Out of confusion comes forth obvious guilt....

So my scepticism about the new coronavirus policy was justified. Confusion reigns. Clarity we do not have. And a spike in infection seems highly likely.
Let us start with who should be told first. After discussion and agreement in cabinet (did it happen?) it should be put to Parliament, where it will be further debated and the chance for clarifications can be met. This will be reported on. (This point will recur.) And the devolved nations should be consulted. Clearly they have not as they disagree vehemently with Johnson.
Then the PM or some chosen minister will tell the nation about it. If it warrants that. And they will make an address to the nation. Probably live. To be fair Churchill was often recorded but then his intake of brandy required it so we are told.

So why did Johnson choose to tell the nation first? It can only be for one of two reason or a combination of both.

• First he is not well enough to reliably deliver the message coherently in one take. To be honest he has not looked well since he came out of hospital.
• Second he wanted to ensure clarity and avoid the risk that reportage from a contentious House of Commons might be confusing.

Well the first is OK but frankly this tiny jiggering of the rules and wholesale loss of clarity could have seriously done with some testing in the House.
There is a third available explanation.  Johnson wanted to take credit for the first steps in lifting the lockdown; to be fully identified as the man who did it. Or, to put it another way, Johnson was still playing politics with the life and economy of the nation.

It is now clear that the Government accepts, albeit tacitly, that serious mistakes were made early on. Some even before the pandemic. Emergency stock of PPE was drastically low and under managed. Our capacity for testing, track and trace was similarly depleted, especially against our success in the past.
The NHS was under resourced and what little reserve capacity it had against major emergencies was hopelessly compromised.
But instead of responding rapidly to offset these failings they hesitated. Instead of following the science, as they claim, they delayed doing so. As a result, many things that might have been done as early as February were not done.

• Air travel continued unhindered and has done until now. 
• Major public events were not cancelled. 
• No steps were taken to guard against disaster in the care home. 
• A couple of headline grabbing hospital builds were begun. 

But as late as early March the science was saying lockdown now..They waited again to March 23. Thousands died.
And somewhere the care home situation was allowed to escalate out of control. One could be forgiven for taking the cynical view that I do. The elderly in care homes were NOT offered hospitalisation and thus no ventilators simply to save the NHS. That they could have gone to the Nightingale Hospitals (and still could have until last week) was not it seems considered.
Instead these old, frail people who had lived through the war we so recently lauded, were allowed to lie in their ordinary beds, tended by extraordinary people in less than adequate protective gear, to subside into gasping agony as the disease ate away at their lungs, their kidneys, their livers and finally their lives.
One day, good people of Britain, this man Johnson and his misbegotten gang of fools and rogues must be made to pay.