Cough... ahem... excuse me would you mind terribly if...

YOU might be forgiven, this Sunday, the 10th of May, 2020 (mark this date) to think the Tory Government had suddenly discovered clemency, charity, compassion.
Suddenly the harsh words and deeds have given way to softness and
kindness. But you would be wrong.
The slogans that are essential to any major campaign, be it to defeat
coronavirus or Corbynistas, are necessarily firm, aggressive,
positive. Stop. Save. Protect. Indoors. Lives. The NHS. Now we have stay alert,
control the virus, save lives. And uncertainty now
reigns supreme. I am alert. Where should I be, being alert? I cannot
control the virus, even the scientists cannot do that. Save Lives –
I can do that. How? It is complete bollox.
And if it were the work of a paid agency you would not pay them. Can
you honestly imagine this being the outcome of hiring Tim Bell, or
the Saatchis? Really? No. This is the
standard camel produced by the committee for race horse production.
Ungainly, unsettled and unappealing. Donkeys are not in it. They had a strong
message. STAY HOME. The rest was justification. If you do this you
can do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they
are hard *(as someone said 17 years ago). They did not stop 'telling
Sid' until the deed was done.
Now we must stay alert.
How? What for? Are we expecting an invasion of body snatchers? More
immigrants by the zillion? Is Simon Cowell launching a new wave of
talent scouts? It is on a par now with
the jokey Stay Calm and Carry On. In fact that is what it means, says
an obviously aware and desperate Robert Jenrick. Stay Alert is code
for Stay Home according to his interpretation. Does he honestly think
we are stupid? What it means is go out
and have a bloody good time but keep your wits about you. Walls have
ears you know.
So we lurch from too
little too late to absolutely not enough ever. Boris and co threw the
elderly in care homes under a bus to save the NHS which they had
reduced to a pale shadow of its former glory. They denied those
people ventilators to die in agony in their beds. They left the
carers to face a dreadful death... as well as at risk of their own by
a Government not having maintained or managed stock of EMERGENCY
equipment like PPE well enough. They failed to start a
lockdown soon enough, failed to cancel major events, failed to
maintain testing, failed to maintain track and trace (despite its
long proven efficacy) and finally they have failed even to properly
conform to the five tests they said were essential before any kind of
lockdown could begin. I would support a slow,
controlled return to work but with the STAY HOME message still in
place and reinforced. I would back even thoughts that schools might
re-open providing the majority of those at risk were still told STAY
HOME. We are week, even
months away from any sort of normality – but we may now be only
days from a new surge. With news horrors in
care homes and the possible isolation Nightingale hospitals unused
and mothballed. And with an exhausted medical front line. If this benighted
Government does not pay soon they may yet retain power due a marked
absence of anyone able to vote at all!