A test for elected leaders

Why exactly has the U.K declared a national emergency[i]?

The Times reports[ii] that the Prime Minister Boris Johnson was told by two dozen scientists that “his hands-off plan (in tackling the Covid19 pandemic) wasn’t working and an immediate halt to socialising and the closure of schools was our only hope of avoiding catastrophe.” 

This explains the Government’s about-turn on 20 March.   

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (the apt acronym Sage) published stark evidence with these inescapable conclusions.  The analysis by Imperial College London emphasised that social distancing was essential in order to reduce the prospective death toll in the U.K from 250,000 to a few thousand.[iii]  

Evidence as compelling as this demanded nothing less than an emergency response.

 

Had the pandemic’s science been prioritised differently in Government, places of public resort like theatres cinemas museums, universities schools gyms would have been closed earlier across the U.K.

Many organisations and institutions had acted ahead of the Government’s original pronouncement last Friday about those closures.  

The previous week, to take one local example, arising from closure of its arts and sporting venues by Belfast City Council, the Ulster Orchestra had to cancel an array of concerts and community events.

Following so soon after the achievement of “Getting Brexit Done,” important questions arise.  For example, does the precious union’s response to its first great test as an “independent” nation inspire confidence?  

And did the initial policy response in the U.K. of diverging from the World Health Organisation scientific guidelines contain the virus to good effect?

In earlier declarations the PM and Northern Ireland’s First Minister explained that they were following the science.  What science precisely could they have meant? 

Political science maybe; epidemiology and virology almost certainly not.  The UK’s hands-off start was being exposed by Sage for its dangerous ambiguity.

The Observer illustrates the relative success of three Asian countries compared to Europe.  “Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore which had their first confirmed cases before Europe but acted early and fast, still have deaths in single digits...Taiwan,” it adds, “helped by having an epidemiologist as vice-president, started tracing passengers from Wuhan as soon as China warned of a new type of pneumonia in the city last December before Covid-19 was identified.[iv]”

The PM’s sure-footed new Chancellor of the Exchequer reminded Parliament when delivering the “coronavirus budget” on 11 March that this is a great country.  Who knew? 

The confidence with which this nationalist self-praise can be asserted has, however, been dented by a continuation of panic-buying by the Great British public.  

That behaviour is, arguably, a symptom that people at large doubt the Government’s claims that they have control, that the big retail chains are meeting public demand.

How consistent is it for the party of business to chide shoppers’ behaviour when its friends and backers in the financial and business sectors sell off shares in record numbers, resulting in staggering sums being wiped off national wealth?

When consumers observe the politicians’ business allies exhibiting pandemonium, behaving with panic selling, the message is clear.  It’s not just consumers, but the signs are that shareholders also lack confidence in Government.   

The behaviour of panic buying and selling provide hard data, quantified evidence of mistrust and unease in the Government’s ability to protect the public interest, to support the NHS.

Occasionally the messengers of the Government’s belatedly more stringent campaign have their own record that has dented public trust.  

One, for example, is the Senior Cabinet Minister dispatched this morning (24 March) to endorse the PM’s dramatic and sombre address to the nation last night.  People recall Michael Gove’s dismissal of empirical evidence against Brexit with his assertion that the country is sick of experts. 

And while Northern Ireland’s First Minister has been a vocal supporter of the Government strategy on tackling Covid-19, her role in regional Government has been criticised in a recent report of a Public Inquiry.

On 18 March political leaders and chief medical officers from both sides of the Irish border met in Armagh.[v]  This important event focussed attention on the process of harmonising actions to combat the pandemic across Ireland. 

In public relations terms, unfortunately, the television pictures of Northern Ireland’s First and Deputy First Ministers did not bode well as their body language appeared to show.

The First Minister’s countenance at the cross border session did not convey joy.  

Only days before this meeting, she has been criticised for not reading her advice guidelines on the infamous Renewable Heating Initiative, aka the cash for ash scandal.  The revelations of the exhaustive (and expensive) Public Inquiry may have savaged her with faint chiding, but must have hurt.

On top of this, her record as leader of the party when holding the balance of power in HM Parliament resulted in the “Betrayal Act” (withdrawing the UK from the EU), a failure to deliver its prime electoral objective to protect the British Union.   

Despite this setback, her party continued to advocate the UK approach to the pandemic, aligning Northern Ireland with Westminster policy hands-off on Covid-19.   

Regarding containment policy, for example, the reason for Northern Ireland’s misleadingly low numbers of virus cases compared to the Republic is the vast discrepancy between diagnostic tests carried out in the two jurisdictions.

There is hope, however.  Unexpected benefits arise from the coronavirus.  

Residents of East Belfast are not being woken at 6 30 a.m by aeroplanes leaving the George Best City airport.  

Fish are returning to the River Lagan as I see people casting their lines into our improving waterway.  The natural environment loves the lock down. 

And there are signs that community relations here might just share in the benefits - if the First Minister’s statesman-like remarks in Armagh are carried through.  

As the First and Deputy First Ministers stood side by side (with appropriate social distancing), Mrs Foster emphasised that “the coronavirus has no political consideration.  It is neither British nor Irish, unionist or nationalist.  Politics must be set aside.” 

Leaders need words with action to follow.  This is a promising start.

About time yes, but very well said.

©Michael McSorley 2020

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[i] BBC News 24 March 2020 “UK brings in strict curbs on life to fight virus” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news

[ii] The Times 21 March 2020 Chris Smyth and Tom Whipple “Lockdown for a year is our best weapon against spread.

[iii] Observer 22 March 2020 Michael Savage, Robin McKie & Phillip Inman “From we ask you to we tell you: the week Britain was locked down.”

[iv] Observer 22 March 2020 Emma Graham-Harrison “Asian Countries acted while the west dithered. Now we see the results.”

[v] Irish Times 21 March 2020 Jennifer Bray and Freya McClements “Dublin and Stormont eventually align: tense week ends with greater harmony across the Border”