When will the lies end?
A notification just popped up on my phone, “Boris Johnson to hold 5pm press conference as new variant found in UK”
Anyone with half a brain cell could have predicted this was coming. It’s all well and good vaccinating the elderly and the vulnerable, then rolling out the vaccine to everyone (should they choose to take it) but all our efforts go to waste if we do not make the vaccine just as available in every country. Giving out boosters here, offering the vaccine to children who are at low risk from COVID-19 while at the same time letting the virus fester and mutate in other countries where it could potentially become not only something more dangerous but also that we can’t protect ourselves against with the current vaccines or treatment.
I think rationality has been thrown out the window, people are understandably fearful of a virus that, at the start of the pandemic, was allowed to spread itself across this country due to our government’s lack of pre-emptive action. They let big events such as Cheltenham go ahead, Boris himself went to the Rugby, they brought in late measures, they did not protect our hospitals and even less so our care homes. Don’t get me started on PPE. COVID-19 was not an unprecedented occurrence, our government knew from a health exercise, “exercise cygnus” that we were under prepared for a ‘flu like’ pandemic. I strongly recommend the book ‘Blinded by Corona’ by John Ashton, an expert in this area. The report was unpublished, its findings ignored; literally swept under the carpet because the short-sighted Tories didn’t want to spend the money. Like when a car company knows several of their cars are faulty but won’t recall them because it’s just cheaper to pay someone compensation should something go wrong. And boy, did things go wrong.
Following the initial utter lack of leadership and management, were waves of fear mongering and misinformation that the government are partly responsible for, we were made to believe our only possible saviour would be a vaccine that was yet to be created. Yet amazingly, the government still found the time to funnel millions of taxpayers’ money to their mates, thinking we were too distracted or too stupid to notice. Too busy having our loved ones die around us, while they were busy profiting and filling their pockets. Introducing a shambolic track and trace system and not providing PPE. No wonder there has been vaccine hesitancy and anti-lockdown protests, could you blame anyone for not trusting this government? And now, if this new emerging variant is immune to current vaccines, we could be back where we started.
I was trying to avoid writing about COVID, I don’t feel I know enough to say rightly, what we should have done or should do, all I know is there are qualified people we should be listening to but for some reason we are not. John Ashton being one.
Leaving COVID aside for second, there are a few other important things from this week that I think I need to mention;
Peppa Pig and Boris’ embarrassing CBI speech, the continuing privatisation of the NHS, the social care cap that “levels up”, refugees losing their lives in the channel, Priti Patel saying she is going to save us from the system she has overseen for years, make Amazon pay, non-existent minutes from Randox meeting despite £600m deal and the letter of no confidence in Boris (barely mentioned, surprisingly). Overall, a pretty eventful, if not slightly depressing, week.
Without giving further unneeded attention to Peppa Pig, I will say that it was very convenient that our mainstream media were focused on that story while the Tories were voting through amendments to the Health and Care bill which would allow further privatisation of our NHS. Coincidence, no. Obviously, I’m not saying Boris is clever enough to plan such a distraction tactic himself, but I do believe that is exactly why the Party have elected to put him in that position to begin with. He can be the court jester; he can make the crowd laugh while the rich sneak up behind them and literally pull the coins from the pockets of the poor. The poor who are not only losing their NHS but also their homes to pay for social care, another broken Tory promise.
Also, in case you haven’t been paying attention, the Tories claimed they couldn’t locate the minutes from the meeting with Randox. Laughable, if it wasn’t such a blatant lie. Randox were awarded a £600m deal yet there no are minutes, what the actual f*** is this government playing at? So, there are no minutes because there was no process, or the minutes have been destroyed/hidden, either way this just shows a complete lack of respect for the taxpayer. It was taxpayer money let’s not forget! Our money. Yours and mine. And what do we have to show for it?
I did write about NHS privatisation in my ‘MaisieWrites’ About blog earlier this week if you’re interested; we were warned.
Finally, and most importantly, my thoughts this week are with all the people, the men, women and children who lost their lives in the channel. “How far from home” is on ‘MaisieReacts’.