All right, so the outlook isn’t entirely rosy right now. But let’s try to look on the bright side. Because there’s at least one thought that should lift our spirits.
Boris Johnson’s handling of the pandemic may not be drawing unanimous admiration. But under Jeremy Corbyn, things would have been an awful lot worse.
Imagine. Had Johnson lost the general election of December 2019, then, mere weeks later, Britain’s response to Covid would have been led by Prime Minister Corbyn. His disciples constantly insist that he would have done a far superior job, although exactly how, I don’t know. Perhaps they picture him healing the sick with a laying on of hands. Frankly, though, I think he would have left us in an even bigger mess than the one we’re in now.
Take the one unequivocal triumph of our Covid response: the rapid procurement of vaccines by Kate Bingham. Prime Minister Corbyn surely wouldn’t have appointed someone like her. Not only is the woman a dreaded venture capitalist, but, even worse, she’s married to a Tory (Jesse Norman MP).
In any case, Corbyn has often expressed distrust of what he calls “big pharma”. Last December, two weeks after the first doses of Pfizer were injected, he tweeted a link to an article headlined “The Horrible History of Big Pharma”, and harrumphed: “We can’t just leave pharmaceutical corporations in the driving seat of the Covid response.”
Such are his misgivings about “big pharma”, in 2019 he pledged that Labour would set up a rival, state-run drugs manufacturer. How this would have turned out, I couldn’t say. But I’m getting unhappy visions of a panicking Richard Burgon setting light to his lab coat with a Bunsen burner.
Perhaps these visions are unfounded, and Professor Burgon would have produced a vaccine at a speed to make Moderna gasp. The question is: what would have been in it?
I only ask, because Corbyn has in the past expressed support for homeopathy – or, to use the proper scientific term, delusional nonsense. He once signed a parliamentary motion in support of homeopathic remedies – and defended himself by tweeting, “I believe that homeo-meds [sic] works [sic] for some ppl [sic] and that it compliments [sic] ‘convential’ [sic] meds. they [sic] both come from organic matter.”
Of course, I would very much like to think that, as PM, Corbyn would not have suggested treating Covid patients with an elixir of witch hazel and wolfsbane while placing quartz crystals over their chakras in order to cleanse their aura of bad energy. As he didn’t become PM, however, I suppose I’ll never know.
But, even if Corbyn had been happy to hire a Tory-marrying venture capitalist to procure a scientifically proven vaccine from greedy Americans, he would still have faced one more difficulty: how to promote the vaccine. To inspire confidence, he would need to assure the public that he’d had the jab himself.
For Corbyn, this might have been a problem. Because he thinks it’s none of the public’s business.
In June this year, during an interview with LBC, he was asked if he’d been vaccinated. He refused to answer. Everybody, he said, should “take advantage” of the vaccine roll-out “if they wish to” – but he wouldn’t confirm whether he’d done so himself. “Some years ago,” he sniffed, “I took a vow that I would not discuss my personal health with anybody.”
A perfectly reasonable statement to make – if you’re a normal member of the public. Coming from a PM during a pandemic, however, it would have been less than ideal. Imagine him saying it at a Downing Street press conference.
“My scientists have assured me that this vaccine is safe.”
“So will you be having the jab yourself, Prime Minister?”
“No comment.”
In Corbyn’s defence, I was about to say that on his watch there would surely have been no scandals about lockdown-busting parties at No. 10. But then I remembered that, last year, Mr Corbyn apologised after a photo was published of him attending a dinner party that broke the rule of six. So even there we can’t be sure.
Whatever we think of the current PM’s actions, then, we can at least tell ourselves that things could be worse. Then again, some people might not agree. Perhaps even Tory MPs.
On Tuesday, as Johnson pushed through his Plan B, Corbyn joined scores of furious Tory rebels in the No lobby. I wonder whether, if only for a moment, those rebels thought: “Hang on. This man agrees with us on vaccine passports. He agrees with us on mandatory vaccination for nurses. And for 30 years – until he unexpectedly found himself in charge of a party full of Remainers – he agreed with us on Europe.
“What a waste. He’s the greatest leader the Tories never had.”
