It is hard to know what the government’s official approach to the coronavirus pandemic has been. Over the course of the last three months, we have seen a host of political U-turns, peppered with occasional public addresses from Boris Johnson which have acted more as pacifiers for the general public than bulletins for actual information. It seems as if the government’s initial response was to attempt “herd immunity” which, it goes without saying, did not work. Essentially, this response was Boris Johnson standing before the nation and announcing that we needed to accept that people will die and to carry on close to normal to avoid shutting down the economy. Matt Hancock has since rebuked that this was their initial response, despite this being the clear takeaway from Johnson’s infamous speech, where he announced measures less stringent than those taken by other countries and said that “many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.”

Eventually, the government decided to implement social distancing. However, this was implemented far too late. As the numbers steadily increased, we were told not to partake in “non-essential” travel and to work from home if possible. Pubs remained open but we were told not to go to them; this worked on about the same level of effectiveness as leaving a toddler alone in a room with a packet of Haribo that they are not allowed to eat. An example of the negative consequences that followed is when Wetherspoon’s owner Tim Martin announced that his staff would not be paid until the government covered 80% of their wages.

Over the last three months we have continued to see levels of hypocrisy that would have even Nick Clegg thinking “well, that’s a bit far.” Members of the government seem to have a disregard for the very laws that they are setting; the most obvious example of this is the Dominic Cummings incident, or “Cum Gate” as it was beautifully named, where it transpired that Dominic Cummings had broken lockdown to travel to his parents’ house in Durham. On his way back to London, he took a detour to Barnard Castle, which he justified by claiming that he only drove there to make sure that his eyesight was working. As lies go, this is one of the most blatant ever told, and should be added to the Holy Grail of lies in British politics, alongside Prince Andrew’s “I am physically unable to sweat because of the war in the Falklands” and closely followed by the novichok poisoning’s suspects’ “We came to Salisbury to see the Cathedral’s 123-metre spire.”

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The current UK government has been consistent in showing a disregard for ethnic minorities through both their language and their policies.

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There seems to be a very clear “us vs them” mentality in the British government, not only in terms of COVID-19 but also in their general approach to running the country. When the government announced that they would be housing the homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic, it made it very clear that this was something that they had been able to do all along, but just were not. This government values the economy and personal gain over the human lives of the population they are supposed to be fighting for. It is no surprise that horse-racing was one of the first things to open after lockdown was eased when Matt Hancock is said to have received £68,000 in donations from the sport in the last year alone. Ethnic minorities are more at risk of dying from COVID-19; this is, of course, related to ethnic minorities tending to be in lower socio-economic groups. This is a systematic problem, not just governmental, but the current UK government has been consistent in showing a constant disregard for ethnic minorities through both their language and their policies. There is proof in what the Tory party did to the Windrush generation, in how they constantly belittle the Black Lives Matter movement for being “unsafe” despite abiding by social distancing laws, yet turn a blind eye to the large groups of people flocking to the beaches and ignoring the 2-metre rule. It is a consistent bias and hypocrisy, especially when you take into account how they rallied behind Dominic Cummings during his childcare/eyesight crisis.

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In certain aspects it is not a case of simply not being equipped, it is a case of the government simply not caring enough.

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As lockdown measures continue to ease, it looks as if a second-wave is on the way. The major concern is how we will handle it if it does happen; as a country with the highest death toll in Europe, we have proved that we are not equipped to handle wide-scale crises – the last pandemic rehearsal in 2016 had shown that our health service had a lack of PPE and ventilators that could lead to a collapse in the event of a real pandemic. It also seems that in certain aspects it is not a case of simply not being equipped, it is a case of the government simply not caring enough; this was proven when it transpired that Boris Johnson had failed to attend 5 Cobra meetings to discuss the possible health crisis, instead choosing to spend his time on holiday with his pregnant fiancé.

Overall, it is safe to say that this government has failed. It is food for thought to look at other countries’ approaches compared to the UK’s, which is the only kind of food some nurses have as they attempt to feed their families on a weekly clap. If there is one positive aspect to be taken from this, it is that hopefully, this will open people’s eyes to the need for an end to the Conservatives in power, and an end to Tory austerity.