Letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister,

I hope you are enjoying Italian hospitality. Puglia is a beautiful and historic region. My grandfather came from Puglia and he was a very wise and gentlemanly person. How I miss him.

As I watch what must be the most boring coverage of the most tedious election ever, I must tell you that I am missing something else.

Let me explain. I greatly appreciated your various measures launched in support of the people and businesses during the very dark days of 2020-2021. Good Government does what you did: look after its people. You ‘looked after’ some highly organised criminals, but the good intentions were there. Thank you.

Watching the dreadful, carefully stage-managed coverage of the election, I missed any mention of the root cause of societal and financial disaster, any mention of measures to tackle bad government, bad regulation, corruption, censorship, lack of compassion and plundering of the public purse which the 200 odd evidence-free anti-Covid measures have brought to light. Anti-Covid measures – remember those?

I think I know why you and your partner, Sir Keir, have a mutual understanding not to mention the C word: because both your parties are responsible, and you both are acutely aware of it. The lockdown and the lockthemdownharder parties are your joint legacy to the people of the sceptred isle.

So please do not threaten us with any more disasters, plagues, boat people, wars and sundry nasties affecting the stability and independence of the kingdom and Europe. You are not very credible, as you, your predecessor, your partner/seeming political opponent and your two parties are the main culprits of our societal and financial bankruptcy.

I wish you and Sir Keir a very good and productive time in your boring endeavours.

Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome and lead author of the latest update to the Cochrane review of physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. This article was first published on Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.