Broken Britain: Where Is The Leadership?

Major understatement time: 2020 hasn’t been a good year. 

A global pandemic, the Brexit disaster, an unelected bureaucrat running and ruining the country from Barnard Castle, and a leader of the opposition that is cut from the same cloth as most of the establishment that are still the cause of most of our problems. 

While the quest for electability means everything to Starmer, the abandonment of principle means absolutely nothing to him

Where great leaders before him have stood up for what is right, and given the people their blood, sweat, and tears, Starmer just ducks out, abstains, sits on the fence and keeps telling us how he is supporting the government. 

In the interests of balance, lol, another Knight of the realm leads the Liberal Democrats, although most of his voters are now lifelong Labour voters that think we should all get behind Keith, like they got behind Jeremy Corbyn, if you were to believe their Twitter posts. 

And that takes us to the biggest problem of them all. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. 

He only had one job to do, and that was to ‘Get Brexit Done’. We got “done” alright. But then came a global pandemic. 

Nobody in their right mind can blame the government, or any government, for a pandemic. I would go further to say for the first time in my life I wanted a Conservative government to succeed, because lives depended on them getting it right. 

But what you can blame them for is the handling of the pandemic, and there’s no way of dressing it up, because they have been fucking diabolical. 

There is a reason why we had one of the highest death tolls in the world. 

There is a reason why millions of us are currently living under restrictions, nearly seven months after the initial ‘lockdown’ kicked in. 

There is a reason why Covid-19 is currently spreading through the population with no signs of relenting. 

There is a reason why hundreds of healthcare professionals have tragically lost their lives fighting against this awful virus. 

There is a reason why Britain failed to “test, test, test” and cease community testing when the virus took a foot hold in Britain. 

There is a reason why we’ve ended up paying billions of your pounds for a “world-beating” test and trace system, that isn’t fit for purpose, while nations such as Ireland paid less than a million for a system that does what it says on the tin. 

There is a reason why we look at nations such as New Zealand, or Germany, with a sense of envy, because they have tried their best to protect their people, and succeeded in a way that we simply never will. 

There is a reason why we ended up with a serial failure like Dido Harding being put in charge of our wellbeing. 

There is a reason why we are handing over hundreds of millions to companies like Serco, or Deloitte, just to be provided with one disaster after another. 

There is a reason why the Tories have been handing out hundreds of millions to unestablished companies with the turnover of a market stall, without a tender process, all in the name of Covid. 

There is a reason why elderly Covid-19 positive patients were being sent in to care homes, untested, to ‘keep the pressure off the NHS’. 

There is a reason why Johnson spent months telling the nation how we were “following the science”, as if their version of the science was the only opinion on offer, and even then, his own experts said he was trashing the science. 

There is a reason why the world went into lockdown at the earliest opportunity, while the Prime Minister went on holiday, to write his book. 

There is a reason why tens of thousands of lives could’ve been saved had we entered lockdown 7-10 days earlier, and not allowed the Cheltenham Festival to go ahead. Ask Dido why that went ahead. 

There is a reason why the MP for Richard Desmond, Robet Jenrick, is being allowed to continue as a Secretary of State, despite his latest cash-shifting shenanigans. 

There is a reason why the Prime Minister didn’t know his own rules and ha ma dedicated seven months to spreading confusion at a time when we desperately need clarity

There is a reason why we have ghouls like Michael Gove, Priti Patel and Dominic Raab occupying some of the most senior positions in government. 

There is a reason why the Prime Minister’s chief advisor lives by a completely different set of rules to the rest of us. 

There is a reason why we are going to be mourning the loss of many more of our loved ones to this devastating virus.

And there is a reason why Britain is absolutely fucked until he is gone. 

That reason is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. 

Now there’s plenty more I can pin on the Etonian scarecrow, but the school run won’t do itself. 

This is predominantly an English problem, and that problem is an absence of leadership from the government, and Her Majesty’s Official Opposition led by Sir Keir Starmer. 

Just yesterday, the 12th October, Starmer declared he is “deeply sceptical” that the government has got a plan. Tens of thousands dead, the country is in a fucking mess, and Sir Keir is still only “deeply sceptical”? What does he need to realise they haven’t got a plan, and they never have had a plan? 

The “we support the government” rhetoric might sound like grown up politics to some, but to me it stinks of appeasement. 

Be in no doubt, Starmer had a difficult job to do. If you oppose for the sake of opposing during a national crisis, the electorate will remember it. If you are too supportive of the government when the difficult questions need asking, the electorate will forget you exist and what you stand for. 

I’ve been told by various sources that Sir Keir is going to start opposing Johnson, and offering less support, which is all very well and good, but I’m afraid it’s a case of too little, too late. A robust response was needed from his first day in office. 

Better late than never simply doesn’t apply here. Starmer supported Johnson all of the way to where we are now. Starmer seemed keener than Johnson to get our children back to school. How’s that working out? “No ifs, no buts”, in the fucking Mail on Sunday. Sell out. 

No amount of Starmer news conferences can change where we are now. He will need to accept his part in dragging the Labour Party into the Tory sewers before he can even consider speaking about a Covid plan with a single shred of credibility. What is his plan? What would he do differently? Why has it taken him six months to actually speak up? Why is he four points behind this horrific government, according to the latest Survation poll.

Isn’t it about time Sir Keir was held to the same level of accountability afforded to Jeremy Corbyn? Or is it really that obvious the media moguls would be quite comfortable with a Keir Starmer government? When all is said and done, he is the establishment through and through. He is no threat to them. 

So in my opinion, real leadership is our biggest problem when it comes to getting to grips with the Covid crisis. 

Real leadership would’ve saved lives. Let’s not pretend otherwise, however the Downing Street media machine try to spin it. 

Real opposition would have opposed this unmitigated disaster of a government when we needed them to oppose it. 

Britain needs a caring and compassionate government more than ever. There’s no chance of that with any Conservative leader, and the only way Starmer can offer a caring and compassionate government is by admitting where he has got it very wrong, sacking much of his Shadow Cabinet and head back to the left, where compassion and care has a natural home, and where he came up with his ten pledges, based on the “moral case for socialism”. 

We need clarity. not confusion. We need a plan, not a whack-a-mole approach. We need public ownership, not Serco test and trace. 

But above all we need leadership. Principled, compassionate leadership. 

Talk soon 

Rachael 

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