Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel awful for Boris

410 replies

YouDoYou18 · 15/04/2020 07:08

A few people I know have said some awful things like ‘it serves him right’

I didn’t vote conservative, and to be honest I’ve never been a big fan of BJ himself.. but Christ do I feel awful for the poor man.

He must have thought it was going to be relatively easy, brexit was almost over and we just had to get through the last little bit and then the world fell into one of the biggest disasters in recent history...

He’s got to balance trying to save a big percentage of the population with making sure they have an economy to return to when this is over, he’s got to pull unprecedented amounts of money from thin air to support everyone through this time, everyone thinks they can do a better job and then to top it off he catches the virus himself and ends up hospitalised!

He just can’t catch a break! Whether you like him or not surely I’m not being unreasonable in feeling pretty bad for the guy?

OP posts:
BoingBoingyBoing · 15/04/2020 10:28

"illness is a great leveller"

Is it fuck. When you are ill, money, fame and power are a ticket to the very best medical care in the world.

PicturesOfCats · 15/04/2020 10:28

Whilst this is not great as an economic strategy, it's better than funding Brexit with tomorrow's money, which is what the Tories have done

I was talking solely about funding the NHS, nothing to do with Brexit.

Do you know what is worse than finding Brexit with tomorrow’s money?
The holocaust.
See, we can all play the game of here’s something irrelevant that’s worse.

Nearlyadoctor · 15/04/2020 10:29

I hope all the people on here who are anti Boris wont have the audacity to accept their furlough pay.

AllTheWhoresOfMalta · 15/04/2020 10:29

I’m glad he didn’t die, but.... www.facebook.com/511244585/posts/10158626173009586/?d=n

CendrillonSings · 15/04/2020 10:31

The man SHOOK HANDS with CORONAVIRUS PATIENTS.

A point that is much less intelligent than people think, since if you calculate the infection dates you’ll find he caught it long after shaking their hands. He most probably got it from meetings with health experts in Downing Street, hence Boris, Hancock, and Chris Whitty all coming down with it on the same day, and shortly after Neil Ferguson.

HarrySnotter · 15/04/2020 10:32

I hope all the people on here who are anti Boris wont have the audacity to accept their furlough pay.

There's so much wrong with a comment like this, I don't know where to start.

You do understand that if this situation had been handled a little more sensibly at the very beginning (which was a long time ago now), there would have been no need to furlough so many people. Genuinely, I really don't mean this to sound so snippy, but can you not see that?

CendrillonSings · 15/04/2020 10:32

I hope all the people on here who are anti Boris wont have the audacity to accept their furlough pay.

On the contrary, they’ll take the giant income support Boris is offering them, then sit around all day whining and moaning about him...

Womenwotlunch · 15/04/2020 10:32

On a human level, I feel sorry that he was ill and wish him the best.
As a politician, I think he is an entitled prick who is not a man of principle.
I was becoming more frustrated with his usual insouciance when discussing the Covid19 at the press briefings.
I sincerely hope that when he returns to Downing Street , he returns as a better person.

NiteFlights · 15/04/2020 10:33

I hope all the people on here who are anti Boris wont have the audacity to accept their furlough pay

The audacity! Grin

Are you labouring under the delusion that the money is coming out of Boris’s own pocket or something?

1forsorrow · 15/04/2020 10:34

I hope all the people on here who are anti Boris wont have the audacity to accept their furlough pay. My job, in the care sector, goes on so I don't need his furlough pay. I am fortunate in that I can do my job from home supporting my colleagues.

peperethecat · 15/04/2020 10:36

I was talking solely about funding the NHS, nothing to do with Brexit.

Do you know what is worse than finding Brexit with tomorrow’s money? The holocaust. See, we can all play the game of here’s something irrelevant that’s worse.

I think it is relevant though. Pursuing an ill-advised economic strategy to fund something that people need and which will benefit their lives in a tangible way is at least better than pursuing an ill-advised economic strategy to fund something which won't benefit people's lives in any way and which was voted for by a very narrow majority after a dishonest campaign. A campaign in which the winning side promised to fund the NHS (because they knew that that is something people do actually want) with money that doesn't exist.

The Holocaust is obviously worse than both these things but it isn't a useful comparison. I'm talking specifically about governments borrowing from our children to fulfil election promises they made to (mostly) our parents. It's not great in general, but it's less bad if the thing they have borrowed from our children for actually has some benefit, which funding the NHS does.

HarrySnotter · 15/04/2020 10:37

On the contrary, they’ll take the giant income support Boris is offering them, then sit around all day whining and moaning about him...

Ah there it is ^. Grin

Womenwotlunch · 15/04/2020 10:37

Also agree with the poster who said that the ‘best’ thing that could have happened to him was to get Covid19, as people felt sorry for him. Even his own father said that his son had ‘taken one for the team’

Hoarder123 · 15/04/2020 10:37

@Peregrina “Those saying it serves him right, that he caught the virus, are total morons.”
”I think there has only been one poster like that.”

