WHERE’S the rage? Where’s the fury?

Two Tory-led Commons Select Committees have concluded that the pandemic was “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”.

Their joint report roundly accused the UK Government of a two-month delay in lockdown which caused 20,000 people to lose their lives. That delay wasn’t accidental but a deliberate policy, foisted upon devolved nations who had no means to argue, since they couldn’t finance their own earlier lockdowns.

According to Greg Clark MP – Tory Chair of the Science Committee, the UK Government was pursuing a policy of herd immunity – not so much a conscious strategy as the inevitable result of not having a vaccine, not believing people would abide by a lengthy lockdown and not having a viable test, trace and track system.

Ah well, that’s alright then.

What’s wrong with us? This isn’t bliddy alright.

READ MORE: SNP urge Tories to accelerate public inquiry into Covid pandemic

What about the myriad problems pinpointed by the Select Committees – the groupthink, the “British exceptionalism” that thwarted input from international experts and proper consideration of South Korea’s more effective response, the fatalism, the public bodies that couldn’t/wouldn’t share information, the lack of transparency, the squandered lead after developing one of the world’s first Covid tests, the pandemic planning too “narrowly and inflexibly based on a flu model” and the chronic hesitancy amongst Sage, Cobra and Public Health England scientists.

Does none of this matter? Why was no-one on TV/radio absolutely raging about this – on behalf of the folk lost needlessly to a horrible disease, their traumatised families and friends, the NHS, care and key workers forced to cope with higher infection rates because of delay and on behalf of us – the citizens stuck with an inept, evasive, lying government till the end of time – or the moment of Scottish independence.

Where is the rage?

It must be circulating amongst groups like the Covid 19 Bereaved Families. Their spokesperson Hannah Brady said it was “a slap in the face” to suggest that successful vaccines could offset the government’s epic failings. Surely, it’s a lot more than that. It’s a total abdication of the truth. Deplorable. Shameful. And dangerous, since it helps feed the false narrative that after a “wobbly” start the vaccine rollout put Britain back on track. Britain isn’t back on track to “beat” Covid, but 52nd on the Financial Times’ list of fully vaccinated countries – and continuing to fall down those rankings.

Despite being the country that made the first vaccines, despite the clinical trials conducted at warp speed and despite the luxury of having more than enough shots for every citizen – these scientific advantages are still being squandered by a government that praises science but then imposes such severe costs and restrictions on EU researchers that universities predict a total collapse in their research work.

Where’s the rage?

Strangely, where you’d least expect it – on Good Morning Britain.

The lamentable Richard Madeley told Cabinet Office fall-guy Steve Barclay: “We’ve been bombarded with messages, and the majority of people are surprisingly forgiving – they think it wasn’t so much malpractice but scientific ignorance – we didn’t know enough. Others are extremely angry… but on the whole you seem to be getting away with it…”

READ MORE: Kirsty Strickland: Tories are blaming ordinary folk for a crisis of their making

At which point Susanna Reid cut across her co-presenter and said tersely: “No, I take issue with that... there was a litany of mistakes, Steve Barclay and I’m afraid you haven’t got away with anything, as this report shows. Too many things were done too late.”

It was just one small moment of very professionally contained fury. But it made its mark on the viewing public.

Meanwhile Kay Burley on Sky News performed a valuable public service by asking the aforementioned Steve Barclay 15 times to apologise for the damning Covid report. He didn’t, suggesting he hadn’t even read it – unlikely since journalists had been sent advance copies which he must have received too.

But Burley pressed on. “Twenty thousand lives needlessly lost because you didn’t lock down a week earlier and you don’t want to apologise?”

Barclay’s answer – and this guy is a master of evasion – was to repeat the report’s finding that the Government didn’t expect the public to accept lockdown for long.

But let’s stop right there – why didn’t they expect compliance from the public? Because they wouldn’t comply? Because they think all of the public are like all of them – short-sighted, selfish and stubbornly unwilling to be restrained by rules that protect everyone? Why is no-one probing this non-answer?

Meanwhile George Freeman, the newly-appointed Science Minister suggested Britain had a greater death toll than any other European country because of our obesity problems.

Dr David Strain, of the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, says this claim is “simply not true”.

WATCH: Tory minister refuses to apologise to Covid victims ELEVEN times

“Saudi Arabia has much higher rates of obesity but had a co-ordinated central response [to Covid which] prevented anything like the death toll we have seen.”

Indeed, the UK is ranked 33rd in the world for obesity while Saudi Arabia is ranked 14th. Australia is also ranked higher than the UK but had far fewer deaths – most likely because they closed their borders quickly, while cavalier “Global Britain” kept the free-for-all going until it was far too late.

Dr Simon Clarke, Associate Professor in Cellular Microbiology at the University of Reading tweeted; “Case numbers: UK 8.2M (pop 68M), Germany 4.3M (pop 84M) – it’s because so many people were infected here that so many people died.” And he dismissed Freeman’s obesity claim as “slippery garbage”.

Of course, obesity has emerged as a strong risk factor for Covid-19.

But if it’s THE risk factor, why wasn’t that headlined last year? And how come pandemic-inducing levels of obesity (if they do exist) have nothing to do with government? Is the tendency to overeat just “in” British people, or the inevitable outcome of the unequal, fast-food, convenience-over-nutrition, stress-laden, go-faster society engineered by successive Tory governments? These attempts at deflection are utterly shameless – but seem to have worked.

The news agenda has moved on courtesy of Dominic Cummings’ claims that Boris planned to ditch the Northern Ireland protocol all along. So the freshly-printed Covid Report is fast becoming history – or a great new way for Unionists to attack the Scottish Parliament. Will MSPs give the Scottish Government’s Covid track record as thorough an examination as the MPs? I’m certain they will.

But meantime – where’s the rage about the Covid report on the British Government?

And on a related note – where’s the architect of that chronic failure – Boris Johnson?

Funny how he timed a holiday to avoid being around for the publication of this report, isn’t it?

But, it’s not funny. It’s appalling.

Boris Johnson is breathtakingly reckless, incompetent and corrupt – as his former fellow Conservative MP Rory Stewart put it, “the most accomplished liar in public life”.

But he’s still the most likely winner of the next General Election. This is the terrible truth Scotland’s Unionists must confront.

Their Prime Minister cannot apologise or own his most transparent and grievous mistakes. He will never “get away with it” in the eyes of most Scots.

So, what’s the solution? Must a nation simply contain its rage and keep bending the knee?