Of course we’re not at the end of it yet; but already it has to be accepted that Britain’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most incompetent and disastrous of any nation’s, resulting in many thousands of unnecessary deaths, mostly the direct and criminal fault of our government. Why is this? Does ideology come into it: the neoliberal-cum-Malthusian idea that the plague should be accepted – ‘taken on the chin’ in Boris Johnson’s words – in order to weed the unfit out of the population, so making the country more efficient? Is this what’s meant by ‘herd immunity’? Or is it simply because we have a government of fools?

If it’s the latter, then the mess that Brexit made of our politics must shoulder much of the blame. Patrick Cockburn of the Independent explains the connexion here.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-lockdown-government-death-toll-boris-johnson-a9551516.html.

So, another unwanted effect of that disastrous decision in June 2016. How are the mighty – or at least the haughty – fallen!