The United Kingdom has had one of the highest Covid death rates in the world.
That outcome was entirely avoidable and it is clear the catastrophe overwhelmed us because of disastrous political decisions in Boris Johnson’s Downing Street.
It did not take the witness evidence of the discredited Downing Street adviser to reach that conclusion.
But Dominic Cummings’ damning claims have served to highlight just how grossly incompetent and unsuited Johnson is as a Prime Minister.
Here is a man who compared himself to the freedom-loving mayor of Jaws as he unreasonably fought the logic to close the UK’s borders against coronavirus.
We are an island nation and border controls could have saved lives.
Here is a Prime Minister who failed to grasp the seriousness of the threat and dithered and delayed and let people die.
Arrogance combined with indecision and constipated policy making allowed the virus to run through the population.
A respite last summer, when the first lockdown succeeded, did not teach Johnson any lessons.
He resisted the second lockdown until it was too late, issued confusing advice on travelling abroad and delayed yet again on a decision to put India on the red list of destinations.
All because he put economics above saving lives.
Johnson’s buccaneering instinct to put freedoms and profits first actually ended up causing more deaths and crippling the economy to boot.
The lessons of lockdown are that countries which went in hard against the virus, dealt with the problem and then eased the restrictions had a better economic recovery.
In the UK, we went late into lockdown and that led to higher infection rates and a longer, lingering series of lockdowns.
As a result, the UK suffered among the highest excess death rates in Europe and the worst recession of any G7 economy under Boris Johnson.
Cummings’ damning evidence explained why lives were lost needlessly, ending in, many cases, with Covid victims isolated from the ones they love.
It can be argued that no leader could have been completely prepared for the Covid pandemic.
But apart from the lucky gamble on vaccines, Johnson’s handling of the crisis could not have been worse.
The most frightening aspect of Cummings’ evidence yesterday was not its retrospective lessons about Johnson but the warning that we could face another similar crisis and this could be the bungling Prime Minister in charge.
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