Like vast numbers of people I read the Sunday Times article on the government's failure to address Covid 19 on a timely basis yesterday. I did not bother with every detail. I know full well such things could be disputed, as the government has now done. What mattered were the soft issues. And the facts. But first, the soft issues.
First there was the Prime Ministers astonishing, and recklessly dismissive reference to Covid 19 in his speech on 3 February, to which I have referred before.
And the inevitable feeling that Brexit dominated everything in January.
Whilst the feeling that February was lost to Johnson's divorce, other family affairs and a second holiday within a few weeks, is based on evidence: he did simply disappear.
And then there was the herd immunity policy, which will be denied forever but not only clearly happened but is by default still happening.
Add those together and an overwhelming impression of indifference was created. This was backed by a complacent belief that it was not for the UK government to intervene in such issues, whatever other governments might do, because we had both British exceptionalism (which means we supposedly never suffer these things the way others do) and the power of free trade on our side.
The government has tried to rebut the detailed claims in the article. I suspect they protest too much and harm their cause by doing so.
It does not matter whether the PM attends Cobra as a matter of routine or not. His judgement on this issue was so wrong he did miss five. And that error of judgement is his crime.
It;s not just the journalists who have lost faith in him though.
I suspect the public has over PPE.
And they will support the doctors who might refuse to work without protection on this issue.
Whilst I note that the Scottish government is now rapidly distancing itself from Westminster.
Has he been found guilty as yet? Not quite. But the charge is now well and truly laid. And I think the public jury will definitely be out soon.
When it is the evidence of failure will be overwhelming.
By tomorrow we may well have 30,000 Covid deaths when the data from the ONS is taken into account and reasonably extrapolated.
And I believe the UK death toll from Covid 19 may well increase for a long time to come as yet. If that is disproportionate to other countries, and so far it is because, for example, the decision has been taken to keep borders completely open, then Johnson will feel the heat.
I think the Sunday Times knew that. They sensed Johnson will go the way of Chamberlain and others who are overwhelmed by events during the crises whose early events they oversee. To put it another way, they do not think Johnson is a Churchill. They think he's an Asquith. And so his days are decidedly numbered and they got their attack in early.
I strongly suspect that they were right to do so.
The question is then, who, when and what next?
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It is not what is true that determines people’s judgement of leaders, but what they think is true. The truth is that the present government is floundering, incompetent, leading the country – or more accurately, letting it drift – into disaster. But that is not how the mass of the people see things. Polls show massive support for the government, and for Mr Johnson’s leadership. A friend rang me a couple of days ago – he is young, idealistic, generous and concerned for the wellbeing of oldies like myself in lockdown – and he assured me brightly, brimming with optimism, and utterly without guile, that the government is doing wonders and things are going fine and how lucky it is that we have sttrong informed leadership from the top. A lady in our village a while back posted on facebook a call to everyone to come to their front doors and join the join in the “Clap for Boris” celebration: “He’s worked his socks off, not sparing himself , urging on his ministers to work through the night, he gave us the Brexit victory and now he’s saving us …..etc etc”. She’s not an evil woman, not a stupid woman, but her judgements are clearly moulded by what she sees in the press and on TV, and as far as she is concerned, doubters like myself are simply moaning minnies with no loyalty to Britain etc etc. No, it is not what is true that matters, but what people think is true. And for this reason, I cannot agree that Mr Johnson’s days are numbered.
