By Tony O’ Riley-
British prime minister, Boris Johnson, told a private meeting of Tory MPs that the success of the UK’s Covid-19 vaccine programme was because of “capitalism” and “greed”.
Shortly after his comments, the prime minister told those present to erase his shocking comments from their collective memory, according to sources present.
Sources said the prime minister had “very insistently” withdrawn his comments straight after making them during a Zoom call with backbenchers.
A government source said the PM was referring to the profit motive driving companies to develop new products, but the comments could open up a whole can of worms in terms of speculation as to how far the capitalism and greed he spoke about goes.
Strong words like those uttered by the prime minister, are not easily erased of the memory, and do not disappear from the memory of the media so easily. Capitalism and greed are not light words when associated with anything, let alone the vaccine.
The prime minister’s full remarks, first appeared in the Sun newspaper, were reported to be: “The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed, my friends.”
Nearly 30m million people in the UK , have had at least a first dose of either the Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines.
But the latest figures show jabs being administered across the EU at less than a third of the rate achieved so far in the UK.
Over the last few days, Mr Johnson has been speaking to European leaders in an effort to dissuade them from imposing an export ban on Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine exports to the UK when they meet on Thursday.
Government sources insist Mr Johnson was not intending to be critical of the pharmaceutical companies in any way, but the notion of greed and capitalism associated with the vaccine is not necessarily confined to such companies, but any and everyone who stands to gain phenomenally from the vaccine roll out.
Withdrawal
One MP present said: Mr Johnson “realised he had messed up as soon as he had said it, and didn’t mean it”, the MP added.
The prime minister’s withdrawal of the statement satisfies an understanding that his comments were not intentional or was regrettable, but was a potentially costly mistake, because of the various ways it could be interpreted.