Cabinet right to wait on Covid restrictions, Labour being hysterical

The cabinet decision to not – or not yet – impose further restrictions as the new variant Omicron spreads has been condemned (predictably) as dither and delay.

On Monday, ministers met for several hours and listened to analysis from scientists and modellers. There will be no new restrictions this side of Christmas, the Prime Minister has confirmed today.

Labour has been particularly scathing. The party’s trainee Secretary of State for Health Wes Streeting, a good performer who must nonetheless be wary of coming across as Mr Lockdown, a perpetual enthusiast for more restrictions on the rest of us, has been everywhere pushing the line. His critique is reflected on the nation’s radio phone-in shows featuring terrified members of the public wanting to be ordered by the government to hide under the stairs until Christmas 2024, as long as someone else pays the bill for the epic economic damage caused. Not to mention the social harms that hit the young and the poorest hardest.

There is plenty to criticise this government for. Goodness, how long have you got? But this time, in demanding a roadmap to restrictions, the critics are wrong. The cabinet was quite right to wait when the data is still patchy and the severity of Omicron is unclear.The pro-restrictions clamour from the usual cast of people paraded on the six o’clock news and Good Morning Britain  rests on a futile demand for certainty, when the new variant is inherently uncertain. The economic and mental health costs of draconian restrictions are, in contrast, very clear and certain.

There’s a further insidious element to the outrage that we aren’t all being locked up or close to it again.  Some of those criticising the cabinet, or Boris Johnson for not bossing the cabinet around, would if it suited them and the positions were reversed, be criticising the government if the cabinet was railroaded. Look, they would say, at the weak cabinet failing to protect the country from the dictatorial tendencies of a too mighty Prime Minister. Instead, this time the cabinet did its job in a democracy. Good.

After all, discussion and debate, proper process, weighing the evidence in cabinet, the operation of cabinet government, is a feature not a bug of our system.

The risk for Labour is that it looks hysterical, always willing to shut down the economy and punish the young to please the leaders of public sector unions and their most vocal activists.

In July, the leader of the opposition opposed full reopening. Yet the decision to reopen properly was vindicated when Britain had an exit wave in summer rather than winter. Thanks to that decision millions of pupils had a relatively normal six months and life got back to some form of normality for the rest of us. Demonstrating once again that the point of living is to live, not merely to exist.

In the summer, Sir Keir Starmer foolishly described Delta as the Johnson variant, a nasty populist bit of rhetoric when Delta has gone on to cause such damage in all manner of countries, regardless of whether they are governed by Boris Johnson or not.

Starmer being wrong in July does not mean Boris Johnson is right now. We’ll see soon enough, when more is learned about spread and severity. It does mean, though, that some scepticism is justified when Starmer’s team come on television telling us (sombre face) that there is too much dither and we need a roadmap to restrictions.