The designated survivor

Last week Johnson, Hancock, the UK's chief medical officer and Dominic Cummings (AKA the Big Brain) were all tested positive for COVID-19.

Johnson was given the "all clear" after some three days in isolation. I thought that should have been 14, what with a baby on the way and all?

Last night it was up to the UK Government's "designated survivor", Dominic Raab, to lead the country in the daily virus update.

Its not clear what role the designated survivor has in Cabinet/Government, not important I suspect as it has been given to the main appointed as Minister for Brexit and only then discovered that Dover was important for trade to the EU and was near to France.

Anyway, he repeated that the public and whole country should follow the Government's guidelines, all the time licking his fingers, showing that such rules do not apply to designated survivors, as he has a shield of protection.

And this brings me to a larger political problem. Bear with me.

In Brown's Government, the Minister for Transport was (Lord) Andrew Adonis, who knew a thing or two about transport and railways in particular, and was able to start projects to cascade trains from areas where they were not needed to where they were.

Since then, and to be honest for most of the time, Ministers are appointed with little or no apparent knowledge of the departments they front.

How is this even possible?

I mean, to be, say, Minister for Justice without having a legal background, other than watching Crown Court back in the 70s with nanny. Being appointed for Minister for International Trade without understanding how the WTO works and that for many countries with deal with the EU tied into FTA that cannot be bettered for any other country, not even the UK. Or that trade is mostly dependant on distance and geography.

Let's not mince words here, Johnson and co have bodged Brexit in the most appalling way possible, there is nothing to show they ever had a plan or knew what they are doing. And now they are in charge of protecting the country from a global pandemic.

They fucked up Brexit, which was always a shitty idea, but could have been made to kinda work, with minimum damage to the economy. And now they have to understand science, as told to them by experts and make decisions that dictate whether hundreds or hundreds of thousands will die.

I think we know how this is going to end, sadly.