Vocal Voices

I don't mean to upset anyone but I don't think there is any other way of saying it.
I thought that Boris Johnson was a lover of freedom and a libertarian but it seems I was wrong. Probably the reason that I am so angry and disillusioned with him is that I am so disappointed with him.
A few of Boris's pearlers are "Three weeks to flatten the curve" - it's been a bloody long three weeks, that's all I'll say.
"Lockdown will end on December the second". It didn't.
In January we got "One last push" - we'll see about that.
In February we got Boris talking about "irreversible steps" out of lockdown.

Also in February we had Boris saying that the vaccine effort that has meant people "can begin safely to restart our lives with confidence". But what is he saying now?
He is saying that "While the vaccination programme has “helped” in slowing the spread of the Chinese virus", he said that “the bulk of the work in reducing the disease has been done by the lockdown.”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/0 ... -vaccines/
If so, why has everybody had to have a vaccine, if the bulk of the work has been done by keeping us in lockdown.??
It's rubbbish. It completely contradicts everything he has previously said about the vaccine.

You know what's coming next then; another lockdown next autumn/winter.

I could mention his somersault on vaccine passports too. This is a man who said he would "eat his ID card" if Tony Blair issued them; now he is weaselling his way to getting vaccine passports in.

I think it is hard to avoid the conclusion that you cannot with any faith believe a word that he says.

Again, apologies if I have upset anyone. That wasn't my primary purpose in writing this, it was just to highlight the many instances of goalpost shifting and weaselling that we've had to put up with.

Defence incoming.... It will all be somebody else's fault or he was misunderstood or misspoke.

The man is a liar, charlatan and cheat.

Pretty fair summation.

He has been flip flopping for months now. I ignore most of it and just get on with life. He will, or will not, do some, or all, of what he says. Or none. The only thing his knee jerk reactions have done to me is stop me from getting back to the UK and getting the vaccine they invited me for. But I'm not stressed about that, I don't need one just yet and others do.

#1 son is going to be pretty pissed with them all though. Because his holiday is police and fixed and if they don't lift the travel restrictions by mid June and commit to being lifted for at least a month, he can't come over and get to work on his house here.

Locally, among small groups, we are starting to socialise a bit more here. I shall do my work, walk the dogs, meet friends rarely and just let it all wash over me.

I shall also use my new internet connection to make our media life better. I downloaded 0.5Tb of "media" between yesterday and today. Silver linings and all that...

Bit harsh i think Cromwell -Boris is neither a qualified scientist or Dr as far as i aware - he can only act on advice he is given-it is very easy to criticise after the event.

Who could have done any better in the circumstances with no precedent to go by

Victor, I cut Boris a lot more slack than most, but he is too eager to please and seems to have a short memory for the "facts" he last acted on.

It is clear that the scientific and medical community is fractured into at least 3 or 4 camps on this and they keep changing their minds as new evidence comes in.

The job of the politician is to bring them together, make a consensus, do one thing and do it well. Sturgeon has been doing this all along. It doesn't mean she is any better or that what she is announcing will work. In fact what she is doing may be less effective than what Boris is doing because response to this pandemic requires a flexible and agile approach. But people want an answer. Just one and they want our politicians to stick to it. That is what Sturgeon has been doing.

If you want an example of how effective that is, just look over the water. 3rd wave, catastrophic vaccine rollout, but a good solid story line to back up inflexible and rigid political stance. Are people reassured? Of course they are not, because it is not fixed and this inflexible political story is not fixing it.

Sturgeon gets the best of both worlds. She gets the advantage of the UK actions from Westminster, the benefits when it reduces cases and the ability to set her own storyline secure in the knowledge that it can only blow up so far before Westminster pulls her chestnuts out of the fire.

So the people think she's wonderful and Boris is a clown.....

Take a step back. Do a LOT of reading. Think about it.

Johnson is the PM. He does not need to be an expert in anything useful, as his 2:1 in Classics proves. He has access to civil servants, any number of experts in any field imaginable, and the collective wisdom of his cabinet colleagues ( ) - 24/7. All he has to do is listen, be truthful, be a competent manager of people and events and act accordingly. He fails on all fronts.

Comparing him, his actions and performance to other leaders and countries is mere deflection.

We should stick to what he is doing for us and the country in the here and now and it is in D- territory. Once a charlatan always a charlatan. In if for himself and his mates.

Erm, that is fine, so long as everyone else in the world is getting A+. If the average in the world is D- or even E, then he's doing average.

We are in the middle of a pandemic. Everyone has opinions, everyone has an axe to grind, most world leaders are getting a shellacking for their handling of a pandemic all the people who should have known how to deal with it expected it could never happen.

So, by all means, call his performance a shitshow. But let's do it on metrics please. Sturgeon may look and sound good. But her performance record is absolutely no better than Boris and his flip flopping in handling this crisis.

I have no issue with people having a go at BoJo in this crisis. He has made serious mistakes and one of those was listening to people around him. But at least let's compare him with other leaders of comparable countries in comparable situations. If we don't then it's just a hatchet job and we can read that in the press every day.

Workingman wrote:Defence incoming.... It will all be somebody else's fault or he was misunderstood or misspoke.

The man is a liar, charlatan and cheat.

This! 100%

We do not need to compare him with anyone: Tsai Ing-wen; Vladimir Putin; Jacinda Ardern; Jair Bolsonaro or anyone else. They are not running our country: he is.

Pointing out that he is lacking in many departments is not a hatchet job: it is the truth. He flips and flops, U-turns, sends out mixed messages, over promises and under delivers. He is as regular as a good bowel movement and full of the same.

He is fast becoming the Tories' Corbyn and the 1922 will see him gone long before the next GE.

You are deflecting now.

We are in a 100% unknown situation. You are kicking the crap out of someone when nobody in the same role is doing any better. Not Presidents, not PM's and certainly not the devolved heads of government around the UK.

I'm happy to say he has not performed perfectly, he hasn't. But everyone has been lied to by their politicians in the UK, not just by Bojo and none of them can say they "did" a better job. Only that they sounded like a better politician.

That doesn't cut any ice in my book.

NOBODY can say they have done better or are doing better in the UK because we don't have two prime ministers. I've already made the statement that Sturgeon and the rest in the devolved parliaments have done no better and you can't prove they have.

Just because you don't like him and the press don't like him does not mean he is doing any worse than others in the same situation. In fact, with the vaccine situation, he is doing a damned sight better than most.

Beat him up by all means, but at least do it for things which are within his control.