What is wrong with this Government? Can it not get anything right?

I was writing this as Johnson announced further relaxations...

At the outset I have to confess a serious distrust of all Tories and a horror of corruption in high places. So there is no chance I shall be soft in my criticism of Johnson and co. Still less when they have committed the cardinal sin of allowing a special adviser to take such extraordinary control over governmental affairs.

And of course panic causes strange effects. And there has never been more reason for panic than the onset of a killer virus that is a global pandemic. And one for which there is no obvious treatment and as yet no real sign of a vaccine.

But frankly events of the past few months go much further than mere failure to come up to scratch in the extraordinarily tough environment of a global catastrophe.

It all started with the utterly insane idea of 'herd immunity'. For that you need 60-70% of your sample to have had the disease AND be guaranteed immune. That might be OK for the common cold but this things kills and leaves others virtually disabled for life. And while spread is uncomfortably fast it is also too slow to wait that long. The man who said it should have been removed as far from the levers of power as possible. The Isle of Rockall for example. But instead they invited him in... and he is still here!

At my age and with my experience of emergency planning I am utterly astonished at the mess we have got ourselves in. Until, that is, I consider the previous decade of austerity.

Emergencies are planned for. That is a given, or should be. They always happen. Usually at the worst possible time. But this is what you have a Civil Service for. Complete with scientific and medical and technological and logistical expertise to look into the future, judge the need, and provide the essentials.

But the Tories are notoriously bad at planning ahead. And even worse at spending in advance of need. And worse still at laying the foundations of a public and welfare state.

So in the years of austerity they have cut and cut again. And those cuts have more than decimated our levels of preparedness. Made far worse by an accountancy juggle called Just In Time. And another called Current Cost Accounting.

Let me explain a little. Under older regimes you bought in advance what you needed for say one year's production, generation, activity, emergency. And stockpiled it. This was, the bean counters considered too costly. Expensive warehouses, armies of men with clip boards checking date, lifetime etc.

How much better they said to make it when you need it. So empty the warehouses, sack the checkers. Calculate your costs on the real costs, not cost plus storage and maintenance. Prices will come down. Prices did not come down. You may have noticed a steady rise.

And then there was the cost of building stuff. Depreciation. Build a hospital for £100m and calculate that it would lose value at say £5m a year, reaching zero at 20 years when replacement needed to be considered. But wait. That might be OK for Government but businesses need assets. So value the hospital at the cost of replacement RIGHT NOW. That way the asset would grow year on year and you could borrow squillions against the assets. Privatise those state businesses and guess what? They all use CCA instead of Historic Cost Accounting. They all have inflated asset books and vast debts, protected by assets that are actually not worth much at all.

How does this affect Government and emergency planning? Well for emergencies you need hospitals bigger than you do for day by day activity. So some wards were maintained but kept empty against sudden need. Some Intensive Care Units (or HDUs or whatever) ditto. And a score or two of big stuff like ventilators. If you do not have them when the crisis comes you have to build Nightingale units Just In Time.. too late!

And PPE? Yes of course, millions of items in store, kept under review and replaced as time wore on. Hand it all to the private sector and guess what? They dump it, fail to replace, argue for Just in Time (while actually CCA-ing the stuff!). And yes they did. So no PPE when it is needed. And you are not in the buying club either so a scramble to find it when you need it. People die.

And arrangements to use private services? Not kept up to date so not available at time of need. And so thousands of elderly crisis patients are sent back to care home to make space in the hospitals for the crisis you failed to plan for. And thousands die in agony, killing many of their carers.

And now we read of vast millions of contracts placed with unqualified and even insolvent companies to supply critical equipment. And without any safeguarding procedures. And often with mates of cabinet members.

And the much-vaunted Civil Service, who know about all these things and have done for years? Retired, redundant, too costly, austerity.... replaced with unskilled, incompetent special advisers with agendas and secret deals.

You can only blame Johnson and his bunch of buffoons. They were picked for their enthusiasm for Brexit, not their intelligence, experience or proven skills. They are incompetent and inept. They listen too willingly to their backers and their special advisers, fooled into believing these people know best.

