So far the UK government
public response to Covid-19 has focused on vague concepts of Britishness, determination,
wrestling, and a nice old chap who’s been walking up and down his garden. The
motivation is probably two-fold, in part to deflect attention from the
uncomfortable and scandalous behind-closed-doors underbelly of the real response,
and partly to maintain the myth of British exceptionalism for when the headlong
rush to a catastrophic hard Brexit re-emerges into the daylight from behind the
pandemic.
Vagueness and lack of
attention to the truth are characteristics of the politics of personality much used
to prop up dominant conservative ideologies. As a conjuring trick, its success
does rather depend on the charisma of the politician, which has evidentially
been a problem for the charisma-free UK government during Prime Minister
Johnson’s frequent absences from office. Johnson’s stooge Raab had all the
conviction and charisma of a UPVC window salesperson at Prime
Minister's Questions 29 April 2020, when confronted by a real grown-up
politician in the form of Keir Starmer – who is one of the few silver linings
in the political clouds currently sitting over Westminster.
Tonight is Walpurgis
Night when pests, smoke, and useless politicians are traditionally chased
away to clear the air. If only !
Read
a detailed and precise account of the UK government's shameful pandemic response here
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