As we enter into territory we really should never have been anywhere near, having been told that we’re succeeding by a lying government, we find that government being aided by a media that’s largely interested in deflection and distraction, whilst government ministers tell doctors who point out facts to ‘watch their tone’ (some nice subtle sexism there, Mr Hancock). Does anyone else feel this is a car crash unfolding in slow motion?
The stats don’t lie – the UK has 29,427 deaths from Covid-19, second only to the USA (which is handling this even worse than we are). The death rate per 1 million people is 433, the sixth highest in the world. The UK population is 0.87% of the world’s population, has had 195,000 cases of this virus, against global cases of 3.66 million. That means we’ve had 5.3% of the world’s cases of this, which far exceeds our percentage of the world’s population.
So why is it that most of the news outlets are more interested in the affairs of an advisor who broke lockdown rules, rather than the government’s catastrophic failures? The Daily Telegraph, The Sun (surprise surprise, that scummy rag supports the Tories blindly), The Metro, The Daily Mail and The Times have all decided the affair was more newsworthy than the awful and frightening statistics that show how badly Johnson and his government have managed this crisis.
On top of that, we have government ministers talking down to doctors in Parliament, speaking of ‘tone’ (and what tone is he talking about?!) instead of addressing the facts of the argument. Does Mr Hancock not wish to address legitimate criticism of his government’s performance, delivered from someone who is working for the embattled NHS?
Even worse is the way some elements of the public respond to this. The comments on The Daily Telegraph article are dismissive of Hancock’s attitude and ignore the many perfectly valid questions and concerns Doctor Rosena Allin-Khan raised. I don’t doubt that he is under pressure, and for the record, I believe he is trying, in his flawed way, to deal with the situation as best he can. However, he wanted a ministerial post, he should therefore know that criticism is part of the job. He should know he will be under scrutiny, especially now.
Serious questions need to be asked about how the government have handled this, but the media is largely uninterested. It’s down to the general public to put the pressure on, and to educate ourselves.
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