thank god i have left the uk

[angela53]

Hope you are having a fabulous time in the UK
So pleased to have left xx

[simon]

But you're location is London

[JGD]

Perhaps that is the point.

The dysfunctional Johnson, our putative UK PM, has isolated London to the extent that the populace of the rest of the UK, and I do NOT just mean Scotland, is in full realisation that he has purposefully cut-out the rest of the nation from his thinking and cannot see beyond his own front-door and his own self interests. Or the criminal largesse distributed to his cronies and chums

[stuart]

Frankly JGD Boris is the only PM we have and the Tory government is the only government that will govern us through the heat of this pandemic. Whatever you think of both it's in all our interests that they do as well as possible. Which means having to accept their obvious shortcomings albeit through gritted teeth.

As to accountability - this shouldn't be a political crisis - it's a public health crisis. It's surely noticeable to anyone who watches those press conferences is that it is the two professionals standing either side that deliver the the facts and have some understanding and actually answer the points raised instead of ignoring or batting them away. It's a shame the media insists putting up their political correspondents rather than their health and science people to hold all three better to account.

IMHO we all have to support the government in what it does right (even if it is too little too late) and back the professionals into getting the facts clear to them and to us when its wrong. The most important thing is trust. Right now all politicians with any sense of awareness know they don't have it and the PH people do. In a perfect world (or even in some other more successful countries) it is the PH and other professionals people running the show facilitated (and of course held to account) by the politicians. Any move in that direction must be good for us - and dare I say - the politicians when the reckoning comes to be paid.

Stuart

[JGD]

IMHO we all have to support the government in what it does right (even if it is too little too late) and back the professionals into getting the facts clear to them and to us when its wrong. The most important thing is trust.

Our views are not so different.

Trust however is earned.

Based on efficacy and performance.

Johnson and his crew have closed their thoughts to anyone they see as being outside their political sphere.

Johnson and Cummings expelled the seasoned heads from first their party and then government with a will driven by vindictiveness.

Johnson and Cummings were left with incompetents after the ejection of every experienced and knowledgeable political player who would have added balance to effective and timely decision making.

We are left with an absence of expertise and resource within Cabinet (note NOT HMG or our scientists).

This Cabinet ignores any advice that addresses national unity or the creation of any semblance of it. I offer in evidence, the approach of Nicola Sturgeon, who, whilst making some of the same errors, has carried her nation with her.

Just a few effective decision makers re-included would help with perhaps a soupcon of national unity even if government of National Unity is verboten.

It will provide significant improvement and take us a long way.

[stuart]

Unfortunately telling Boris and the world all that gets us nowhere. Well it makes things worse. Just checkout when Keir asks a clear considered and factual question. Usually it could be answered in a constructive, non-damaging way. Instead Boris sees it as an unjustified attack will lunge into cheap personal jibes and avoid answering altogether even upsetting people on his own side.

It just helping build that bunker mentality in Number Ten encouraging them to lash out and blaming others. We should just keep reminding Boris that he had almost everyone on his side back in March/April. No PM in living memory had such good approval ratings. Made all the more amazing so shortly after the country had been riven down the middle over Brexit. Easily lost and very hard to recover. But necessary if Boris wants half a legacy.

And us if we value ours and others lives. But how? There you have me.

Stuart

[JGD]

We should just keep reminding Boris that he had almost everyone on his side back in March/April. No PM in living memory had such good approval ratings. Made all the more amazing so shortly after the country had been riven down the middle over Brexit. Easily lost and very hard to recover. But necessary if Boris wants half a legacy.

And us if we value ours and others lives. But how? There you have me.

Again we are not so far apart.

But the skill set that enabled Johnson to secure such high approval ratings and win such a huge margin victory in the GE is spectacularly unsuited for a PM who must display real leadership in an crisis such as a pandemic of this magnitude and impact. The country voted for Johnson knowing what he was - and principally that was him being perceived as an unempathetic and pathological liar.

Any influence I have in adding to any bunker mentality that exists within No 10 is grossly over-inflated.

It is entirely internal - and self-generated.

Johnson and Cummings drove off the remnants of any balance the Tory party had - and in the name of engendering a fear-based loyalty in the others to the unprincipled re-defining of how Cummings saw HMG being reshaped.

No - not me guv - I have not forced Johnson to see "...it as an unjustified attack [and] will lunge into cheap personal jibes...".

In advance of Sunday's Andrew Marr debacle with Johnson - I re-watched Eddie Mair's excoriating disassembly of Johnson which culminated in Mair labelling Johnson "you are just a nasty piece of work".

The country knew it then, it knew it when it voted for him and the country knows it now.

Johnson will want out of this as soon as he can extricate himself - the boon of largesse distribution is diminishing now - and he knows there is so little money left in the deal for him. He might still plead long-Covid as a rationale - he does look like a "pun o' mince oan a butcher's slab" at the moment.

And his authoring skills and wit are simply not adequate enough for the number of times he and ERG will have to re-write about what the perceived benefits of Brexit were in the face of what the UK will actually endure.

I stand firmly beside you on one very important point - it is essential that its people can trust and support a government in times of national crisis - normally.

These are not normal times - most of us will get on with things, queue for vaccinations and obey sensible rules. Even when we know we cannot trust Johnson.

But tell me this, where can Johnson find the will or the courage to persuade the dis-believers, CV deniers and vaccine hesitants?

[stuart]

Yah - but most of that is history. If we were on the bridge of the Titanic heading towards the iceberg - then discussions of the captain's temperement, training or the idiots who put him in command are moot.

There would be a solution there. Hit him hard over the head with a metal bar and commanding hard-a-port would be judged right and ethical. But there are too many big coppers with pointy things between us and Boris. And steering the ship of state while others cry mutiny is difficult. One used to rely on the grey suits of the Carlton Club to do the necessary but they have disappeared. And even if they hadn't - who would they put in? Remember Boris is a softie compared to 'Eat out to help out' Rishi who (allegedly) shed tiers rather than damage his investment mates.

So Boris it is. Or maybe his gatekeepers if, as often reported like Trump, Boris tends to espouse the view of the last people he spoke to. How to keep the CRG out and SAGE in.

Stuart

[JGD]

Hit him hard over the head with a metal bar and commanding hard-a-port would be judged right and ethical. But there are too many big coppers with pointy things between us and Boris. And steering the ship of state while others cry mutiny is difficult.

I have only become aware recently, Titanic steered by what is known as “Tiller Orders” which means that if you want to go one way, you push the tiller the other way. [So if you want to go left, you push right.]

Other modern steamships steered with “Rudder Orders’ which is like driving a car. You steer the way you want to go.

It gets more confusing because, even though Titanic was a steam ship, at that time on the North Atlantic they were still using Tiller Orders.

Just saying.

[stuart]

Don't try and get clever with me Sub-Lieutenant JGD. You are clearly not old enough to remember the correct naval order was "back a bit sideways"
- "Petty Officer" Stuart

Out of your depth? See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Navy_Lark

[gurka]

Anyone, and I mean anyone trying to cover up for this government needs to seriously look in the mirror, never in my lifetime have I ever seen a more corrupt UK government. Heads need to roll and traitors gate at the tower of London needs to be re-opened and used !!

[milton]

Anyone, and I mean anyone trying to cover up for this government needs to seriously look in the mirror, never in my lifetime have I ever seen a more corrupt UK government. Heads need to roll and traitors gate at the tower of London needs to be re-opened and used !!

Not old enough to remember Bliar and his cronies I take it?

The lying scumbag murderer of 100s of 1000s.

or, as I like to refer to him,Satans arsehole.

have a good year one and all, if possible that is.