HP Source: Cheap Slogans and Empty Gestures

‘You choose your leaders and place your trust

As their lies wash you down and their promises rust

You’ll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns’

 

As we know there is little that is new in life, including Tory government trashing the NHS.

The lyrics quoted above are from a song released in March 1980, less than 1-year after Mrs Thatcher first took office (May 1979). In the preceding 41-years the Tories have governed for c27-yrs, roughly two-thirds.

Otherwise known as a long, slow, lingering death!

This current incarnation first raised its ugly head during the 2016 Brexit referendum and, although they didn’t take control of the party until 2019, they have been the tails that wagged the dog.

The Brexit referendum saw the first slogan, ‘taking back control’, since then we have moved on through ‘getting it done’, leveling-up’ to today’s mantras of ‘whatever it takes’, and ‘stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’.

Adding insult to injury we now have gestures such as the Thursday night ‘clap’ for NHS workers, and yesterday ‘silence’ for those that have lost their lived during the pandemic.

With no disrespect to any NHS worker, decent pay, and the necessary protective clothing would have been a better sign of respect.

‘decent pay, and the necessary protective clothing would have been a better sign of respect’

Essentially, these Tories have sadly neglected the NHS and its workers.

Ironically, 2020 is the World Health Organizations year of the nurse and the midwife.

According to The Health Service Journals latest analysis the pandemic has caused 106 deaths: 35 nurses, 27 health care assistants, two midwives, 18 doctors and 10 in social care, along with others, a high proportion were from ethnic minorities.

And there are more stats to consider:

In recent years, nurses leavers have outnumbered joiners by C.3,000.

When the crisis started in February there were 44,000 vacancies for nurses.

However, as Anne Marie Rafferty, the president of the Royal College of Nursing and professor of nursing policy at Kings College London said, ‘Those vacancies run on affordability. That’s only the number of nurses they can pay for, not the number needed.’

Even the 10,000 retired nurses who have returned to help-out in the crisis, mostly not on the front line, don’t cover those lost since 2010, she says.

‘UK has fewer nurses per head of the population than countries such as France, Denmark, Germany and Ireland’

The cause was austerity, the culprits the usual pair, Messrs Cameron and Osborne, firstly in their 2010 budget, followed in 2016 by removing nursing bursaries, which led to a 24% drop in applicants. Since then, although the government has restored the £5,000 maintenance grants, fees at £9,000 a year are impossible for many.

Whilst nursing numbers have declined the number of patients has increased, there are now 25% more over-65s

The UK has fewer nurses per head of the population than countries such as France, Denmark, Germany and Ireland.

Additionally, as this column highlighted, we have the insane charges levied on non-EU medical staff of £624 a year for each member of their family for their right to be treated by the health service they support.

No wonder Brexit saw the departure of thousands of EU staff.

However, well-intentioned Boris Johnson’s eulogy for his life-saving angels was, he needs to match it with actions, or it will be consigned to the bin of meaningless nothings from this government.

Another meaningless nothing was ‘whatever it takes’. Many SMEs have been forced to rely on the governments emergency support packages.

The first mistake was allowing the banks to run the system, who, whatever they pretend, have an innate dislike of small businesses and are therefore unwilling to lend, with requests becoming bogged-down in their systems.

The result is that larger companies have been the main beneficiaries of support packages, leaving SMEs floundering in their wake. For example, Easyjet received a £500m bail-out only weeks after paying £171m in dividends to shareholders.

 

‘Looking for a man with a focus and a temper

Who can open up a map and see between one and two’

 

Continuing with this theme of neglect, we can also add hiding the truth.

The first example is Exercise Cygnus, a three-day simulation involving government and public health bodies conducted in 2016.

Dr Moosa Qureshi, an NHS doctor, is demanding the government publish its report on the exercise.

Qureshi represents the group 54000doctors.org, has sent a pre-action protocol letter to the secretary of state for health requesting a response. Should the government fail to disclose the findings of Exercise Cygnus without adequate reason, Qureshi’s lawyers will seek an urgent judicial review challenging the decision and seeking publication.

The Telegraph has reported that Cygnuss findings were deemed ‘too terrifying’ to be made public.

‘The Telegraph has reported that Cygnuss findings were deemed ‘too terrifying’ to be made public’

Then, in 2019 the government was warned that the UK needed to have a robust plan to deal with a pandemic, which could have catastrophic social and economic consequences for the country.

The report warned that even a mild pandemic could cost tens of thousands of lives and set out the must-have ‘capability requirements’ to mitigate the risks to the country, as well as the potential damage of not doing so.

