Some years ago I was invited to a dinner party by a friend of mine – a partner in a firm of chartered accountants.  During the meal the subject of the armed forces, or more particularly the cost of them, came up.  One of my fellow guests, a major in the Signals – or was it the Pay Corps? I forget – remarked that one easy saving would be to stop recruiting the Gurhkas.  They were, he said, an anachronism: they had no understanding of modern technology, and no place in a modern army.

And yet it is a fact that in the Falklands war the troops most feared by the Argentines were not the paras, not the commandos, not even the special forces, but the Gurkhas.  They fought with the utmost tenacity and the utmost loyalty.  They embodied the word “courage” to a man.

But it is not just their courage that makes the Gurkhas so formidable.  They are ruthless and they are efficient.

There were, in the 20th century, two men who, in terms of their administrative ability stood head and shoulders above their peers.  Both were, like the Gurkhas, superficially unassuming,  underestimated by their peers, and yet responsible for the transformation of their respective countries; judged not by promises, but achievement.  The two were Viscount – better known as Clement – Attlee and Ioseb Djugashvili, otherwise known as Stalin*

When the history of Covid-19 comes to be written I doubt that the name of Hancock will be seen in quite the same light.   The unfortunate Minister of “Health”  – himself a victim of the very disease against which he “defends” us – has failed dismally.  He has over promised and underachieved, and in that – and as far as I can see in that alone – his results have been spectacular – the figures speak for themselves, 2,000 out of an NHS  staff of half a million tested.  A daily total of around 8,000 tested against a target of 70,000 – and Hancock asks us to believe this will increase to 100,000 by the end of this month.  Administrative success requires determination and graft: not fine words and promises.  We’ll see.

Hancock’s namesake – Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock of 23 Railway cuttings East Cheam – when asked in The Blood Donor by an admiring Hugh Lloyd, “are you are doctor?” replied, with splendid insouciance, in words that may yet turn out to be a fitting epitaph for our own latter day Hancock, “No, I never really bothered.”

* for example, a quirk of Stalin was never to sit at the head of the table. C.P. Snow has written “they underestimated Stalin at that time. They went on underestimating him.  almost up to the end, they found it inexplicable that he got anywhere at all.*

UK armed forces reservists are being called up to help in the fight against the virus. 

Shame on the Tory governments of the last 10 years that have run the armed forces down to their lowest levels in living memory.  It seems the armed forces are of more use than the politicians.

563 people in the UK died of the virus the day before yesterday (figures for yesterday have not been released at the time of writing).  Johnson called it “a sad day.”  He’s right it was a “sad day,” a bloody sad day, and today’s figures will, almost certainly, be worse.

Before I go on, its time for a musical interlude: Music

There, did you enjoy that?  I knew you would.

Coronavirus was not caused by the UK government, or any other government.  It has already hit every country in Europe – even Moldova has reported over 420 cases – and to some extent its impact is the result of geographic accident, and luck.  But, that having been said, the UK government has had a role to play in the fight to control it, and it should be ashamed of the way it has done so.

Newspapers today are full of facts about the lack of testing (just 2,000  of the NHS staff of 550,000 tested scream the headlines).  That is shameful, but worse is the mess, and muddle, confusion and contradiction in the government message: “keep your distance,” cried Johnson, even as he continued shaking hands and sitting close to junior ministers on the front bench.  “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” says one minister even as another hints that lock down measures could be reviewed – and presumably relaxed – within a fortnight.

Britain goes it alone – we did not participate in a European initiative to place a bulk order for necessary equipment.  Why not?  Because we are no longer “rule-takers”?  No, said government spokesmen, it was because we never received the offer.  It transpired that British officials were in the room when the offer was made.  Of course they received it: they did not act upon it.   As a result, some Britons will die.

If you look at the tables for the virus (you can find them here: Virus by country) it is strikingly obvious that Germany has been far more successful in controlling it than any other country.   A death rate of around 1.2% (as of yesterday) compares to almost 8.0% in the UK , which itself is the 3rd worst in the world after Italy and Spain.

