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

Every government around the world has almost certainly made mistakes.

Unfortunately, I think ours has made many, many more than most.
Even if Labour were higher than average in terms if mistakes made- this current government would surely still outstrip them.

I find it hilarious that people are blaming Corbyn for the fact that they voted for Boris.

As Trisha said earlier. If the government had used (what’s left of) local authority and nhs to source PPE etc, we wouldn’t have lost a fortune lining the pockets of Tory cronies with no prior experience.
We will never agree on this trisha, but yes many people voted Johnson to avoid CorbynAs PM

I didn’t vote for Boris, but Corbyn lost Labour my vote, for sure.

I’m old enough to remember when Michael Foot lost Kabour the election too.?

Hi trisher. No they didn’t necessarily vote for Boris. They either didn’t vote or went Lib Dem’s or Green. (Around here anyway). My point is if JC had stepped away those people would definitely have voted labour and given us more seats. In my constituency labour actually won but only by a hairbreadth against Lib Dem’s.

I think blaming one man for the way you vote shows a distinct lack of political interest, after all don't we vote for policies and parties? I think Corbyn is actually an excuse for a lot of closet Tories. At least the Northern block had a good reason, that they wanted Brexit.

I don’t know why you’re assuming those who didn’t vote for Corbyn voted Tory trisher - I certainly didn’t.

trisher you often use the ‘closest tory’, I left the Labour Party
after over 50 years because of Corbyn and joined again after
Corbyn.

trisher

I find it hilarious that people are blaming Corbyn for the fact that they voted for Boris.

Find it as hilarious as you like. I didn't vote labour because of JC and others in the the shadow cabinet. But I didn't vote for BJ either.

I don’t find anything hilarious about the fact that many didn’t
vote labour because of Corbyn.

It was a bit of a Marks and Spencer movement wasn’t it? You know “You will have what we’ve decided, We won’t listen to anything you say. You’ll have to go along with it because you’ve got no choice.

Err, actually we did.

I just find it extraordinary that people deliberately weakened the only party likely to form a government or be the major partner in a coalition when they ALL KNEW that Johnson would be an utter disaster.

I'm not a Corbynista (despite having been frequently accused of being one) but I think he was savagely and successfully demonised by the media (as one can witness right here), and nowhere near as black as painted. I found it perfectly easy to vote Labour, as did many of my friends and colleagues; all 'mature' professional or ex-professional citizens.

I can't see that the probable Corbyn front benchers could have been anywhere near as talentless and incompetent as the worthless lot we have the misfortune to be 'governed' by now. They're only there because they are loyal, not because they have any ability.

That's my piece said and I'm not saying any more.

Michael Foot suffered at the hands of the right wing press. I expect most people remember the fuss about him wearing a donkey jacket at the Cenotaph in 1981. It was a duffle coat (expensive as his wife said).

MaizieD I joined the LP because of Corbyn. At the time of the leadership election I thought he was the best candidate. Like many other Labour leaders he was under constant attack from the right wing press. Sadly he proved himself to not be leadership material. I think he was often misguided but I don't believe that he lied. At the last moment during the last election he introduced so many spending plans that most people thought were excessive and so didn't believe the LP's manifesto.

I think that the shadow front bench when Corbyn was leader and also that now are so much better than the current Tory front bench who have nothing to offer. To begin with their abilities as speakers - no decent orators amongst them.

I and my friends are also professionals or retired professionals and most of them are LP supporters. Several of them are quite wealthy but that has not prevented them from espousing LP values.

It really matters little if you voted for Boris or not. But if you based your vote on one personality and not on policies then you are partly responsible for permitting "celebrity politics" to emerge, where the major parties will be headed by someone who is media-savvy and the candidate of mainstream media. Much as you may dislike Corbyn and blame him for everything surely you can see the absolutely negative effect this will have on politics and government. I would have imagined Boris & co are a terrible warning about it.

Dinahmo sorry but it wasn’t a donkey jacket, Jill showed it to
me, it was a short length winter coat, chosen because of the problems with walking with a long coat ,the problems caused after a car crash

Jeremy Corbyn gets a chance to speak when interviewed This is how he would have dealt with Covid ect

m.youtube.com/watch?v=z7g34G0mLcs

You just have to look at the manifesto

Do not know where Starmer is leading the party if you can call it leading.

Anniebach

Dinahmo sorry but it wasn’t a donkey jacket, Jill showed it to
me, it was a short length winter coat, chosen because of the problems with walking with a long coat ,the problems caused after a car crash

I did say it was a duffle coat.

trisher not a case of voting for personalities for me, I campaigned for Gaitskell, Wilson, Callahan, Foot, Kinnock,
Blair, Brown , Milliband, surely you cannot say they all had the same personalities

Sorry Dinahmo for me duffle costs have hoods

Well I've been tracked and traced and so have others I know. SO it does work its just that a lot of people are not taking any notice, or haven't got smart phones or are refusing to download the app. I agree that we don't know if anyone could have done better or worse. Its not as if anyone had to deal with something like this before. We didn't stop people fro China but we did attempt to quarantine them but trusted them to do it and they didn't. It was the skiing fraternity from Italy last February that ruined it for us all taking no notice of being asked to stay at home for 14 days and sending their kids to school. I have always said that in crisis that effects the whole country ALL parties should forget their personal politics and work together, this would go for Brexit and the pandemic but thats not going to happen.

We don’t need to defend our views. I didn’t like the way Corbyn was taking the party. He loved the celebrity aspects of it, but that wasn’t why for me.
I get fed up with strident left wingers trying to make those of us who are more moderate feel that we are wrong and trying to brow beat us by claiming we are closet Tories, because it just isn’t true. No, we are not less intelligent, less interested, less politically aware, more in favour of the Tories, more into celebrity culture, or whatever other wild claims you want to make, we are making our own minds up - which is how it should be.

Back to the OP, any government would get some things wrong if faced with this pandemic. I don’t believe a Labour government would have made as much of a mess of this Conservative one has.
Part of the problem has been Johnson’s desire To avoid imposing restrictions. It’s all been too late and shambolic.
The airports still have people arriving from Covid red zones mixing in queues with others. Arrivals can use public transport to go to their accommodation. Even when hotel quarantine is belatedly imposed, those quarantining will be able to use public transport to the hotel and leave the hotel if they want to.

I appreciate this thread was set up to stop derailing another thread but, at the end of the day, whatever is said along the lines of someone else/another party/people from Mars would have been just as bad if not worse - is just irrelevant.

What is relevant is how did Britain, on 12 December, 2109 elect a proven habitual lier, who had a known record of fabricating and misrepresenting fact, as Prime Minister? That is something that exists and is not a determined missing of the point as are the suggestions about other parties than the Conservatives.

So why, how did that happen?

How did it happen? Brexit is how it happened. Three and a half years of our MPs pissing about in parliament is how it happened.