Thursday 7 May 2020

How can Boris start lifting restrictions after the death toll disaster?

Whichever way you look at it the coronavirus story in the UK is a disaster. More than 30,000 deaths and a long way to go. Little small UK with more deaths than any other country in the world other than big powerful US. It's difficult, nay impossible, to look at the statistics and say "job well done, so now let's all go into the parks and buses and rejoice". The death toll is truly shocking and yet it's still not seen as a calamity for the Boris Johnson government. Boris may not be feeling so confident as he was before he caught the virus but he has to get a grip on his cabinet. There are a lot of cabinet ministers around but who really knows what he or she is doing? Is it in fact a solid-gold five-star cabinet or a cabinet with mostly run-of-the-mill individuals with no dynamic leadership qualities? I don't want to be harsh but somewhere along the line a whole bunch of mistakes and errors of judgment were made and now we have more than 30,000 dead people. If that record says anything about the quality of the Boris government and the expertise of the scientific and medical officials advising it I'm not sure I have much confidence in hearing and reading that Boris on Sunday is going to lay out a path through the lockdown to a more normal existence. One newspaper even daftly headlined the news today with the words "Magic Monday", as if following Boris's statement on Sunday we were all going to be able to open our front doors on Monday and go running into the streets naked and shouting whoopee. There is no magic moment coming. It's going to be a hard slog, and restrictions should be lifted one tiny bit by another tiny bit. There can't be any other way. This country is going to be falling into recession whatever happens in the next few weeks, so let's get the lockdown-lifting programme right. Someone has been leaking stuff to all the newspapers as if the Sunday statement is going to be a jolly sort of affair with the word "normal" being splashed around like tomato ketchup on a juicy burger. See what I mean about the lack of leadership within the government? Why were all those overhyped headlines appearing when Boris surely is going to be ultra-cautious on Sunday and warn us to stay patient and endure a few more weeks before he can consider any major changes. The 30,000 didn't die so that we can all now drive headlong to the beaches. I want to see my family and friends as much as anyone and am dying for hugs and dancing jigs but if that appalling death toll shoots up to 50,000 there will be the harshest of judgments made by all sensible people. Many countries I notice are already looking at the UK experience with astonishment and dismay. They can't understand how we handled it so badly. Boris has the opportunity to try and put that right.

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