PPE shortages will do for him
That and excess deaths
People can change their minds
Mind you, they will want a Tory replacement
Further to what I said above: I agree that the ppe situation is a threat. But he is like Ronnie Reagan – the teflon president. Nothing sticks. What is a threat to his position is perhaps himself. He has been badly affected by his illness. Perhaps his confidence is shaken. And while he is swanning around the grounds of Chequers, relaxed, away from the hurly burly, he knows that eventually he has to go back to the cauldron and make difficult decisions. He must know that Priti’s immigration policies are not only unjust, but a threat to staffing the NHS that just saved his life. He must know that the UK will be facing more weeks of lockdown while the continental Europeans start to relax and move slowly back to greater freedom. He must know that he is leading a country with a ruined economy. He must know that his incompetent second rate Cabinet is fractious, demanding a swing back to libertarian antistatist policies,. Her must know that he is going to ask for an extension to the Brexit transition. He is not one to make difficult and contraversial decisions, but he is motivated always by a desire to be popular. Whatever decisions he has to make will be unpopular with an awful lot of his followers. How nice it would be to stay in Chequers away from the calamities ahead! How tempting it may be to follow Anthony Eden. Perhaps he will be like Anthony Eden after Suez: forced to resign after the disaster, not because of his calamitous policies, but because of ill health. Mr Johnson could use his post coronavirus frailty and fatigue as an excuse to retire, lauded a heroic martyr who has sacrificed his own wellbeing for the benefit of Britain by a grateful and sympathetic nation.
I hope you have more insight into this than everybody else as you sound very confident..i personally think there is no chance Johnson will be forced out of office, indeed a cursory look on odds checker (an amalgam of all political bookmakers) and there is no betting on this..highly unusual.if there was even an outside chance a price would be made. Like it or not Johnson has charisma and is inherently popular. I only wish the Labour Party could through up someone with similar appeal ..
I think it likely…..
I could be wrong
They will.
The most recent polls by YouGov (I know…but still) show a sizable majority still support the Tories, and even approve of the Government’s handling of the crisis. There is no end to this brainwashed gullibility.
They are still not reporting Covid related deaths in Care Homes & in the community in England & NI, so their figures compare less unfavourably with their neighbouring countries.
So much spin, so many lies, can go a long way to feed this exceptionalism and keep them in power.
As for Johnson himself, still in recovery for some time I suspect, he might be in trouble indeed if Murdoch decides to back another horse to protect his interests, which seems to be the case.
Who was it said “Today the crowd cheers me. Tomorrow they will shout for my execution”?
Beware the fickleness of the mob…
The Sunday Times article “38 Days when Britain sleep walked into disaster” was excellent and confirmed all your comments about this disaster over the last 3 months. However instead of being the leading well headlined report on their front page it was pushed back to page 7. True it was alluded to on the front page in a short and non-headlined piece whereas the “main” story was a discussion about reopening schools which was really rather a diversion drawing readers away from the critical facts of this crisis.
You discuss whether Boris Johnson can survive as prime minister. From the facts now well in the public domain it would seem not. However much BJ huffs and puffs he has a tight trap to escape from, if and when he comes back from convalescence. The critical factor is whether with a majority of 80 the Tories can ditch him. 41 Tory MPs need to rebel or defect for this to happen. With the Tory tradition of loyalty and hero worship of the PM this will be difficult unless there is a major public uproar about this disaster. In Neville Chamberlains’s case, he did with his piece of paper signed by Hitler in Munich in 1938 delay war for a year. In any case the British armed forces were in no state to wage a major war then (not that I am an advocate for war) . If the situation wasn’t so frightening we live in interesting times!
“With the Tory tradition of loyalty and hero worship of the PM…”
The Tories have a long history of stabbing leaders in the back. They do it all the time as and when it suits them, especially when they see which way the wind is blowing on public opinion. There is no loyalty within the Tory party unless the going is deemed good in their terms. Crisis tends to bring out the worst in them. The only thing Johnson has going for him right now is that he survived his own battle against the virus and there is lots of publicity to be milked out of that I’m sure. There is probably a big enough sympathy vote for Boris right now. When I say big enough I do so in terms of what it takes to win an election in the UK’s Shamocracy, about a third of the total vote.
I read this morning that opinion polls suggest that around two thirds think the Brexit transtion period should be extended given the nature of the crisis that we face. Currently we have a Government that disagrees with this, putting ideology before practical common sense reality. Boris also still believes we should still leave by January next year, I can only think the virus attacked his buffoonery cells and made him worse then he normally is. However, about a third of the UK agree with him and his militant Tories, just enough to win an election thanks to FPTP.
Whether Boris survives or not I don’t know, but I hate to think who might follow him, it’s not a Priti picture in the Tory Party right now (keeping her head down and hands clean right now no doubt).
