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Moya Lothian-McLean
Apr 03, 2020
If there’s one thing that could make the coronavirus pandemic more unbearable, it’s an unexpected overlap with Brexit.
Just when we thought we’d escaped three years of soundbites and ridiculous funding promises, they’re back.
During Matt Hancock’s briefing yesterday (following his swift recovery from Covid-19), he said a line that sounded very familiar to many.
When being quizzed on the lack of coronavirus tests, after repeated promises to scale up daily amount of people receiving them, he began outlining the current situation.
Hancock promised “100,000 tests a day” (at the moment, the UK is struggling to clear 10,000). And he also discussed the infamous 3.5 million order of “antibody” tests, which are supposed to show if people have previously had coronavirus.
They haven’t yet appeared, despite previous promises to roll them out.
Hancock says it’s because they need to check if they actually work first.
“If the large scale antibody tests that we’re working on… comes good, then of course that will be great news,” he told BBC’s Laura Kuensseberg.
But we will not be allowing one of those to proceed until we are confident that it is a good test.
Because no test is better than a bad test.
And it’s his final comment that caused people’s ears to prick up.
It echoes the infamous Brexit line used by everyone from Theresa May to Nigel Farage:
No deal is better than a bad deal.
Safe to say people weren’t that pleased to hear it crop up again.
Some felt “recycling” lines was a cop out.
A Labour MP even warned against re-using slogans, especially ones so loaded.
Others called it “plagiarism”.
But it’s not the first time the line has been used.
Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty uttered a variation of it during the briefing last week, saying “the one thing worse than no test, is a bad test”.
The coronavirus Writers Room is clearly in full swing.
Maybe less time spent on slogans, more time spent on making good on those test promises.