Nancy Pelosi has made public a letter she’s sent to her Congress colleagues in which she charged Trump with missteps in handling the coronavirus pandemic that “caused unnecessary death and economic disaster” in the US. That’s a big accusation given how close we are to WH2020.

In detail the Pelosi letter said:

• The truth is that in January Donald Trump was warned about this pandemic, ignored those warnings, took insufficient action and caused unnecessary death and economic disaster.
• The truth is that Donald Trump told his most loyal followers that the pandemic was a hoax and that it would magically disappear, thus endangering lives and paving the way for economic disaster.
• The truth is that we did not have proper testing available in March despite Trump repeatedly claiming that we did; and even now, we do not have adequate tests, masks, PPE, and necessary equipment, which creates unnecessary death and suffering.
• The truth is because of an incompetent reaction to this health crisis, the strong economy handed to Donald Trump is now a disaster, causing the suffering of countless Americans and endangering lives.

That’s pretty powerful stuff and no doubt we will hear it repeated many times in the run-up to the November election.

I just wonder whether in the UK the Johnson government is open to similar charges in that it in can be argued that its early handling has excerbated the crisis and contributed to the UK having the second highest number of deaths in the world.

How can it be on this side of the pond that near neighbours Germany and Denmark so far have got through there coronavirus crisis with far fewer people dying than the UK? This is something that will increasingly be asked as things start to recover.

A lot of this goes back to the UK government’s response to the early stages of the pandemic when quite deliberately there was no early shut down and events like the Cheltenham Festival were allowed to take place.

Boris is forunate that he has ample majority and won’t have to call an election until 2024.