Meanwhile the relatively few Tories with real public service ethics have been sidelined or left to grow old and go fallow. There is no way back for a generation. This cadre of clowns has been given five years (FIVE YEARS) to govern by another crackpot decision. They are praying that two things will happen: 1 - we will all forget what utter idiots they were and 2 - that in time they will get the hang of it.

Meanwhile people die, people go hungry, children miss school, families collapse, suicides happen, jobs vanish, food fails to reach the shelves, prices soar, medicines disappear, prices soar, theatre and halls close, libraries vanish, museums get dusty, HS2 never appears but costs squillions, Trident gets replaced but still isn't any use...

Can we really let this go on for another four years?

Defending the indefensible and other disastrous errors

THE nation has just watched a Prime Minister commit professional suicide. Well most of us have. Two other audiences remain, those who did not watch and those who believe Boris Johnson is the messiah.
It is possible I am exaggerating but I doubt it. For Boris Johnson did not merely defend his special adviser Dominic Cummings. He did not merely refuse to sack him. He endorsed his actions. Which means the buck has moved up a level to the Prime Minister's own desk.
As a retired PR adviser and consultant I listened in mounting horror to the foolishness of Johnson's words. Bad enough that he chose to defend the indefensible actions of his man. Bad enough too that he should have called his actions reasonable and legal. But then he set about lying to show that the interpretation put upon the regulations was justified by the words in them.
This is not only untrue but the facts of this case do not meet even the extreme interpretation that Johnson has put upon them.


If you brief a senior executive on a breach of the rules you have to make sure they understand what their audience understood. Stay Home. Short sweet and eminently supported by the man himself and all of his acolytes. And resulting in huge personal, emotional and familial sacrifices by the population. Not sit at home and think about it. Not figure out how to avoid it. Not use your heartfelt desire to do something else. But Stay Home.


It is worth just examining the probity of Cummings claim, which Johnson so handsomely endorsed.
He and his wife are both high powered employees with work demanding long hours and flexibility. They live in a nice London house with a four year old son. To ensure his care they have a nanny. I will just say that again since it is something the media seems unable to grasp. They have a nanny. Presumably to provide support for their child when they are not available. Hmmm.
But beyond that they will have a wide circle of friends in the area. And they both have family working and living in London. Some of Cummings chums and family work in number 10. So the last problem they were confronted with when Mrs Cummings announced she had covid-19 symptoms was child care.
The regulations state that in this circumstance the family should self-isolate, at home. Mrs C would use one room and facilities; the others the rest until things changed or they had been tested or 14 days had elapsed. No problem you might say for the Cummings family.
But he must have asked himself, why do we want people to stay home? Surely they can do their jankers somewhere else? No. Track and trace requires that the trackers and tracers know where you are. If they spoke to the source of Mrs C 's infection they would come knocking on the Cummings's door. No one home? Where are they? They could find them but it would take time.
And by then Mrs C would have given it to Mr C, the child may have it, the people they went close to at the motorway stop where they took a pee, fettled the child and bought fluids... well anyway you get the point.


The rules have a purpose, the purpose was the safety of the entire family including the four year old child. Cummings ignored all that and decided he was above the rules and could do what he wanted – see his parents, honour his mum's birthday and get out of the London hell hole while they recovered.
And he had the infernal cheek to refuse to quit, laugh at the issue, tell us he doesn't care how it looks (thus insulting his boss and the cabinet). And then his boss throws the entire covid-19 strategy under a bus along with the reputation of the Tory party. For what?
To save the neck of a man who is an avowed anarchist. Judgement? Johnson never has had any and has never proved it so conclusively. Now the issue is – Johnson

Do as I tell you, not what I do...

WHERE to begin on the real background to Dominic Cummings scuttle off to mummy? Maybe I start by saying how deeply ashamed I am to be British these days. I hate that. Britain always stood for something. Now it stands for nothing. Worse than nothing.

Many years ago, when a company I worked for was struggling at a crossroads in a fast developing business a colleague said we were “in danger of losing our sense of true north”. He was so right. And this is where this appalling Government is leading us – astray. Off the path. Away from the moral high ground into the depths of the talgy wood, where the really nasty gripper grabbers walk.

LET us begin by examining what is represented by Cummings actions and public acceptance of the lockdown rules. If the rules are flexible for Cummings will anyone follow them? Well if he accepted he was wrong and resigned no harm would be done. If he did not accept he was wrong but was sacked for his behaviour the rules would be reinforced.

