Not Exactly Churchill

It didn’t take long for BloJo to drop his plans to put the over fifties into house arrest.

The government has reportedly shelved plans to lockdown over-50s in a desperate bid to avert a second coronavirus wave after they were criticised as “ageist”, it has been claimed.

No10 scrapped the scheme over fears it could hamper the already flagging economy, would be difficult to police and could give off the wrong message, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense and a nanosecond’s thought would have realised this. The idea should have died as a flash in the synapses before it gelled into thought, it is such a stupid notion.

While I am happy that he’s seen sense and reversed the plan, there is no indication anytime soon that he is going to admit the whole Covid policy was a disaster and to admit the mistake.

He likes to liken himself to Churchill, yet nothing could be further from the truth. What we have is a boy in a man’s job. He isn’t up to it and really needs to go.

Who should take over? Lord knows, such is the descent into the abyss caused by the spores of the professional political class.

17 Comments

  1. Simply kicking someone out with no viable replacement on the horizon doesn’t sound like a workable strategy to me.

    If Johnson can be persuaded to drop some of the wilder schemes, can he not be persuaded to drop all the other silly measures (Compulsory masks etc) which are far too much and far too late? The UK economy needs to have the brakes taken off to pay for the lockdown measures, and quickly.

    • I’m not seeing any obvious sign of that, unfortunately. I did hint at your point in my final sentence. I cannot see anyone in front-line politics who is remotely capable of the role of PM.

      • Sadly Johnson is the only workable choice at present. The Limp Dems and Labour are no alternative with no widespread support for a more liberty minded candidature.

        We know big government is the problem, but far too many are invested in it to want it reduced to a more reasonable size.

  2. Over-50s was a stupid cut-off point. Over-75 might have actually been a good idea. Which in turn means protecting the over-75s (i.e. people in care homes) from untested workers who move between care homes every few days.

    • Until you get to the likes of my father who is fit and healthy and more harm than good would be done by locking him up. I’m all for HMG dishing out advice and then letting people make their own personal risk assessments. Forcing people to remain in their homes is deeply authoritarian and has no place in a liberal democracy.

  3. Ironic, isn’t it, that Dominic Cummings had made it his very loudly-trumpeted mission objective to introduce more intelligence, rationality and methodology into the thinking and organisational approach of this administration. In scarcely six months, that has all been blown out of the water as if by a direct hit from the Bismarck, and everyone can see it plain as a pike staff. All that guff about Phillip Tetlock, Charlie Munger, data science and project management has blown away like straw in the wind and they are revealed as the hapless, clueless incompetents that they so surely are. I feel absolutely nauseated by them.

  4. Who should take over?

    You planning to stand?

    Seriously, it’s high time there was an alternate party of the libertarian right, one that isn’t filled with people who have spent their entire careers – and usually university years – immersed in the academic humanities/Westminster politics/journalism mindset.

    • I think it was George Wahington in his farewell address who warned not to form political parties.

      There’s no doubt that the Oxbridge PPE/media petri dish is a dismally shallow pool, but it’s political parties that – far too often – simply are too blinkered to look elsewhere.

      What is a political party really, other than a mill that simply grinds through applicants and disposes of what they consider chaff, leaving nodding donkeys drilled in the party line and kept on that line by, essentially, being pretty well unemployable (at least on MP pay and perks) elsewhere.

      I can’t see that a libertarian, or any other party, wouldn’t be forced down the same line.

      Look at the US. An awful lot of thought by very clever people went into drafting its constitution and governmental system. A US president is in essence an elected king with some distinctly monarchical powers. He can choose his counsel (cabinet) from essentially wherever he pleases and Congress – free of hereditary privilege – keeps him in check.

      The US is perhaps the most graphic illustration of how political parties pervert good government (just as bad here of course but the governmental structures in the US do make it more obvious). Now have “soshal meeja'” which seems to be a public star chamber where “influence” appears to be the direct inverse of IQ, manners, reason, or a thousand and one other factors which make up reasoned and civilised political discourse.

      Oh how would like to be able to vote for a candidate (or be a candidate come to that) where it was character, honesty and an understanding the the countries needs where what mattered and personal political opinions were secondary.

      Maybe George Carlin was right. The world is circling the drain and all any of us can do is laugh.

      I don’t believe that though. Truth and common sense will out but what unnecessary chaos will we see before we get there. And the cycle will repeat again a few generations down the line.

      • “. . .vote for a candidate where it was character, honesty and understanding the countries needs. . .”
        I think that’s what many thought they were getting when voting for Boris.

  5. Twat probably realised it would be impossible to enforce, agreed Personal Risk Assessment is the only way forward.
    David Milliband is still waiting in the wings I believe, can’t think of anybody else but he’s a bloody socialist.

  6. “…but he’s a bloody socialist.”

    What, and the current crop of idiots are not?
    Ever expanding state, check. Sky high taxes but still can’t balance the books, check. Monstrous and pointless vanity projects (HS2 & zero carbon crap), check. Insane social engineering projects (Prescription cycles), check. There is only wholesale nationalisation missing from the list and only because that particular socialist idea has been discredited beyond rehabilitation.

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