Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2020 12:48pm
I'm a member of the Labour party. I say this to make it clear I'm not a tory, I don't agree with their general policy and I'm not a fan of Boris, or, in my opinion, the other inept sycophantic "yes-men" he's surrounded himself with. I think Cummings has a very dangerous agenda with some even more dangerous puppet masters, and I genuinely can't understand why any working-class person would vote Tory.
I feel Boris is nothing more than a chancer. He has little understanding of the job in hand, and no interest in it. he wants admiration and power. He has (again, in my opinion) deep psychological issues, verging on narcissism and is ultimately a very dangerous man to have in charge of a Country. To me, there is a paper-thin gap between him and Trump, only Boris is way smarter than Trump.
Throughout the pandemic the Tory government have done what they always do: Looked for angles to make themselves and their friends money. There are scores of instances of this, some detailed above. This week alone they've had to issue a recall of testing kits supplied by a company that was awarded the contract with no due diligence or process. It then turned out kits didn't work. The background of this company is murky at best, with deep links with the Tory party. This is now so unsurprising, it doesn't even make the mainstream news anymore!
The Tory government have been slow to react in almost every situation. In many of these situations, they didn't need hindsight as they could have simply learnt from the experience of other countries. But no. They dithered, sent out mixed messages, changed their minds and were slow on pretty much everything. This undoubtedly cost lives, and will continue to do so.
They have also been exceptionally economical with the truth. Or, simply lied through their teeth, and again, continue to do so. Some months back Boris was doing what he does best: Using elaborate language to make it sound like one thing while actually meaning another. Vaccine by June anyone?
Despite all this, I have to say, hand on heart, and this is tough being a party member, but I doubt Labour could have done any better. In fact, maybe worse.
Thanks to the huge majority the Tories got at the last election Boris has been willing to spend, seriously spend, way more than I think labour would have. The various schemes have meant that lots of businesses, and so jobs, have been saved in the short term. It's now up to the general public to do their bit to continue to save them. And that means, as Grannyrose said, taking some risks.
If local cluster management works, and if people get back out there, start working and start spending again, we might just come out of this not too bad. And I think it does fall to the government to give people a nudge, or a boot up the arse even, to get things moving. Yes we are all going to have to start taking risks, but again, as grannyrose says, that's life. The alternative is to "stay-safe" and slowly die of boredom/depression/starvation as the country goes bankrupt.
There is no doubt that the Tories have made a monumental clusterf**k of a lot of handling of the pandemic, but not really much more or less than most countries. The difference is though they have spent, and that might be the key to success in the end. A lot over the next ten years will depend on A. Just hoe big the debt for the pandemic ends up, and B. How they plan to repay it, but that's a discussion for another day. As the saying goes... "When the flames are getting high you don't worry about the water damage. You keep throwing on water until the flames are gone".
The continual comparisons between the UK and Spain are obviously going to happen here, but they are unfair. The demographic, geography and lifestyle vary enormously between the two countries, and this plays hugely into the numbers by which all countries are being judged (cases and deaths).