But if he claims what he did was fine and the PM and Cabinet – as they are – back him then irreparable harm will be done. How much will it matter?

WE are now past the first peak and are said to be reasonably confident there will not be a second. But just in case we are putting a major test and track service in place to contain any resurgence. This process was unwisely stopped only a week or two into the crisis. On that basis it must be the case that if the lockdown is eased too fast a second peak becomes more likely.

And that will be made even more certain if public adherence to the rules is damaged by a piece of favouritism by the PM and Cabinet.

So what do they really think they are playing at? Advisers are ten a penny, here today and gone tomorrow hirelings. If the public good can be best served by dumping or even better sacking him then that is the right decision.

But they are busy chummying up to back him. Risking their entire lockdown strategy on the mis-directed whim of a sick man who may not even have been in full possession of his wits.

THE moral bankruptcy and the dereliction of public duty this implies is terrifying. It betrays a Government infinitely more interested in its own power and dogma than the well being of the public it serves.

That this can already by implied by their earlier failures – especially in the area of care homes – leads to only one real conclusion:

Boris Johnson and his Tory Government have no interest in the well-being of the British people. I so accuse. I just wish they would sue me for libelling the cretinous, criminal and morally corrupt bunch of them.

The Cummings and Goings of Dominic:

27 March - Cummings seen running along Downing Street shortly after the prime minister posts video saying he has contracted virus.
28 and 29 March - Over weekend, Cummings is said to have developed coronavirus symptoms.

30 March - Downing Street confirms Cummings is self-isolating after developing symptoms of the virus.

31 March - Joint investigation by The Guardian and the Daily Mirror, shows Cummings travelled to his family's farm in Durham.

31 March - Cummings's family spoken to by the police. Durham Constabulary said: Officers made contact with the owners of the address who confirmed that the individual in question was present and was self-isolating in part of the house.

14 April - Cummings is pictured in Downing Street after recovering from coronavirus.

22 May - The story breaks.

23 May - Cummings statement claims it was reasonable action to protect child; Number 10 backs him.

POINTS: Cummings family have a nice established home in London . They have a nanny to care for their four year old son. He is a well-paid adviser. Many family members work in Government at Number 10 and could have supported him. He drove while unwell. It is reported that the weekend he drove to Durham was his mother's birthday.

The who, what, when, and why of letting thousands die in care homes....

ROUGHLY a month ago I wrote about the spiralling deaths in care homes and wondered how it was happening. I even suggested it might be part of the Tory Government strategy to let the deaths rip in care homes rather than add them to the burden threatening to overwhelm the NHS.
Today in the House a new leader of the Labour party finally brought the PM to book on the subject. Oh the mad Tory supporters are busy claiming the advice back in March that care homes were not much at risk from coronavirus was taken out of context. Indeed Johnson lied once again by saying Starmer was wrong.
He was not. As clear as the indecent majority won by Johnson and co the care homes were told not to worry; they were not at significant risk. It was tosh at the time. It has been rubbish all along. And it is now visibly bollocks.
It will be some time before we know what the actual number of covid-19 deaths in care homes is. But it is already well above the numbers quoted by the forensically careful Keir Starmer.
I shall watch that row burn with interest. But today I would like to remind everyone of what all this represents, starting with the fact that people put into care homes are old, sickly, vulnerable and in many cases , alone. And that in the main the care they receive is not about life saving but about life caring and, if hospice does not intervene, providing a peaceful environment in which to slip this mortal coil. It's what they and their families pay for.

So the questions must be:

• WHY in God's name were those found to be ill with covid-19 NOT sent to hospital to receive intensive care and ventilation?
• WHO decided they should instead die an horrific and suffering death while spreading their dread disease among those brave enough to serve them?
• WHO indeed was it who decided that if they did get to hospital but were deemed not worthy of all this they were sent back whence they came, to die a horrific etc etc...
• WHO massaged the figures so that for weeks care home deaths were NOT reported at all?
• WHEN and by whom was that decision finally changed, only for the figures to continue being fudged?
• WHEN were GPs told or guided NOT to list coronavirus on the death certificate but only add it as contributing factor?
• WHEN will Johnson, Hancock and co finally admit the truth?

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.