Zoom the MP

Kevin Hollinrake MP met with 80 or so of his constituents last week from the comfort of his home, via Zoom, in an open constituency meeting that anyone could attend. There were no “cats” or upside-down faces and no technology short-comings. The topic of the evening was the pandemic.

Kevin opened by speaking of the 119,000 deaths from Covid-19 and the extreme loss of liberties that have caused such hardship to people and businesses. Setting what would become the tenor of the meeting he admitted “There is no doubt we made mistakes”, but he pointed to similar struggles in other countries and to the great successes, including the roll-out of the vaccination programme and the wonderful work of health and care workers during the last 12 months.

On the impact of the repeated lockdowns on schools and children Kevin said: “We took our foot off the gas, we should have been ahead of the game in preparing for a second lockdown in terms of technology and made sure they were available for all children. It’s one of the areas where we could have done better….