Press Must Come Clean on Exit Strategy

In its leader today the Times, apparently desperate to move the story on as Covid news becomes less sensational and the public develop a herd immunity to death and infection graphics, demands that the Government publish their exit strategy. No matter that, in the absence of reliable evidence, no such coherent strategy yet exists (otherwise, surely, the government would have told us already)? In a blinding statement of the obvious, the Times thunders that “Britain cannot afford to get this wrong.” That newspaper, without producing a shred of evidence, condemns the Government for their “abrupt U-turn” and their “bungled handling of the crisis, without offering a constructive thought of its own. As sauce for the gander, the public, should demand that newspapers reveal all their evidence and their sources and that they should be called to account for any economy with the truth or exaggeration for effect at the subsequent enquiry. No wonder they did not publish my letter about the role of the press in a national crisis.