Johnson and his cabal of corrupt chancers should be jailed for life over criminal Covid-19 negligence

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At around 9:15 am on 21 October 1966 a catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip  caused it to suddenly slide downhill as slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and other buildings in Aberfan. In the grief and outrage that followed  an enquiry placed the blame squarely on the National Coal Board. Nobody was prosecuted and the NCB was not even fined for the Aberfan disaster.

At 1:23 am on 26th April 1986 a series of violent explosions shook the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine – 31 people died in the immediate aftermath and countless thousands had their lives shortened and health ruined by diseases linked to radioactive contamination. The plant’s operators and managers were promptly jailed for criminal mismanagement. Bigger criminals escaped but some semblance of justice was done. But that was in the Soviet Union.

When 96 people died in the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 it started a bitter battle for justice that is still running today . Due to the fierce determination of the bereaved families, a litany of criminal negligence and lies was exposed. The Taylor enquiry of 1989 laid the blame squarely on the negligence of South Yorkshire Police and described senior officers as “defensive and evasive witnesses”. In fact they were part of a widespread and grotesque cover-up of false police statements, doctored witness statements and tampered evidence that sought to deflect blame towards the victims. To date no prosecution has been completed against anyone involved in the Hillsborough disaster – despite an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation finding widespread evidence of negligence and corruption they characterised as ‘the tip of the iceberg’.

Within 18 months of the 2012 Costa Concordia sinking in Italy five people found guilty of manslaughter, negligence and wrecking were jailed. Captain Francesco Schettino was jailed for 16 years. But that was Italy.  

After the British owned and operated Herald of Free Enterprise ferry capsized moments after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on the night of 6 March 1987, 193 passengers and crew died. Despite a coroner’s inquest returning verdicts of unlawful killing and the operators P&O European Ferries (Dover) Ltd being charged with corporate manslaughter, all cases against P&O directors and staff were quietly dropped.

Those held culpable for the Bradford City fire of 1985 escaped prosecution. High court judge Sir Joseph Canley mused that “no-one in authority seems ever to have properly appreciated the real gravity of this fire hazard” which is pretty much the defence for those fleeing charges of manslaughter, corporate manslaughter, misconduct in public office and fire safety offences in connection with the Grenfell Tower fire of June 2017. To date no prosecutions have begun and none are expected until at least 2021. Activists complain already that a whitewash is underway. The then prime minister Theresa May couldn’t even bring herself to meet the bereaved families which doesn’t bode well for the outcome.

Few savvy readers of British public life will be surprised by this in any way.

My own grandfather died of a radiation related disease after a hastily covered up  accident at the Atomic Weapons and Research Establishment at Aldermarston. It took decades for the terrifying truth of Windscale fire of 1957 (and the true reason for the existence of the plant) to emerge. As with so many other failures / sins of the British establishment – when caught in acts of criminality, incompetence and mismanagement the usual suspects circle the wagons and throw as much sand in the public’s eyes as they can find. Let’s not even dwell on the illegal 2003 Iraq War and the masterful cover up of Blair’s war crimes. 

But even allowing for the long history of disasters, lies, naked corruption, moral infamies and incompetence that characterises the British ruling class and the tiresome charade of faux enquiries and toothless non-prosecutions that reliably follow…

…even I am shocked at the lack of public outrage over the catastrophic Tory ‘handling’ of Covid-19.

Boris Johnson famously mused about the need to strike the right ‘balance’ of measures for dealing with Covid-19 way back on the 5th March 2020 saying:

“that’s where a lot of the debate has been and one of the theories is, that perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures. I think we need to strike a balance”

 Well the UK has certainly taken it ‘on the chin’ and has dragged its feet about ‘draconian measures’ from the outset with the result that 69,752 people have already died from Covid-19 in the UK.

Contrast this with the clear moral stand taken by the New Zealand government which acted ‘hard and early’ to proactively protect lives and livelihoods through the prompt and strict application of salient medical advice. New Zealand has suffered just 25 deaths and they are not the sole exemplars of moral clarity and competence. South Korea has just 536 deaths, Thailand 60, Singapore 29, Taiwan 7. These countries are not quiet backwaters: they are developed nations with dense urban population centers.

The UK has the worst death rate in Europe and one of the worst in the world. Whether it is the confused, piecemeal and shambolic strategy adopted by the UK, its chaotic PPE shortages and the dismal example set by members of the government and its advisors in repeatedly flouting its own regulations and advice: the overall outcome has been death, death and more death.

What astonishes and appalls is how little OUTRAGE there seems to be about this. If 96 people killed by criminal negligence at Hillsborough  in 1989 mattered then why doesn’t 69,752 people killed by cavalier government negligence in 2020 matter? Covid-19 was not and is not an unavoidable shower of toxic rain: it was a public health challenge that was wholly avoidable if we took the right steps at the right time.

Stand by for the Tories to now declare victory over Covid-19. They have already (falsely) tried to frame the imminent emergence of a vaccine as a triumph of Brexit!

Is the British public at large going to allow them to get away with this? The criminal negligence of Boris Johnson’s government has killed more UK civilians than the entirety of World War II. Surely this time the public will demand an accounting?

Well I doubt it. There will be an enquiry of course. That might report in 2035 and there will be recommendations that no-one will implement. The corporate media will frame the whole debacle in terms of economic damage and will fizz with delight as the stock market bounces back. 

Many British people have a resigned acceptance of corruption, incompetence and negligence with the result that even a death count big enough to fill Wembley Stadium with dead bodies just gets a weary shrug of the shoulders.

Well I am not one of the weary and brow-beaten and I trust many Sodium Haze readers aren’t either.

I think Johnson and his cabal of corrupt chancers should be arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail for their cavalier negligence and moral bankruptcy over Covid-19. There, I have said the unthinkable: the British ruling class should be held to account for their crimes. Anybody with me?

Since 2013 I have worked between 4-6 hours a day on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and uncovering truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.

I am a home schooling parent on a low income – paying for the domain, web hosting and security entirely out of my own pocket.  

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Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.     

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