The Tory blame game is vile. We can’t let them get away with it.

In the latest instalment of the Tory blame game, the government has blamed individual airports for the shocking scenes at Heathrow. Meanwhile, home secretary Priti Patel has blamed scientists and partygoers for the UK’s world-leading coronavirus (Covid-19) death rate. This corrupt, negligent government has consistently dodged accountability for its appalling handling of the pandemic – so we must keep holding it to account for its devastating failures.

The Tory blame game

A year after the world’s first coronavirus lockdown started in Wuhan, the UK is once again in a nationwide lockdown, with ever-increasing daily death tolls. This is a direct result of the government’s reckless failure to implement appropriate measures and provide the support that the nation needed to navigate the pandemic. In spite of this, the Tories continue to blame the public, treating us like insolent children.

Over the course of the pandemic, the Conservative government has blamed care homes, students, pub-goers, overweight people,and young people for the UK’s coronavirus death toll. Health secretary Matt Hancock blamed the public for ordering too many coronavirus tests. Education secretary Gavin Williamson claimed Ofqual was to blame for this summer’s A-level shambles. Muslim and BAME communities – among the worst hit by coronavirus deaths due to systemic inequality – were apparently to blame for not taking lockdown measures seriously enough. And lest we forget the draconian policing of the pandemic, which took place while the prime minister’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings unabashedly flouted lockdown rules. And now, while headlines focus on weddings and parties, millions are out at work every day due to the government’s “flexible” rules.

As Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy stated, “blame is just another thing to be outsourced for this Government”. We can’t let the government’s negligence and finger pointing go unchecked. The Tory government is responsible for everyone who has gone out to work through this pandemic. And for workplaces that fail to meet basic health and safety needs. And for those who can’t afford to self-isolate. Also, let’s not forget how the government’s consistent flip–flopping has cost lives and livelihoods.

Holding the government to account

We must hold the government to account and work to build a strong, unified socialist movement. The left needs to unite urgently to resist the government’s transparent divide and conquer tactics. It’s important that we support grassroots movements and leaders whose experiences exist beyond the manicured lawns of Eton and Oxbridge. It’s also vital that we demand policies that put people before profit.

We must continue to support workers and unions and fight for sufficient financial support for everyone. We must continue to campaign for a fair benefit system. We must write to our MPs, continuing to demand an end to the privatisation of public services and corrupt government outsourcing. We must challenge the media narratives that scapegoat poor people and immigrants. Ultimately, we must ensure that the Tories don’t get in at the next election.

In the words of Priti Patel herself, we can’t “stand by while a small number of individuals put others at risk”. This government has blood on its hands. We can’t let them get away with it.

Featured image via The Independent/YouTube

Comments 2

stangya_sorensa says:

5 years ago

It’s the tories default position to blame everyone else; they blamed the deficit on “millionaire old-age pensioners joyriding around on their bus-passes”.

- lanterndude says:
  
  5 years ago
  
  Agreed. However, it does add to the ‘non-story so far’ and the Canary’s report merely adds to the same tale. M$M headlines trumpet specific ‘narratives’, which it seems are then picked up by the so-called ‘independent media’. the M$M headline figures suggest that 608,000 died in 2020 and that 100,000 of that number were Covid-19 deaths.
  The ONS figures for 2019 show 604,707 UK citizens died over the year, in 2018 it was 616,014, in 2017 it was 607,172, in 2016 it was 597,206 and in 2016 it was 602,782. Currently their mortality data is ‘provisional’ and they estimate that there have been “614,114 deaths registered in England and Wales” alone, which is shocking but MAY ONLY be true in the final analysis, when the data is NO LONGER PROVISIONAL.
  In September or October the ONS began to include an ESTIMATE into it’s weekly PROVISIONAL release of data. The ‘range’ of the ESTIMATE tended to be around 3,000 + or -. From that point on the death rate appeared to spiral upward, while the ‘pandemic narrative’ seemed more focussed on ‘cases’ generated by a dubious detection method. Assuming the ONS’s ESTIMATION ALGORITHM has been used to bump up their PROVISIONAL data and was introduced to do precisely that it’s not surprising that they provisionally believe that 614,114 deaths were registered in England and Wales alone in 2020. However, as serious statisticians they will have to produce verifiable data eventually.
  Five or six months of an inflated estimation process that increases the weekly mortality rate by at least 2500, suggests an over-estimation of about 25-30 thousand citizens.
  Given all we have gone through and are still going through what figure would adequately justify defining C19 as deadlier than the Australian Flu of 2018 that witnessed 60,000 deaths in January alone?
  Finally the ‘blame game’ only works if the people join in because they already have opinions that ‘harmonise’ with ingrained prejudices. Political narcissists know that, so it goes, and not all political narcissists operate in the Commons or Lords. The divide and rule field faciltates good ploughing land and always produces abundant crop yields. Has done for centuries if not millennia.