Another week another set of confused and mixed messaging from the government.
We desperately want and need Boris Johnson & co to get it right when it comes to tackling the COVID crisis, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to be empathetic when they continue to be pathetic and consistently inconsistent with their advice on how the coronavirus challenge should be managed.
Last Friday, the Prime Minister fronted a press conference suggesting that his irreversible road map to freedom may, actually, be reversed. A new Indian variant has emerged and is causing our scientists some concern.
I wasn’t the only one left scratching my head wondering why I had put myself through the inconvenience and (minor) risk of a vaccine, if the jab doesn’t protect you. Unintended of course, but the Prime Minister totally undermined what has thus far been the only successful initiative that his administration has undertaken during the past fourteen months.
Throughout this week, Ministers have taken to the airwaves to give their take on International travel and the traffic light system they have introduced. From what I can gather, if a country is green, you can go – that’s clear. If it’s red, don’t go. Again, clear. If its amber, go, but don’t go, or if you are really keen to go use common sense, but we’d prefer you not to go – but honestly, go if you like – but Priti Patel’s COVID police will be knocking on your door when you get home. But don’t let that deter you.
That ‘advice’ is confusing for holidaymakers, but it is infuriating for an already badly damaged aviation industry, which has received little or no help from the government throughout the pandemic.
If we are following the data, rather than the dates, then the motivation for the scaremongering and negativity that Ministers have indulged in this week is incomprehensible. Other than in a small number of ‘hotspots’, infection rates and deaths are on the floor.
Careless talk costs lives was the motto our nation adopted during the Second World War. As a keen historian, perhaps Boris can remind himself and his cabinet colleagues that this is a positive lesson that they can learn from the past.
