Johnson, double chaos

Faced with the pandemic, some governments (few) have acted well; quite a few have made mistakes and some have acted incomprehensibly. This is the case of the British Executive, whose Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, rejoined his office on Monday after suffering first-hand the coronavirus - from which he has fortunately recovered - and will report to the House today.

The crazy political position exhibited in his initial handling of the crisis was staggering. It was first marked by passivity before the spread of the virus, without any compassion for its victims, waiting for a sufficient number of deaths to immunize the rest, people with more health, who would survive by Darwinian calculation. Then he continued for several weeks, turning a deaf ear to the severity of the crisis. To the point that he declined to attend five emergency committee meetings, while spending twelve joyous vacation days. It also landed, without caution, numerous aircraft from countries where the infection had already spread significantly.

But the worst was not that. Johnson has demonstrated putting his partisan interests above national health priority, particularly his project to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union as soon as possible. In forming a new government, he dispensed with his faithful chancellor of the Exchequer, because he insisted on appointing subordinates without asking Downing Street for ideological permission. And it has not been able to calmly analyze the new and painful conditions facing British healthcare.

Perhaps its most dangerous and questionable inaction has been to refuse to allow its country to participate with the 27 of the EU in the massive and joint tender for health protection material, which exacerbated the shortcomings of a historically effective National Health Service, already afflicted by the understaffing, a weakness caused by their scant interest in retaining doctors and nurses from European countries. His stubbornness in despising a possible postponement of the withdrawal from the EU, which would be more convenient for his fellow citizens than for the continental ones, almost borders on fanaticism. It is likely that the opposition - and not only she - will take its colors off in the next sessions of the Commons.

Everything points to Johnson choosing to mask the economic and social setbacks of his tough Brexit in the even higher extreme severity of the multiple crisis that is already causing the pandemic. As if taking refuge in chaos to minimize another simultaneous one does not imply a double ration of suffering for citizens.

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