Patrick Christys: Is Covid-19 now a useful distraction for the government?

I think there’s a big Covid cover-up going on. And I’ll explain why… Covid isn’t the only show in town anymore. I went out yesterday and did a quick survey of people because I wanted to find out what people thought the biggest issue facing Britain is right now.

I was expecting everyone to say Covid, actually, only a couple of them did. I was struck by how low down peoples priorities Covid actually is.

We had universal credit, housing crisis, mental health crisis, Brexit, immigration…

And it got me thinking – is Covid now a useful distraction for this government? While we’re all talking about Covid, covid, covid, the latest case numbers, the latest death toll, PPE in schools, testing, we’re ignoring everything else. It keeps other things off the front pages.

But actually, now that 80% of us have been jabbed, the other things are going to affect our lives.

It suits this government to keep Covid in the news as long as possible.

I’m going to go out on a limb here – I don’t think most people care about covid cases.

I think people did but they don’t now. People care about how much money they’ve got in their pockets, if they have a job, if they feel there are opportunities…but you know what I think most people care about. Illegal immigration.

If Covid wasn’t around, the government would be copping it about what’s going on in the Channel.

If you walk into any pub in the country it’s immigration that would be the top issue.

It affects everything – it impacts population size and density. That’s a massive issue. Why is it that NHS waiting times are shocking or that there’s a bed shortage? Because our population is increasing. Why is it that class sizes are going through the roof? Because there’s more children. Why is it that the roads are so congested? Population size. Why is there a housing crisis?

Affects national security – we don’t always know who these people are. There have been issues with this in the past.

It highlights the incompetence of our government and officials. Michael Gove’s idea for a wave machine is doing the rounds – that’s the kind of idea you come up with after a few drinks in an Aberdeen nightclub.

Social integration is a looming problem. I fully understand why someone moving here from a rural region in a far flung country will want to live in a community with their countrymen and women, because that makes sense. But we run the risk of creating society within society.

People might start asking unfortunate questions like – why have we got room for these people in hotels, how much is that costing, have we done a secret deal with the European Union to actually take these people?

Coronavirus made us all wear a mask for a while, now it’s being used as a mask to hide some huge problems coming our way and unless we address them now, they’ll hit us like a truck.