Yesterday, The Guardian released an article written by Toby Helm, with the headline “Public trust plummets in Britain’s handling of pandemic, new poll reveals”.

Toby Helm, Political Editor for The Observer, tweeted “Downing Street trying to get us to say trust in government not declining and to rewrite this story with new headline. Request refused. We are not edited by Downing Street”. Not only is the government attempting to silence any criticism, they are purposely wanting to mislead and manipulate the public using their own data findings, when this data was gathered from the general public through online polls.

In March, over two months after the first Coronavirus case was reported, Boris Johnson appeared on This Morning to express his “take it on the chin approach” and addressed the public live on TV, to advise that we are still okay to travel to work, despite the lockdown, travelling ban and social distancing measures. It is exceptionally irresponsible and negligent to his elected duty of care, considering WHO state on their website “Covid-19 is mainly transmitted from person to person contact”. A study by Southampton University has shown that 190,000 people flew into the UK directly from Wuhan and other high-risk Chinese cities between January-March, and up to 1,900 of those passengers would have been infected. Let me just remind you, On the 31st December China told the World Health Organisation (WHO) they had reported their first cases of what we know now to be, Covid-19. Where was Boris Johnson for two weeks of this period you may ask? He was on a 10 day holiday on the island of Mustique (paid for by a mysterious, very generous, question mark)

On the 24th January, Chinese doctors released a study which suggested this virus was comparable to the 1918 Spanish Flu which killed nearly 50 million people worldwide. Yet on the very same day, Matt Hancock, Health Secretary chaired a meeting regarding the virus which lasted only an hour, and responded to reporters with a casual, if not laid-back attitude, stating the “risk to the UK public was low”. The Prime Minister did not attend this meeting, yet had time to attend the Tory Party Auction the very same week. He later went on to miss four more COBRA meetings relating to Covid-19; attending his first on the 2nd March, 5 weeks after the first meeting. Where was Boris Johnson this time you may ask? He was at a mansion in Kent – Chevening.

When Sky News’ Sophie Ridge asked Michael Gove if the PM had indeed been absent from COBRA meetings, to which he snapped “it’s grotesque to suggest PM missed key meetings”. Which is completely opposite to what Joe Pike, Political corresponder for Sky News, tweeted. He stated Boris Johnson’s official spokesman confirmed to him nearly 7 weeks prior, that the PM has missed the first 5 Cobra meetings regarding Coronavirus.

PPE

Yesterday, BBC Panorama broadcasted their investigation into the delays and mistakes that may have put the lives of NHS staff at risk. They confirmed “the government DOWNGRADED guidance on the severity of Covid-19 as late as 13 March so it could provide a lower level of PPE to health workers”, and also claimed sources on the committee said the decision was based on the low availability of PPE. So if they would have prepared better, and stockpiled PPE, we wouldn’t have this problem? Is it seriously down to a poor lack of judgement from the government, which has lead to unnecessary deaths? Professor John Ashton, a former public health director, told the programme “The consequence of not planning, not ordering kit, not having stockpiles, is that we are sending into the frontline doctors, nurses, other health workers and social care workers without the equipment to keep them safe.” Let’s break this down and understand what this really means. Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, Priti Patel, almost any government official who addressed the nation during lockdown, have lied and purposely mislead the public in regards to PPE and NHS. Damning and irrefutable evidence shown that there’s millions of respirator masks unaccounted for, the government classed cleaning equipment, waste bags and paper towels as PPE and they counted each individual, single glove as an item of PPE, not as a set. What is it with the tories and their half truth?

At a time when transparency, honesty, and trust which all go hand in hand, is needed from a government now more than ever, we are getting the exact opposite of that. We have government ministers smirking and laughing on live TV when being asked about Coronavirus death rates, NHS staff have been told “not to tweet about political issues like a lack of PPE”, and have been sent an email by a chief executive of an NHS trust forbidding all staff to speak to the media/press. To date, we have Labour MP’s sharing petitions for NHS workers to be tested for the virus, and just yesterday, 26th March, Sky News tweeted “Plans for two-week quarantine for anyone entering UK considered by government” – It’s just absolutely startling how we are already months into this pandemic and these things haven’t been done sooner. The Daily Mirror claimed, 8,331 companies have come forward with offers of PPE and the government is only working with 159. This lead to millions of PPE getting shipped abroad after the UK government failed to respond to offers, some companies claiming they were ignored on multiple communication platforms. After the UK sent nearly 300,000 pieces of PPE to China in February and claims of 500,000 pieces of PPE sitting in a warehouse in Merseyside unused, it seems that it’s purely down to poor decision making from the UK government considering the shortage of PPE for NHS and care workers. Doris-Ann Williams, chief executive of the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association, confirms her company wasn’t approached by the government until 1st April – the night before Matt Hancock pledged a 100,000 tests a day by the end of this month. It’s a similar story with The British Healthcare Trades Association who was ready to supply PPE in February, yet it was only until 1st April, their help was accepted. This isn’t the only enigma around PPE.

On the 21st April, civil servant Simon McDonald attended a Commons foreign affairs committee meeting, where he confessed the UK’s decision to not take part in European Union schemes to secure equipment to combat coronavirus was “political”. However, later on that same day – he wrote a letter to the committee to ‘clarify’ his answer to “due to a misunderstanding he inadvertently and wrongly said ministers were briefed about the EU scheme and took a political decision not to participate”. Instead, he wrote the scheme was not initially joined because of a ‘communication problem’.

The lack of action on prevent, and health and safety measures HAS sent mixed messages to the public. There’s no denying it. We have British billionaires and businesses such as Tim Martin, founder of Wetherspoons and Cheif executive of Sports Direct, Mike Ashley, who were vocally speaking out against the lockdown, voiced they were going to stay open despite government advice. Over that same weekend, pubs and restaurants were open as normal – however it wasn’t the ‘greedy’ business owners craving income who received backlash, it was of course, the people. Sure, don’t blame the government for the misleading social distancing rules, or business’ for staying open despite government advice, blame the public – in the misguided notion that it hopefully catches on and shifts accountability away from the government and real issue. It is down to the government to ensure the measures and guidelines are crystal clear and not open to interpretation.