The crisis will come well before the Brexit deadline
Indeed, it will precipitate it
Only by changing leader can the Tories backtrack and stay in power
And that’s what they really want
So they will do it
Mr Hughes,
I keep reading remarks that confirm a continuing desire to rehabilitate the reputation of Chamberlain. I confess I respect the attempts of historians to write history in this era, because even finding the facts remain grimly elusive. Why do I say this? Until someone manages seriously to uncover in its sordid detail the work of Sir Joseph Ball (senior officer in MI5, first Director of Research of the Conservative Party), and Chamberlain’s “master of dirty tricks” (Graham Stewart, ‘Burying Caesar: Churchill, Chamberlain and the battle for the Tory Party’, 1999; p.353) we are, frankly paddling in the shallow end. Ball ran an operation independent of the Foreign Office for Chamberlain to negotiate with the Italians (p.268). He wire-tapped (hacked) Eden, Churchill and other opponents in the Party, for Chamberlain (p.368). He also ran a pro-German, anti-Semitic, right wing rag, risibly titled ‘Truth’ (p.368). JCC Davidson described Ball thus: He had “as much experience as anyone I know in the seamy side of life and the handling of crooks” (p.368). In spite of little jewels like these (typical of the enigmatic references by historians when he is mentioned by sources), I do not feel Stewart manages to find his way in any way near the heart of Ball, or the root of the matter. As far as I know there is no full study of the man, his life or his work …..
Mr Warren,
I am no fan of Chamberlain and do not doubt the historical criticisms of him. There is no doubt that many Tories were Nazi sympathisers in the 20s and 30s, also the monarchy had strong German connections and antecedents. The Nazi sympathisers pretended to put on a cloak of peace seekers, trying to divert attention from the genuine peace seekers of the Peace Pledge Union and the movement for a popular front against fascism.
Most people praised the Munich Agreement at the time. No one wanted another European war.
It was the Norway Debate in May 1940 that really did for Chamberlain (he won the vote, but dozens of his party voted against or abstained) and more particularly that Labour refused to serve in a wartime national government under his leadership. And then, after he resigned, the book “Guilty Men” stuck the knife in (rather unfairly because he had bought the time for Britain to accelerate its preparations for war, and you can play “what if” counterfactuals about the causes of the Second World War as much as you like: what if France had opposed the German armed forces reentering the Rhineland in 1936?).
And then Chamberlain died of bowel cancer 6 months later, and so could conveniently take any blame.
Churchill was wise enough to recognise some of his own limitations: at his best, he was charismatic and energetic, constantly fizzing with ideas, good and bad, and he needed strong people around him to prevent him bulldozing the bad ideas ahead. (He hated it, but in reflective moments he recognised it was essential: Gallipoli showed what could happen if he was given his head.)
Murdoch wants Bohnson gone and his little puppet Gove installed.
I suspect Bohnson may throw Cummings, Hancock and some scientific advisors under the bus to try and save himself, but it will be too little too late.
Tory party will then switch and try to distance itself from Johnson like he did to May
‘Are Johnson’s days numbered?’
We hope so!
Why, because he is generally well liked and has a character that people forgive. If he goes, he will be replaced by someone much less loved and we can get back to much sharper cutting argument in the public domain.
I commented some time ago, something along the lines of the body count will determine the future of the Govt. Your reply was that it was coming soon – and it has come, in spades.
I still think that the media turning on the govt. is helped by the fact that the threat of Corbyn has gone. Starmer is much more amenable to the establishment, so they no longer have to worry about actually who is in charge, anymore.
I suspect that they see it more important to distance themselves from the regime they championed last year. Perhaps Rishi Sunak is their man now!
I hope not….a 12 year old in charge?
I hate to say it, but I still think it’s Hunt
I cannot see how Hunt would win the support of Tory mp’s and the party in general. Since he lost to Boris the election gave the Tories a big majority. I assume that given the cull of moderates and traditional one nation Tories that went on in the Tory Party prior to the last election, the new MP’s returned are probably a lot further to the right than before? Certainly there is probably a greater desire for hard Brexit now than before. Against this backdrop someone like Hunt who might be in favour of extension and/or a softer deal Brexit has probably got no chance.
