‘Opinions are like assholes’, said everybody’s favourite hardnose ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan; ‘everybody has one, but they think each other’s stink’. You said it Harry, and boy, has the Coronavirus emergency proved your point.
Since the government’s first daily briefing, senior figures and their top medical advisors have gone to great lengths to explain the strategy underlying the response to Covid-19.
Still, this hasn’t prevented a huge number of trumpeter’s lips from pursing and farting out an opinion, most of them probably ill-informed, many of them politically motivated. The government hasn’t done this but should have, it’s done this and shouldn’t have. This was done too early, this was done too late. Suddenly there are armchair experts everywhere.
Take columnist Peter Hitchens, who’s gone on record as stating that the approach to tackling C-19 is disproportionate to the threat it presents, and endangers civil liberties. ‘Anyone not angry at the lockdown has something wrong with them’, he pontificates. Well maybe so Hitch, but tell that to families devastated by the loss of a loved one.
Take commentator Tom Harwood. When asked what his credentials were to opine about the pandemic on Sky News, Harwood responded ‘BA (Hons) Politics, Durham’. A leading light in the field, then.
Then there are the outright gobshites. Ex-footy thug and jailbird Joey Barton springs to mind. Quoted in bogroll substitute ‘The Independent’, Joey the Jerk slammed the government for its ‘horrendous leadership’ during the crisis. ‘We needed strong governance and got a bunch of space cadets from Eton’, burbled the Scouse shitehouse. ‘Well it’s great to get a view from one of the world’s leading epidemiologists’, said absolutely nobody anywhere.
Naturally circumstances are ideal for axe-grinders to weigh in. How about Julie Heselwood, a Labour (never!) councillor from Leeds? This halfwit claimed that the PM’s stay in ICU was a con, a stunt designed to ‘change the narrative’ and deflect criticism away from the government’s handling of the crisis. Not so much an expert as a loony lefty then. What about… oh well, you’ll have gotten the idea, I’m sure…
Hands up if you’re sick of all the verbal diarrhoea being spewed forth by individuals who probably know as much as I do about how to tackle C-19, which is to say practically fuck all. In an ideal world, where resources are unlimited and Mystic Meg provides the authorities with unfailingly accurate predictions, the UK would be perfectly placed to deal with the epidemic.
But we don’t live in an ideal world. C-19 is novel, and struck with the speed and power of a hurricane. In a situation that is so fluid and dynamic, it’s inevitable that mistakes and misjudgements will be made. Professor Graham Medley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine hit the nail on the head for me when he recently stated that ‘anyone who tells you that he knows what’s going to happen in the next six months is wrong’. So I’d say that in the circumstances, the government has played the best hand that it could in managing the hellish task of balancing the threat to life with the imperative of allowing life to go on.
Never mind though, there’s always some mouthy cunt who knows better ready to go on the telly or vent his spleen on the keyboard, as often as not with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Well, here’s a thought for all the know-alls out there.
Experts aren’t always right, and governments can abuse trust, but in this sort of emergency, they’re MUCH more likely to get things right than you. Epidemiology is a serious business, so is government in a crisis, so let the people who do these things for a living get on with their jobs and stop nipping their heads all day.
Most of all, stop looking for someone to blame for every setback. Do that, and you’re much less likely to end up looking and sounding like the man in the pub.
Nominated by Ron Knee
