The government is treating the public like children – the British people want transparency and honesty
Things are very tough at the moment. It isn’t the restrictions in and of themselves that I am finding hard – after all, the new ones are not the strictest we have seen. At least I can see my mates, and having rarely stayed in a pub past 10 o’clock since my first baby was born in 2005, when me and three of my friends were chucked out last night I felt pretty reasonable about it.
It’s the no end in sight that I think will wear heavy on the nation. Over the summer it felt as if September would be the new horizon. The kids were due back in school and for some reason no matter how old I get the calendar of the school year still sticks with me as a new start. And it’s not just me. It’s funny how, for example, my mate who is a matter of weeks older than me still refers to herself as a year older because she was the year above at school. September mattered.
But September has come and gone, and half of my brood are already back out of school doing classes online thanks to a virus breach in the bubble. Members of my family are seeing out the end of their too short lives in care homes, while others are on waiting lists for serious diagnosis of life-threatening illnesses. And through all of this, because we live in Birmingham, we cannot visit to have a cup of tea and cry together. It’s not so easy to face a talk over a cancer diagnosis, with all the emotion that involves, while sat in the local pub with people watching the football over your head. September has not been the month of mists and mellow fruitfulness, it has been the season of knee-jerky false starts, disappointment and for my family, and I know many others, deep sorrow.
I encourage everyone to follow the new guidance to try and stop the spread of this awful virus. But the government needs to hold up its side of the bargain too. When my son was sent home from school because someone had in his bubble had tested positive, we were told that none of us, not even him, were eligible for a test and that where possible we should keep a distance from him isolating at home and go about our normal business. How quickly the pandemic went from being about time with your family and community spirit to an instruction to lock your eldest in a room and feed him pizza under the door.
What we need from the government is trust and honesty. I have written two books about how important the truth is in politics. I truly believe that the public would have more time for the executive if they admitted when things had gone wrong. Imagine if when trying a new policy we were told honestly “it might not work but it is worth a try”. I think we are grown up enough to accept that. The pandemic is indeed completely unprecedented, things were always going to be difficult. So why oh why have we ended up in a situation where the government feels the need to try and convince us that everything is fine, when it so obviously isn’t fine. No one expects things to be perfect.
For all the government’s talk of a world-beating test and trace system, I think most of us would be happy with one that followed up with the majority of contacts when the virus was traced, and that meant you didn’t have to drive to the other side of the country if you had symptoms. Everyone could have understood that care homes might be at risk of infection spread and would be vulnerable. So why for so long did the government deny that there was a problem? It told us there was a protective ring and then NHS whistle-blowers revealed that these centres of vulnerability were being used as a dumping ground to get people out of hospital.
We are in the middle of a crisis that requires us to act with consent and respect for each other. So why have we been treated like children who couldn’t handle the truth? In my view, honesty is always the best policy, but from this government it’s sadly lacking. Here’s hoping October will be better.
Jess Phillips is the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley
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