To feel frustrated with daily PM's briefing?

[InTheFamilyTree]

I'm listening now and feel increasingly frustrated with the overt avoidance of the questions put to them - will we stay in lockdown until we develop a vaccine (18 months Minimum)? How will we ramp up the number of tests to reach the target by end of April?

No effort to even answer these questions, they get more and more vague every week. I cannot lockdown for a year or two, I will be rioting before that happens!

Ha well maybe I don't care and for the first time in the last 3 weeks throw a hissy fit! I've done this lockdown with resilience and calm can-do and tonight I've had enough! Obvs not serious about rioting 🙄

Tbh my complaint is more the way the whole thing has been set up in what and how info is released to the masses. It feels very stage managed, there is little debate about the strategy pursued by the government and in the manner of communication it seems that they are treating the public like small children. With Cummings behind the scenes the format and presentation of this is just as important as what is being said.

I'm tired and inarticulate so hoping someone can see what I'm getting at. But this is AIMBU so am prepared to be flamed.

But so very little is bloody well KNOWN about CV19! Don't you get that?

How much debate do you think is going on all over the world by just about every expert in epidemiology and related issues?
Are you suggesting everyone should be somehow involved in these discussions or they should be broadcast live??

What is the extent of your expertise and experience in this field?

As for Cummings - have you somehow missed noticing that this is fucking GLOBAL and the Government of just about every country is doing the same or similar lockdown, are running out of PPE (if they had any to speak of in the first place), is scrabbling around outbidding other countries to get their hands on some, that there is no reliable test yet nor an effective vaccine and no prospect of one for many many months. IS CUMMINGS SECRETLY BEHIND EVERY GOVERNMENT IN THE WORLD THEN???????

The questions being asked are either antagonistic or impossible to answer - as it's a 'don't know'.
Could well do without them.

You do realise that the vast majority of people aren't clever enough to understand a lot of what they'll be discussing behind the scenes. They're doing the right thing in delivering bite sized, easy to understand chunks of information.

And as for treating the public like small children, have you read the threads on here about people trying to find reasons why the lockdown doesn't apply to them? We need to be treated like fucking, small children to safeguard society.

Exactly Thigh

@BMW6 and @Thighmageddon have got it right.

The British public don't need to be involved in all the ins and outs of government decision making. This is not the time for inviting the public into a debate on key issues. It's a time for leadership.the public need to be told clearly what is expected of them and why, to be told the purpose behind these expectations and then to get on and do it.

The difficulty with leadership is that is always carries the risk of being wrong. And undoubtedly our government, as is the case for every government around the world right now, will undoubtedly get some things wrong in the middle of this totally unprecedented situation. But I for one am glad that they aren't full of bluster and hot air about what the exit strategy will be or what things will look like in 3 weeks time. I'm glad we've got a government who are refusing to budge except for when they can make decisions based on the evidence available at the appropriate time.

I think these briefing are demonstrating how absolutely useless our journalists/press are!
The same questions asked time and time again, I'm shouting the answers at the tv!
They are chasing headlines and not asking any pertinent questions about death rates etc, holding the govt to account!
No wonder we have ended up in this mess with Brexit & now this!

I think it very much depends on who is doing the briefing as to how useful it is. Alok Sharma is utterly hopeless, I'm not even sure why he he does them, I think he's like a stand in if the others are busy/have done enough that week.

The most useful people in my opinion are Rishi Sunak, Patrick Vallance & Chris Whitty. They're a bit better at actually answering the questions. I wonder if we'll have a bit of a break from Matt Hancock as he'll quite rightly get absolutely hammered about the PPE/appallingly low test numbers if he goes on. I suspect we'll see Boris back reasonably soon now and then things might start moving a bit.