Monday 30 March 2020

The Last King of Scotland

Last King of Scotland
Scotch Office
Whitehall
England


Dear Mr Jack,

I have a problem and it is this: you and your party have lied so continuously over most things to do with Scotland, Brexit and Covid-19 that I have difficulty in believing you have actually got the virus.

You have already established, in your short tenure, a bit of a record as the last Tory King of Scotland for being "careful with the truth" (aka lying) and avoiding difficult questions with answers which sound as if manufactured by a random sentence generator. Thus a sudden dose of Covid-19 comes in handy as a good reason to avoid answering key questions such as;

"Why is NHS Scotland under an SNP Government performing better in this pandemic than the, sliced and diced for Tory supporters and some MPs fiscal benefit, NHS in England?"

Last time I checked the NHS England figures for death were running at 57 in every 1000 confirmed cases. This figure is nearly double the WHO median for deaths per 1000 (34). In Scotland the current figures are well below the WHO median.

A quick look at the rise in cases per day sees England still on an exponential curve upwards where as the Scottish figures for new cases show a far flatter curve. I am not complacent, unlike the eedjit in Number 10, Bawjaws Johnson, as far as Scotland is concerned but the medical professional side sees a significant difference in the current figures for death and rate of increase in new cases between a mainly public health service in Scotland and the sliced and diced, privatised, health market economy that is NHS in England.

Your pals in the BBC are trying to pretend that Covid is a big problem across the UK while failing to demonstrate the outbreak, rises in cases and deaths is mainly an England only phenomenon. They do this by ensuring anyone they ask in Scotland gets short shrift or has sudden technical difficulties. A technical difficulty somehow arose just before Scotland's chief medical officer started to explain about the 50 diagnostic centres NHS Scotland were opening that day specifically to handle and triage actual or suspected Covid cases. Co-incidence?

Here's the other problem. Micheal Gove announced that PPE equipment had been sent to every GP and DGP practice in England. My many friends and colleagues in England have told me there is no sign of all this PPE equipment Gove had claimed had been sent out. Maybe between dry coughs you could ask Mr Gove where the hell it went?

Then there are the lies told by Bawjaws and Hanncock about ventilators, their procurement and the EU. First the main manufacturer of ventilators in the UK was not asked to ramp up manufacture, a supply company with 2000 in stock was ignored yet Mr Dyson has been invited to make 10,000 machines which will have to pass stringent testing by the UK Medical Agency before they can go anywhere near a patient.

I am sure Mr Dyson's large contributions to the Tory Party had no impact on the decision but it reeks of the Brexit Ferry disaster in asking a company with no experience of the manufacture of ventilators, to create what are intricate pieces of medical kit which are far more critical, in operation, than ferries.

All the objective evidence available is pointing to one thing, this Tory Government has made a serious pandemic much worse than it should have been. The announcement, today, that 20,000 deaths across the UK would be a 'good' result says much about the Tory Party, you represent in Scotland, callous and arrogant approach.

I am not alone in thinking the £5.8 million cost of sending a Bawjaws "we are all in this together" cop out letter to UK taxpayers would have been better spent on commissioning ventilators from the UK company which has the UK Medical Agency certified procedures to produce them.

If you actually have the virus, good luck and I hope the lack of ventilators due to UK Government incompetence, if you get the pneumonic stage of the virus, does not kill you. Then again, you and Bawjaws have probably bought your own.


"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure" Mark Twain.