We saw a crisis. He saw an opportunity.

It will go down as one of the most fatal political miscalculations in British history.

A deadly virus has recently been unleashed on the world, and across the globe countries are locking down and contact tracking all victims. However, in the United Kingdom the Prime Minister told us that we were going to 'take it on the chin'. Our experts knew better than everyone else's experts, and we were to pursue a policy of 'herd immunity'. One month later and at least 20,000 people in Britain are dead, with at least as many again expected to fall victim to Covod-19, and one of them was very nearly Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself. What went wrong?

Let's rewind to 3 February 2020. The theme of the day is Brexit, and the Prime Minister is to give a big speech in Greenwich in which he lays down the gauntlet to the European Union. The day before Johnson's speech the Philippines had reported the first death outside of China and the first cases had been confirmed in the United Kingdom. Three days before that the World Health Organisation had declared Covid-19 a global emergency. In China 170 had died, and, as well as the Philippines, cases had by then also been reported in Russia, Spain, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Singapore and the USA.

So, what did Johnson say in his speech? Mostly it was about deregulation. Britain was not going to follow the rules set down by Europe. He did not say we'd privatise the NHS or be eating chlorinated chicken, but this was certainly the gist of what he was saying. However, he did also mention Covid-19, and this is where it gets interesting. This is what he said:

"there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange ... the UK is ready for that role."

By the end of the day the focus had changed to the attempt by, the Johnson administration to give a private press briefing to selected journalists, locking out the more sceptical, which led to a walkout by the political press corps. Johnson's references to the coronavirus were forgotten. So, what do we make of them now?

Possibly, maybe probably, they were an attempt to introduce a bit of topicality to the boringly
repetitive theme of the Brexit negotiations. Possibly they were the start of a strategy to respond to the virus. Equally likely they were both: a quick ad lib that would become a strategy.

Johnson's attitude to Brexit has always been strange. Not only has he wanted to have his cake and eat it, he has, it seems wanted to have the popularity of having 'Got Brexit Done', without actually having to do it. Brexit has always been a rebellion in search of a cause, so was it Covid-19 that gave Johnson the cause he wanted? Did he see the virus as a way of showing Great Britain's exceptionalism? Of being the champion of swashbuckling free-marketism standing up to the nanny state which overreacts to a bit of man 'flu?

When he was struck down himself, colleagues said that Johnson was the sort of person who was intolerant of illness in others. A man of great privilege, very little empathy and, until that point, good health, he saw no risk worth wrecking his precious economy for. Instead he blundered into the worst crisis for the country since the Second World War.

But is it possible that this was worse than a mistake? Did the Prime Minster see the reaction to Covid-19 around the world as 'panic' and not 'rational'? Was he prepared to sacrifice a significant chunk of the population for a free market competitive advantage and Brexit? The evidence seems so: the speech, the 'herd immunity', the lack of testing, the refusal to take part in the EU ventilator and PPE schemes. It all fits a pattern. It was Johnson's advisor, Dominic Cummings, who (allegedly) said 'protect the economy, and if that means some pensioners die, too bad', and it seems the Prime Minister went further than that and saw an opportunity to not just protect the economy, but gain a competituve advantage from the crisis.

But that is not what has happened. Not only have tens of thousands of people die needlessly, but the country faces and longer lockdown that most others because we didn't act when we could. Now if that doesn't make you angry, nothing will.