14 on-point responses to MPs’ damning report into the government’s Covid response
We’ll have to wait some while longer for the full public inquiry into the government’s Covid response, but in the meantime two cross-party groups of MPs have published their own report into how Boris Johnson handled the crisis.
And as you’ve probably already seen today, it’s damning stuff.
UK start to pandemic worst public health failure ever, MPs say
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) October 12, 2021
Here’s just a little bit of how the Guardian summarised it today.
The delay to impose a first lockdown last spring was “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”; planning for a possible virus outbreak smacked of “British exceptionalism”; the lack of early testing capacity was “an almost unimaginable setback”.
Apart from that, as they say, although apart from that there was also a long list of other stuff they got wrong today.
And these 13 responses are totally on-point.
1.
So criticism before the crisis is scaremongering, during the crisis is unpatriotic and after the crisis is all-very-well-with-hindsight.
— Dan Snow (@thehistoryguy) October 12, 2021
2.
This is not a huge surprise. https://t.co/h21cGQJOFV
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) October 12, 2021
3.
https://twitter.com/EmmaKennedy/status/1447819538356219907
4.
So those of us that lost family members in the pandemic have two thoughts in our minds. 1 – the policies and decisions at the time caused their deaths not COVID alone. 2. The person in charge of that policy is currently sipping cocktails in Marbella.
— Adil Ray OBE (@adilray) October 12, 2021
5.
Hindsight narrative is gaslighting on a national scale. I remember exactly what it was like in March 2020. The pressure was intense for the government to take action weeks before it did so.
— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) October 12, 2021
6.
Not for the first time, the pathetic insistence that Johnson was ‘doing his best’ becomes the most damning condemnation of all. pic.twitter.com/5BWzIBZI6u
— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) October 12, 2021
7.
I know it's hard to believe but at the beginning of the pandemic, when the country was facing an unprecedented challenge, Boris Johnson went on holiday. Seems inconceivable now, doesn't it?
— Nathaniel Tapley (@Natt) October 12, 2021