Without knowing the political leanings of current Tory MP’s it is difficult to know who would be up next. Given the make up of the cabinet, I can imagine a leadership run off between psycho Raab and not so Pritti Patel. Maybe even Rees-Mogg. I will be astonished if a moderate (in Tory terms) won in the current climate.
It will all be down to events ….
And I cannot see the country tolerating an election for the next PM from the Tories
I was thinking Johnson is basically “Just William” 😀
Other than those at the heart of power, who knows what the so-called ‘Tory Grandees’ have in mind? Whatever it takes to win the next election and retain power are the only 2 criteria they will use to decide. And how influential is Cummings? One can only surmise. Your point about the Murdoch Press getting its attack in early possibly has some validity. My gut feel has always been that Johnson is the ‘useful fool’ and he will be kept in place so long as the polls indicate majority support over an extended period; i.e. they will ride out any temporary blip that might be triggered by the PPE issue. In any case, who would replace him? Rishi Sunak is surely too young. All the others would be even more toxic than Johnson. So, given the reach and efficacity of the Tory PR machine, I’d say he’s pretty safe right now. In any event – as you state – the country’s stuck with Tories for a while yet.
If only we had someone with the moral values and management skills of Jacinda Ardern : ‘New Zealand’s Prime Minister May Be the Most Effective Leader on the Planet’ – https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-leadership-coronavirus/610237.
Ardern proves the left can create leaders
We have such a person of course
But Caroline Lucas is all on her own
Yes, totally agree. Caroline Lucas is one small light in an otherwise gloomy political world. I recently renewed my GP membership, but I have no illusions. England is currently one of the most regressive democracies on the planet. Yet … hope springs eternal.
The fight against Covid-19 hasn’t just been lost by inaction in 2020. The real damage was done in the ten years of Tory/Libdem years of austerity. The treating of all our essential workers like shit. The chronic under funding of the NHS, Social Service, local authorities and other ancillary services. Planning and spending vast sum to counter security threats from Russia and China. Security threats which don’t exist and a complete failure to plan for a respiratory pandemic which all the medical advice said did exist.
Way before the Brexit referendum I made a charge (on this blog and elsewhere) about Cameron, Dave doesn’t do detail I moaned. Detail is the defence against unintended consequence. Detail is where the ‘what if’ questions are asked. Well, we got the most simplistic question to the most complex question in 50 years of politics. Europe, in or out? This was accompanied by equally infantile and fabricated ‘evidence’ supporting the binary positions. Why? because politicians live in a parallel universe and hold disdain for us plebeians.
Johnson and his teflon cronies continue with the tried and tested strategy of adopting a position of greatest political comfort. Detail is devolved to hacks like Mr Cummings. They produce policy on the basis of first protecting themselves against criticism. Note Priti Patel’s non-apology apology or Bojo’s “Ive been saying for weeks and weeks that social distancing is the answer.
Years ago when I was starting a graphic design course the first lesson was Form or Function and the designers role. The function was communication and form had to aid and enhance it. The same is true of Government statements. Analysis of their statements and comparison with events in the real world show the function of statements has been control not communication.
Bojo and his college of clowns approached the appearance of Covid with a mindset bolstered by their extensive planning. This allowed Matt Hancock to say the chances of the UK facing a pandemic were low. In other statements we were told that the NHS was well prepared, well protected. Slick PR, designed to give wriggle room when everything went Pete Tong.
I can find over 2 dozen serious, well researched, highly evidenced accounts that all state the same things. The pandemic is coming, it is a respiratory disease, it will originate in animals, it will probably first appear in the orient. They added we are not prepared. I’m happy to post links if asked. What I will put up are quotes from the UK planning for a pandemic. The plan was first issued in 2011 presumably in response to Dame Deidre Hine’s 2010 report on management of the H1N1 virus.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61252/the2009influenzapandemic-review.pdf
This was replaced by another in 2013 revised in 2017 but that still makes references to the 2011 statement.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf
First this:
“…local planners have been set the target of preparing to extend capacity on a precautionary but reasonably practicable basis, and aim to cope with a population mortality rate of up to 210,000 to 315,000 additional deaths, possibly over as little as a 15 week period and perhaps half of these over 3 weeks at the height of the outbreak.”
