Boris Johnson and the Tory party’s fatalistic response to COVID19 should not come as a surprise. It is a reflection of the underlying social Darwinism which has always driven their social and economic philosophy.
In much the same way as conservative laissez faire ideology considers intervention in the economy to be counterproductive and ultimately a waste of resources, so it seems is their attitude to fighting coronavirus and protecting the most vulnerable in our society. Rather than follow the advice of the Director General of the World Health Organisation, of tracking and testing every case of coronavirus, and in his words ‘ Not testing alone. Not contact tracing alone. Not quarantine alone. Not social distancing alone. Do it all’, this Tory government and their advisors have decided to only test the hospitalised cases and slowly let the rest of the population get infected in order to achieve herd immunity, apparently come what may. The UK is the only country in the world adopting such a policy, and could be considered effectively throwing our hands up and surrendering to the virus.
Speaking on Channel 4 on Friday evening, Prof John Edwards who is advising the government, seemed resigned to a reality in which there will be many many deaths as a result of the policy. His argument was that containment has not worked, we will never eradicate the virus entirely so the only option is to let it do its thing, but try to slow it down a little so the NHS is not overwhelmed. Ultimately, his reasoning and the one the Tory government seem to be adopting, is there is little point in trying to fight it too much as it will keep coming back.
Whilst one can understand this logic on a theoretical, academic level, on a social level it seems extremely cavalier. Asian countries which threw all their resources at containing the virus and adopted widespread and extreme public policy measures were not blind to the standard virological behaviour that Prof Edwards pointed to, they after all also have epidemiologists. I’m sure they accepted their actions were unlikely to completely eradicate the virus, but they mobilised them anyway in order to save as many lives as possible in the immediate term, come what may. It of course also bought them precious time to build the infrastructure necessary to make their societies more resilient if the virus does return before a vaccine has been developed. Therefore whilst technically one could claim it was futile, as it didn’t achieve complete eradication, on a social, familial level where it meant saving the lives of our dearly loved vulnerable relatives, it was a huge success.
This underlying philosophy of ‘taking it on the chin’ and effectively just managing the rate of surrender to the virus seems akin to Thatcher’s neoliberal aphorism that, ‘you can’t buck the market’. It’s premised on the fallacious assumption that it’s almost unnatural and futile to attempt to tackle complex systems. They will contend that cruel and disruptive as it may be, a laissez faire process of natural selection must do its thing and the weak must be discarded in order to constantly renew the system. Moreover, neoliberal conservatives argue that attempts to intervene in the process will result in individual freedoms unnecessarily sacrificed on the alter of good intentions. In the case of both market interventions, and comprehensively tackling COVID19, both require the mobilisation of significant economic resources and the restriction of aspects of individual freedom, principally for Conservatives, these orbit around economic freedom; the negative freedom from state interference in an individual’s economic affairs. This form of freedom is contrasted with the positive freedom to do something, the freedom afforded by having the power, the agency in the case of COVID19 to protect and keep your loved ones alive.
Whilst the ultimate power to enable both negative and positive freedoms are held by the state, the former empowers it reluctantly; the state is considered a necessary evil which must be engaged in only a minimal way. Its font of power is economic, derived from individual private wealth. Whereas positive freedom is the opposite, the state is the body which enables positive freedoms through state power to intervene and level up iniquitous affairs. Its font of power is political, derived from collective democratic pressure.
Of course a reliance on the state to provide positive freedom is only necessary for those who don’t have the private wealth and resources to enable their own independent agency. Unsurprisingly the Tory demographic weighs heavily in favour of these individuals, such that the Tories philosophical relationship with the state has always been that described above; a necessary evil which must be minimised. It is this myopic philosophical worldview which appears to be informing the government’s current limited response to the pandemic. It is cruel, reckless and delusional, as is so often the case with Tory government policy.
From the Outside Looking In 