Patel’s awful conference.

A dire outing by a dire politician.

Few individuals encapsulate the repugnant nature of this particular government more than the Home Secretary, Priti Patel. She was finally allowed to head the Downing Street presser today, for the first time since she mangled up the numbers during the first lockdown, and as with the last time it was a masterclass in how to shamelessly avoid the question and act like a wannabe authoritarian.

Patel scolded and blamed the public for the problems overwhelmingly caused by failure of governance. The government is deploying a propaganda blitz everywhere, in an attempt to convince people that it’s their carelessness, not their failure, that has let the virus get out of control. The worst part is it’s working, if you take a gander at the latest opinion polls on the matter of who holds the blame here.

People walking around in the park isn’t the cause of this chaos. People in offices, in hairdressers, in factories, forced to go to work by callous bosses, up and down the country, are. Lack of proper financial incentive is the problem, lack of support, and a government that isn’t even enforcing and supporting it’s own rules when it comes to businesses, instead deciding to push all the blame onto the individual, asking us to spy on our neighbours.

Patel clearly doesn’t realise what it takes to get through this. It isn’t her taking unsettling relish in talking tough and scolding the public, and it isn’t massively ramped up police enforcement.

It’s support, it’s calm and coherent instruction, and it’s a guarantee people won’t be penalised for doing the right thing. Instead of robbing people of socially distanced, outside, socialisation with one individual, let’s first look at taking on the rested interests forcing people to drive to the office, or go to work when they should be isolating. In that mix, lies to key to getting us out of this.