Led by donkeys

I have come across this quote from health minister Helen Whately when she was being interviewed this morning on Kay Burley’s breakfast news show on Sky News:  “It doesn’t make sense to continue supporting jobs where there simply isn’t work at the moment.” If I’d been watching, it’s entirely possible it might simply have drifted past me. But written down, then it’s absolutely breathtaking. ‘Nightlife’ is the fifth biggest industry in the country. Whately is saying that the government cannot support jobs in the nightlife sector.

It is fair to say that Whately was not at the front of the line when brains were dished out. She holds a relatively minor place in government not because of her ability but because of her slavering loyalty to Boris Johnson. Promoted well beyond her level of competence, she breezily comes out with a quote like that. But hang on: in truth she is only repeating what chancellor Rishi Sunak said last week.

Sunak said he would only support ‘viable jobs’: “It’s not for me to sit here and make pronouncements upon exactly what job is viable or not but what we do need to do is evolve our support now that we’re through the acute phase of the crisis,” he added. Can anyone explain, then on the basis of that, what a viable job is?  Sunak, who was widely praised for his early job retention scheme and because he appeared to be more honest and straightforward than, say, Boris Johnson, turns out to be just another spinning politician.

But let’s go back to Ms Whately and what her comments actually mean with her, “It doesn’t make sense to continue supporting jobs where there simply isn’t work at the moment.” There simply isn’t work in much of the entertainment sector because live performances of music and theatre have been banned by the government. It is not that the public doesn’t want to go out and see a band or enjoy a play: they have been told by the friends of Rishi Sunak that these events cannot take place. It is not just the musicians and actors who we all see. It’s the road crew, the backstage technicians, the lighting engineers, ticket collectors, security staff and many, many more people who cannot work because the government has told them not to.  But Whately, who obviously went to the elite private Westminster School and Oxford University and is married to a multimillionaire is all right, Jack (and Jill), thinks that it’s perfectly all right for an entire industry to collapse and die because “there simply isn’t work at the moment.”

I’m just surprised she hasn’t blamed the usual suspects. It must be the BBC’s fault, the EU, remoaners, the law, the civil service, the NHS, social care, teachers, hauliers, science, laboratories, Labour, Sturgeon or migrants. This is the politics of the mad house.

Given that drinking in pubs, due to the necessary COVID-19 restrictions, is now frequently a grim unsatisfying, antiseptically clean experience, do we simply let all of them die, too? Presumably, the slow-witted Whately can see a brighter future without live music, live performance, eating and drinking out and all the rest of it, but I can’t.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of the types of businesses that the government seems to have concluded will have to fade and die in the weeks and months ahead.

I doubt that the Luftwaffe could have done a better job of bringing this country to its knees and destroying all the things we treasure and value. Once again, we are lions led by donkeys.