Second this:
“There is very limited evidence that restrictions on mass gatherings will have any significant effect on influenza virus transmission. Large public gatherings or crowded events where people may be in close proximity are an important indicator of ‘normality’ and may help maintain public morale during a pandemic.”
If Matt Hancock was being honest and he felt describing the risk as low was legitimate it raises questions about whether he had ever read the Government’s own strategy/ies. Why was it being left to local authorities to plan for dealing with a national epidemic? The first quote raises the issue that if 210 – 315,000 deaths represents the Government’s assessment of risk why did Bojo feel that it was an appropriate time to take a holiday? Surely monitoring the growth of the outbreak (testing) and modifying the strategy rapidly to match were essential. Instead of confining themselves to the one way street of ‘we haven’t got anything wrong’ why not show that the Government is tackling the reality rather than risk damaging public confidence by it’s lamentable performance?
My opinion, and it is only that, is that our Government lives in Cloud Cuckoo Land SW1 and the fairies at the bottom of No.10’s garden are hard at work creating PPE from fairy dust.
With apologies I’m a bit grumpy having lost a friend in the last week.
I posted a response from a tweet yesterday addressing the ST’s and the whole msm coordination to deflect from the excess death numbers from the ONS tomorrow.
‘they had ample opportunities to back a pro-NHS, pro-evidence, pro-properly-funded-public-services Labour leader but they chose to smear Corbyn in favour of Boris “take it on the chin” Johnson ‘
The pathetic attempts at jumping horses midstream/hedging /shutting the barn door/ hanging an albatross around some minister …to take one for the team! To save their main project – BREXIT.
——————
The Cabinet would have already got these numbers before the weekend – hence THEY are in a major spin mode and maybe even preparing a scapegoat minister if needed.
‘Brexit at all cost’.
Department of Health and Social Care Media Centre have hit back with a response to the Sunday Times Article. Some suspect it was written by Dominic Cummings.
https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/04/19/response-to-sunday-times-insight-article/
It was an exercise in missing the point
I have read it
Do they really want to play point and counterpoint on claims that their preparation and response to the developing crisis were inadequate? It really is tone deaf.
For example: “The last rehearsal for a pandemic was a 2016 exercise codenamed Cygnus, which … highlighted a long list of shortcomings – including, presciently, a lack of PPE and intensive care ventilators” – ah, but we had “legislative proposals” ready to roll (always good to have an enabling act drafted, just in case, because the first thing a politician needs to do in a health emergency is change the law), and “strengthened excess death planning” (i.e. worked out what to do with the bodies), and “planning for recruitment and deployment of retired staff and volunteers” (so we could put those most at risk in harm’s way without adequate protection as quickly as possible). Great. What about the PPE and the ventilators?
Quite….
Wee Ginger Dug also does a hatchet job on UKGov’s response:
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2020/04/20/the-empire-strikes-back/
Always good…
Agree with this, and take a similar approach, viz “I did not bother with every detail. I know full well such things could be disputed, as the government has now done. What mattered were the soft issues. And the facts.”
I was reading it on a phone, but I would have to say I found the ST piece a bit of a muddle really. The Rupert Read piece you highlighted on Byline Times was rather clearer, I thought. In a way the muddle would not be unhelpful to BJ.
What is astonishing is how little and how muted Starmer’s comments have been. Main message seems to be about wanting to support the government. Hints at a few criticisms, but sense of praising with faint damns. Which doesn’t really meet the situation.
My sense is that he has completely misjudged things and made a very poor start.
