Are this Govt fit for office??

[Thedogscollar]

Ok here we go. Hand on heart are this Govt fit for office? Before you answer take into consideration.

1. Huge balls up with PPE at beginning of pandemic.
2. The Cummings debacle and how they defended the indefensible.

3.The handling of the schools and the millions of children not having any education and still no concrete plans in place. 4.Track and trace app being about as useful as a chocolate teapot, although they were told it would not work 2 months ago. 5.The U turn after pressure on free school meals.

1. Spending a million pound painting a bloody aeroplane.
2. Dominic Raab likening Taking the knee to something from Game of Thrones.

They seem to stumble from one disaster to another. Are other first world countries governments as incompetent as ours seem to be?

On every point, i think theyre damned either way and hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Dont forget, its their advisors who should carry the blame for mistakes.

Has anyone seen the Sky drama COBRA? Reminds me very much of the situation we’re currently in.

They've not covered themselves in glory, but I think we are in less of a mess than we would have been with a government led by Jeremy Corbyn.
Critical thinking at its best. One post in and Hereward says the words 'Jeremy Corbyn' in an attempt to deflect attention from the lamentable performance of Johnson and his cabinet.
You couldn't make this shit up.

I completely agree OP.

I read this article earlier (www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/06/how-uk-has-been-left-worst-all-worlds-over-covid-19) which highlighted that the UK has had the highest excess death rate due to COVID-19, the UK is predicted to have the worst recession due to COVID-19 of any developed country and the joint-worst voter approval in the World.

It is a complete shambles.

You could also add:

• Matt Hancock calling Marcus Rashford 'Daniel...'
• BJ's £1M paint job for "Boris Force One"
• Not telling the cabinet or DIFD that it was being abolished.

goes onanonanon

It’s totally irrelevant labour are not in power so we shall never know
But as Corbyn dithered over relatively simple thing like Brexit I wouldn’t expect any great improvement with a world pandemic

No political party would manage a pandemic without messing up along the way. We cannot ever expect to get it right first time. However, next time there's a pandemic, we should expect a much better response, with the Govt having learned from the response to Covid-19.

I'm not interested in what would Labour have done that's a non arguement in my eyes. I'm looking at the utter shambles we have now. Mockers is correct I could go on and on. The major incident exercise held a few years ago highlighted the problems for the NHS but did this shower of incompetents act on it, oh no let's just sit tight it'll never happen. Well guess what it's only went and bloody happened with bells on.
Even pre Covid they are useless. The introduction of Universal Credit and the handling of that has caused untold damage to millions of under privileged and vulnerable people. They are utterly bloody useless and run by a ventriloquist and his dummy. I'll leave you to guess whose who in that scenario.

Is anyone seriously suggesting Johnson & Co ARE fit for office?

Johnson is an egotist surrounded by 'yes men'. You don't have to be competent to be appointed to the cabinet. You just need to keep on message (no matter how stupid the message is).

Trouble is, if someone like Hancock was sacked (obviously he should be) - is there anyone credible to replace him? Probably not.

FliesandPies BaileysforBreakfast

Perhaps you don't remember that that was the choice we had? Why on earth should I not comment that however badly one horse is running, in a two horse race it was the better choice.

Obviously a third hypothetical horse may (and in this case probably could) do a better job, but this wasn't an option. This is not deflecting any more than you by attacking my comment. This Tory government is crap. A putative labour government would have been crapper.

Too many egos in the UK government at the moment, although anyone interested in how other governments have coped should take a look at South Africa...

100% fit for office and with 4+ years left in power, thanks to the landslide majority granted them by the British public. But do keep up the moaning

No. I understand that they were not going to get everything right but they are getting many, many, things wrong. And for me it is the lies, trying to convince us they did not mean that and turning things into positives that arent strictly true and hope we dont notice. I believe nothing now!

It is remarkable just how untalented and lacking depth most of the Cabinet are.

Same can be said for the new Tory MP intake. As PP said for the Cabinet - the overarching criteria for selection was whether an individual supported Brexit or not, ability very much came second (or third after willingness to become a Party Bot in everything you say forever. Though of course that has long been the case).

