Doris Johnson put on his mock genuine sadness face and expressed his condolences for the 100,000 covid dead. As Prime Minister, he, of course, accepted responsibility for all that the government has done.

He has yet to accept responsibility for all that was not done by his  government:

the failure to take advantage of our country being a collection of islands and therefore easier to defend against invasions no matter whether by Napoleon, Hitler or covid virus. Not until the end of January 2021  have our points of entry been closed and, even then, properly supervised quarantine for our own nationals coming home is not assured.

the failure to ensure proper funding for the NHS, leaving us pitifully ill-prepared for the arrival of the pandemic:  too little PPE, too few doctors and nurses, too little specialised respiratory apparatus, too few hospital beds, the structure of local  directors of public health  dismantled in order to save money.  Billions have now been spent on compensating businesses and providing benefits for those laid off or on furlough, but even more billions have been spent or squandered on desperate attempts to buy PPE from people who turned out to be crooks, on the totally failed test and trace scheme and on the Nightingale hospitals.

 

the late commencement of the first lockdown, which resulted in hundreds of deaths which could have been avoided.

the failure to roll-out broadband to the whole country and to ensure all children had access to computer equipment needed for home-schooling.

the failure to ensure all children are adequately fed.

The failure to provide clarity over school examinations and closure and re-opening.

 

The Tories are ideologically locked-in to the principle of privatisation and so major jobs have been handed to companies of proven uselessness, like SERCO, Compass and cronies who are not qualified to do them.

The Tories could not possibly admit that their decade-long, totally unnecessary austerity set the stage for failure to deal with the pandemic adequately and explains why our death toll puts us in the same league as Trump’s America, while much smaller countries, like Vietnam, New Zealand, Israel and Cuba have had much greater success at protecting their people.