This guy has called it as it is, and was right to say so from the very beginning – view the clip of discussion on Sky Sports News channel
Gary Neville
@GNev2
·
19 Apr
Boris outed . The handling of the crisis in the early days has been dismantled in the Sunday Times. Still recovering from CV , his own cabinet have turned on him. It was always coming but now we have a toxic mess that will distract them even more from the CV planning required.
https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1251686463575654403
Well done Gary you’ve called out his incompetence(at best)/ideological depravity(at worst) well ahead of the political/media commentariat
https://twitter.com/TheBirmingham6/status/1251745188025978881
My view is that a lot of the electorate don’t really care about policies – they think in terms of personalities.
The Tories have been using a lot fascist techniques to manage the population since 2010 and it has been important for them to choose people who ‘look’ decent and reasonable (like Cameron for example).
Part of the fascist populist technique is tapping into people’s libidinal feelings for and making ‘the leader’ the focus of ‘love’. The other side of the coin is also providing the people with someone to hate (immigrants, Europe. Corbyn etc.,).
It strikes me that people actually like Boris – he conforms to a lot of people’s idea as to what an easy going English toff/member of the establishment who is in charge looks like – he has a modern ‘common touch’ that they like (even though there are those of us who know that this is a put on).
It is going to be really interesting seeing how this love/like for Boris weathers the realities of his government’s failures regarding Covid-19. The fact that he has had it himself may earn him more sympathy than we anticipate.
And let us not forget that after 10 years of uncaring Tory rule, people’s expectations are very low, so don’t be surprised to hear people say ‘Oh, they did their best’ or ‘It was China wot done it’ (I’ve heard this already from people whose pride in their country is so important to the point where they cannot accept that their country has been so dilatory in dealing with the crisis that it must be someone else’s fault).
Other than that, I agree with Richard – the next ruler will be a Tory and I too was thinking exactly of Jeremy Hunt too – the smooth talking little bastard that he is.
Available statistical data indicates the average length of stay in hospital from this SARS family virus is eleven days.
The comparable figure for ordinary flu is an average of four to five days in hospital.
The Prime Minister was discharged after only five days.
Which raises a number of valid questions.
How many males (who are a higher risk from this virus) of the Prime Minister’s age, weight, and condition have achieved the same or similar below average stay in hospital from this virus either in the UK or anywhere?
There are obvious supplementary questions arising from that observation which do not need further elaboration.
On which subject why is no one asking any questions as to the number of people who have recovered in the UK compared to the number deaths and compare that to other affected nation states? (Hint: that figure has not been supplied by the UK Government for over a week and the last time it was the number was 334, giving a survival rate of around 3%).
Incompetence, hubris and austerity – a deadly combination.
A political party ideologically averse to the implimentation of the measures necessary to combat the virus.
A PM mired in controversy over Russian involvement in his party’s politics, his relationship with a pole dancer, going through stressful divorce procedures, answering police enquiries about rows with his girlfriend, then announcing his engagement to said girlfriend and struggling to finish a book. His mind, to say the least, was preoccupied.
Risk registers – those of the governement, the foundation trusts, the care sector profit making bodies and local government – all ignored.
The 2016 Cygnus exercise buried.
COBRA meetings taking place without any reference to updated and coordinated risk registers.
It would seem that none of this matters to a great many English people.
KeithP raises an interesting point: Risk Registers. Do any exist for the Covid19 Containment Programme? Likewise do they exist at all for the still-to-be-completed Brexit Project? Does the UK Gov have so little knowledge of how the real world manages complex projects that it doesn’t prepare Risk Registers? They may not be the most consulted documents in normal project management, but they have to be kept and updated as circumstances change in order to avoid unwise risk-taking.
Given that they’ve never cited or produced any leads me to think they don’t exist.
Apparently a pandemic was number 1 in the risk register
They just did not act on it…
Risk register 2015
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/419549/20150331_2015-NRR-WA_Final.pdf
Chances of occurring in next 5 year
Flu pandemic between 1 in 2 and 1 in 20 with very high impact if it did
Other infectious diseases between 1 in 20 and 1 in 200 with medium impact if it did
Just a general, concluding (for me) comment. I believe we’ll have a one-party democracy for the foreseeable future. Starmer might just be able to persuade the minority progressives to coalesce around his reconstructed LP, in which case there is some hope for a change in 2029. However, I’m guessing there may be some irresolvable issues on the macro-economy. But making any predictions in the current climate of such uncertainty is almost meaningless. Not since the 1930s have there been so many different externalities at play, both domestically and globally. All one can do is maintain – as thankfully you do – the impetus of intelligent critical analysis with resultant logical proposals necessary to achieve proposed objectives. Constant dripping …..