And I think the Corbin Shadow Cabinet similarly placed beliefs over ability. So they would have done no better.

Cautiously hopeful about Starmer and his judgement/talent-picking abilities so far.

Cult of personality.

Too many people buying into sloganeering, dog-whistles, politicians who play on prejudices, and idiots who vote Tory because 'Boris is funny and he's just a normal person like us' who don't have the slightest interest in or clue about policies and ideology.

This is what the UK has become. Politics simply isn't about politics any more. It's about spin, media profile, manipulation, and slandering and poo-pooing your opponents instead of convincing people of your own merit

We get the government we deserve, in this case, a bunch of incompetent, self-serving clowns.

*Corbyn. Thanks, autocorrect (and what is “Corbin” anyhow?!)

Short answer no. Long answer no but with the points pp have made.

Johnson formed a new cabinet. Usually within a year most of the cabinet get culled as they're not up to it. Unfortunately that culling won't take place till after the worst of the pandemic has passed so there have been incompetents leading us through it.

@TheLastSaola

I don't think so, but I also don't think it would have been better with a different selection of Labour or Tory MPs.

I think what it's shown up better is that our governmental structure, from elected representatives to the civil functions supporting them and the media that report on them, are collectively just not up to scratch.

I agree with this.

The Covid crisis has exposed how unfit for purpose many of our government departments are. There's a deep, troubling lack of knowledge and expertise which means every time a response is required they are spinning up from nothing all the time. I think the only dept that has acquitted themselves with anything approaching competence is the treasury.

Cendrillonsings think you forgot to put not before your 100%. Yes fours year left in power. There is zilch powerful about this government only their woeful ineptitude.

Yes. We have had other bad governments, but few that were so bloody incompetent.

There are some other first world countries that have worse governments, notably the USA. But that doesn't excuse ours for being such rubbish.

@picklemewalnuts

Strangely I agree most of those were stupic mistakes, but assume stupid mistakes can be made by anyone regardless of party.

What i can't get over the brazen cheek of, is Dominic Raab thinking his opinion about 'bend the knee' was of any interest or relevance at all!

Who does he think he is?!

@picklemewalnuts What is he supposed to do when someone asks him a direct question about it? Say ‘sorry, I don’t think I’ll answer that as I don’t think anyone would be interested in my opinion’?

'100% fit for office and with 4+ years left in power, thanks to the landslide majority'

The latter doesn't imply the former. A government can be in long-term power and still be absolute rubbish. It just means that we have longer to endure their being in power and messing things up. There are of course thousands of people who won't be seeing them in power for another 4 years, because they have died unnecessarily.

'granted them by the British public'

45% of the British public, enabled by our electoral system and a disastrous and divided opposition (who do seem perhaps to have learned their lesson, if too late). Just because a government was elected doesn't mean that 100%, or usually even an absolute majority, of the public support them!'

'But do keep up the moaning'

We will, don't worry! And awful as our government is, one good thing about them is that they DO still permit 'moaning' and dissent - unlike many governments in the world. If we ever get a government that treats dissent as treasonous (as some on social media would clearly like), we really will be doomed.

XDown is completely right

There is a very strong sense in British (and American) policy circles these days that the only thing that counts is the messaging. You don't need to actually accomplish anything, all that counts is how you sell it and whether you can convince people to vote for you/buy your product etc.

After all, it's a lot of work to actually reduce, say, child poverty. It's a lot less work to spew out a bunch of propaganda to convince people it doesn't exist or the poor are just feckless or whatever.

Boris and Trump are following the same playbook.

@Hereward1332

They've not covered themselves in glory, but I think we are in less of a mess than we would have been with a government led by Jeremy Corbyn.

Love it when people play psychic on this. There is literally no certain way of knowing whether we would be better off or not under Corbyn/Labour/ any other party or leader.

Personally I think this government in general is a total shit show.
I would like someone else to be given a chance to see if they could do any better.