Is it any wonder the last year has gone as well as it has?
In a baffling interview on Good Morning Britain, the former Tory MP Edwina Currie claimed that this time last year no one had any idea about how infectious and lethal Covid-19 was.
The 74-year-old, who let’s not forget was a minister for health in the late 1980s, said “we had no idea, we had no idea it was so infectious, we had no idea it was so lethal,” when defending the government’s handling of the pandemic.
This is despite the situation that had already developed in Northern Italy at the time, and the widespread calls for events like Cheltenham Festival and Liverpool’s Champions League match with Atletico Madrid to be cancelled. Weirdly, the former MP actually decides to mention this in the interview. I wouldn’t be shouting about that one Edwina…
Currie was responding to host Susanna Reid listing off the endless number of errors and mistakes the government had made over the past year, before asking “which was the biggest mistake, and what should the government have done better?” This was all whilst Currie shouted over her “Let me respond”, and pointed out to Susanna that she “was not Piers,” as if Reid was somehow unaware of this.
‘We had no idea it was so lethal. We did our best.’
'Boris Johnson shook hands with people to show they weren't being stigmatised like Diana did with HIV.'
Edwina Currie defends the government after @susannareid100 lists all its failures during the pandemic. pic.twitter.com/JYn6CHOg61
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) March 17, 2021
But the true ‘highlight’ of the interview was when Currie compared Boris Johnson shaking hands with patients on a hospital visit to the famous scenes of Princess Diana interacting with HIV patients in 1987.
Edwina Currie argued that the Prime Minister’s thinking behind this was to try and make some bizarre point about Covid patients “not being stigmatised” in the same way that Diana did with HIV patients.
Many have been quick to point out though, that the key point here Edwina, is that HIV is not spread through handshakes whereas Covid 19 very much is. That’s before we even address that many scientists and officials were in fact warning about the severity of the disease and did definitely have an idea about how dangerous it was this time last year. Boris Johnson just chose not to attend the Cobra meetings.
Yet again a Tory representative seems to think that saying those in government were basically oblivious to the crisis, even as it was developing, is a good defence for their handling of the pandemic. And then when they did take notice, they deserve a pat on the back for simply trying their best apparently.
