Thread by @fascinatorfun

Alastair Campbell: We are witnessing a national catastrophe

This is an excellent reflection of the Covid catastrophe. Yes it is one.

And a new 20 point comms plan for the Government. members.tortoisemedia.com/2020/05/06/ala…

Oh yes. This was a top terrible moment for me too.

Matt Hancock being asked how many front-line NHS workers have died from COVID & if there has been an investigatory process.

Did he answer (as he surely should have done)

Did he heck. “Over to you, Ruth”. Who also didn’t

And Ruth, Chief Nurse for England in failing not to answer came over as a Toey Party stooge NOT a defender of her nursing colleagues who had died or who were currently putting themselves at mortal risk.

She should have said. “No, Matt. I think you should answer that one”.

There is a sense in parts of the press that ministers should be given an easy time because this is so tough, and many lives at risk.

No. BECAUSE so many lives have been lost, avoidably, & so many lives STILL at risk & to be lost avoidably that the press should be unforgiving.

Big, serious, competent politicians?! Ha!

Instead we have Gavin Williamson and Robert Jenrick. Priti Patel and Johnson.

Matt Hancock who tries to distract from gross failures by banging the fantasy test number drum.

The scientists should’ve said “NO. No tricky stuff”

When journalist do not call all this out relentlessly, shining an unforgiving bright light on the manifest & massive political failures they contribute to the climate where more lives are lost.

Some have been doing a brilliant job.

Others take their political masters’ lollypops

On fiscal matters Rishi Sunak sounded as if he was listening.

Rather less so in delivery. If respective Government defenstre the department that have to deliver the policy, diverting it to their political plaything, Brexit, the capacity isn’t going to be there.

How to brief?

@campbellclaret goes on to look back at his time working in Government and lessons learned from too slow a response, uncertainty about who should lead, future planning. Foot and mouth. Kosovo. Iraq.

But nothing that led to this scale of loss and death of its own citizens.

Meanwhile countries all around the world looked on in wonder and dismay as our Government demonstrated how not to do it and how not to make decisions.

And did things a lot better.

Johnson’s optimism, seen as a strength, is proving to be a fundamental weakness.

Not just complacency which also slowed down New Labour responses to crisis.

The lack of planning has exposed structural political weakness and organisational skeletal leanness.

Herd immunity changed from being an explanation of a possible or even likely consequence of extensive infection, but with terrible and costly consequence, turned into sounding awfully like a strategy where loss of life was the inevitable cost

A sad shrug

Yet Johnson was absent

Johnson was caught up in how to break the news of his fiancé’s pregnancy & resolve his family issues than in the looming crisis.

Vallance’s warnings & report (likely June 2019) to expand diagnostic & surveillance capacity, order/stock PPE, prepare for excess deaths ignored.

It is nothing short of astonishing that in mid March the Government message to care homes, grossly unprepared with PPE or testing we told that the risk of their residents catching it was “very unlikely”.

This despite ample evidence they were most at risk.

I’m still not convinced this Government has grasped, unlike S Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, that if they do not suppress disease amongst the asymptomatic or presymptomaric young who spread the virus, experiencing it mildly it will spread to the vulnerable.

Instead they let huge events go ahead. They thought, with British exceptionalism, that WHO’s exhortation to “test, test, test” did not apply to the sophisticated U.K.

Politicians have to gain the trust of the public. Decide strategies, execute it and also narrate it.

Instead Johnson boisterously claimed they would “send the virus packing in 12 weeks”, with the same dumb confidence he claimed he shook hands with everyone and would continue to do so, that at a time when there were already at least 5 dead of the virus (tho no deaths announced.)

Who would have thought it?

A dumb virus smarter than Johnson?

But then there was the superman speech, Clark Kent removing his spectacles, leaping into a phone booth and emerging with cape flowing as a supercharged champion.

The virus shrugged and carried on busily unimpressed

It was bound to present the unexpected but too many journalists gave the Gov a soft ride simply by asking poorly formed questions.

And the format through video link has given the Government too much control.

They cut off the Talk Radio journalist who DID ask the hard question

They never did ask her question that day about how many dent line NHS staff have died. And they still get the answer wrong even now.

Then there was the utterly tone deaf messaging around Johnson as people were dying in their tens of thousands.

Of course it was right there was interest in and empathy about Johnson’s condition.

But not at the expense of attention on the doctors & nurses losing lives in part due to his and his Government’s negligence.

So Hancock could not even put a number on the nurses and doctors who had died but he was able to say how well Johnson was recovering courtesy of NHS care

The Albanian response really struck me as I had visited one of their ports, Sarande, unexpectedly a couple of years before. When we had just finished Cheltenham races, before our next big event, they were going for an early lockdown.

Disinfecting sprays in full use.

I saw much if the same arrogant blinkered response from a portion of the UK and USA passengers who visited what is a charming town with a very attractive sea front.

“Don’t bother going” said they. “Really primitive”.

They didn’t bother turning right and looking a bit further.

Yes. Well. “Primitive” Albania has around 500 cases and 23 deaths, because it had the wisdom to listen to the WHO, take advice, learn from the unfolding catastrophe.

Meanwhile we have been rocketing towards 55k excess deaths. One soon to be exceeded.

That fact cannot be avoided. Our current fatality rate is around 15%.

Tearing has been identifying 4K + new cases a day. Do the maths to see the landscape 4 weeks down the line.

Of course as testing expands to the younger the fatality rate may decrease. But not be eliminated

It is too late for those so marked already in the pipeline, already admitted or yet to be admitted or in care homes never to be admitted

Meanwhile Cuoma, Governor of New York has been an object lesson in Comms, free of the bullshit we are dishes up daily in our press briefings

In the words of his father “We communicate in poetry but we govern in prose”

His defences to the pain and the kindnesses of others seems heartfelt not just a politically expedient nod.

Meanwhile the Greek Prime Minister through Giverning I’m careful prose and early strategic intervention has prevented the catastrophe seen in neighbouring Italy.

The Irish Taoiseach, returning to work as a doctor lead by example.

Those countries that went in early and went in hard like S Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Greece, New Zealand, Albania, Norway, Finland in fact have so far avoided the terrible landscape we are seeing here.

They know they are not out of the woods but have used the time to “take back control” , stock up, gain knowledge about how the virus transmits, embed trusted comms with their citizens. Plan to identify flare ups before they become raging fires burning all in their paths.

This, just as the U.K. with some not inconsiderable black irony has lost control, with what feels like a drunken driver at the helm shouting “We, the British, shall overcome”.

The virus does not care.

It just keeps on transmitting whilst the Government loses trust & confidence

As for spin.
When Panorama laid bare, fact piled upon unpalatable fact the catelogue of carelss and orrogant errors that led those who were to care for those smitten with the disease to be smitten and die from it themselves, transmitting it en route, the Gov response was to spin

And too many in the media played along. Look over here, says the faithful Mail.

“Look at the PPE we have managed to supply from China”.

And, Lo! A baby was born!

Maybe that will work.

Is it too late to change tack.

@campbellclaret thinks not.

I’m not so sure.

His 20 new top tips are here.

I somehow doubt that this Government has the collective character to face up to the catastrophe of their own making and deal with it with courageous humility and honest engagement.