There is absolutely no doubt that the UK was slow off the mark and if you are in charge of running the country, this IS your call.
Not hindsight, it's absolute fact.
It was a judgement call at the time and the judgement was wrong.

We could of course, blame someone else. Boris is VERY good at that.

The really interesting part of all this will be how the huge costs of this situation are paid for.

Austerity / borrowing / tax increases ?

However they do it, it’ll certainly hurt the general public more than it will them.

So broadly speaking the two schools of thought on here are:

A. I think they are doing the best they can. There's no evidence the other side would have done better; and B. They are an indefensible car-crash that you should have all seen coming.

Non Conservative votes are still dumbfounded that the working classes elected a party that (they believe) historically hates them. They are further astonished that everything that has happened since the election has failed to make the working classes regret it.

I'm not sure that you are right there.

I'd go for those who believe that he (Boris) can do no wrong and those (me included) who believe the bloke to have little beyond self interest and he will ALWAYS return to his core Tory beliefs.

I dont blame him for that, they are embedded in his DNA.

As for could have done better. Damn right, although in the final analysis, we have to be grateful that we dont have Trump in charge.

I agree that no one should be surprised by anything he has or will do. The evidence has been in the public gaze for years. It's like electing a Tiger and being annoyed when he bites someone's arm. What I can't quite come to terms with is that the volume of evidence available to us all on his character is somehow cancelled out by his jolly persona to your evarage man and woman on the street. Equally I don't understand why your average person preferred him so overwhelmingly to Corbyn. I'm a lifelong Lib Dem so have more neutrality than some (although I'm not pretending to be bang down the middle). I don't like Corbyn very much but for me it was a choice between a heart-attack (Johnson) or a kick in the nuts (Corbyn). I don't have to want either of them, but it would be better to have a boot in the knackers.

Free parking for NHS staff at hospitals to be scrapped now. What a great reward for their efforts.

I would have thought that with your insight and knowledge you would actually know, after all you along with three or four more on here you have identified the mistakes and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before you sort out this mess.

Sadly too late for over 50,000 people who with hindsight would have preferred Johnson not to be the PM

I'm flattered that you think that I'm up to it


Unlike our current PM, I know that I'm not and I dont make a living from perpetually telling lies and bending the truth to breaking point.

How do you think Brexit will play out ?

Last minute deal or "no deal" ?, certainly not anything close to Boris's "oven ready deal"



Is this more political paranoia on my part or more "bull" from Boris

I'd add a C. to that. The paradoxical believers. Those that go to great lengths to defend the government by saying, "it's a new virus and we don't know enough about it to deal with it properly", but also cheerlead the government when they talk about 'world beating systems' to deal with the virus. Do they not know enough about it, or do they know so much about it they can lead the world in combatting it? Which one is it?

I think this hindsight thing is also a load of old tosh. You should always prepare for the worst case scenario. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail, and all that. Plenty of health experts were offering advice in the early days, but tribal politics dismissed them as ranting lefties, or loony Corbynites. Check out Prof. John Ashton's Question Time appearance, March 12. It's prescient. Then look at the stick he got on social media and in the press following it. He's like the health expert in a disaster movie who nobody is listening to, until it's far too late.

Dear Oh Dear, you have to be one of the most vindictive posters on this forum. Keir Starmer jumped onto this bandwagon at PMQs today. The prime minister’s reply was “parking is still free now for NHS staff, and the government are working to fulfil their manifesto pledge to make parking free for staff and patients, something the Labour Party have never proposed, and Starmer should jump onto that Bandwagon and park it somewhere else.

If you listened he didn’t say parking would remain free for all NHS staff and the manifesto pledge related to some patients only. I think you will find that any pledge made by Johnson is not guaranteed, take a look at his promise of no additional paperwork or border controls between Eire and Northern Ireland, how is that going.

Think your a bit mixed up Dunkirk. The labkur party had pkanned to abolish all hospital parking charges.