The report, the 2019 National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) was signed off by Sir Patrick Vallance, the governments chief scientific adviser, as well as a senior national security adviser to the prime minister.

The recommendations within it included the need to stockpile PPE, organise advanced purchase agreements for other essential kit, establish procedures for disease surveillance and contact tracing, and draw up plans to manage a surge in excess deaths.

 

The document said:

 

• A pandemic would play out in up to ‘three waves’, with each wave expected to last 15 weeks … ‘with the peak weeks occurring at weeks 6 and 7 in each wave’.
• 50% of the population would be infected and experience symptoms of pandemic influenza during the one or more waves. The actual number of people infected would be higher than this, as there would be a number of asymptomatic cases.
• A pandemic of moderate virulence could lead to 65,600 deaths.
• The potential cost to the UK could be £2.35tn.
• Even after the end of the pandemic, it is likely that it would take months or even years for health and social care services to recover.
• There would be significant public outrage over any perceived poor handling of the governments preparations and response to the emergency.

 

Drawing on previous security assessments and health risk registers, the document implicitly warned ministers that in, ‘A novel pandemic virus could be both highly transmissible and highly virulent,’ it said. ‘Therefore, pandemics significantly more serious than the reasonable worst case … are possible.

In response the government has declined to provide specific details of the preparations that had been made prior to the pandemic, but said it would be unfair to say they were ‘starting from scratch’, pointing to planning exercises carried out in recent years.

‘pandemics significantly more serious than the reasonable worst case … are possible’

‘This is an unprecedented global pandemic and we have taken the right steps at the right time to combat it, guided at all times by the best scientific advice,’ a government spokesman said.

‘The government has been proactive in implementing lessons learned around pandemic preparedness. This includes being ready with legislative proposals that could rapidly be tailored to what became the Coronavirus Act, plans to strengthen excess death planning, planning for recruitment and deployment of retired staff and volunteers, and guidance for stakeholders and sectors across government.’

However, it is reported that a source with knowledge of the Cabinet Office document said the UK had not properly focused on the pandemic threat, and had been caught flat-footed.

‘The really frustrating thing is that there were plans. But over the last few years emergency planning has been focused on political drivers, like Brexit and flooding.

The source added: ‘We have been paying for a third-party fire and theft insurance for a pandemic, not a comprehensive one. We have been caught out.’

‘We have been paying for a third-party fire and theft insurance for a pandemic, not a comprehensive one’

No, we have not been caught-out, we simply chose to ignore it. This is yet further proof that the Tory party is a one-issue party, Europe and Brexit.

As this column has highlighted previously this pre-occupation with Europe has become a creeping cancer within the party, until, in recent years, it has become the rasion d’etre. We are now all suffering the consequences.

And to hiding the truth we can add complacency, as today it was revealed that the government turned down an opportunity to buy tens of thousands coronavirus tests from an award-winning British scientist just days after Matt Hancock pledged to hit 100,000 tests a day by the end of April.

These tests are fully approved by the USFDA, and are used by the US air force, and the states of Florida and Alaska. The offer was for 50,000 saliva tests a week immediately, with the potential to increase this to 50,000 tests a day.

On the day of the offer, 4 April, the UK had capacity to do just 15,499 tests a day and was only testing 8,651 people a day!

When the company contacted the UK government to offer its tests, it received a brief reply from an unnamed official three days later to say the government was not interested because Curatives test was ‘undifferentiated against the existing portfolio of tests’.

When contacted by the Guardian, the Department of Health and Social Care said it already had partnerships to supply hundreds of thousands of [nasal] swab tests and did not need any more.

Of course not, after all today we will achieve 52% of the health secretary’s target, a truly magnificent achievement!

 

Which brings me to return of Johnson….

 

‘Welcome home son,

Guess what we were doing while you were gone?

Cocktail party’s in gear and we were so glad that you’re here,

Why don’t you sit down?’

 

Johnson’s first speech since returning to office dispelled some of the more stupid members of his party wishes to get the country back to work, though, typically, it was short on substance.

It was based on trusting the government; trust us to know when the first peak is over, what the second peak will look like, to evaluate all the trade-offs in a democratic way.

Given the government we have this level of trust is a big ask.

Johnson is essentially superficial; things  such as this aren’t for him. Moreover, his team is lightweight, the chancellor has made lots of promises that are still only promises, basically he is untested

Other key figures such as Dominic Raab and Michael Gove, were chosen for their hawkishness on the seemingly irrelevant Brexit issue.

Others, such as Priti Patel, Matt Hancock, Helen Whately are political pygmies at a time when giants are required. The Brexit–induced culls last autumn robbed the party of the experience, gravitas and statesmanship required in times of crisis.

