The government has a Four-Stage Plan for dealing with the fact that it has no answer to the question about why it is carrying out hundreds of thousands fewer coronavirus tests than comparable countries. Obfuscate. Sidestep. Ignore. All came and went in the space of barely a week and now, already, here we are at Stage Four: Alok Sharma.
As the government’s advisors have stressed on many occasions, this is a fluid process. The end of one stage will already feel like the beginning of the next, and it is certainly true that Ignore and Alok Sharma are very difficult to distinguish.
Unfortunately for the government, the 5pm 10 Downing Street press conference has become something of a focal point in the daily life of the nation.
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Unfortunate in the sense that all the nation can see is the government being asked the same question about coronavirus testing over and over again, and the government failing to provide an answer, every single time, day after day.
Clearly, it doesn’t have an answer. It can’t make the question go away, so what it hopes it can do is make the people go away, and what better way to convince them that, really, there’s nothing to see here, than to send for a man that could quite easily remain unseen if you got in a lift with him.
If you’ve never heard of Alok Sharma then don’t worry, neither has he. According to Wikipedia, he is the Secretary of State for Business, and therefore one of the most senior members of the government – but don’t forget, anyone can edit that, and there are a lot of very bored people stuck at home right now.
Just like yesterday and just like tomorrow, the kitchen based talking heads came and went (special mention to ITV’s Robert Peston, who had stuck a large sign above the door to his kitchen with his own name stencilled across it. Sadly, its final letter was obscured throughout by the top of his right ear, prompting those who with only a passing interest in television news to wonder whether this really was the time for a human interest story about the man with the world’s largest pesto cupboard).
Again they asked: why can’t we manage to carry out even a seventh of the number of coronavirus tests as Germany. Again there came no answer. Again we are “ramping up” the testing. Again things are going to improve “in the coming days”, even though the days that were coming three days ago have now come, they’re right here, we’re living in them, and nothing has changed.
For now, the unseasonably freezing April weather has confined the nation’s journalists to their kitchens as they ask this question. No one knows how long this will go on for, but it surely will not be long before the guy from Channel 4 News or the Guardian or wherever is just glancing up from the barbecue, taking a sip of lager and saying, “Same as yesterday mate. Why no testing?”
Still, having been deployed for his instant forgettability, Mr Sharma made the rookie mistake of saying something actually memorable.
“You made reference to Germany,” Mr Sharma told the ninth questioner to make reference to Germany. “We of course look to see what we can learn throughout this process.”
That, to be fair, is at least new. Once upon a time, the “learning opportunity” line was the sole preserve of England managers, trying to justify why they had picked a fourth string side for some meaningless international friendly.
It has evolved more recently, and can now be used, for example, by online self-parody act Jameela Jamil, to express gratitude to all of those people who recently told her that the reason she hadn’t learnt about the 2003 Iraq War “in history class at school” was because it hadn’t happened yet.
And of course, the opportunity “to learn” was what drew Prince Andrew to spend those long six days, personally breaking up with Jeffrey Epstein in his New York apartment.
Do any of these come close to the new reality, that a mushrooming epidemic and its exponential death toll is in fact a chance for the government “to learn” from other countries? Probably not. But then, we must take our learning opportunities where we find them, even if, for most of us, it is limited to learning who Alok Sharma is, even if you’ve forgotten again after an hour.
Still, that’s the point, isn’t it? Same time tomorrow, after all.
