Covid: punch drunk

03/11/2020

Given that Farage has nothing constructive to offer on Brexit, the recycling of his moribund Brexit party is a logical move. The newly-branded Reform UK party, with a 6p makeover package, will now provide him with a platform to talk about something else he knows absolutely nothing about – the Covid "lockdown".

One can, of course, see the attraction of this move – for Farage. The Brexit party accounts show the enterprise had been a lucrative money-spinner. It had a gross income of £17.3 million for the first nine months of its operation (about £1 for every leave voter), with "other" expenditure amounting to £7,786,169 of the £18,904,431 spent.

That the Telegraph then gives space to Batman and Robin (aka Richard Tice), to express their views, could be regarded as marking the newspaper's terminal decline, except that it already hit rock bottom some time ago.

But if we're not reading Farage's effluvia, there is very little else on offer which doesn't have the dreadful sameness of the headlines we've been reading for many months. Even John Crace has got boring.

But then, having a congenital liar, leading a gang of liars, pontificating about a "moral" disaster is so far beyond satire that no sketch-writer could do justice to it. The man has neither authority nor credibility, and his words are just noises uttered without conviction, conveying sentiments that might change with a moment's notice.

It is a testament to the tolerance – or sheep-like conformity – of the British public, therefore, that a recent YouGov poll reveals that almost three quarters of English people (72 percent) support returning the country to lockdown, including 42 percent who say they "strongly support" doing so. Fewer than one in four Britons (23 percent) opposed the move.

Interestingly, Sky News ran a poll a few weeks ago that had 52 percent of respondents believing that the government was making the wrong decisions – but then this had the majority actually wanting a "circuit breaker" lockdown.

All of this doesn't augur particularly well for Farage's new enterprise, as he pits his own uninformed views against a range of qualified experts. I suspect Farage might struggle to get a hearing beyond his diminishing fanbase, even if the media is happy to use him to fill space. Knowledge or expertise is not a pre-requisite for media coverage.

But I wonder who is listening anyway. The sheer relentless pace of media coverage, and its volume, has a mind-numbing quality which must leave the average reader (if there is such a thing) punch-drunk. Apart from a diminishing band of Twitterati, most people have probably switched off and are hunkered down for the duration.

That duration, though – if we are to believe the congenital liar – will be over by spring. In March, as Crace points out, the virus was going to be defeated in 12 weeks. In July, Johnson promised that the country would be back to normal by Christmas. Now he insists that the virus will be beaten by March, although he doesn't say which year.

With that, Starmer is having a field day, declaring that, "At every stage the prime minister has been too slow and behind the curve", going on to say: "At every stage, he has pushed away challenge, ignored advice and put what he hoped would happen ahead of what is happening. At every stage he has over-promised and under-delivered".

That last soundbite is particularly good and perhaps sums up the entirety of Johnson's approach to life. This was his offering in September 2016, on Brexit: "I am confident that we can get a deal that is exhilarating for this country, that is a massive opportunity and that liberates us to champion free trade round the world". Our policy, he said: "is having our cake and eating it".

The strange thing about the Tory backbenchers who are pissed off with him at the moment didn't see him coming. Johnson, after all, is a man who could not have signalled more clearly that he was totally unfit for office, and they now seem surprised that he is a train wreck.

The tragic thing is that, with the ongoing incompetence of this government, the lockdown is the only tool in the locker that can actually work – as I remarked yesterday. It is rather pointless, therefore, protesting against it, as there is very little else left.

With little relief in prospect, as the media goes into overdrive on the US presidential election, probably the only sane thing to do is cultivate a hobby and switch off completely. Pete seems to have got it right (pictured). Me – I have a book to finish, and some rats to catch.

Also published on Turbulent Times.