Happy and thrilled to hear Pritti Patel announce we are ‘ahead of the curve’.
Sorry, we have never been ahead of anything.
- Let’s take the mutant covid first. It’s pretty much general knowledge that we knew about it at least a week before Boris changed the rules and introduced Tier 4. One curve we weren’t ahead of.
- Then, so many of those Tier 2 areas adjacent to Tier 4 are suddenly promoted, but not for another four days when everybody has been everywhere spreading the virus. Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted springs to mind. Certainly not ahead of the curve.
- Before sticking the knife in the French, we should applaud Macron for trying to protect his nation. Maybe if we had shut our borders in February our excess death toll would be rather less than the 80,000 it has now reached.
- Sadly, it is in hindsight that we have decided to test lorry drivers and would probably have never taken that step without being kicked up the behind by the French.
- As so much freight is accompanied and we now have ample testing capacity, surely the Channel and North Sea routes into the UK should have been protected.
So desperate to improve its image the Government seems to have turned a Trumpism into a reality. Yes, we get fake news, not from the media but from the government.
- The Covid vaccine. Yes, we have administered perhaps 500,000 jabs, but one week after the first jab over half the hospitals have no vaccine and nor do two thirds of GP surgeries. Ahead of the curve there then.
- Test and trace has never been ‘world beating’ despite Boris’ promise at the start of June. Making such a claim sets you up for ridicule. Ahead of the curve?
- We also boasted that we would be testing 100,000 people a day by the end of April. It never happened. Back of the curve on that one.
- Ten of thousands of school children and their families went through hell because, having had five months to prepare, we got our exam marking wrong. Months behind the curve on that.
- Love it or hate it we all knew we would be leaving the EU at the end of the year. So why tell us and the businesses in the UK that negotiation would stop in October and not stop in October. No one has a clue what the state of the game will be on January 1 or even if there is curve to be on.
- Then the Prime Minister told us on television that there were only 170 lorries queuing at Dover when the pictures showed miles of lorries! I think he might need a new press secretary, the one he’s paying £140,000 a year to doesn’t seem up to the job.
We pay these people to look after us and our interests. They have failed us, the politicians and parties in England.