KEIR STARMER’S main line of attack against Boris Johnson on Covid-19 has been “get a grip of the crisis.” But Johnson hasn’t pursued his disastrous, privatised approach to Covid-19 because a better one slipped through his fingers.

Johnson isn’t throwing money at Serco and Mitie and Randox because he couldn’t “get a grip” on the cash. It isn’t a mistake — it’s what the Tory government wants to do.

Johnson made this very clear in his main speech at the Tories “virtual” conference in October.

Johnson argued that the Covid-19 crisis is like a war. But he is clearly haunted by the worry that WW2 was followed by a reforming Labour government.

Johnson said: “In the depths of the second world war, in 1942 when just about everything had gone wrong, the government sketched out a vision of the post-war New Jerusalem that they wanted to build. And that is what we are doing now — in the teeth of this pandemic.”

But Johnson is inverting the “Beveridge report” of WW2. He wants to use the crisis to reduce, not increase the role of the state. He says the way to build a New Jerusalem will be to “reform our system of government, to renew our infrastructure; to spread opportunity more widely and fairly and to create the conditions for a dynamic recovery that is led not by the state but by free enterprise.”

It’s a New Jerusalem built by Serco.

Johnson accepts the need for huge spending through Covid-19, but resists expanding the state: even though local and national public-sector solutions would be better at controlling the virus. Johnson said that the government had been forced to “an expansion of the role of the state” which is “against our instincts” — and wants to reverse it.

That’s why, wherever he can, he has spent Covid-19 money on private contractors — even though they have been wasteful and ineffective. Johnson doesn’t want the Covid-19 crisis to lead to a permanent increase in the health service, or better local government, or better welfare payments.

But he is happy to use the cash to boost private-sector contractors — the Serco/G4S/Mitie/Randox/Edenred/Clipper/Compass/Sitel approach to Covid-19. It might not work that well, but does ensure the crisis expands the private sector .

Johnson said that out of the crisis “we must build back better by becoming more competitive, both in tax and regulation.” He wants the crisis to end with less tax for the rich and less regulation for the corporations.