One of the few saving graces from Boris Johnson's torrid time in office is that a significant chunk of the population know that if Labour had been running things, England would have been locked down longer, harder and more often. Last Christmas - despite all the data coming from South Africa about how mild the Omicron variant was - Labour clamoured for a fourth lockdown. That would have been catastrophic, as all the lockdowns were, but with Covid reduced to cold-type symptoms it would have been the most absurd.
The only part of the UK under a Labour government was also the last part of the UK to end all Covid restrictions. Mark Drakeford finally lifted the remaining restriction - face masks in health and social care settings - on May 30. However, in announcing the change he declared that such restrictions had been 'paused', raising the spectre of renewed diktats in the autumn: "We will put all these measures on hold. However, we aren’t simply abandoning them, we are pausing them in case we see another pandemic wave in the autumn, or the winter."
As if these socialist policies hadn't done enough harm already.
The cost of living crisis is a cost of lockdown crisis. Us mere mortals will all be much poorer as a result of the wave of self-defeating, pointless, costly and painful policies meted out across these islands. None of the governing parties are free of blame. While the Tories did their best to oppose some measures in Scotland and Wales, they dished them out in Westminster. For Labour and the SNP, such an opportunity to dictate the lives of the proletariat was a dream come true.
When Keir Starmer stands up in the Commons and attacks the government over the cost of living, NHS waiting lists and tax burden - we must never forget that he voted for all this. Repeatedly. In fact he consistently called for lockdowns to come sooner and argued against lifting them. It is only thanks to Labour support that vaccine mandates were passed in England last year - including the despicable NHS mandate that would have seen up to 100,000 staff sacked had it been carried through.
As if things weren't bad enough for patients already - missed diagnoses, record waiting lists, abysmal ambulance response times. Ironically, one of those complaining about the state of the NHS is none other than Labour's Jess Phillips, who repeatedly voted for all this.
Imagine complaining about the consequence of your own actions, but not being self aware enough to realise? Phillips encapsulates the current woeful state of the green benches.
