PERHAPS one day there will be nothing to see from this ledge; no political shenanigans; no rubber-burning U-turns; no more appalling behaviour from Boris Johnson.
Then again…
My last piece, on the A-levels fiasco, was written as almost 40% of students saw their results lowered by an algorithm.
Johnson shrugged off the protests, saying: “Let’s be in no doubt about it, the exam results that we’ve got today are robust, they’re good, they’re dependable for employers.”
Turns out there was plenty of doubt and he made another U-turn. Those results weren’t robust and the algorithm was shown the door. Not so education secretary Gavin Williamson, who remains in post, with the prime minister’s full confidence.
Williamson doesn’t have the full confidence of the Tory-supporting Daily Mail, which today lashes him with this splash headline: “The man who won’t take the blame.”
Of course, the other man who won’t take the blame is the never knowingly blamed for anything man in charge. Those of us who’ve long suspected that Johnson is lazy, lackadaisical, chaotic and unfocused have been pleasantly surprised – by exactly how right we were.
Johnson and co love to blame someone else, everyone else, when things go wrong. Top civil servants are sacked or side-lined; public bodies are abolished over-night without debate. Williamson blames Ofqual for the exams chaos even though he’s the man in charge.
Newspaper front pages are only one metric, but with that caution in mind, let’s look at two more this morning.
Metro digs up ‘omnishambles’ – that splendid neologism coined by the writers of The Thick Of It – to describe the governmental chaos. And the Daily Star, not usually a stopping-off point for this reader, surpasses itself with a missing-man poster casting Johnson as “The Invisible Man” – “Last spotted, er, well it’s really quite hard to say…”
North of the border, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon still holds daily briefings on Covid-19, in telling contrast to Johnson, who emerges into daylight occasionally to splutter inanities at the TV cameras, before scuttling back into his burrow.
That Metro front page, with its “Omnishambles Britain” tag, combines Williamson, the missing man PM and the sudden scrapping of Public Health England.
PHE is to be replaced by a new body run by ‘failed Talk-Talk dud’ Dido Harding, according to Metro. She’s the Tory peer who always springs forward from whatever mess she’s left, including the government’s costly track-and-trace system.
Health secretary Matt Hancock launched the new body, called the National Institute for Health Protection, without much explanation, and leaving little doubt that PHE was being blamed for the government’s poor Covid-19 response.
The government has already called for a Covid-19 inquiry, possibly to be held sometime or never, and yet decided to blame PHE anyway in a shotgun divorce.
As long ago as April 29, almost in times of ancient history, I suggested scientists were being set up to take the blame. I only mention that again because it turned out pretty much to be true.
Why in the middle of a pandemic would you completely restructure a public health body, other than to deflect blame from yourself, cause another distraction or to pretend to be doing something important besides replacing one acronym with another.
In announcing the new body, Hancock said: “My message to everyone in the private sector is – join us.”
As feared, this government wants more private provision, even while companies such as Serco earn a fortune messing up with track-and-tracing call centres.
According to Professor Stephen Reicher in the Guardian today, “Serco’s telephone traces were around 50% successful in reaching contacts; public health tracers were over 90% successful.”
We should put more truth in local health bodies, not less.