{"id":50510,"date":"2021-02-23T14:57:51","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T14:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/?p=748271"},"modified":"2021-02-23T14:57:51","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T14:57:51","slug":"matt-hancocks-audacity-is-off-the-scale-as-he-refuses-to-apologise-for-breaking-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/23\/matt-hancocks-audacity-is-off-the-scale-as-he-refuses-to-apologise-for-breaking-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Hancock\u2019s audacity is off the scale as he refuses to apologise for breaking the law"},"content":{"rendered":"

It should no longer come as a surprise, watching Matt Hancock give himself a pat on the back for how he’s handled the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. It should also come as no surprise that he accepts zero responsibility for almost 121,000<\/a> deaths in the UK. Our death toll has shot past that of Italy, and is now by far the highest in Europe.<\/p>\n

But Hancock’s audacity flew off the chart on 23 February when he insisted that his team should be thanked, and that there had been no national shortage of PPE. Does Hancock think that a successful roll-out of vaccines will magically make us forget how the government has failed, and how it essentially left our NHS workers and care home residents to die, without giving them adequate protection from the virus?<\/p>\n

No shortage of PPE? Really?<\/h5>\n

Hancock has been accused before of gaslighting<\/a> the public, trying to convince us that events that happened didn’t actually happen at all. It seems he hasn’t learned his lesson. On today’s Sky News<\/em>, Hancock said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There was never a national shortage [of PPE].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But if Hancock thinks he can gaslight us again, he’s wrong. A National Audit Office report<\/a> about the supply of PPE stated that the “government\u2019s structures were overwhelmed in March 2020”, and as the virus first hit UK soil, newspapers reported<\/a> on the scarcity of PPE throughout the country. In April 2020, The Canary<\/em> stated that<\/a>:<\/p>\n

PPE shortages reportedly persist<\/a> for NHS staff after initial delays<\/a> in equipment delivery. Meanwhile, the Local Government Association (LGA) has warned<\/a> that \u201cvital life-saving personal protective equipment for frontline care workers will run out within days”. The LGA has criticised the government\u2019s delay in rolling out a new central government website to moderate PPE supply and distribution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, back in May 2020, Channel 4 reported<\/a> that 200 million pieces of kit, including masks and respirators, had reached their expiry date in the months before the pandemic hit. Britain’s stockpiles of PPE also shrank<\/a> “significantly” between 2009 and 2019.<\/p>\n

It was local people<\/a> who pulled together to make our health workers the PPE that wasn’t provided to them by the government. People have expressed their outrage on Twitter:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

So sorry to keep bringing this up but it\u2019s important to me @MattHancock<\/a> on Sky news saying there wasn\u2019t a shortage of PPE. I had to buy my uncle, a nurse on a Covid ward, a face shield off amazon, he found some masks in a cupboard on the ward, there was a shortage and a panic https:\/\/t.co\/8a4lKSC96f<\/a><\/p>\n

— Lucy Beaumont\"?\" #KeepTheUplift (@LucyABeaumont) February 23, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n