Last year Brexit dominated our lives, such was the significance of Brexit a government minister responsible for all things Brexit was appointed.
This year Covid-19 emerged and has already proved to be a far more significant issue than Brexit, but no ministerial appointment made.
As Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock has certainly taken a lead in dealing with the health impact from the pandemic. His colleague Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has likewise taken the lead in dealing with the economic impact. Both have done a good job so far, Sunak more so than Hancock, but both have many other major aspects of their roles that warrant time and attention.
Would it be better to have a Covid-19 minister that deals exclusively with the pandemic?
The question does not aim to question either Rishi Sunak or Matt Hancock, but rather to elevate the importance of a new potential role in government that mirrors the gravity of the problem we face.
Put simply, Covid-19 is the biggest crisis this country has faced since World War II, and it needs something akin to a war cabinet to address it.
The magnitude of the crisis is growing every day, not in cases confirmed or recorded deaths, but in the storm that is building and still unseen by many. We are still to see the worst of the Covid-19 crisis, the ongoing economic fall out and risk of a second wave, and the current government needs to bolster its ranks to deal with it.
Boris Johnson was elected Prime Minister on 13 December 2019. The election victory was manufactured by his one policy campaign to get Brexit done.
Covid-19 was first acknowledged and then reported some weeks later by China, so was not on Prime Minister Johnson’s agenda when forming his cabinet.
During Johnson’s election campaign he ousted many principled opponents within the Conservative party and encircled himself with characters that would neither threaten nor challenge him. Those same characters made up his cabinet, selected for their sycophancy and blind loyalty to Johnson’s project Brexit. Their collective lack of political and intellectual talent being made up for by Johnson’s principal advisor Dominic Cummings, albeit of the Machiavellian variety, and Rishi Sunak’s political and economic actions to date.
The challenge the hospitality industry in the UK faces is, to use the overused phrase, unprecedented. The economic future for hospitality is grim, consumers are not going out in the numbers required and workplaces are all but empty.
A Covid-19 minister would add to government resources in combating the crisis and as such the appointment would require a heavyweight with significant political experience and nous.
Johnson would need to drop his fear of appointing people with ability and could even appoint a Covid-19 ministerial group. They could be isolated from other government business, so as not to interfere with Brexit.
Candidates should be proven leaders with experience that mirrors the scale of the problem. Former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, former Prime Ministers David Cameron, John Major and Theresa May. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown both have records of getting things done including facing economic crises.
Extreme measures perhaps, but extreme measures are needed, to ensure the economic survival of the hospitality industry, and every other.
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