It is your “civic duty”, says health secretary Matt Hancock, to help make the new test and trace system work. “This is a national effort and we all have a role”, he adds.”We must all follow the NHS test and trace instructions as this is how we control the virus, protect the NHS and save lives.” Well, yes, Matt. All well and good. Some of us have been carrying out our civic duty since Boris Johnson belatedly brought in Britain’s semi-lockdown. You don’t need me to remind you all of the sacrifices people have made for the national effort, including not be able to say goodbye to loved ones who have been taken by COVID-19. I really want to carry on following government advice but you know what? I’m weary of the whole thing and what little faith I had in Johnson’s government, which was never much, has dissipated altogether now.
Johnson’s toe-curling appearance yesterday before the House of Commons Liaison Committee showed who really runs the country. The prime minister – the prime minister, for goodness sake – did not have the first clue how to answer any of the questions. Johnson laughably said that he had been forbidden from making any promises on dates for reaching government targets. Forbidden? By whom? The only possible answer must be Dominic Cummings who is very clearly running the country at the moment.
Who, do you think, came up with Hancock’s “civic duty” soundbite? The same man who told invented “Take Back Control”, “Get Brexit Done”, ‘Stay home. Protect the NHS, Save Lives’, ‘Levelling Up”, ‘Ramping Up” and that old classic, “Fuck you all. Rules don’t apply to me so I’m off to a luxury cottage on my father’s vast estate near Durham.” Johnson’s inability yesterday to string a coherent sentence together showed it couldn’t be him who came up with “civic duty”. And Hancock wouldn’t dare say anything unless Classic Dom said it would be okay.
In all these things, you need to take the country with you. You need to ensure people believe that, as George Osborne lied, “we are all in it together”, that sacrifices are being made by everyone from the woman on the Clapham Omnibus to the man staying on his father’s vast estate. Even in the long, exhausting fight against COVID-19, these things matter. I’m just wondering how I might react if a contact tracer contacted me.
I’d want to be sure it was not a malicious call, like the ones I get from fraudsters saying my BT and Amazon accounts are about to be cancelled, even when I don’t have any. If they tell me to go for a test, how would I know if they didn’t then enter my home whilst I was winging my way to Bristol Airport? And how would I know if a particularly unpleasant person, say an embittered former British Red Cross manager, or some other vindictive toad, wanted to interfere with my mental health, again, and say, anonymously (because it would be) that they had spent time with me when they hadn’t? I’d never know. But I’d be expected to self-isolate for 14 days, possibly for nothing.
When Hancock tells me it’s my “civic duty” to make it work, does this just apply to the lumpen proletariat and not to the illiberal elite at the top of government and at the top of society? Someone living on the 20th floor of a local authority tower block and the multimillionaire political advisor? It hasn’t applied so far. Johnson himself was allowed to recuperate from COVID-19 in the luxury of his grace and favour country residence Chequers.
The government has lost all of its moral authority. And it has lost its moral authority because Johnson has brought in one set of rules for his pals and quite another for the rest of us. The filthy rich elite will always do what they like and that’s why I am struggling so hard with my “civic duty”. I won’t endanger my fellow woman and man but if Dominic Cummings can do what he likes, then, to a point, so can I. It’s up to Hancock to make the test and trace system work. Treating us all as fools is not a good start.
