DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Let Freedom Day be the spark for renewal
After two long years of purgatory, the pandemic is officially over. Boris Johnson yesterday announced the lifting of almost all legal restrictions, effectively down-grading Covid to just one of the many respiratory illnesses we have to cope with.
The virus is still with us, and must be kept under close surveillance. But from now on, we must live with it, rather than being in its thrall.
This was a day of considerable personal triumph for the Prime Minister. Despite huge duress and sometimes howling opposition, he has called most of the big decisions right.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlining the government’s new long-term Covid pandemic plan yesterday
Britain can now reap the social and economic dividend.
Inevitably, there was resistance from the usual quarters – Labour, the unions, Scottish and Welsh nationalists, the gloomier end of the medical and scientific establishment.
It’s too soon, they say. The PM is being reckless. He is courting catastrophe. But if not now, when?
These professional moaners would sneer at anything the Government did, such is their animus towards Mr Johnson and the Tory party.
Petty politics is more important to them than the national interest.
They have also grown addicted to lockdown and the power it gives the state over the individual. If it were up to them, restrictions would never be fully lifted.
A staggering £2billion a month is spent on free Covid testing (stock photo used)
What they never seem to grasp is the hideous collateral damage. Six million on hospital waiting lists, a mental health epidemic, primary care services crumbling, education in meltdown.
And then there’s the economic shock. Town and city centres deserted as so many work from home. Leisure and entertainment industries decimated.
Not to mention the staggering £2billion a month spent on free Covid testing. That may have been justifiable in the teeth of the Delta variant, but it’s now unsustainable – which is why it’s being terminated.
Typically the NHS is crying foul, with Health Secretary Sajid Javid demanding an extra £5billion on their behalf to fund continued routine daily testing of staff.
Quite rightly, Chancellor Rishi Sunak sent him away with a flea in his ear. The NHS already swallows up £180billion a year.
It should try living within its means for a change – like the rest of us have to.
Over the past two years the Government has told us where we may go and whom we may meet.
Ministers and their Sage puppeteers have dictated the minutiae of our lives. Never in peacetime have our rights and liberties been so severely curtailed.
Thanks largely to the vaccines, it’s nearly over. The only remaining bugbear is the locator forms passengers must fill in on arriving here.
They are no longer necessary and should also be scrapped.
Crucially, Freedom Day must be just the start of national renewal. The economy has survived the pandemic and is now ready to fly.
Rishi Sunak (pictured) and the PM both slapped down demands from Sajid Javid for an extra £5billion to fund Covid testing
But white-collar Britain must get back to the office – beginning with Whitehall. Working from home must become the exception again, not the rule.
Mr Johnson was unlucky that Covid struck so soon after his remarkable 2019 landslide. As it recedes, he has the chance to fulfil his electoral promises.
To unite and level up the country, create a high-skill, low-tax post-Brexit economy, fix the care crisis, modernise our ageing infrastructure.
His immediate challenge is to tackle the growing cost-of-living crisis. That means reconsidering the national insurance hike, reviewing onerous green levies and securing our own energy supplies.
In recent weeks he has reconnected with his party and there are signs the polls are moving in his favour. If he can now rediscover his inner Tory, he may yet become a great prime minister.
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