The Home Secretary Pritti Patel has inadvertently exposed a major part of Boris Johnson’s ‘covid clusterf***’. According to a scoop carried on the Guido Fawkes site, Ms Patel, in a Zoom conference with the Conservative Friends of India, said that she argued for a shutdown of the nation’s borders back in March.

Guido said:

Priti Patel told Conservative Party supporters last night that she disagreed with the belated timing of the government’s border closing in response to Covid, claiming she had been privately advocating for their closure at the start of the pandemic last March. The candid confession – which expressly breaks collective Cabinet responsibility – was made during a Zoom call last night between the Home Secretary and the Conservative Friends of India group:

“On ‘should we have closed our borders earlier’ the answer is yes, I was an advocate of closing them last March”

Whilst I do not believe, from looking at past epidemics, that it is possible to keep an airborne virus out of a modern country entirely, it can be possible to reduce the spread of such a virus by early and judicious border closures, something that Boris Johnson’s government did not do until it was far too late. My own view is that March was probably too late in itself. The government instead of listening to those with knowledge of China both in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and possibly the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), listened to the thoroughly compromised and China-led World Health Organisation. Maybe if the Government had listened to the correct experts rather than China lackeys in the WHO, we would not be in the mess that we are today. If the borders had been shut in January when there was ample evidence that something bad was going on in China then outcomes might have been different.

Unfortunately Boris Johnson’s government did not take sensible steps to impede they spread of Covid. They instead locked down British people whilst keeping the borders wide open. This is something that should be considered as absolutely unforgivable bearing in mind the massive damage that the useless and counterproductive lockdowns have caused.

This is a much bigger story than it at first seems. Whilst it is indeed a biggie that Ms Patel broke the protocol of collective Cabinet responsibility, the bigger story is how Boris Johnson dithered around and failed to take strong action to protect Britons. It gives the impression that Boris Johnson cared less for the British people and the British economy than he did for keeping the borders open.

Pritti Patel should be praised for what she has done for she has opened a window into a government that has become increasingly dysfunctional and dictatorial and which passed by chances to ameliorate a situation and slow the spread of Covid. If the Government had done this then it maybe have given a better outcome for the vast majority of Britons who are the main ones suffering from Boris Johnson’s incompetence and the incompetence of his government.