During a recent Sky News interview, we saw our own Health Secretary laughing as he discussed the virus and the new track and trace system. And not just a stifled giggle but a verging on manic laugh. Publicly. On national TV.
It’s rightly caused some criticism of the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, with the term ‘Death Secretary’ soon trending on social media in the UK. People couldn’t quite believe that a senior government official would openly laugh about the situation, on national TV when people are still suffering and dying every single day.
And especially with new analysis that shows the UK now has the highest death rate per million. A death rate that so easily could have been minimised and avoided if the government had acted sooner.
Hancock’s behaviour has shown people the blatant lack of care or compassion that our government holds for its own people. But this isn’t a new or recent development. This has been years in the making. And black, Asian, and ethnic minority (BAME) communities have always been aware of this lack of compassion, we didn’t need to see our health secretary laughing to prove it.
The carelessness and lack of regard for all our lives have really come to light in how the government has handled the pandemic, evidenced in their subsequent failings.
Failings that include but are not limited to:
- Considering the ‘herd immunity’ concept at the start of the pandemic
- Going into lockdown too late
- Complete lack of regard for the situation in care homes
- Lack of PPE and resources for health and other key workers
- Lack of testing for both people already here and at borders
With the most recent example of this being the situation with Dominic Cummings. A situation that has caused so much public outrage that it’s even caused a significant dent in the opinion polls for the Conservatives.
So, why are people shocked when they learn that this is how our Tory government behaves? This isn’t something new that just developed overnight. The lack of empathy and care has always been there, and BAME communities have been trying to tell you for years.
Tory governments have shown carelessness and indifference to so many crucial matters over the last decade, matters that they’ve played a part in either creating or exasperating. They are the ones responsible for the Windrush scandal, which saw people wrongfully denied their legal rights, detained, and even deported. A scandal which prompted the resignation of then Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, and a series of promises that are still yet to be acted upon.
The Windrush scandal is part of the Tories’ stance on immigration, which is known as the Hostile Environment. It’s a series of laws and policies that makes it as hard as possible for people to come or stay in the UK, in the hope that they’ll just leave voluntarily.
The immigration health surcharge (IHS) that migrants have to pay into the NHS, as well as their usual taxes, is also part of the government’s hostile environment stance. A stance that they were heavily pressured into reversing last week for migrant health workers, the very workers who they’ve been praising and calling ‘heroes’, by abolishing their IHS payments. But all other migrants still have to pay what is effectively a double tax.
Now, does this sound like a government that cares about people?
The countless failings of a Tory government when it comes to the Grenfell disaster is yet another example of how little compassion they have for people, all done in the name of austerity and cuts.
Funding for health and safety measures had been drastically cut, that Grenfell Tower was never properly equipped to deal with a fire. Grenfell residents had raised concerns on this before the fire, but, were ignored.
Even after the fire, the government was slow to respond to the disaster, especially when it came to housing the surviving residents. It’s as if they were reluctant to help the people who needed it the most. And this was clearly shown in Jacob Rees-Mogg’s comments on this last year stating that the Grenfell victims did not ‘use common sense’ and leave the building. Even though, they were specifically told not to and followed the ‘stay put’ policy in place at the time. A comment that lacks any empathy or humanity.
And we also have the Prevent strategy, an anti-radicalisation programme, that has disproportionately targeted Muslims. Prevent puts a statutory duty on places such as schools and prisons to report any concerns of those perceived to be vulnerable to terrorism. But it simply encourages officials, even those that mean well, to look for threats in the Muslim community. And with a government that has regularly proven how Islamophobic it is, it’s no surprise that Muslims continue to be targeted by this programme.
Yet, Windrush, the Hostile Environment, Grenfell, or Prevent did not spark as much public outrage as the government’s dealings with coronavirus. People from BAME communities have seen time and time again how little compassion they have for us. We see it in scandals and disasters, but also in the consistent cuts and austerity that disproportionately affect people from BAME backgrounds.
However, this pandemic has affected us all in some way.
And, with all eyes on the government, we’ve all seen the failings, the lies, and the avoided questions. We’ve seen just how little compassion they have for us all. So, Hancock publicly laughing about it shouldn’t seem that surprising. That’s the point we’ve reached. A point where our own government sees themselves as untouchable.
But, what if this is what unites us against a hostile and careless government?
Now that we’ve all seen what BAME communities have always seen and known, maybe this could be the very thing that unites us all in outrage and holding the government to account on all fronts.