‘political pygmies at a time when giants are required’

However, as we have seen before what I think is totally irrelevant when it comes to opinion polls and elections.

Despite the fact that more than 26,000 people have already died, that millions may lose their jobs, and frontline staff are doing their jobs without adequate or even the most basic protective equipment, Johnson is seen as doing a good job.

And this, is before you consider the party’s shameful lack of care about the NHS since 1979.

Somehow the blame never sticks to ‘Teflon’ Boris; according to YouGov 60% of Britons think that a government led by the man who missed five Cobra meetings about coronavirus has handled the epidemic well.

It does make you wonder what more he needs to before people start pointing the finger. Or, perhaps, why?

Perhaps, all the people that voted for him are inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, as anything else would be akin to admitting they themselves made a terrible mistake.

Conservative voters and leavers (Brexiters) are significantly more likely than non-Conservatives and remain voters to approve of his handling of coronavirus. But that doesn’t explain why a third of Labour voters, half of Liberal Democrat voters and 49% of Remainers agree.

Another explanation might be peoples own experiences of the lock-down. While some are suffering, perhaps from domestic violence, or have been or are expecting to lose their jobs, be evicted, or just trap indoors in the hot weather.

‘a large silent mass of Britons, as yet untouched by the economic meltdown and coping better than expected’

But that still leaves a large silent mass of Britons, as yet untouched by the economic meltdown and coping better than expected.

A study by Kings College London classed these as resisters, ‘have-nots’ might be more familiar, who seem to be in the minority, with fewer than 10% being in this category

Another 44% were classed as sufferers, people distressed by lockdown even if they felt it was necessary.

But the biggest category were the ‘accepters’, the ‘haves’, people who were adapting surprisingly well and not losing sleep over it.

Unsurprisingly the haves are disproportionately middle-aged, more likely to have accumulated the comforts that make lockdown more bearable, e.g., a garden, savings, a secure job that can be done from home – or simply more fearful that the virus might kill them if they went out.

They are natural conformists not people that rebel and asking difficult questions. Their positivity helps them cope, but also makes them slow to question authority.

These are the people Johnson will be targeting with his defence, before any public enquiry sits; this was an unprecedented global crisis in which everyone made mistakes, but he nonetheless did his best.

 

In summary there are the following issues:

 

1. A succession of Tory government has paid lip-service to the NHS, leaving it is poorly placed to deal with anything out of the ordinary.
2. Whilst these legacy issues aren’t his fault, his government ignored numerous warnings and reports.
3. It was too slow to recognise the situation meaning we failed to prepare for testing and locked-down too late.
4. They have been complacent is dealing with the lack of PPE, and in doing so have unnecessarily gambled with health workers lives
5. The much-vaunted financial rescue package is being distributed too slowly and businesses are failing as a result

 

Putting to one-side the failings of previous Tory governments, why has this one coped so poorly?

Its simple; the PM doesn’t do detail and was away when he should have been dealing with the forthcoming crisis; their raison d’etre is Brexit, and nothing must stop it.

They miss one simple point; a government’s prime responsibility is the safety of its people.

 

‘What did (you say you’d) find

Then come, come, come, get the hell inside

You can close your eyes

Well you might as well commit suicide’

 

Laid bare the long-term underfunding of the NHS, the succession of missed opportunities and spurned warnings would point the finger fairly and squarely at a government making a hash of things.

The warnings of the 2019 National Security Risk Assessment were stark, yet still insufficient preparations were made, and action when it came was slow; yet 60% of people think Boris is doing a good job.

Philip posits that the ‘haves’ still have; if you have a salary coming in, a garden to tend there are probably worse ways to spend your time waiting for Boris to ‘get it done’.

Four lyrics today, and once I’d bagged the gimmie, I could only marvel at the extent and diversity of Philip’s musical knowledge; 19 pts on offer, so postal claims for 15 and above to HQ please.

Start with a singleton for the Jam and ‘Going Underground’; then ‘one of the best bands to come out of the US in the last 30-yrs’ – 3 pts for Sonic Youth and 3 pts for ‘Teenage Riot’.

Next ‘these guys were angry, hated Reagan. This lyric is too perfect’ new one on me, but one I’ll welcome back – 3 pts for Fugazi and 3 pts for ‘Runaway Return’.

Last but not least ‘to Ireland, undoubtedly the best band that country has produced’ a cracking track – and an introduction (for me) to a new genre – ‘Shoegaze’; 3 pts for My Funny Valentine and 3 pts for ‘You Made me Realise’. Enjoy, and stay safe.

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

 

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