A Labour government would have made a mess of covid too.

Well they might have cancelled HS2 or given free broadband to deprived families and wasted money on free school meals and that would be terrible.

They wouldn't have been able to source more PPE. Every other country was scrambling to try and buy it in. The same with the number of nurses and doctors. They can't be trained in days. So they would have been in the same position as the tory government.

Would the same scientists have been giving the advice? I don't think any of the labour front bench would have been expert enough to question the given advice so I 'm sure they would have done pretty much the same things. We can't say whether they would have locked down earlier. That is something that is very easy to say in hindsight from the opposition bench.

Also it wouldn't have been KS as PM. Jeremy Corbyn was the worst ever leader of the opposition. Personally I don't think he would have been any use in a crisis.

Its generally from the "he's doing his best" brigade.I've just completed the YouGov weekly poll on Johnston, seems well over 80% think he's made a right mess of it from start to finish and Brexit too .
I believe we in Scotland would have been much stricter with borders last year and that would have kept our numbers down .Sadly the chief clown says there isn't a border for us to close!!

So easy to judge with hindsight

We'll never know- they could hardly have been worse.

They would have put people's health above profit and not been hellbent on "reopening the economy" at the expense of peoples health.
Anyone but the present Tories would have seen how NZ and Australia etc were managing to keep the virus at bay and taken advice from them instead of giving in to business and dishing out contracts to their rich cronies, which is still happening. I could go on.

My NZ family are back to normal after their hard lockdown last year and the continuing rigorous testing and quarantining. Their economy seems to be doing more that all right too despite early fears. There is a long queue of people wanting to live there.

I actually think it's not even as simple as a different political party. I think a different leader of the conservative party would have done better. I think there would have been less deaths under Theresa May for example. Johnsons personality is profoundly unsuited to this particular crisis.

I hope that HS2 is cancelled (what is the point of it exactly?).
I wish that no children were going hungry.
Why shouldn't everyone have free broadband?
Maybe I should go and join the Labour Party.....

We will never know how they would have done.
Hindsight is a wonderful ( if useless) thing.

But we are not NZ. We are one of the most over crowded islands on the planet. We are also in normal times a major travel hub. The only people travelling to NZ are people going there. We really cannot compare the UK to NZ.

You are right they did make mistakes with the contracts, but who knows what decisions Corbyn would have made.

Galaxy

I actually think it's not even as simple as a different political party. I think a different leader of the conservative party would have done better. I think there would have been less deaths under Theresa May for example. Johnsons personality is profoundly unsuited to this particular crisis.

Yes.

I’ve been disappointed that Labour have just kept their heads down and not made any constructive suggestions. I know they didn’t and don’t have the power to do anything but they didn’t have any alternatives either.

I’d like to vote Labour at the next election but, as yet, I can’t see any reason for doing so.

If they could come up with a plan for what should happen now, put themselves on the line so I could make a judgement, that might help.

At the moment it’s like they don’t exist.

There would have been less cronyism when giving out lucrative contracts. Dido Harding would be nowhere.
The press would have been screaming blue murder about any furlough scheme.

Galaxy agreed. Bojo was the Brexit manager (and what a debacle that is) but certainly not the right person for a Pandemic.

The whole world needs PPE and vaccines. This is a Pandemic clue is in the name it isn't or shouldn't be a race to see who can grab the largest quantity.

Agree with both Peasblossom and Grammaretto
Two different but interesting points.

I doubt that JC would have given £billions in contracts to his mates. He'd have been far more likely to to fund the NHS and support them in any way they needed.

That said this is hypothetical as he wasn't in power so there is no way of knowing what might have been. The Tories were in charge and we know for a fact that they gave contracts worth £millions to their mates, didn't follow the scientists advice, failed to ensure that we had PPE in case of such a scenario even though they'd been warned in 2016, encouraged people to eat out and mix by offering half price meals, didn't ensure that children had access to internet and computers when it was the only way that education was being delivered, kept our borders open and didn't ensure that the poorest children were fed.

So, interesting replies, but absolutely no solid reasons for believing that Labour couldn't have done any better.

Why do people keep saying it, then?

I think party politics are outdated but I really don't understand why people defend them when the self interests of this cohort of cabinet are blindingly clear

I am not a fan of Boris Johnson, and though I was once a conservative voter, I doubt that I will be again, but I think he’s been given an impossible job to do, and he’s had to respond quickly without a lot of time to weigh things up.

Could someone have done better? Possibly, but we’ll never know, he’s clearly made some big mistakes, but I’m not sure labour would have done much better.

MaizieD, I suspect the people who say it won’t vote Labour next time either.
I’m with Galaxy in seeing Johnson as the worst kind of leader in this kind of crisis.
Keir Starmer hasn’t been silent, he’s been ahead of Johnson in calling for schools only to be open if they can be safe, called for a breaker, earlier lockdown etc.

MaizieD - they keep saying it because it’s the only defence they can muster. I’ve been driven to despair by people who, when you say how bad BJ is will only reply - but what about Corbyn then. It’s the only defence they have.

Mamardoit

They wouldn't have been able to source more PPE. Every other country was scrambling to try and buy it in. The same with the number of nurses and doctors. They can't be trained in days. So they would have been in the same position as the tory government.

Would the same scientists have been giving the advice? I don't think any of the labour front bench would have been expert enough to question the given advice so I 'm sure they would have done pretty much the same things. We can't say whether they would have locked down earlier. That is something that is very easy to say in hindsight from the opposition bench.

Also it wouldn't have been KS as PM. Jeremy Corbyn was the worst ever leader of the opposition. Personally I don't think he would have been any use in a crisis.

Excellent post??

There is no solid reason to think that Labour would have done any better either MaizieD ?

WW010

MaizieD - they keep saying it because it’s the only defence they can muster. I’ve been driven to despair by people who, when you say how bad BJ is will only reply - but what about Corbyn then. It’s the only defence they have.

It’s a bloody good defence though.

Mamardoit

But we are not NZ. We are one of the most over crowded islands on the planet. We are also in normal times a major travel hub. The only people travelling to NZ are people going there. We really cannot compare the UK to NZ.

You are right they did make mistakes with the contracts, but who knows what decisions Corbyn would have made.

I've compared some of what and when NZ did last year.

At the beginning of February NZ banned anyone from China or coming via China. They had their first case from someone arriving via China. UK could have done this.

NZ locked down when they had recorded only 102 cases and no deaths. UK locked down on 23rd March when there were 6,500 cases and more than 330 deaths. We could have locked down much earlier - First deaths were 3rd March. Prompt action from NZ and nothing to do with population numbers.

NZ's border was shut on 20 March to everyone except returning national citizens and residents. People, albeit reluctantly, accept this knowing that and lockdown would have a huge impact on their economy. UK's borders are still open. Would it have had a massive impact on the UK by not being a major travel hub for a couple of months?

Health officials in NZ used the six-week lockdown period to develop a rigorous testing and contact tracing system that has been successful. UK still hasn't got one. Again, this is nothing to do with population numbers.