The British ruling class has always seen the Covid-19 pandemic in class terms. It was always primarily concerned with protecting its class interests and hence was only concerned about how the pandemic might affect its wealth, privileges, power and position in society. The Covid-19 inquiry into the pandemic started in June 2022. Its second set of public hearings, Core UK decision-making and political governance, started on 31 August 2023. It has confirmed that the British ruling elite had, and continues to have, nothing but contempt for the lives and health of the working class. Since 2021 and the peak of the pandemic, the government has allowed the virus to spread through the population, has lied that it is now seasonal and ‘mild’, and has dismantled all but a handful of measures to detect, let alone contain it. Millions, including children, are being denied access to vaccinations.
Capitalist class interests come first
In February 2020, only weeks after the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, the then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson responded to calls for some basic public health measures to prevent an epidemic in Britain by saying ‘when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as Coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange’ (1 November 2023, Byline Times). His prime concern was the economy, and this concern was to continue throughout.
Initially, therefore, the British government was prepared to let the virus rip through the population as a way of attaining herd immunity. Such a response would have led to the deaths of millions of people. The virus, we now know, mutates rapidly and so herd immunity would have been impossible without mass death. Following the delayed first lockdown in March 2020, the then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak implemented a deadly ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme in August 2020 to boost the restaurant sector that had been hit hard by the first lockdown. The scheme caused a catastrophic rise in new infections, accelerating the pandemic into a devastating second wave. Johnson however, preferred to ‘let the bodies pile high’ rather than call a second lockdown in response.
Contempt for the working class
It has been confirmed that Johnson argued on numerous occasions that the elderly ‘[have] had a good innings…most people who die have reached that time anyway’. He agreed with Tory MPs that Covid-19 was ‘just nature’s way of dealing with old people’, and that ‘the whole [Covid-19] thing is just pathetic’. The former chief scientist Sir Patrick Vallance has reported to the inquiry that Johnson was ‘obsessed with older people just accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and [keeping] the economy going’. 20 children have died of Covid-19 in 2023, almost
as many as the 23 in 2020. So far 193 young people inthe UK have died of Covid-19. Working class lives young or old mean nothing to the ruling class.
Sunak thought the government should ‘just let people die and that’s okay.’ This is precisely what they did by stopping Covid-testing in March 2020, then handing a botched and
privatised ‘test and trace’ service to their mates in Serco in May 2020. It came too late to prevent thousands of deaths.
Contempt for science
The British government repeatedly lied that it was ‘following the science’ during the early response period, but Vallance has revealed that Sunak’s primary concern (inadvertently blurted out in a meeting) was ‘all about handling the scientists not handling the virus’. Johnson himself didn’t understand the basic science of infections. The government ‘cherry-picked’ scientific advice to suit its pre-planned agendas. As for the scientific advice, ‘no one in No. 10 or the Cabinet Office really read or is taking time to understand’ it, Vallance claimed. Scientists, including the former chief medical officer Sir Chris Whitty, were ‘strong-armed’ by senior civil servants into appearing at press conferences with the Prime Minister so that Johnson could hide behind the scientists and deflect responsibility.
Sunak’s ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme was announced without any consultation with Whitty, Vallance or SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies). SAGE member Professor John Edmunds told the inquiry: ‘If we had (been consulted), I would have [said] it was a spectacularly stupid idea and an obscene way to spend public money.’ Scientific advice from independent scientists was routinely ignored. An open letter on 14 March 2020 from a group of 229 scientists from UK universities urging stronger social distancing measures and warning against a herd immunity strategy and the strain it would put on the NHS, was ignored. Another open letter from hundreds of scientists on 4 May 2021 to then-Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, about government plans to stop requiring children to wear face coverings in secondary school classrooms in England, was also ignored. Advice from Independent SAGE was ignored. Advice and learning from other countries in Asia was also ignored. Johnson was ‘laughing at the Italians’ after they locked down on 8 March 2020, and joked that ‘we are going to be great [at Covid-19]’.
Contempt for each other
Throughout the early years of the pandemic, government officials bickered with each other, and referred to each other in sexist and derogatory terms. The then-health secretary Matt Hancock was considered ‘a liar’, who had ‘killed people’ yet was kept in post to ‘take the blame’ during a future inquiry. The scientists had contempt for Johnson and thought he was indecisive and stupid. Government officials did not trust the scientists and used them as human shields. The current chief scientific adviser Angela McLean called Sunak ‘Dr Death’ and referred to anti-vaxxer and government adviser professor Carl Henegan quite rightly as a ‘fuckwit’. Johnson adviser Dominic Cummings wanted to drag civil servant Helen McNamara out in handcuffs, referring to her as a ‘stiletto-wearing cunt’. McNamara herself was responsible for bringing the karaoke machines to Downing Street for parties in 2020 when the rest of the country was in lockdown. At the end of all this, no one will be held criminally liable for the deaths of over 230,000 people. The inquiry will drag on until at least 2026; its reports and recommendations will not be binding on this or any future government.
Charles Chinweizu
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 297 December 2023/January 2024
