How right is Private Eye always to refer to most of the press and their erstwhile home in Fleet Street, as “the street of shame”. Perhaps the epithet also reflects the fact that buried under the street is the Fleet River, now one of London’s largest sewers.

Some of the hacks are now calling for a truce: stop attacking the government for its failures in the battle against the virus while it is working so hard to defeat it. But some of the government’s sternest critics are its own MPs, led by Jeremy Hunt, Chair of the Health Select Committee.

Of course, Hunt is no angel, unless an angel of death. His long reign as Health Secretary saw the NHS budget repeatedly cut, swathes of it privatised.  He did not use his authority to reverse earlier Tory cuts to the intake of the medical schools and hospital ward closures. Neither did he reintroduce training bursaries for nurses and midwives, let alone put up their pay. Furthermore, he proudly provoked two doctors’ strikes.

Why is Hunt now so roundly attacking his successor?  It can only be that the government’s failings are so blatant that the truth will out and he wishes to be found, for once, on the side of the angels.

It was early January when the bad news started emerging from China, with their medics likening this new virus to the one that was recognised in 1918, killing more people than the First World War. Coved-19 quickly spread to other countries in the far east, but Downing street was still somnolent from its Brexit and General Election victories, not to mention the Xmas festivities and Boris Johnson’s sojourn in his freebie sunshine getaway.

There were 5 meetings of COBRA on the matter, all missed by Johnson.

The nation was reassured that we were well prepared for any new viruses. We certainly should have been well prepared,  We should have learned from the outbreaks of MERS, SARS and eBOLA. Scientists did so, but ministers did not.

There was no recognition that the countries where these infections were concentrated unless helped, would act as permanent reservoirs of new infection.

 

There was no shut-down or testing at all points of entry to the country.  Foreign tourists and British holidaymakers continued pouring in, bringing with them god-knows-what.  The airlines continued gleefully raking in the cash.

Following those recent epidemics, was the NHS funded to stockpile PPE, intensive care wards and testing kits? No need, because the PM assured us that we are well prepared.

Was the NHS generously injected with extra cash for special staff training and reconfiguration of hospitals? No need, because we were well prepared.

Was there planning for the education of the public in how to respond to the coming pandemic?

No.

Were our direst weak spots identified and prepared: care homes for the elderly, prisons and migrant hostels? And were their staff advised and equipped?

Of course not.

Then, in the first week of March, it all hit the fan. It was a mixture of Dad’s Army: “Doomed, we are all doomed, and “Don’t panic, don’t panic.

A well-executed bit of graffiti appeared on a bus shelter on Chislehurst High Street: “Don’t panic.”

Then came the daily press conferences, the rising death totals and the endless praise for the front-line workers of the NHS.

Scientists were daily paraded at the Downing Street lecterns in order to give credence to the words of the government Johnny-come-lately’s

Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson (until he succumbed) basked in the reflected glory of the NHS.

The cash sink-hole which they had been starving and mauling for more than a decade, had suddenly become our most precious institution.  Let’s hope that ministers and the public will remember that when NHS staff next submit a pay claim.

Boris Johnson may well feel that his bout of the virus was heaven-sent. He can now re-emerge as a survivor, a wunderkind, rather than just the leader of a weak, unresponsive government.