 Our Tory government's approach to COVID has been consistently undermined by ignorance, denial and appeasement of the right-wing libertarians who occupy the party's back benches. Each one of these deficiencies were on show in this ridiculous answer from Sajid Javed on Sky News. How many of you were wearing masks? You can take a look at the picture that we've got. The number 10 released yesterday, they chose this picture. There's basically, well, 38 to 40 people in that room, poorly ventilated. Not one person is wearing a mask on the day that you advise us to wear masks in situations like that. And that is perfectly consistent with what the Prime Minister said yesterday and what I said yesterday, because what we said was that people should consider wearing masks in crowded places when they are with strangers, when they are with people that they are not normally spending time with. So it's very conservative back benches to be wearing masks at PMQs later today. No, they're not strangers. The sort of back benches, whether they're in parliament, in the chamber itself or in the other meeting rooms and things. You don't catch COVID for your friends. You have to take measures that are appropriate for the prevalence of COVID at the time. That guy is the health secretary. He's the health secretary. He's the most important person in the country when it comes to public health. And he's going on national television and saying, you don't have to worry about catching COVID if you're among friends. And now I can imagine you saying, oh, you've got a gathering, you've got a party, it's not really going to work if you're all wearing masks. He's talking about the House of Commons. That's 650 people. The House of Commons would function perfectly if everyone other than the speaker and the people who were speaking were wearing masks. There's no reason not to wear it other than ideology. There are a number of ways in which I think that clip is characteristic of everything that's been wrong with the toy response to COVID over the past 18 months. One, it's completely stupid to the point of ridiculous. As I say, you can catch COVID from strangers. COVID doesn't care. If Tory MPs went to the same debating society, if they trashed the same restaurants at university and public school, it doesn't care. They can still pass COVID to each other. Secondly, what this does is show a government completely in denial. Javid there said, we have to take measures that are appropriate to the prevalence of COVID in society. That implies we currently have low rates. But let's see how we compare to our European neighbours. These are new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Britain and in our European neighbours. We are running at about 500 daily cases per million people. France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain are all under 150. Now, when faced with these kind of comparisons, what you'll often hear is, we've got higher vaccination rates, which means that a case is less serious than it is there. Actually, that used to be the case. Now, most of those countries have caught up or overtaken us when it comes to the number of people vaccinated. It's also worth noting all those countries have mask mandates. This is another situation of complete denial and exceptionalism from the government, which is putting people at risk for no good reason. If we can limit transmission in a relatively socially cost-free way, just do it. They're refusing to do it. The final thing this is why it represents everything that is wrong with our government's strategy when it comes to policy making, is that that was our health secretary. Now, he should be making policies that protect our health, communicating the latest up-to-date science on COVID-19. Yet, instead, he's essentially lying to the public on an issue of public health, all to justify the pigheadedness of his extremist backbenches. He sees the backbenches, they refuse to wear masks. Instead of him going on television and saying, how do I communicate the best up-to-date science, he's saying, how do I go on television and justify the idiotic behaviour of the backbenches in my party. Now, if you want an idea of how strongly these adult babies on the Tory backbenches feel about masks, just look at this moment from Tuesday's announcement about our so-called Plan B. We have prepared a Plan B of a contingency measures that we can call upon only if they are needed and supported by the data to prevent unsustainable pressure on the NHS. These measures would be communicating clearly and urgently to the public the need for caution, legally mandating face coverings in certain settings. Now, like Sajid Javid there had literally just said, if we were in a situation where the NHS is under severe strain, I mean, it is already under severe strain, but he's, I'm presuming he's imagining it's about to collapse, a Tory backbencher MP has heard that in that extreme scenario people are going to be asked to wear masks and he, you know, he's at work that now, like it's, it's so pathetic, but it's also incredibly influential because it seems to be dictating government policy. Dalia, I want to bring you, you in on this. How significant do you think these extremist backbenches are? Am I in a way letting Boris Johnson and Sajid Javid off the