Lazy, lazy Boris

Really good posts Peardrop ??

I thought that in his speech today ( lunchtime) Johnson spoke well.He doesn’t cope so well with questions from journalists/ random people, especially, I have noticed if they are women.
I think he never wants to upset anyone, and while an admirable aspiration, you can’t do that in politics.
He needs to learn to be succinct.
As for reading pages and pages of documents on absolutely anything and everything ,that’s what a PM has staff for.

Peardrop50

No Growstuff, I am suggesting that a large percentage of your posts come directly from the Guardian which most often is Tory bashing.

Perhaps you could find articles of a similar nature in one of Murdoch's papers just to balance the info gathered from the Guardian.

Well of course he can speak well Lemon if reading from notes/teleprompter. The reasons he doesn't cope well with questions from the press male or female, is he doesn't have the facts or know the answers. Does that not concern you?

I don't for one minute think it's because he doesn't want to upset anyone - since when did he have a reputation for sensitivity!

Dinahmo

Peardrop50

No Growstuff, I am suggesting that a large percentage of your posts come directly from the Guardian which most often is Tory bashing.

Perhaps you could find articles of a similar nature in one of Murdoch's papers just to balance the info gathered from the Guardian.

I prefer to read and listen to various media outlets, and form my own opinion thank you.

Pearldrop50
Government is not only just like a huge business but also has to deal with informing the public, fighting opposition from other parties quite often for the sake of it, answering the same pointless questions from an aggressive press and not only that but having life outside the job scrutinised, often twisted and gossiped about.

Seriously? Have you actually heard them answer a question? I haven't - all I hear are meaningless pre-prepared soundbites that don't even begin to answer whatever question has been asked!

For the poster who wanted to hear from a Murdoch newspaper (ie not the Guardian) here is something from The Sun

BORIS Johnson has today called on bosses to get Brits back to work - and claimed life could be back to normal by Christmas.

The Prime Minister this morning called for the nation to return to “near-normal” from August 1 to help boost Britain’s ailing economy which has been ravaged by the pandemic.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/12149564/boris-back-to-work/

Am I being a tad sceptical, or even not optimistic enough, to doubt whether life in the UK will be back to normal by Xmas?

varian The herd immunity plan obviously isn't working fast enough.

It's downright irresponsible to make that kid of statement. Unfortunately, there are enough intellectually challenged people who will only listen to the message they want to hear.

Quite growstuff

You know this is such a dreadfully worrying time, that being fed rhetoric and lies on an almost daily basis, simply adds to the fear
I know that the economy needs to reboot, but surely for that to happen, we need to be able to trust and have confidence in the Government
How can you trust a proven liar though?

I agree with you Dollymc. People don't just need to feel confident about going back to work, eating out, etc. They need to know they're safe. The kind of allegedly motivating rhetoric and stupid jokes the public is getting at the moment might be OK for an under 7s football team, but nobody with any sense has any confidence in it.

Iain Duncan Smith is now trying to "blame" the scientists. Who's next, I wonder?

Fortunately, it looks as though people like Chris Whitty, some Conservative backbenchers and others are beginning to speak out. It's about time.

Growstuff says 'Unfortunately, there are enough intellectually challenged people who will only listen to the message they want to hear'.
Run out of Guardian quotes for today - resort to nastiness - twas ever thus.
This is what closes a debate and why decent folk choose not to post and I say goodnight.

Peardrop50

Dinahmo

Peardrop50

No Growstuff, I am suggesting that a large percentage of your posts come directly from the Guardian which most often is Tory bashing.

Perhaps you could find articles of a similar nature in one of Murdoch's papers just to balance the info gathered from the Guardian.

I prefer to read and listen to various media outlets, and form my own opinion thank you.

Obviously we all prefer to form or own opinion. I was asking you to pass some of your opinion forming sources to us, for our edification. Maybe some of us could learn something!

Yes calling people stupid was a brilliant strategy in the last election. Well done.

