TThe hat number will forever remain in public memory: 23,000 people died because Boris Johnson resisted the isolation of the country in time. When Covid arrived, and with horrific images of the Italian language temporary morgues in tents, he went on vacation and didn't answer calls. As the NHS prepared to be “hit” by the virus, he rode his new motorbike, walked the dog and hosted friends in Chevening.
This is not surprising: he was kicked out of Downing Street and then resigned as an MP, mainly for partying and lying. parliament about this. Everyone knew he was a self-aggrandizing dreamer with “toxic and chaotic culture” around him. But this isn't just about one narcissistic politician. This is about his entire right-wing coterie of libertarians and their deadly dominant creed in the British media.
They have a long history of abandoning things that save lives: seat belts, speed limits, smoking restrictions, sugar taxes, vaccinations, benefits, sanitation, clean air, the NHS itself and, of course, preventing climate destruction. Recall that in the 1980s and 1990s, the Sunday Times newspaper, under the editorship of Andrew Neil, promoted the strangest gay plague theorypublishing articles suggesting that AIDS is not caused by HIV and that it is virtually impossible for heterosexual people to contract it. (Neal said he regretted some aspects of the paper's coverage but took no personal responsibility for it.)
This anti-science tradition is alive and well today. Lockdowns are the essence of everything that right-wing scientific skeptics hate: what a shame that the tribe least equipped to handle the situation was in power during a pandemic. In the circumstances, the intervention of those responsible was “too little, too late.” It's hard to imagine, but Covid in the UK could have been even deadlier if the inevitable facts about the pandemic had not eventually crushed their fact-free ideology.
Naturally, quarantine skeptics are ready to destroy latest Covid report module chaired by Heather Hallett, a former High Court judge appointed by Boris Johnson. From the very beginning, they declared quarantine more than pointless. On the recent fifth anniversary of the first lockdown, they debated who had been the first to condemn it: Daniel Hannan in the Sunday Telegraph boasted that he was the only one “stand in the way of the stampede.” “What the hell were we thinking? Five years ago we slipped into the most costly mistake ever made by a British government, a mistake that led to our financial collapse, the destruction of our fundamental freedoms and the destruction of public trust,” he continued.
Toby Young in The Spectator rushed to surpass Hannan: “I am pleased to call myself one of the first journalists to speak out against lockdown policies, along with Peter Hitchens, Allison Pearson, Ross Clarke, Julia Hartley-Brewer and several others.” The Daily Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Express and Spectator, joined by GB News mid-pandemic, were among those who carried the extremist libertarian flag and have not mellowed since. The public needs to be constantly reminded of these 23,000 deaths as Nigel Farage and Richard Tice were among the most vocal opponents of the lockdown, hastily renaming their Brexit Party “Reform Britain” to campaign against all restrictions. None of this can be called “populist”: the public is always in favor of precautionary measures, just as during quarantine.
Now, thanks to this report, Hallett's statistics are coming under furious attack from this cadre. and reasoning. Telegraph competitions numbers. Toby Young Outlet, Daily Skeptic (successor to his blog Lockdown Skeptics), in attack. Unfortunately, Johnson himself blurred the investigation which he himself described as “hopelessly incoherent” in the Daily Mail.
Perhaps 23,000 is too much or not enough, but it is a reasonable estimate. Sweden is a country constantly cited by the right for relying entirely on a voluntary advisory approach rather than forced lockdowns. In terms of mortality per capita, far fewer Swedes died than Britons: a proven case? Hallett attacked? Alas, we are not Sweden in social structure, national wealth, vulnerable deprivation, health and welfare, mainly due to the long-term malign influence of the right-wing fighting tooth and nail against Swedish-style social democracy. But here is the most revealing study, comparing socially and economically similar Norway with Sweden. Norway implemented blocking and Sweden refused. Many others died in a million in Sweden (2759) than in Norway (1050).
The precautionary principle, which puts safety first when scientific evidence is uncertain, is as foreign to these ideologues as risk registers. To them, the rules of security and public protection seem comical, and the officials who protect the public seem laughable blunders and laborers. Johnson made a witty attack on me back in 2006, demonstrating the huge gulf between our sides. He said that I am incarnating “all the nannies, tax- and expense-bursting schoolteachers of Blair's Britain” as “the high priestess of our paranoid, pampered, risk-averse, airbag-riding culture of political correctness and 'safe elf fascism'.” Oddly enough, I wear this badge with pride; public welfare is a serious matter.
Johnson and his world have never been serious: they play games and jokes because they don't really believe in government. Brexit was another of their political games, which had the most dire consequences. The report quotes Johnson as saying: “Let the bodies pile up” over the prospect of large numbers of people dying in care homes (he denies this). There are more than 45,000 of them really diedas hospitals sent untested patients to nursing home beds.
It was an outrageously frivolous and deeply frank position, so unpleasant that it instantly stopped the discussion. His faction is using their own bogus figures to dismiss Hallett's ideas and “prove” that lockdowns do not save lives, as most scientists often decadently dismiss.
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But their outrageous attacks should not stop a deep debate on a much more complex question: was the huge cost of lockdowns and government compensation to businesses and individuals worth the number of lives (mostly elderly) saved? How many QALYs – quality-adjusted life years – i.e. years of good quality, has been preserved and at what price?
Families who have lost loved ones have a painfully clear view. But the gigantic costs must be weighed in the balance. according to House of Commons library estimates at £310-410 billion. Bentham's calculus of happiness, aiming for the greatest good for the greatest number, could calculate how many more lives could be saved in one way or another, how much more happiness could be created and misery avoided, if the Chancellor now had such a huge extra sum for her budget this week.
It is understandable that people are tormented by such questions. It's not easy, but it requires serious thought, which these extremist amateurs will never have. Future Hallett Investigation Modules will look at the terrible harm caused by keeping children out of school for long periods of time; leaving old people to die alone; domestic violence; loneliness; and a devastating blow to the economy, trade and public services. During the next pandemic, this trade-off between life and death must be honestly acknowledged. But always beware of the crazed right's obsession with “freedom” over even the most basic health and safety measures.
