At the end of the beginning not the beginning of the end in the titanic battle against coronavirus is a moment to confront uncomfortable truths which got us here.
School science labs donating protective goggles to frightened NHS staff complaining they’ve been thrust defenceless into the frontline against a deadly foe is the final nail in the coffin of 10 years of destructive Tory austerity which left the NHS on its knees.
Ministers and advisers are braced for an inquiry exposing smugness, chaos, fatal blunders and woeful preparations at the heart of Government obsessed with Brexit triumphalism.
The Covid-19 cataclysm has made temporary socialists of deregulators and free marketeers, Tories from Boris Johnson down converted to the value of public intervention and strong Government to save the country.
Jeremy Corbyn was too much Me-Me-Me self-congratulatory in a BBC interview but Labour’s outgoing leader is on the money asserting this crisis justifies his politics.
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December’s humiliation might never have happened had coronavirus erupted three months before rather than after the 2019 election just as Grenfell could have toppled Theresa May seven days ahead, instead of beyond, the 2017 poll.
The political kaleidoscope is shaken again and when we’re unsure how the pieces will settle, the democratic argument is clear for another election to take instructions from the people.
Johnson’s manifesto is shredded.
He will have no mandate for what comes next whether that is tax rises or vicious spending cuts repeating austerity’s self-defeating stupidity.
Bonfires of what Conservatives call red tape, and what we know as job rights and health and safety will doubtless be considered.
Tories who pretend soaring deficits and debt under Labour after 2008 weren’t triggered by the global banking collapse won’t stop hypocrites screaming higher rises in 2020 are due to coronavirus.
(Image: Getty Images)
They were wrong then and right now which is a challenge for Labour’s likely next leader, a Keir Starmer hotly tipped to be crowned to little fanfare on Saturday.
Starmer may be averse to a General Election next May to coincide with delayed council contests.
Three Labour MPs I canvassed, smart politicians who will be in Starmer’s team, didn’t want one and are confident Tory record poll leads will drain away later when Johnson’s faults are scrutinised forensically on the other side of this apocalypse.
Churchill’s 1945 rejection and Labour’s triumph at the close of the Second World War may deter a Johnson with an eye on history and an 80-seat Parliamentary majority.
Brenda from Bristol and I dare say most of you aren’t thinking of an election yet it’s the only road to a legitimate Government when we’ve survived this seismic upheaval.
Bring it on.