In the end it’s a complex process demanding enlightened, experienced management to transform a vision into reality. And that’s currently not evident with Labour. While trying to make sense of prevailing Tory policy is a waste of time & energy, I don’t think – however tempting & entertaining – emotional abuse is helpful – to which I plead guilty. Probably best left to the likes of John Crace.
So, over and out. Under normal circumstances it would be a much needed visit to my local café; regrettably not a therapeutic option for a while yet 🙁
Where have all the baristas gone?
Cue for a song? Seriously, though, the UK hospitality industry, which is worth about £100bn p.a. & provides some 330,000+ working opportunities, is in for a particularly rough ride, isn’t it? Many insolvencies and loss of jobs I fear, especially in the independent sector. It may come as a surprise to many but it can take up to 6 months to train a good barista – and a year for advanced proficiency (https://perfectdailygrind.com/2019/08/how-long-should-it-take-you-to-train-your-baristas). As you have previously mentioned, the loss of skills across the board will jeopardise the speed of future recovery.
Precisely right
I do admire good baristas – and say so
I don’t see any prospect of any change from a Tory government at all – as in ever. We are no longer a democracy. The opposition have more chance of finding Elvis living with the Loch Ness Monster in a UFO than they have of every winning a GE, even if, by some happy advent of fairy dust they all joined together to form a cohesive whole. It isn’t a one party democracy – because that isn’t a democracy at all. We have to suck it up that the 1/3 of the population who voted Tory will continue to vote Tory and hence our unending living hell will continue without respite. There is no way out. None whatsoever. We can opine about what the population will or wont put up with, but whether they march on Downing Street, or just keep their sniping to Facebook and Twitter, this government WILL NOT GO. Nope, not a chance. We’re stuck with them. Forever. Orwell was bang on – the future truly is a boot stamping on humanity’s face over and over and over again.
We might wish for revolution, or even a modest uprising in popular concern that could lead to a civilised ousting of our wholly deficient government, but we might as well wish for pink unicorns, or finding Elvis with ET and Nessie. It ain’t gonna happen.
I’m not giving up on humanity. We’ll continue to see extraordinary acts of compassion and courage and we’ll continue to be humbled by the sacrifices that people are prepared to make for the greater good. It’s politics that has me beat.
We are stuck, up to our knees in a midden, impossible to get out. We, the citizenry, have no power, no way of bringing them properly to account for their crimes. It’ll be another 5 years (probably) before we can not vote for the Tories, or abstain, and still get them thanks to the corrupt FPTP. Or get a neo-Tory party.
At the end of WW2 the Allies and Germany decided on a PR voting system post Nazi, not the best one, but a darn sight better than what we have.. Although it was good enough for a destroyed Germany, it would never work here.
A PR system here could bring about the start of a political revolution, but it would need a revolution to bring about PR, and under the present lockdown we can sharpen the pitchforks as part of our daily exercise, but no marching on Westminster until this is over. And even then I doubt if the British have the bottle.
I have called this government Criminally Negligent. I am pleased to see Philip Pullman agrees and goes further: https://www.thenational.scot/news/18392669.philip-pullman-uk-govt-should-charged-conspiracy-murder/
(Anthony Barnett on Labour and PR: https://www.compassonline.org.uk/labour-and-proportional-representation/)
Thanks
The UK response has been appalling. For example compare to another country with similar political system and similar high quality health care. Uk has about 2 and half times the population of Australia. Lets be generous and say double. UK deaths around 16000. Australia deaths less than 100. So roughly 160 times as many deaths in UK. Australia has its problems also, but the UK response was blinkered, too late and badly focused. Boris as leader must take the majority of the blame.
The figures here say it all https://worldcoronavirus.org/