I am afraid – and it gives me no pleasure to write it – that the UK government is made up of incompetent, second-rate ideologues,  who have peddled the false hope that Britain is somehow different from, and better than, other countries.  We are not: this is a global pandemic.  We are all in it together.  And when it is over, we will live in a global world, where British interests are best looked after by participating with and learning from  our European friends and cousins.

“This is serious, and, yes, it’s understandable that people cry out to the government, but the real question is, is this serious enough to warrant putting most of our population into house imprisonment, wrecking our economy for an indefinite period, destroying businesses that honest and hardworking people have taken years to build up, saddling future generations with debt?”  Not my words, but those of Lord Sumption, sometime justice of the Supreme court.  They are chilling, not so much for the reason Lord S spoke them – he warned of the eruption of a ‘police state’ – as because they hint at the the mayhem that is to come, a world in which the economic interests of the wealthy trump well-being of the people.

A little over two weeks ago we were told something over 670,000 people in the UK were likely to die from the virus before the end of May, at an average rate of around 10,000 per day.  The latest estimate I have seen revises that number to 5,000; not 5,000 per day, but 5,000 total.  That is one Hell of a revision.    The fall may, in part, be attributed to the success of the lock-down, but that argument will only stretch so far.  To the man in the street – my street at any rate – it looks like the experts over-egged their pudding; or, to put it another way, got it wrong.

The economic and social costs of the lock-down are already stupendous.  The long term damage that will result if people come to believe that they can trust nobody but the politicians who lead them with candy-floss promises and simplistic solutions will be worse.   We have as prime minister a man totally unfit for office who, instead of appointing government ministers charged with bringing the country together and alleviating the  damage of Brexit,  has surrounded himself with a team of cringing curs snapping and snarling at all who stand in their way.  A man who will not stop  at lying, at bullying, at toadying to his “friends” of the far right.    If no judgement is allowed but his, if popular opinion is deemed as worthy, or as worthless, as the considered opinion of the expert doctors, judges and economists,  we are destined for economic and diplomatic oblivion.  From the glorious days of mighty Sovereignty we are destined to become no more than a run down Pound Land.

I don’t know about you, but I am confused, perplexed and baffled.  In a word, muddled.  How long is the “lock down” likely to continue? and how much damage is to be expected?; or, not to put too fine a point on it; how many are going to die?

Less than 3 weeks ago (which feels like ages – Harold Convolvulus Wilson  spoke true) we were told that the UK was all set to let the virus rampage through the population, with a consequential death toll of between 1 and 2%.  that is to say, expected deaths, mainly amongst the elderly, of between say, 650,000 and 1,000,000).   Today the front page of my newspaper carries an estimate by some expert epidemiologist, of a total toll of around 5,000.  That is, of course partly due to the the change in policy from “mitigation” to suppression,” partly due to a firmer grounding of fact, and partly because of Robey’s Rule which states that “no expert will ever produce an estimate of anything which agrees with that produced by any other expert, or by himself at any other point in time.”  To put it another way: fair enough.

Certainly, considerable confusion remains.   Lower down the same front page carries another article suggesting  that current restrictions may endure for 6 months.  The two are not necessarily inconsistent: it may be that restrictions save lives, loads of them.

But thoughts are turning to the long term implications of all this and  – putting aside the economic ramifications, which are stupendous  –  if it transpires that politicians did not follow their own rules, and that despite prognostications of doom,  it turns out that just a few thousand die I’m not sure the standing of our political “masters” will rise very far.

Subtitle: It’s a dog’s life

It may come as a surprise to some readers,  but I’ve got friends.  Not friends in high places, necessarily, but good mates nonetheless.    And decent, law abiding folk they are too; for the most part.   There are, I have to admit, one or two who, from time to time, indulge in acts of hooliganism, the sending of unsolicited videos & so on, but when the long arm of the law descends, as descend it must, they soon see the error of their ways.  Most of them.

