Some Tory backbenchers, including ex-PM
Theresa May, were being very hard on the PM yesterday, demanding that he set
out his plans for dealing with any future variants of Covid. What possessed
them to believe that any plan put forward by Johnson would be worth the paper
it was written on is one of life’s little mysteries – they know him well enough
to know that nothing he says can or should ever be taken at face value anyway.
Besides, we can already work out what his plan will be based on his actions to
date, and there are three parts to it.
Part 1 will be to deny that there can ever
be another variant at all. Deaths will continue at roughly the present rate,
and Tory MP’s will politely applaud the PM’s announcement that no new measures
are needed.
Part 2 will be to declare that the variant
is harmless. It’s not based on data or science (why would we expect that it
would be?), but additional deaths will only be in the hundreds or low thousands,
and Tory MP’s will shout and wave their order papers at the PM’s announcement
that no new measures are needed.
Part 3 will come into effect when mere
facts show that the variant might indeed be more infectious than any we’ve seen
to date, but the PM will declare that the NHS can and will simply ride the
wave. Thousands, or even tens of thousands will die, hundreds of thousands will
be hospitalised, parts of the NHS will collapse under the strain – and Tory MPs
will cheer the PM to the rafters when he announces that no new measures are needed.
The strategy, if one might dignify it with
such nomenclature, has only two elements in reality. The first is that, regardless
of what happens, no new measures will be required, and the second is that the
announcement of no new measures will please the majority of Tory MPs, with
their degree of pleasure increasing in direct proportion to the seriousness of the
situation. Given that the second part of that, with its concomitant that the crazies
who have taken over the Conservative Party might allow the world king to stay
in office a little longer, is now the only driver of pandemic policy, asking
for a detailed plan is an entirely futile exercise. A bit like being an ex-PM
sitting on the backbenches, I suppose.
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