Nick Timothy on economics and coronavirus – Theresa May never stood a chance
Theresa May’s former staffer Nick Timothy is writing about the coronavirus and China. He served as Joint Downing Street Chief of Staff, alongside Fiona Hill, to Prime Minister May, until they made a hash of the 2017 general election and he resigned. Remember the Windrush scandal, the hostile environment and how the Tories spaffed a parliamentary majority up the wall leading to stasis in the chamber, Jeremy Corbyn stinking the place up for a further three years and Nigel Farage getting a drive-time LBC radio show? Well, Timothy CBE has followed all that by scoring jobs as a Daily Telegraph columnist (how’s that going?), a member of the organising committee of the 2022 Commonwealth Games (look out for the new discipline of running through fields of wheat) and telling readers on Unherd that it’s time for a “reckoning” with China. It has “abused the openness of other economies to undercut rival businesses and blackmail governments”.
Since when is undercutting rivals bad for capitalism? If we can get the same goods for less, we get to be richer. Nick, mate…? The Tory then says how we can untangle ourselves from China, specifically over the coronavirus:
The coronavirus crisis is showing us not only that over-dependence on countries like China is dangerous, but that we need to keep certain industrial capabilities closer to home. British researchers are playing their part in the global effort to find a coronavirus vaccine, for example, but Britain has precious little capacity to manufacture vaccines at scale.
If and when a vaccine is discovered, experts have warned that we will need to wait in the queue to get it. Similarly, one of the reasons Germany is so far ahead of Britain in its testing strategy is, ministers explain, that the Germans have Roche, one of the world’s biggest diagnostic companies. Britain’s smaller diagnostics firms are dependent on Germany and the United States for their supplies.
Roche? The world’s number 1 in biotech based in… Switzerland. Germany does not have Roche, Nick. Switzerland does.
Posted: 14th, April 2020 | In: News, Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
