Every man for himself.
I think it's a rare talent to be able to say a lot and nothing at all simultaneously. Yet, unluckily for this country, its probably the one skill Boris Johnson has been able to master. Well; that on top of giving Mick Jagger a run for his money in terms of offspring, though with less ‘Rock'n'Roll’ more ‘I’ll cut your dole cause I got no soul’ attitude.
On Sunday 12th December, with Omicron on the rise, I was bracing myself for further restrictions. Perhaps some notice that the public should cancel parties and to start forming social bubbles. How unsurprising it was for me, to see that when Boris addressed the nation directly in a pre-recorded message, reserved for the most urgent and pressing national emergencies, he managed to move his lips and make some noise while a whole lot of nothing came out. The PM's cowardly decision to pre-record the message in order to avoid questions from journalists was blatant.
Roll up, Roll up
Get your jabs here
Once again us Tories have left it too late
So your cancer appointments will have to wait
Roll up, Roll up
Get yourself boosted
It's our only hope, the only way out
We could have done more but we chose to f*** about
Roll up, Roll up
Jab, Jab, Jab
That was pretty much the gist of it anyway. Once again, the Tories lack of pre-emptive action shows how willing they are to gamble with public health and our NHS. They could have done more weeks ago. Such as, testing at the border, ventilating schools, increasing sick pay so people testing positive could isolate properly.
The Tories haven't done any of that.
They eventually brought back rules to wear a face mask in public, which seems like putting a plaster on a stab wound when you look at all the things they could have introduced sooner, to get ahead of this new variant but instead they let it spread.
It is of course possible, that this rapidly transmissible variant of COVID is milder than previous ones. That illness will be less severe, which would essentially be 'good' news, but until we know anything for certain we should have been cautious and prepared. It is also important to remember that there are clinically vulnerable people who have been locked up, practically on house arrest, for over a year now and they have still not been given a booster.
Yet, Boris unleashed chaos in his address to the nation, telling everybody to go and get jabbed before Christmas. Giving GPs only 12 hours notice to vaccinate a million people per day but providing them with nothing more to achieve that. Shortly after his announcement, the NHS booking site for COVID jabs crashed and no one could order any lateral flow tests. What kind of shit show is this?
This so called 'Plan B' that only got through on the back of Labour isn’t much of a plan is it?
Labour's Keir Starmer made the distinction on Andrew Marr, and again in his own address to the nation on Monday, that Labour are supporting the NHS and the public not Boris Johnson. I can understand and respect Labour's stance on this, though it could appear weak, they are not going to 'play politics' with public health. If Labour believes restrictions are needed to save lives they will vote them through, while at the same time arguing for better from this government like the need for proper sick pay but taking what they can get.
Although I do think all the talk around COVID passes on both sides is slightly misguided. Surely, they are more sophisticated ways to get people to cooperate rather than having to resort to coercion style tactics which pose ethical issues. A better focus could be negative tests, since you then know you don’t have COVID regardless of your vaccine ‘status’.
.…
Then Tuesday came - Lateral flow tests run out for second day running (funny that) and Dominic Rabb has no idea how many cases of Omicron there are in hospitals. One moment it was 250 then it was 9. Confused? Cause I am. What a mess.
The drama continues like a low budget TV soap, despite Tory rebels voting against 'Plan B' Boris Johnson denies in PMQs that it got voted through because of Labour. Keir Starmer was left shaking his head in disbelief on Wednesday. Sadly, I find it completely believable that the PM thinks he has the power to rewrite history, which says a lot about the current state of affairs and the despair it has lead me to.
With the whole Christmas party scandal now in full swing, it's fair to say Boris has lost what little authority he had in telling the public what they ought not to do. He has said they will not be cancelling events but at the same time 'advising' people not to go.
Despite lack of clear instruction from the government, the public seem to have taken it upon themselves to deploy reason and make sensible and balanced sacrifices.
Even the Queen cancelled a family Christmas lunch.
Then Witty went rogue, saying that people should avoid unnecessary gatherings such as work parties and prioritise family, limiting contacts. If we can all agree that gatherings should be limited surely we can agree the government should be providing those businesses affected by cancellations with more financial support. Unfortunately though, while all this was happening, the chancellor Rishi Sunak was silent. But to be fair he was out of the country. I think he was spending sometime in his 5th home? Based in California? Deciding on how best to make himself appear as ‘one of the people’ shopping for new hoodies for his ‘I’m so hip and urban’ leadership campaign. Priorities be like that.
So the stance is that due to that fact Tories didn't 'technically' cancel Christmas (they just let it happen) they don't need to provide financial support, the good old 'every man for himself' approach.
Today, Friday 17th, we have just about made it to the end of a long week. Concluded with a dramatic climax, like an EastEnders’ ‘duff duff’, there may be a shinning light at the end of this tunnel. With many traditional Labour voters tactically voting yellow, a protest vote, the Tories have lost North Shropshire. In a 'watershed moment for British Politics' the Tories lose a seat they have held for over 200 hundred years to Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, who received nearly 50% of the vote after a by-election because Tory MP Owen Paterson stepped down over corruption.
A turning of the tide perhaps, spelling the beginning of the end for not just Boris but for the whole blood sucking Tory regime. We can only hope.