Of that unhealthy kiss

Monday 28th June, 2021

These are really bad times for health ministers across the globe. They receive more brickbats than bouquets. Some of them have even lost their jobs. New Zealand Health Minister David Clark had to resign, last year, having breached lockdown rules to take his family to the beach. Jordon’s Health Minister Nathir Obeidat had to step down owing to an oxygen shortage that killed six patients at a Covid-19 treatment centre, about three moons ago. In Brazil, three health ministers have so far lost their jobs for their country’s failure to contain the pandemic. Sri Lankan Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi got into hot water by ingesting a shaman’s herbal concoction touted as a cure for Covid-19, and dropping clay pots into rivers by way of a ritual to ward off coronavirus. She contracted Covid-19 and came back from death’s door. British Health Minister Matt Hancock, too, has had to resign. But he has stepped down not over his failure to fight the virus but over a kiss, which amounted to a breach of heath regulations. According to The Sun newspaper, he was caught on a security camera throwing caution to the wind and smooching with his mistress in his office in violation of Covid-19 protocol.

Across the pond, former US President Bill Clinton, who turned the Oval Office into a gymnasium of a different sort, but escaped even after committing perjury, must be guffawing, muttering to himself, “Poor Matt!” Ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has gone scot-free despite having caused tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians including half a million children to be killed in an illegal war, must also be feeling sorry for Matt, who has lost his job due to a kissing footage as it were.

Some of the Brits, scandalised by the kissing episode, pressed for Hancock’s resignation on the grounds that he had violated health regulations. Others were out for his scalp on moral grounds. They insist, according to media reports, that Hancock should have resigned or been sacked even if the smooch had not been in violation of the health regulations because his conduct was morally reprehensible; it is doubtful whether many of them have any moral right to condemn Hancock. In 2018, the wire services reported, quoting The Sun, the findings of an interesting study, which revealed that ninety percent of Brits surveyed had confessed to having had sex in their offices. Among the places where they got steamy were boardrooms, kitchens, stairs and even stationery cupboards! The Sun quoted a psychologist as having called the office a hotbed of hormones. A pollster who conducted the research told the media that a common theme was that people enjoyed the thrill of having sex while they were meant to be working. Is this why some people are having lockdown blues and averse to work from home; they must be missing office cupboards, etc. (Irate Sri Lankans who have to kick their heels at public institutions, where officials do everything except their work, may wonder whether the aforesaid British pollster’s observation applies to this country as well.)

It is often asked why the British politicians are not well-disposed towards their Sri Lankan counterparts. We think the Brits are jealous of the latter. Our guys seem to have all the luck; besides living in clover at the expense of the taxpaying public, they are free to do virtually anything; never do their concupiscence and sexual misconduct land them in trouble. A number of British MPs were named and shamed for making some questionable expenses claims, which were exposed in 2009. (Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin finds herself up the creek, having used public funds for her family’s breakfast at her official residence; she has pledged to pay back the money! Here, in this land like no other, not only politicians but also their families and cronies indulge in feasts for which taxpayers meekly pick up the tab.)

One may recall that a rotund Sri Lankan Health Minister once got caught in flagrante delicto, in his ministry office itself. His wife burst in on him and his female secretary. The minister had not only egg but also a slipper (belonging to his infuriated significant other) on his face. He did not lose his job, though. He is going great guns. Another randy minister did a Tarzan to avoid security cameras on an upper floor of a foreign hotel in a bid to get into an adjoining room, unnoticed, to spend the night there only to have a nasty fall from the balcony of his suite in the process. He was treated at the expense of the Sri Lankan taxpayers! He, too, is doing well in politics. One of the pre-election promises of the yahapalana government (2015-19) was to bring to justice a Pradeshiya Sabha head, who had allegedly raped hundreds of women and even celebrated those crimes, under the previous regime, but he joined the yahapalana camp and got away.

Hancock must be thinking that he became the Health Minister in the wrong country. Ordinary Sri Lankans, troubled by various deprivations, must be hoping for British citizenship, but the pleasure-seeking British politicians must be wishing they lived in this country.