I see a certain tousle-headed buffoon has taken a bit of a kicking due to not taking things seriously and flip-flopping. And his demonic short-sighted side-kick is fingered for setting a toxic atmosphere in Downing Street. Who’d have thunk it?
Well, 20/20 hindsight's a wonderful thing and the results shouldn't be ignored for future planning purposes. But imo it's a bit harsh to suddenly turn on those who had to make those decisions, some of them were bound to be wrong. The only things I'd stand up and say were categorically and undeniably wrong were allowing the Cheltenham festival to go on, allowing the Liverpool game to go on, and not shutting airports down. For me that's enough to have BJ and his sidekick strung up.
The biggest criticism is to BJ and his cabinet. From late December, the news was reporting of the virus in China and it was fairly obvious that it was serious and it was going to 'travel'. Then came Italy in January and onto the rest of Europe. Johnson didn't hold a Cobra meeting until March - so over a month lost. There should be some sort of prosecution for wilful incompetence.
Let's be honest, whatever they did or didn't do, with the benefit of hindsight and as much time as wanted to pick through everything, they were going to get pulled up on and say it would have been better to do xyz etc. it'll now be pathetically used politically instead of actually taking lessons and being much better educated and prepared for the future
Yeah, at least in the US they offered such things, but not limited to, free Krispy Kreme doughnuts and free entry into a million $ lottery draw if you took the vaccine. Now that’s full on government commitment. You could be forgiven for thinking they were attempting to coerce you.
Hindsight isn't really needed. When other parts of Europe were closing down or getting hit hard there were plenty of us calling BJ for delaying, to protect his friends in the banking sector. Unfortunately he put people's wealth before people's health and needs to be rightly castigated for it.
Wormald who was at the top of the NHS and ignored others doesn’t come out of it well. And the price of his ineptitude? Promoted to Cabinet secretary by Starmer. The Starmer who wanted the lockdown extending.
Why dont they just invent a scuba diving type contraprion for land So if theres another pandemic Everyone can still go out but have your own air supply so virus wont spread?! Prettt obvious if you ask me
And if he did, this report would most likely say he locked down to early and it cost us xyz or caused abc ... As I say, no matter what anyone would have done at the times, things like this would find reasons to say it was wrong or could/should have been done different. I'm no Boris fan (nor any political figure TBF) but I wouldn't have wished being "in charge" during COVID on anyone as all that was going to happen is exactly what's happening. If it helps us be more educated and prepared moving forward then fantastic, but I won't hold my breath.
its a pretty simple solution and doesnt need any lockdowns wheres my millions, it will save the economy BILLLIONS
Also handing their mate’s juicy contracts for providing PSE, when other companies were far better equipped. I was managing a team who were essential workers, so having to work through it and they were scared **** because we couldn’t source the appropriate PSE. That’s nothing to do with a lack of understanding the science or ‘never been there before’, that’s corruption.
No. Lack of action and waiting until March to do anything were the reason that there were ten of thousands of extra British deaths. Johnson was lazy, incompetent and tried to bullshit his way through it - ignoring experts and contingency plans and then hanging them out to dry when the **** hit the fan. However, he will continue to sit on his wealth of millions, his property, his pension and no doubt, a lucrative career in consultancy now, when he should be prosecuted and obliged to pay back to compensate families for their losses. Zero culpability and zero shame - it's no wonder ppl stop giving a ****.
It does say that the lockdowns should have been earlier. It's a hopeless inquiry, a monumental waste of money.
But businesses were voluntarily closing their doors before the official lockdown as they knew that it was irresponsible to remain open. I was abroad at the height of everything kicking off and was getting temperature checked every time I entered a building, upon scrambling home I was absolutely astonished to find that we could waltz through the airport with no checks and barely a sign indicating what we should do if we came home from areas with high infection rates/if we felt ill. The initial response (as laid out in this report) was an absolute disaster and many were saying that at the time. We had the worst prime minister we could have had at that time and that Government are rightly getting a kicking. I think its unfair to say this is all with the benefit of hindsight.
I had to travel in and out the country a few times during covid, so many questionable things were going on the best one was probably having to book an official covid test to be sent to where I would be staying after arriving in the uk. Got off the ferry in Hull went to said place found the kit waiting and read the instructions, within the next 4 days I think it was do the test then put it in an approved post box, await result to be sent by email. No restrictions on moving around other than what was in place for all. Mentioned a few days ago about getting out of the country costing about £300 on official testing. I suppose it's easy to blame Boris or Rishi (eat out to spread the virus) but they were only the frontman, the spokesman for all the advisers in backroom. Those people the civil service are all still there taking little if any flak.