Oh dear Peardrop Are you stalking me? If you are, you don't seem to have done a very good job of noting my sources . Wasn't it you who suggested I'm a Labour supporter? You're not a very good detective, are you?

Thanks Varian but I was hoping for an opinion column, not just reporting.

Peardrop50

Growstuff says 'Unfortunately, there are enough intellectually challenged people who will only listen to the message they want to hear'.
Run out of Guardian quotes for today - resort to nastiness - twas ever thus.
This is what closes a debate and why decent folk choose not to post and I say goodnight.

There are plenty of decent folk who post on GN. I can't help it if you don't choose to belong to them.

Peardrop Unfortunately, there are enough intellectually challenged people who will only listen to the message they want to hear'. Run out of Guardian quotes for today - resort to nastiness - twas ever thus

Why did you choose to take Growstuff’s comment so personally?

Perhaps naively, I took the comment to refer to people who are fed up with lockdown etc & will seize on the Prime Minister’s words to do what they like, without considering the evidence presented by the scientists that a second wave is probable.

No jane you weren't being naive. That's exactly what I meant.

It's not the first time this poster has had a little rant directed at me. I have no idea what her problem is.

Has anyone else read this, from the Financial Times?

Inside Westminster’s coronavirus blame game

What went wrong with the UK government’s pandemic response and why? As an inquiry looms, the search for a scapegoat is on

www.ft.com/content/aa53173b-eb39-4055-b112-0001c1f6de1b

It's free.

It's quite a long read but interesting. Especially in respect of the lockdown 'date'

Of course things will not be back to normal by Christmas - it is total nonsense and he knows it - he is just trying to curry favour with the electorate; but it will backfire come December.

Why oh why can we not have trustworthy leaders with true integrity at such a time?

Lucky, we haven't got a leader with integrity because people voted for him and his party, taken in by the bonhomie and bluster.

I wonder if proportional representation would have produced a more sensible result?

'Sensible' in that it probably wouldn't have given a single party enough seats to run an 'elected dictatorship' and so would have given us a more competent Executive.

Only the delusional believe anything uttered by Boris. Even Boris doesn’t believe it.

Maizie thanks for the article, quite disturbing.
But the scientific adviser,[Vallance]formerly president of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline, was a leading sceptic about the merits of a lockdown and his public musings on herd immunity continue to rankle with ministers
Not quite what he said to the Select Committee?

It seems to be true that Vallance didn't start off well. After that, it's difficult to know how much he was being a loyal poodle, until it dawned on him he was being made a scapegoat.

At the time, SAGE meetings were still very secretive. The names of the participants weren't even published and the minutes, even when published, were redacted.

Some former members of SAGE insist that they didn't advise the government to delay lockdown. They claim they advised lockdown from 16 March and the claim that the public would tire of lockdown is nonsense. Apparently, there is no evidence in behavioural science that the public would tire after a certain time and, anyway, the sooner lockdown had started, the sooner the country would have been able to come out of it.

Even before Professor Ferguson was stupid enough to see his girlfriend and was sacked, he was being smeared in certain sections of the media as "Professor Lockdown" and it was all framed as the evil nanny state depriving people of their liberty, rather than a measure which needed to be taken for thee public good.

That "framing" has continued with "Santa" Johnson throwing out sweeties to please people every so often. The messaging has been an absolute mess. People didn't know whether they were vulnerable, highly vulnerable, at risk, at extreme risk or whatever. Some people received letters; others received texts. Some people received food parcels, while others in the same situation didn't. Local authorities outsourced the "support", which was also muddled and inadequate.

SAGE has now effectively been sidelined. It would appear that they stopped being loyal followers of the government and have been speaking out. Once their minutes were published, they couldn't do anything in secret. Its role has now been taken over by NERVTAG and the Joint Biosecurity Centre. The Joint Biosecurity Centre is under the control of Dido Harding, whom I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw her.

We need transparency and efficiency, not bumbling, making stuff up on the hoof, lies and handing out contracts to cronies.