Last Sunday, five years on from the start of pandemic, the UK held a Day of Reflection to remember those who lost their lives and to stand with those who are grieving.
Today, we look back at the politicians who failed Britain during the Covid-19 pandemic – at exactly the moments they were needed most.
It was the nightmare scenario for any politician. A devastating virus with no clear cure, spreading like wildfire through the population. Infections and deaths spiralling upward and an unprepared health service on the verge of breaking down entirely.
There’s a reason it’s the subject of so many disaster movies.
But while the public rose to the moment with a blitz spirit, dutifully following difficult the rules that kept them and their loved ones safe and applauding hard working health and care staff in the street – some of the most crucial parts of the government let us down badly.
Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson ’s approach to the pandemic was arguably apparent from day one.
Britain had been utterly unprepared for a pandemic on his watch.
And despite a genuinely major success in speeding through the first COVID vaccine, Mr Johnson was resistant, slow to act and utterly failed to set the example the country needed to see.
He missed the first five Cobra meetings about Covid-19 in January 2020, instead spending that entire Parliamentary recess out of sight at Chequers, his country retreat.
And even weeks in, he still didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation – boasting he’d visited Covid patients on hospital wards and “shook hands with everybody.”
The same day, government scientists had warned the government should “advise against greetings such as shaking hands and hugging, given existing evidence about the importance of hand hygiene.”
He was resistant to mask-wearing, slow to implement the first lockdown and downright hostile to further restrictions until it was clear it was the only course of action available.
Reports that he said he’d rather see the “bodies pile high” than send the country into a third lockdown churned stomachs across the nation.
And if he still had the benefit of the doubt from the public, thinking he was doing his best in an impossible situation, the Mirror ’s revelations about a culture of partying and rulebreaking in Downing Street on his watch put an end to that.
He was dragged kicking and screaming into apology after apology, as more damaging stories broke each day, trashing an already fragile trust in politicians and government.
And after being drummed out of office by his own party, he bid to rehabilitate his reputation in print and in public by claiming it was all a fuss over nothing.
Dominic Cummings
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POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Boris Johnson may have dealt the final blow to public trust in the government’s handling of the pandemic, but Dominic Cummings gave it a good duffing up first.
Public trust was almost implausibly high in May 2020 when the Mirror first published evidence of Mr Cummings having broken lockdown rules by taking his wife – who had suspected Covid – and their child from London to Country Durham that March, at the height of the first lockdown.
He later admitted to having driven his family from a cottage in Durham to Barnard Castle, 30 miles away. He denied having gone there for a day trip, instead claiming he was testing his eyes to see if he was capable of driving them back to London.
A study by the Lancet found a clear decrease in confidence in the government’s handling of the pandemic from May 22, when we broke the story – and from which trust never fully recovered.
Researchers asked respondents to mark their confidence on a scale of 1-7 – with seven being most confident. Before the story broke, the average score was five, after it had dropped to nearer 4.5, the sharpest drop recorded in the study.
Cummings’ trip, and Boris Johnson’s decision to back his top aide when the truth came out, were the first hint that while the vast majority of the country was following the rules, some of the people making them were not.
Before Barnard Castle, we were all in it together. After Barnard Castle cracks started to show in the nation’s resolve. For the first time, large numbers of people began to think: “If they aren’t going to follow the rules, why should we?”
Matt Hancock
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Image: The Sun)
Matt Hancock ’s failures during the pandemic were many, and none were more public than the one that brought about his downfall.
CCTV pictures revealed him in a romantic clinch with Gina Coladangelo – a member of his staff who is not his wife – in breach of his own social distancing rules.
But the most consequential failure he’s been accused of is failing to properly protect care homes in the early stages of the pandemic.
Despite scientists warning asymptomatic transmission “cannot be ruled out” as early as Februrary 2020, Hancock presided over a policy of allowing patients to be discharged from hospital into care homes without testing them for Covid.
More than 40,000 care home residents died during the pandemic.
In evidence to the Covid inquiry, Mr Hancock accepted that his claim that a “protective ring” was thrown around care homes early in the pandemic was misleading.
Rishi Sunak
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PA)
Before Rishi Sunak was Prime Minister, he was Britain’s Covid-era Chancellor.
And while his agreeing to furlough millions of workers prevented Britain collapsing entirely – he was also behind two abject failures.
Taxpayers picked up the £4.3 billion bill for fraudulent Covid Bounce Back Loans that were written off.
And his Eat Out To Help Out scheme, which gave out state-backed discounts encouraging the public to return to restaurants when they re-opened was blamed for driving up new Covid infections by between 8 and 17%.