If you read the opening post, I was replying to the OP - “A few people I know have said some awful things like ‘it serves him right”

FliesandPies · 15/04/2020 10:39

I hope all the people on here who are anti Boris wont have the audacity to accept their furlough pay.

It's OUR money. Also, just heard ex-chancellor Norman Lamont expressing concern over when exactly pp can expect this money.

jasjas1973 · 15/04/2020 10:40

The people advising the govt are the people they appointed, Whitty was given his job in January.

We had 2/3 weeks on Italy, saw what they did and didn't do, yet British exceptionalism ruled and we carried on with stupid (lack of) decision making.

If Johnson had acted more seriously, the UK public would have accepted the need to lock down earlier, look at the S.W ? restrictions applied when we had little infection or deaths and it has stayed that way.
He wasted a fantastic opportunity and thats before we get onto his Govt's negligence over social care workers and nursing homes.

I'd have a little more time for him if he did a Macron and apologised and done what NZ 's govt has done and taken a pay cut.

Vanhi · 15/04/2020 10:40

A point that is much less intelligent than people think, since if you calculate the infection dates you’ll find he caught it long after shaking their hands. He most probably got it from meetings with health experts in Downing Street, hence Boris, Hancock, and Chris Whitty all coming down with it on the same day, and shortly after Neil Ferguson.

It's more that the point has bypassed you. Johnson could not have caught the infection in that way because in fact on the day he claimed to have done this, there were no COVID19 patients at the hospital he visited. The problem with his comment is it shows a lack of understanding of the necessary measure to combat the illness. It sends out a mixed message to the population - is it OK to have contact with infected people in this way or not?

It shows that Johnson was not at this stage taking the infection with any degree of seriousness and was quite happy to send out mixed messages about it. That's the problem, not how or when he himself was actually infected.

FliesandPies · 15/04/2020 10:40

Even his own father said that his son had ‘taken one for the team’

Did he really say that? What a fucking moron the man is.

TheClitterati · 15/04/2020 10:41

he is a politician who is having to manage his country through a severe pandemic. I would feel sorry for anyone in that extremely difficult position.

Really? I don't feel sorry for Angela Merkel, Jacinta Ardern, Katrín Jakobsdóttir or Tsai Ing-wen. Do you? I'm full of admiration for how they are conducting themselves and making informed and wise decisions, and bravely leading their nations in a time of crisis.

www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/#766f9aff3dec

The fact people are feeling sorry for our leader is a huge indicator that things are very very wrong indeed. Especially when he felt himself to be so special he could ignore all the advice he was getting from the top advisors in the land he had direct access to, and boast about shaking hands with people in Covid wards. I guess I feel sorry for his utter stupidity - he thought it was his Princess Diana moment (Boris of our Hearts) and was too "amazing" and stupid to realise it was his "Dumb as Fuck" moment.

But I save my sympathy for the UK as a nation who are being lead in a time of crisis by an utter fool.

1forsorrow · 15/04/2020 10:42

A point that is much less intelligent than people think, since if you calculate the infection dates you’ll find he caught it long after shaking their hands. He most probably got it from meetings with health experts in Downing Street, hence Boris, Hancock, and Chris Whitty all coming down with it on the same day, and shortly after Neil Ferguson. That wasn't the last time he was shaking hands though was it, he carried on for several more days. You also have to be very sure of the incubation period to say it wasn't due to any particular handshake, scientists are saying 2 to 14 days, a week or so ago it was 5 to 14 days, they admit they don't know and it could be longer.

countrygirl99 · 15/04/2020 10:45

No furlough pay for me. I'm still working. Presumably that means I'm allowed to say anything I want about Boris. You can be sure I still think he cares about nothing except himself. I'm glad that any human being is getting better but I cannot bring myself to sympathise with any of his problems. I do sympathise with DHs friend whose father died of Covid in a care home where the staff had little PPE and all the staff who work there. I do sympathise with the families of the cleaners at work who have died. I sympathise with my friends neighbour who has lost her husband and BIL. I sympathise with carers who are going from home to home not knowing what they will pick up/spread. I sympathise with my 93 yo father who needs new glasses after surgery but can't get them. But not someone who thought he could run the country with jokes and glib soundbites.

herecomesthsun · 15/04/2020 10:47

the "sheep" are the people who voted for this buffoon, though I am glad he survived covid

user1471448556 · 15/04/2020 10:47

The poor man? What? This is the person who has had a craven ambition to become PM for decades ... who backed the disaster of Brexit in order to achieve that ... creating enormous divisions in this country. His handling of Covid has been appalling and the messaging has been all over the shop.
And Brexit almost over ... don't make me laugh. We're in the transition period with no agreed 'deals' whatsoever and an ideologically driven government who still seem keen to let us crash out on 31st December 2020 - that's when Brexit really starts!

Neverenoughcoffee · 15/04/2020 10:48

It's what he wanted. He's not on his own. He's got all the top experts in the country advising him.

herecomesthsun · 15/04/2020 10:48

the longest incubation period suggested has been 24 days (outlier)