BORIS Johnson’s bungled handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is well known. However, the disclosures emerging from the ongoing and excruciating Covid inquiry demonstrate that the Johnson premiership’s management of this global emergency was much worse than was previously thought. It reveals an administration that was terrifyingly incompetent and disconcertingly dysfunctional. Expletives were liberally sprinkled through the acrimonious exchanges between the diverse factions within his motley crew – a team which radiated rampant misogyny, excessive but misplaced “macho” confidence and a total disregard for the Covid distancing rules.
The former PM is said to have procrastinated and vacillated, taking advice from multiple, often conflicting sources and frequently changing his mind, lacking focus or a proper medical understanding of the lethal pathology of the coronavirus. This ignorance was also displayed by many others within his cabinet.
Astonishingly, he allegedly gave precedence to the opinion of the tabloid press over that of the scientists – leading to his potentially fatal early endorsement of the unproven “herd immunity” strategy. This decision endangered the old and vulnerable disproportionately but he displayed a callous indifference towards their fate. He referred to the pandemic as “nature’s way of dealing with old people”.
He also tended to give precedence to the economy over the health of the nation. This was exemplified by the “eat out to help out” scheme which was launched to help the catering trade despite strong opposition from health professionals who saw it more as “eat out to help out the virus”. Indeed, this plan could have been designed to accelerate the transmission of the highly contagious coronavirus.
The consequences of the above failures are numerous. Effective action in the form of lockdown was delayed, resulting in unnecessary loss of life. The test and trace procedure was not implemented properly or coherently. Civil servants were ostracised for telling the truth about the virus. Front-line NHS workers were not provided with suitable or adequate quantities of PPE – the supply of which was dogged by corruption, with profiteering and various conflicts of interest within the Tory cabinet. It is clear that this Tory government did not have the cognitive or ethical skill set to effectively cope with the complex challenges posed by the pandemic.
Therefore, it is essential that lessons are learned from this inquiry in view of the fact that it is predicted that pandemics will be more common in the future due to the impact of climate change and deforestation. Otherwise, we will have a replay of the mass deaths resulting from Covid or some other similar pathogen and again the bereaved won’t be able to visit their loved ones in hospital – the heartbreaking spectre which haunted the Covid victims.
George Workman
Donabate, Co Dublin
Different levels of victimhood being displayed in conflict
IT IS indeed horrific the news coming from the Middle East on an hourly basis. To the observer, there are different levels of victimhood being portrayed in this ongoing conflict. All of the big western powers have come out strongly in support of the Israelis after the terror attack that was inflicted on them by the terror group Hamas. However, the continuous Israeli bombardment of Gaza in retribution for the Hamas attack is appalling.
How can the bombing and slaughter of civilians in their homes, shops, churches and hospitals be anything less than blatant war crimes? Western powers were very quick to attribute the term “war crimes” to the actions that Putin took in attacking Ukraine, where civilians were killed in their homes, shops etc.
Imagine that those who bulldoze your homes, steal your land, build further Jewish settlements and claim it as their right to do so, are allowed to carry on this inhumane action without reprimand from any of the western powerhouses who were quick out of the blocks to condemn Putin.
James Woods
Gort an Choirce, Dún na nGall
Pointless debate should cease before public services prove irrecoverable
I PRESUME that I am not the only one frustrated by the continuing peddling by unionists of the nonsense that Northern Ireland’s constitutional position has been amended by the Windsor Framework – the Supreme Court has confirmed that that is not the case.
In reference to the complaint that Northern Ireland is no longer fully in the UK, it never was. The goal of a ‘Protestant parliament for a Protestant people’ led to that parliament – a device not available anywhere else in the UK. It passed laws that were different to those elsewhere in the UK. In so far as there has been any change in Northern Ireland’s position, it has been only in the nature and complexities of the disengagement.
While the DUP struggles to extricate itself from the cul-de-sac into which it has rushed, public services continue to crumble.
This pointless debate has consumed needless amounts of time and energy and should be brought to a close before our public services prove irrelevant or irrecoverable.
Brendan Milligan
Downpatrick, Co Down
Truth is always the first casualty of war
NO doubt readers will have been told that the ‘Israel-Gaza war’ is ongoing.
War is ‘a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations’. Gaza, half the size of Co Louth, with a population of more than two million people, is not a state or nation. Gaza has no army. Gaza has no water, electricity or fuel presently. Gaza has no means for its inhabitants to flee. The truth is that what is unfolding before our eyes is not a war. The truth is that it is genocide. Aided and abetted by western powers.
The truth is that you find yourself having to look away because of how deeply upsetting it is. And then you get upset at yourself when you realise the privilege you have in being able to look away.
The truth is there must be a ceasefire now.
N McMann
Belfast BT7
