Blame

Lets start with Brexit.

It is easy to say that the blame lies with the Brexiteers, but in fairness, all they did was lie they was they have all through life, got away with it. And when the truth or reality got in the way, it was easily dismissed as "project fear".

Almost all politicians knew how bad Brexit was going to be, there was a strong indication in polls for three straight years that the majority of the country were now against it, all that had to happen was the two main parties: Labour and LibDems, reach an agreement to only field one candidate against a Tory, so not to split the "remain" vote.

That was clearly too hard. Neither party could even pretend to like each other, and bot leaders trashed each other, and any hope of there being a national campaign of tactical voting was dashed. Some local level agreements, like in Canterbury, did happen, but the national remain vote was split between Labour/LibDems/SNP and so on. Not that Labour was clearly in favour of remain, there was a path to which a further referendum lead.

But even the thought that failing to act together would deliver A Johnson government with a working majority; not a good enough reason to work together, to save the country. Although Johnson pushed Brexit over the line, it was with the massive help of the opposition parties who could not get over their petty differences.

I saw a speech on YouTube, in which Tony Blair detailed the things his Governments had achieved in his then 9 years in power; massively reduced NHS waiting lists, more schools, and so on and on. Even a centre-left Labour PM could achieve much on a domestic agenda, being right on left wing but in permanent opposition just gives the Tories a free ride.

Yes there is the Iraq war, and it is something I will never forgive Blair for, even under Brown, the NHS achieved its highest user satisfactions levels. A decade under Cameron, May and Johnson have the NHS on its knees.

And just remember, had Corbyn been PM, with Starmer as his deputy, and a front bench of talent would have handled COVID-19 better than Johnson and co did. How so cry the Brexiteers?

Well, Sweden, that did nothing at all to mitigate COVID at all, had better per-capita data than the UK that had lockdown for the best part of eight weeks with shops, bars and restaurants closed They all remained open in Sweden. Sure, lots of people died, but not as many per/million data that the UK did. Just to clarify, Johnson and co did far worse than doing nothing.

Thank about that!

The alert number has been reduced from 4 to 3, though still unclear as to whether there was still the data to support that act, especially as further loosening is planned for next week. The Apple/Google app that the Government is now to use, won't be up and running perhaps until the new year. And listening to Hancock this total clusterfuck of three wasted months, tens of millions of wasted pounds, and untold numbers of additional dead, this is somehow a good thing.

We are truly through the looking glass, but the electorate voted for it, the opposition worked together to make sure Johnson won, and there could be four and a half more years of Johnson as PM. His Government has run out of policy already, and enthusiasm. Thankfully they are a Government that craves power but with no idea what to do with it once they have it.