There are one or two who are, shall we say, a little less compliant.   Take for example, a dog-owning friend of mine, aged well north of 70.  Let’s call him Rover.  His opening salvo was a fervent hope that “they” would not close the town swimming pool; next he popped round “for a chat.”  His daughters, both old enough to know better, dropped in on him and his good lady, Mrs Rover, for supper on Mother’s Day.    Government advice has now – finally – been issued to the effect that dogs should be walked once a day, and if a second walk is necessary it should be given by a different  member of the household, to ensure that each takes just one round of exercise a day, thus limiting their social contact.    I don’t know why they bothered, Rover is still taking his pooches (he has two of them) out 3 times a day, on the grounds that “they need it.”  So do the rest of us, like a hole in the head.  But that’s not his problem.  Not for him to change the routine, put the bloody animals in kennels, or show some social responsibility. 

For the best part of forty years, since the days of Thatcher, government has been telling us that social responsibility is a form of weakness, greed is good,  and all the rest of it.  Now we begin to see the world that mantra invokes: a world in which an elderly man – himself high risk in terms of the virus – chooses to ignore pleas to behave with consideration for others,  on the grounds that it would inconvenience himself, or, rather, his pets.

Oh joy.  I am one of the lucky few: I have a Dyson vacuum cleaner at my disposal.  Dyson, one and the same firm on whom the government is now placing reliance to provide 10,000 of the ventilators so desperately need by the NHS.   Good luck to them.

I hope the ventilators work a little better than my vacuum, which has about as much suck as an asthmatic nun, and every time you pick it up another part falls off.

Boris Johnson, our Flatulent Leader, likes to imagine he is a reincarnation of Sir Winston Churchill.  Not that I remember Sir Winston walking around in concertina trousers (they are more reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp), his hair deliberately scruffed, leading his way through a national crisis by means of lies, lies and more lies.  Nor do I recall him offering such inspirational oratory as “fuck business,” nor describing government policy as “polishing a turd.”

But there are similarities.    On occasion Sir Winston conducted government from his bed – and, perish the thought, his bath – with his poodle (who he fed an unending supply of chocolates) beside him and a parrot on his head.  Poodles are nasty, cringing curs, for ever running to their master with their pom-poms between their legs,  snapping when  safety on the lead.  But I digress.  Johnson, too, has his poodles.  In his case they lounge around the cabinet office, fed tempting morsels of Brexit and such like; and, of course, he has his parrot, Pee-pee Patel, squawking foul policy, learnt by rote,  ingested not digested.

The key difference is that whilst by the end of his time in office, Sir Winston was unfit for government, Johnson was unfit before he ever crossed the threshold of Number 10.

It’s time to make your mind up.   Has the Flatulent Leader contracted coronavirus because he “couldn’t care less,” or was he just careless?  One thing for sure, it was not just bad luck.  The words of  Johnson’s mistress echo from last year, “You’re spoiled. You don’t care about anything.”

By all accounts the prime minister took no account of the warnings he was issuing about the risk, but carried on shaking hands, meeting people and snuggling up to ministers on the front bench.   And now he’s got the virus.  Who’d believe it?  The man who thought worries were for ordinary people brought low.

More to the point, if his infection is an indication of how carefully he looks after himself – and his pregnant mistress (I believe I’m right in thinking that the virus is considered a particular risk for those “expecting”) – then the question arises, how carefully does he look to all the other risks facing the country?

PS Dominic Cummings was seen running out of Downing Street last night. I wonder why?     His cummings and goings would not normally concern me, but I find myself wondering was this, to paraphrase the words of The Bard: Exit pursued by a virus?

Hard to believe my contempt for Johnson, the Flatulent Leader could increase, but his decision not to join with our EU partners in buying necessary equipment to fight and protect against the virus is appalling.

This is a government that places political dogma before lives.  People will die because of Johnson’s cowardly decision.