hook because they are also just as extremist as that person sort of screaming now in the background? Would it have been Boris Johnson sort of go, no, if it was Theresa May who was still Prime Minister announcing a sensible policy such as this? It's very, very hard to say because I think a lot of people that are, have been close to Boris Johnson have often said that the only thing he cares about is, you know, the, the Murdoch papers and, and the Tory backbenches. But it makes you think, what are you scared that the Tory backbenchers are going to do? Like what kind of threat do these, you know, I mean, that kind of dinosaur style croaked the idea of wearing a mask doesn't suggest to me that this is some big, early threatening person that I should be really scared of. It sounds like someone who's just sort of a bit of a coward snowflake, really. So I don't really know what they're worried, you know, that if the Tory backbenches are sort of, you know, coming to you, what exactly they're going to do. But I think that, you know, obviously that, that interview where Sadja Javid said that thing about, you know, not, you can't catch it from people that you know is absolutely, it's actually the precise and exact opposite. I feel like you're actually more likely to catch it from someone that you know, because you're more likely to, you know, being close contact with them, you're more likely to be an ongoing contact with them, you're more likely to be, you know, hugging them and being sort of near them without a mask on. I mean, I don't, don't quote me on that. I don't know the exact statistics, but it strikes me as probably quite likely. I know that when the, in the, the sort of the last massive uptick in infections over winter during that Christmas period, a big reason for that was secondary schools. They were, they were secondary school students were a big part of that, that spread because they would go in secondary school and then go home with their family. Like COVID isn't something that you give to someone because you don't like them. It's something that you give to someone because, you know, you're not following precautions like wearing a mask. And I also, to finish this off, and this is something that I don't think we're picking up on enough. The fact that one of the plan B strategies, which, you know, is going to kick in if, you know, the NHS is on the brink of collapse. And, you know, however many deaths per day is to use caution. I mean, this government has not learned a single thing. What, what does that mean? Throw that in the bin. I'm fed up of it. Like that's just, what does it mean to exercise caution when you haven't given people concrete steps on how to be cautious? It's just absolutely absurd. And it just shows to me again. And this is where I think a bit more of the blame should go on to that front, the front bench and the decision makers is because I think it's not, it's rooted partly in political expediency, but I think it's rooted more in actually being quite ideologically consistent with the idea that, you know, mandating people to wear a mask is like some kind of violation of individual libertarianism, which is of course absurd. I think that's such a good point. I hadn't picked up on that actually, that plan B, if the hospitals are about to collapse, will urge the public to use caution. Like, why don't you urge us to use caution now? You know, that doesn't, that seems like that should, that shouldn't even be plan A, that should just be like a, a given. Just a plan. Until the pandemic is over, like the starting point should probably be like, use some caution. You know, very absurd. It's absurd. And it is, it's deeply ideological. And it has cost tens of thousands of lives. Right. We would have had a much, much lower death toll if instead of following his back benches and following his own, I don't know, was like right-wing libertarian instincts, I suppose. Boris Johnson had just literally followed science, right? We wouldn't have been, what the Julie Hartley Brewers of the world will say, if we follow the science, it would have been endless lockdowns. Not at all. That's not really what the scientists were ever suggesting, what they were mainly suggesting, because they do actually seem to care about freedoms, despite this whole like, oh, they're merchants of doom who just want to increase their control. That's the Dan Woodton line on GB news. They, they do actually tend to seem quite interested in, in balancing freedoms with safety, which means that they are highlighting things such as mass, such as certification, these things which won't significantly impact our lives, but which will keep the virus under control and ultimately avoid lockdowns. That's what Patrick balance kept saying. If we use these simple options now, then we won't have lockdowns in future. So it's not Boris Johnson on the side of freedom versus the scientists on the side of totalitarianism. It's Boris Johnson on the side of, I suppose, this sort of anti science irrationalism, which over and over again puts off the inevitable as a tool of party management. So he's like, oh, they won't be able to oppose mass mandates if the hospitals are about to collapse. So I'll wait until the hospitals are collapsing. It's the worst way to do public health imaginable.