It is the first duty of government of a free country to protect its citizens, but this government seems to spend more time in duty free.

As the Afghanistan shambles unfolded, the then Foreign Secretary was carefree in Crete and refused to cut short his holiday.

With the first official revelations as to the Government’s mishandling of Covid now published, the Prime Minister laps up Spanish sun while we continue to queue for petrol.

Casting my mind back to the start of 2020, it was clear that something was up. A deadly virus had begun creeping across the world, travelling unseen from person to person, country to country.

The Government’s failure to get a grip led to one of the worst public health failures in British history. While pictures of an overwhelmed Italian healthcare system were beamed into our homes nightly, Boris Johnson, instead of recognising the danger, like Nero, fiddled while Rome burned. His inaction resulted in 20,000 excess deaths, including many in Watford.

He also skipped five of the Government’s emergency COBRA meetings. Not sufficiently interested to attend, but denied it was because he was too busy writing a book on Shakespeare. Well we all know just how much we can trust what Boris Johnson says. This was a man who wasn’t going to raise National Insurance but has done just that.

Given that Watford’s MP Dean Russell sits on a parliamentary committee that has criticised his own government’s failure to lock down earlier, would he now care to apologise for this fatal delay?

  • Cllr Asif Khan is chairman of Watford Labour Party