I have nothing to offer except my bafflement

Sometimes I am lost for words (although that doesn’t stop me blogging). I don’t have the words to express how outraged I am about the fact that the number of Covid-19 cases is going up and at the current rate of spread we could see 50,000 new cases in a day by mid-October.

This comes after the government encouraged us to eat out to help out, go back to work in offices and go forth and stimulate the economy. They asked us to do all this and now the number of cases is growing at an exponential rate. Who could have predicted this would happen? Oh wait. Everyone.

Howls of rage

There should be howls of rage at the state of the UK. Every newspaper and news website should be shouting about how terribly the government has managed the Covid-19 outbreak. How can they encourage us to go eat out when there is a deadly virus on the loose? Why didn’t everyone with a voice or public platform shout: “No! This is irresponsible!” How can the government act surprised when their own policies drive up the infection rate?

Even the most right-wing newspapers should be calling for this government to go based on how badly they have managed the pandemic. But no. It looks increasingly like the government can do whatever it wants, manage the situation however badly, and get away with it. Even the outrageous case of Dominic Cummings breaking all the lockdown rules led to no accountability. The government folded its arms and said “no” to accepting any responsibility and that was that.

Difficult situation

I realise that it’s difficult to deal with a global pandemic and manage the economy so that there is some industry left at the end of all this. However, right now life is returning to normal in Berlin whilst London is looking at a second lockdown and England (the only part of the UK under direct Tory control) has the highest level of excess deaths. We should look at how life is returning to something resembling normal in our neighbours across the Channel and then scream loud enough to bring the Palace of Westminster crashing down on top of this useless government.

Wanted: an opposition

It would help if there was some kind of alternative to this shambles. However, her majesty's loyal opposition has focused too much on the loyal part of their role of late. Keir Starmer’s tactic is to point out what’s gone wrong after the fact, like your laziest and least helpful colleague. Anyone can point at this slow-moving disaster and say that it’s gone wrong. I’m doing it right now. Maybe I should be the leader of the opposition? Of course I shouldn’t! I’m just a twat with a blog. But I had expected our opposition to do more to improve the running of this country, than what armchair internet commentators can do. 

This is doubly annoying as it comes after years of ceaseless calls for real opposition when Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party. Remember this from the New Statesman? Well, I want an opposition right now. For years we heard that Corbyn was doing nothing and that things would be better if Starmer was Labour leader. Now he is leader of the opposition and we hear nothing except gentle chiding of the government.

What do I know?

I never thought that I would say this, but I would prefer to go back to Theresa May’s Brexit stalemate than endure another day of Boris Johnson’s rolling fuck-up that not only fails to rise to the occasion but seems to find new depths of incompetence to sink into. At least last year we could commiserate about the sad state of politics in the pub, with our friends.

Then again, Labour is now ahead in some national polls, so what do I know? Although these polls don’t take into account electoral geography, such as Labour being nowhere in Scotland and still struggling to break through in former Red Wall constituencies, so maybe let’s not start handing out the ministerial parking spaces yet.

Is this what the country really wants? Someone with a better haircut than Boris Johnson who is willing to say they’re a patriot 58 times a day and loves the troops? Then again, if the last few years have made anything apparent, it’s that I live in a bubble and not even one of those good bubbles that keep infectious diseases out.

Maybe I don’t know anything about politics and I have nothing to offer except my bafflement.

"Boris Johnson at Conservative Party Conference" by conservativeparty is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0