Bungling AlbionCritics Knock Britain's Handling of COVID Pandemic
Britain has not had a good coronavirus war, say critics of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, including some Conservatives, who fault him for not locking down the country earlier than he did. “I’ve always been skeptical about British exceptionalism,” former Conservative lawmaker Matthew Parris commented in Britain’s The Times newspaper. “No longer. Our handling of this crisis has been exceptionally poor.”
For most of the coronavirus pandemic, the daily Downing Street briefing by ministers of the ruling Conservative party has been accompanied by a chart showing Britain’s death toll trailing comfortably behind tallies in other Western countries, notably Italy and Spain. But earlier this month, when Britain’s toll surged past continental neighbors, the chart unceremoniously disappeared.
Britain has not had a good coronavirus war, say critics of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, including some Conservatives, who fault him for not locking down the country earlier than he did.
“I’ve always been skeptical about British exceptionalism,” former Conservative lawmaker Matthew Parris commented in Britain’s The Times newspaper. “No longer. Our handling of this crisis has been exceptionally poor.”
On Monday, an all-party parliamentary panel criticized Johnson’s Conservative government for missteps and U-turns, and for failing to be transparent with the public about the scientific reasoning behind its shifting strategy.
Government ministers say they have just been following scientific advice, but until recently, the membership of the main expert body advising ministers was kept secret and the minutes of its deliberations also have been held from publication.
The parliamentary panel rebuked the government for what it termed a “lack of boldness” with the country’s virus testing regime and for a failure to boost testing capacity fast enough. “Capacity drove strategy, rather than strategy driving capacity,” the committee said.
Committee members also fumed about the explosion of infections and deaths in Britain’s nursing homes, which have accounted for about 42 percent of the 40,000 coronavirus-related deaths so far in the country, which is the second highest reported death tally in the world.
Public health officials failed to warn nursing home operators about the rate of infection in the sector during March and April, even though they knew it was rapidly increasing, critics say. And they forced care homes to admit elderly patients from hospitals without testing them first to see if they were infected.
Polls suggest even Britons think many foreign governments, including those in the European Union, have handled the crisis better. The pandemic risks upending Johnson’s bid to restore the image of Britain being an orderly, well-governed place after the country’s governance took a battering during its long, drawn out and shambolic Brexit process — a fear held even by some Conservative party loyalists.
