every decision. But it is a sham. An absolute sham, where despite all the fancy talk and carefully crafted behaviour in front of the cameras, hundreds of people up and down the length of the UK are still dying every day. And there's a reason for that.
The reason is perfectly simple. These governments take an absolute age to implement any protective measures. Every action they take is reactive, not proactive, and every action needs to be justified with volumes of written scientific evidence, just to ensure that there is plenty of paper to cover their delicate arses. Most actions are implemented about 1 month later than they should have been.
We are led by wimps. Wimps that are so protective of their reputations and careers that they are incapable of implementing common sense actions until the invisible "scientific expert" tells them what to do.
As soon as the governments were aware of the virus spreading in China they should have acted. Bought up tons of PPE just in case. Stopped flights into the country, just in case. Implemented social isolation and the wearing of masks immediately, just in case. And introduced testing and tracing right away, just in case.
But they didn't. They waited till everything got out of hand, until they were absolutely certain the virus was really spreading before they took any action.
Now it is too late, the virus is everywhere, and Hancock and Sturgeon are like farmers trying to round up a thousand sheep that have spilled all over the motorway, with one sheepdog.
One of the phrases you often hear Hancock and Sturgeon say is "there is a lack of scientific evidence". For example they have been ridiculously slow to tell people to wear masks, because "there is a lack of scientific evidence" that wearing them helps stop the spread. What needs to be understood here is that they are not saying that there has been umpteen scientific trials that showed masks were ineffective. What they may well be saying is that no trials have ever been done, and thus there is no evidence that they are either effective or ineffective. But this is where real leaders stick their neck out and do the right thing. Real leaders do not cower in a corner waiting to be told what to do.
In an emergency situation, you cannot wait for a scientific trial to take place before you decide what to do. You do not stand and look at a fire taking hold in your kitchen and say I wonder whether I can put this fire out with water before I chuck this basin of water on it. You use common sense and get on with it.
We need leaders in our governments who can use the brains they were born with to make quick decisions, not wimps who need someone to tell them what to do.
The fact that every action they take is reactive to a crisis tells me that they are afraid to do something until things are so bad that no one can accuse them of doing something unnecessarily. What spineless individuals.
Our country has been terribly let down by Hancock and Sturgeon. And continues to be so.
