Why Tory British exceptionalism may be the death of us

Even so, given her position, they have to let her present the Government’s press briefings occasionally. And then they wish that they hadn’t. When Patel speaks, even Schrodinger is going to agree that the cat is well and truly dead. When she told us that over 20,000 people had died in hospital because of Covid-19, she called it “deeply tragic and moving” in the same tone of voice that a normal person would use for reading a tax code aloud. Only with more of a tone of menace.

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This weekend, as she announced the coronavirus death toll in UK hospitals had surpassed a milestone that no-one had ever wanted to see, the Home Secretary helpfully informed us that shoplifting is down three hundred thousand and thirty four nine hundred and seventy four thousand percent.

Over 20,000 people are dead in hospitals, and God knows how many more in care homes, hospices, and the community, but hey – shoplifting is down because all the shops are shut! Don’t anyone say that this Conservative Government doesn’t get results.

Next week Patel will tell us that there has been a reduction in the number of fights in pubs, there are far fewer reports of teenagers hanging about outside McDonalds, and not a single restaurant has failed its food hygiene inspection. Still, it’s such a relief to hear that shoplifting is down. Since this coronavirus crisis thing started, one of society’s biggest concerns has been people trying to bag up pasta, tinned tomatoes, and toilet paper without scanning them through the self-checkout.

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This is a Government so desperate to clutch at the straw of anything that can be spun as good news that it felt the need to tell us that shoplifting is down, without thinking that we might understand that this is not unrelated to the fact that all the shops are closed and no-one is going out because we’re afraid of catching a horrible disease and dying.

Or to be more accurate, Patel told us because it’s something that she wants to take the credit for. We may be afraid of this disease, but we’re even more afraid because the British Government is comprised of a bunch of incompetents, robots, and swivel eyed ideologues.

All weekend, Patel was the butt of shoplifting jokes as people laughed rather than face the horrible reality that she is the smirking face of a government that has failed in its most basic duty. The duty to keep its citizens safe from harm. The duty to prioritise the health and well-being of the people. You’ve got to take your laughs where you can find them. This Government gives no-one much of an occasion for joy, so we have to make do with ridicule.

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We are constantly told by Conservative apologists and British nationalists that we need to stick together, that any criticisms of the Government during this emergency is subversive and divisive. Wait for the enquiry, they tell us. That would be an enquiry in the tradition of Great British public enquiries. It will take years to hear witnesses, years more to come to a conclusion. Politicians named in it will get a chance to get their rebuttals in before anyone else has a chance to see it. And when it’s finally published the blame will be placed on a minor civil servant who had retired several years previously.

In the rest of the world the consensus is that the British Government has been foolish, arrogant, and callous, that it has screwed up its handling of the epidemic on a truly catastrophic scale. It’s only British exceptionalism that prevents most people in the UK from demanding the heads of the cabinet on plates.

It’s only British exceptionalism that makes some people in Scotland think that an independent Scotland couldn’t possibly have done better than what the international community regards as an exceptional and unnecessary British disaster, and an excess death toll that in any other state would see ministers resigning and being prosecuted for criminal negligence.

At every step along the way, the British Government has been slow to respond, confused in its response, and incompetent in its implementation. We are now, tragically, seeing the result of that in terms of lives lost.

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On March 17, Sir Patrick Vallance, said that if the UK could keep the death toll below 20,000 that it would be a “good outcome”. The reported death toll in hospitals alone surpassed 20,000 this weekend. That doesn’t include the thousands more who have passed away in care homes and in the community. An FT investigation last week found that the actual number of those who have died from the virus in the UK could be more than double the official figures, exceeding 40,000.

It’s clear the total number of Covid-19 deaths is already considerably higher than 20,000, and the epidemic isn’t over yet.

No amount of telling us that shoplifting is down is going to make up for that. No amount of Tory deflection will detract from the fact that the British Government was slow to respond, slow to react, and slow to implement measures to counter the worst effects of the epidemic.

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They were blinded by British exceptionalism, arrogance, and their own ideological prejudices, and thousands of British citizens have died as a result.

Anyone who thinks that an independent Scotland couldn’t have performed better than this woeful cultivation of tragedy is equally blinded by those British exceptionalist blinkers that have proven so lethal.