So What Was Boris Doing?

[diddlydo]

When he should have been leading strategy in the early stages of the coronavirus catastrophe?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/michael-gove-fails-to-deny-pm-missed-five-coronavirus-cobra-meetings

[Peter Pedant]

was Boris Bonking?
no he was sweating in bed, bed ridden unable to move
wiv da girl
asking - you all right Boris or whaaa?
and perhaps even a 'foo!' every now and then
think AB for chrissakes

when Laura K held up her paw on THAT Friday
and asked the Prime Minister
PM - "you are not tired have you been tested?"
he looked pretty peaky - and then
just before he went into Hospital - his viddie
he looked blotchy - and that wasnt make up badly applied I can tell you !

[ichkeria]

I’m not here to pass judgment, but what Michael Gove actually said was that the PM would not normally attend COBRA meetings.
He did not “admit Johnson missed them”
Just pointing that out in the interests of accuracy

[jim360]

I'd like to hear from Johnson himself on this, following his recovery. It may be that he was badly-advised, or that he simply failed to appreciate the scale of the coming threat, or some other oversight, and so felt it unnecessary for him to chair or participate in the relevant Cobra meetings. A clear mistake, even at the time, but I'd still like to understand his position on it.

I'm reminded a little of the time when Eden, Foreign Secretary in 1936, approached Baldwin about the growing threat from Germany, and was told that "I would rather you didn't bother me about foreign matters just now", as Baldwin was more concerned about the Simpson/Edward VIII affair... sometimes a PM's priorities are misdirected.

[Peter Pedant]

// I'd like to hear from Johnson himself on this, following his recovery.//
it may be a longish wait

worse - he might have been working -
and taking wrong decisions

Hugh L'etang wrote a book about this

Eden - during the Suez crisis had Charcot 's ascending biliary triad ( I will let you look that one up) and took some pretty crip decisions

[Hi Llanfair - this post is purposely not in the style ' and he was icky-boo in the tum tum' even if that is clearer)

cause - his chole left him with a stricture

[ToraToraTora]

poor diddly still scratching about for political points!

[naomi24]

And diddly isn't the only one!

[diddlydo]

Not trying to score points at all. Just wondering why the PM wasn't leading from the front when faced with such a serious situation.

[Deskdiary]

Diddly - you need to give this unhealthy obsession you have with the PM a rest, otherwise it’ll drive you round the bend.

Plus it’s from The Guardian - I wouldn’t believe the date in that rag. Do you have a link from a better broadsheet? (Do we even have broadsheets now? It’s been years since I last bought a paper).

[jim360]

As usual, the "scoring political points" brigade bristles at the temerity of even asking questions about the approach the Government's taken.

[naomi24]

Before deciding "he should have been leading strategy" read your own link, diddly. Perhaps he was leading the strategy from another direction.

//“Whoever is chairing those meetings reports to the prime minister. The prime minister is aware of all of these decisions and takes some of those decisions. You can take a single fact, wrench it out of context, whip it up in order to create a j’accuse narrative. But that is not fair reporting.”//

God! When he needs advisers why doesn't he source them from AB? Plenty here to help him out on that score - and they all know better than him!

[fiction-factory]

Do you know the dates of the meetings, diddlydo?
And what the COBRA status was for Covid (clue- PHE had it as low)
Does the Prime Minister always chair Cobra meetings (clue- normally chaired by relevant minister who reports back to PM)?
What was the WHO saying about Covid? (Clue- they didn't declare it a pandemic until 11th or 12th March.
How many people had died of Covid in Europe by then?

Now without the benefit of hindsight can you really say he should have foreseen this? Was Corbyn saying anything at the time?

[diddlydo]

Anyone who refers to the Guardian as a "rag" does not merit a response from me.

[Deskdiary]

Picking up on Naomi’s point, I’m astonished and impressed at the amount of experts we have on AB concerning this.

I think they should be guiding us through this crisis!

[jim360]

The WHO was saying, in effect, "this doesn't need to be a pandemic as long as Governments take the threat seriously". The fact that it then became a pandemic speaks, arguably, to the failure of Governments across the world to respond appropriately. Of course this failure then belongs to everybody. But I don't see that "everybody got this wrong" is a defence either.

[Deskdiary]

Any paper that has Polly (I’m rich but nobody else should be) Toynbee as a columnist, can be safely disregarded as a paper worthy of considering.

[ToraToraTora]

DD: "Diddly - you need to give this unhealthy obsession you have with the PM a rest, otherwise it’ll drive you round the bend. " - I think the bend has already been navigated.

[ToraToraTora]

diddly: "Anyone who refers to the Guardian as a "rag" does not merit a response from me." - they can't even give them away, there are always piles outside stations!

[Deskdiary]

Only the the Daily Record (what’s that?) and City A.M. have a smaller circulation than The Guardian.

City A.M. is a freebie.

That says it all.

[archibaldy]

I just took a day at random - 14th Feb and on that day Boris was busy being focused on the UK domestic agenda and... levelling up for the British people'.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8003711/Boris-Johnson-CANCELS-trip-Donald-Trump-amid-transatlantic-tensions.html

[naomi24]

TTT at 17:55, Very good. :o)