On the same day our government
banned crowds of more than 500
people, 70,000
Brits crammed together for the
Cheltenham Festival.
Hours before, the UK government
said this:
We are considering
the question of banning
major public events such as sporting
fixtures and the scientific advice
as we've said over the last couple of
weeks, is that this
banning such events will have little
effect on the spread.
Cheltenham's local health authority
has now recorded 181
coronavirus-related fatalities,
more than all deaths in Australia
and roughly double the number in
surrounding English regions.
And it's a damning example of the
UK's costly mistakes in the
fight against COVID-19.
Together, we are tackling this
disease.
And I want to reassure you
that if we remain united and
resolute, then we will
overcome it.
The old British idiom of "keeping a
stiff upper lip" just can't cut
it in this crisis, with reports
of the UK's true coronavirus death
toll sobering the nation.
Research by the Office of National
Statistics suggesting the actual
death toll in England and Wales in
early April was 40
percent higher than the number
reported by Downing Street.
Their government was selectively
framing figures whether to keep
citizens calm and carrying on
or to keep their own jobs,
statistics weren't portraying the
true tragedies unfolding across
the country.
Those daily government figures don't
include deaths outside hospital,
in care-homes, hospices or in the
community.
So these are deaths across the UK
for all- from from all settings,
so including in care homes as well.
It doesn't look like that much of a
difference, does it? But actually it
represents a 28 per cent
undercount.
Even these supposedly most
authoritative numbers might be
undercounting COVID-19 deaths
or something else is going on.
Unlike the Australian government,
the British government initially
discussed a policy of herd immunity
whereby a large proportion of the
population needs to catch the virus
and hopefully become immune to it.
We want to suppress it, not
get rid of it completely, which you
can't do anyway, not suppress
it so we get the second peak
and also allow enough
of us who are going to
get mild illness to become
immune to this, to help
with the sort of whole population
response which would protect
everybody.
Concerns have also been raised over
lack of policy.
Airline passengers are continuing to
enter the United Kingdom without any
health checks as airport bosses
plead with the government for new
measures.
We have the CEO of Heathrow Airport
himself who has written to Matt
Hancock to question why
his hub airport has been left
totally exposed to any
incoming arrivals.
Today, I can still very much fly
a day trip to Iran, for example,
one of the countries that has been
ravaged by coronavirus and walk in
straight onto the Tube, straight
into the supermarket and even back
to work.
The government's attempts to justify
that? By denying London's similarity
to Tokyo or Sydney as a major
travel hub.
First of all, we are
not similar to many of those other
countries. I think we should be very
clear about that just in terms of
traveller and passenger flows.
The only current measure in place
for incoming visitors to the UK is
to self isolate, although this
is not tracked or enforced.
There's a pattern emerging here.
We were slow into lockdown,
slow on testing, slow
on protective equipment and now slow
to take up these offers from British
firms.
While the British people have been
doing their utmost to stay home and
support their NHS, slow
response from the government has
driven more towards it.
It's so tight.
You've got somebody sitting on
your chest and you're
trying to breathe.
You're not getting anywhere.
It's really frightening.