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 fittingly buried under that particular street is the Fleet River, now one of London’s largest sewers.

Some of the government’s sternest critics over its Covid performance have been 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 and 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 been criticising  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 warned, but ministers paid no heed.

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 were already well prepared.

Over recent years, since those earlier pandemics, was the NHS generously injected with extra cash for special staff training and re-configuration of hospitals? No need, because, as we were assured, 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? Indeed, infection control nurses in care homes had been stood down as an unnecessary cost.

 

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.

As we begin to get better Covid news don’t let the Tories off the hook. Those thousands of dead remain dead and with proper preparation there could have been far fewer of them.

Boris Johnson was missing from some of the Downing Street afternoon Covid press conferences  and his sudden, well-choreographed reappearance coincided with the up-turn in that crucial graph.

 

Here he was: Lazarus raised from the dead. Jesus in his Second Coming. Here, with his war wounds on display,  to collect the applause of a grateful nation.

Like thousands of others, he  had fallen  victim to Tory underfunding of the NHS and persistent ignoring of the scientific advice.

Pandemics keep turning up. Remember swine flu? SARS? MERS? And, of course, HIV. African countries are subject to 50 to 70 epidemics of serious disease every year.  Given global travel patterns, all of Africa is right on our doorstep. The scientific advice is to be permanently prepared for a pandemic, which is not a once-in-a-century affair, but more like four-times-in-a-decade.

On Sunday 26 April, Radio 4 broadcast an interview with a UK citizen who had arrived back from Pakistan on the previous day. He described minimal health precautions at Islamabad Airport, a major international hub. He boarded a plane (unfortunately, the BBC did not broadcast the name of the airline) along with travellers from all corners of the globe.  There was no testing or questioning of travellers. Seating was just as usual. On arriving at Heathrow, he was not tested or questioned and there was no advice about the lockdown for people who might have been oblivious to the national  crisis. He caught the tube to Kings Cross and was in Edinburgh that evening, carrying whatever infection he might have had. Heathrow’s non-existent checks are replicated at all our other points of entry. It’s Casey’s Court. And this is in the middle of a pandemic we are supposed to be fighting with every weapon in our armoury.

If the NHS, over which the government is now drooling, had not been starved of money by ten years of ruthless austerity, it could have afforded to follow the advice of the scientists  –  epidemiologists, in particular and the WHO  – by stockpiling PPE, stockpiling the basic reagents for viral testing, ensuring there are plentiful fully equipped hospital wards and trained staff for the event of an outbreak of deadly virus and infection control staff in all care homes, prisons and hostels.

We have to be  mindful of the fact that these viruses are lurking in various corners of the globe and could crop up among our invisible imports at any time.

 

What was the actual performance of successive Tory governments?

The overall policy was to spend only when necessary, just-in-time,  and not to spend in preparing for an eventuality that might never happen, or which  –  thankfully  – might happen on some other government’s watch.

The stockpiling of PPE was stopped.  Having special, fully-equipped  hospital wards mothballed until required was stopped.

Although the Royal Free Hospital, in London, was prepared for mass testing, the kits and the necessary infrastructure were not ready and compared to other countries,  have taken far too long to get ready

The government has been in panic mode since it’s too late lockdown decision.

Thankfully it has resisted the siren calls from those wanting easing of the lockdown so that less needs to be spent on protecting companies and furloughed employees.

But we have a long way yet to go, being late in the game and ill-prepared thanks to government parsimony.

If we get out of this mess, we must not forget the dead and the  Courage and self-sacrifice of NHS staff. We must not forget the failings of this government.