That isn't true. Labour governments have undertaken comprehensive economic analysis on how to make parking free/fair, the cost of doing so and what the barriers are (that's not a bad pun). I know because I have worked in the team that undertook the analysis. It's an emotive issue but abolishing charges is actually hugely complex. I wish the present government and colleagues who would need to deliver it the best of luck.

Err I didn't actually say that you were up to it sorry if I've misled you, I also know your not up to running the country even though you try to come across as fair and open minded with your political views, it could well be that some of the vitriol you continually spew out about this government is true, the problem I have is gleaning the truth from the made up to suit your agenda bits.

I haven't got a clue how it will play out and neither do I believe you do either, reason being I'm not privvy to the ongoing negotiation and neither are you and some others on here either, wouldn't it be simpler to wait for the outcome of the talks instead of listening to the political broadcasters with an agenda.

I don't read the newspapers, but If I could hazard a guess It would sound like a quote from the guardian or the mirror echoed by yourself.

Personally It comes across as bitterness on your part.

Oh dear.

You do remember Boris and HIS "oven ready deal" dont you ? it was an absolute stone cold lie. It was wall to wall accross every media platform and paper during the election campaign.

As for Brexit, difficult issues that were there 4 years ago, still remain and it's a pity that so many people bought the lie.
The "easy" deal and "free trade arrangement" that were promised to the electorate seem just a little harder to glean that was promised and at least, I have been consistent (and right) about this from before the referendum and I dont feel the need to pretend to anyone, unlike certain politicians with their own agenda.

Many people will vote for a party because that is what they have done for years and others may change their vote based on the politics of the day, we all have that choice.
I make no secret of my disdain for the current government and their leadership.
Having walked the planet for over 50 years, you get to witness all sorts of people and politicians and for ME, the current lot are just a sham and Johnson in particular has little depth - he's a "soundbites" politician, full of one liners and bluster.
Many people are of with this - I'm not and the sooner that he is replaced, even by another Tory, the better things will be for all of us

The 'oven ready deal' was nothing to do with the Guardian or the Mirror. It was Johnson's own little campaign nugget. He won the election based on it.

Quite right many people do vote for the same party throughout their life, usually you'll find they're mainly labour voters who do so because their parents and their grandparents before them did so and have no desire or other reasons to change, I think you've made your feelings for this government quite clear, which is of course your right

Well first of all let me say that as far as walking on Gods earth goes I can trump you by over 20 years, but that is just an irrelevant side issue, but seeing as you brought it up, I have to say that on that basis I have seen more worthless governments than you have, in fact not that I've ever taken much notice but I can't remember a good one choose which side they were on, and I'm not sticking up for the present incumbents, you and a few more on here have rammed it down our throats since all this started, surely there's more to life than keep upsetting yourself, doesn't matter whose in you'll still end up paying, be grateful you can get away with that.

Is that an admission by you that apart from the PM the Tories aren't that bad after all.

How can you be so naieve PT? Do you think that money he gave to the working classes came out of his own pocket or Tory party funds? Did it helluz like. It was borrowed and we will all be ultimately paying it back in higher taxation. Hopefully they will fund it by scrapping that white elephant, HS2.

Hey leave that alone. I've got £20K compensation when ends up behind our house (If I live to be 110 obviously)

PopTart wrote:
Or they could remember all the money poured into those working classes you refer to when they needed it. You can always find a spin to get the answer you want.




Just think about the Famous words of Lincoln and Lydgate

You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.

Never a truer word spoken.

Bob Dylan quoted something very similar, by repeating the above but completing it thus: "I'd like to be in your dream if you'd like to be in mine."

Bob Dylan quoted something very similar, by repeating the above but completing it thus: "I'd like to be in your dream if you'd like to be in mine."

Or just for you “ you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time”

These are the words of Lincoln which are still applicable to Johnson. I am afraid you fall into the second scenario judging by your previous posts.

Actually, I think yours was the correct quote, Scarlet.