AIBU to think people will blame the PM for relaxing the rules rather than take personal responsibility if someone they see at Christmas is hospitalised with covid?

[PrincessNutNuts]

I think people will blame the government generally, and the Prime Minister personally, for relaxing the rules for five days at Christmas if the Christmas they had leads to a loved one being seriously ill with covid.

"The government shouldn't have let us do it if it wasn't safe." they'll say.

They won't take personal responsibility for it and admit they knew it wasn't safe - for instance - to mix school age children with elderly or Shielding people who don't see them regularly, and haven't seen people indoors for months.

What do you think? Will people hold their hands up and take responsibility for putting their loved ones at risk?

Or blame Boris?

The idea of taking responsibility for yourself is clearly nonsense. A teacher has to go into the classroom and if their students have decided they're not bothered about reducing the risk of catching covid the teacher will have no choice but to absord the greater risk too. We're all be under greater risk at the supermarket or optician or dentist.

IMNOTSHOUTING

This is about Christmas and who is coming for Christmas dinner.

@IMNOTSHOUTING

The idea of taking responsibility for yourself is clearly nonsense. A teacher has to go into the classroom and if their students have decided they're not bothered about reducing the risk of catching covid the teacher will have no choice but to absord the greater risk too. We're all be under greater risk at the supermarket or optician or dentist.

Well, yes, at work a lot of people have no choice but to be exposed to people who ignore the law. Same with if you have to go out in public (eg shopping).

In a private house, we have a choice. We can decline to mix . The two situations are not comparable.

Relying on the public to act sensibly is very clearly a non-starter: big gatherings, people who won't have the vaccination because it has a chip in it or god is taking care of them so they don't need it, people not wearing masks or only wearing them over their mouths etc. etc............

Rules are needed - clear rules that follow the advice of scientists and medics. The BMA has said the Christmas easing is a "blunder" - how much clearer can they be?

Exactly, @MisChance. There is no such thing as common sense, as it means different things to different people who assess risk and change differently.

People rely on their leaders to set clear, easy to understand guidelines in times of crisis. The same as when you're teaching, you share the why and what and success criteria with the children (well, you should)! Boris hasn't done this at all. He has failed everyone.

Also for the people saying there aren't enough police to enforce the rules? Well, whose fault is that? Who made cuts to the police force and the army? Once again, it's the Tories fault.

YANBU

Some PP’s are doing it already!

Of course it's the government's fault, and by this I mean Boris Johnson. By being unwilling to make unpopular, nor even timely decisions, giving out confused messages, he has made it harder for people to make informed decisions.

And that's before you get to the I'll do what I want, me, brigade.

It's very much his Brexit "strategy", bugger around for months until options have narrowed then say that's it, that's what we'll do. And blame the EU.

He's now handing over the entire responsibility to the public.

Arsehole is too good a word for him. Arseholes are useful; I know because I have one.

Now the government have tightened the rules and people are still not happy. Some are going ahead with the Christmas they planned and some are happy to abide by the government guidelines but are still not happy

Oliversmumsarmy
Some people would complain about anything, but I have a lot of sympathy for people who have made plans, bought food (or not because they were going somewhere) only to have their plans cancelled due to staggering incompetence.

Personally, encouraging mass travel around the country in a small window was always recipe for disaster.

But if you add in that some London schools wanted to close early to keep people safe and the government threatened them with legal action only to lock the whole capital and much of the south East down 72 hours later then it's part of a trend that shows the contempt our government has for normal people.

People are right to be pissed off because they can't plan their own lives as our government and prime minister so bloody useless that it borders on deliberate negligence.

And here we go, excuses after excuses. Individuals csn do no wrong, it's always the fault of others.

This attitude is polluting our society. We are acting like spoilt kids who throw tantrums because they can't have what they want and blame everyone else for it.

Utterly pathetic.

why would you not blame Johnson? he is in charge of the country.
he seems to think he is on the xfactor.

@PrincessNutNuts

I think people will blame the government generally, and the Prime Minister personally, for relaxing the rules for five days at Christmas if the Christmas they had leads to a loved one being seriously ill with covid.

"The government shouldn't have let us do it if it wasn't safe." they'll say.

They won't take personal responsibility for it and admit they knew it wasn't safe - for instance - to mix school age children with elderly or Shielding people who don't see them regularly, and haven't seen people indoors for months.

What do you think? Will people hold their hands up and take responsibility for putting their loved ones at risk?

Or blame Boris?

Yes

@TheRaccoon

I do wish people would stop calling him Boris 🙄

I am mixing with 3 families over 4 days at Christmas and have assessed the risk as very low considering we’re all isolating in the lead up and haven’t gone anywhere in weeks anyway.

I think the overall expected rise in cases will be blamed on the government, of course it will. If it were my loved one who got sick though, if I’d spent time with them, it would be myself I blamed.

So you're blatantly disregarding all the latest advice.

Bloody hell.
No wonder we're in a mess.

And here we go, excuses after excuses. Individuals csn do no wrong, it's always the fault of others
The elected leader of this country has handled a crisis so badly that his government deny there's a problem in London schools, threaten them with legal action for wanting to move to online learning and then days later lock the capital down!

It's astounding that there's still people out there who seem to think people are being mean to poor old Boris.

It says a lot about the state of politics when members of the electorate expecting the prime minister to have clear, measured policy is apparently utterly unreasonable.

Nope, I blame the government for being pathetic and slow and incompetent, but we risk assess everything ourselves.

My mum has been shielding since March and when she needed medical care, we discussed it for days before she decided to go to A&E. she hasn't been anywhere else.

That doesn't mean I will judge her if she asks her grandkids to see her because she's so lonely she talks to herself.

People do need to take some personal responsibility themselves yes... but they have no example to follow as our leaders take no personal responsibility themselves. Time and time again it’s always someone else’s fault isn’t it?

Mr Johnson is a person who does not follow rules, and condones those such as Dominic Cummings who do not. Indeed for those who supported him in the last election, that I think was part of the appeal.

@Cornettoninja I refer to him as Mr Johnson. Respect for the position even though he has none, and also because an ancestor of mine whose first name was Boris was killed in a Nazi concentration camp.

For every person who says he should have a back bone and enforce stricter rules, there will be another who doesn't agree with the it and thinks it doesn't apply to them.
Consider if he'd said in say, November, no mixing at Christmas. Would the whole country have said oh well best to be safe?
Consider if he'd said last week actually we've looked at the figures and we no longer think the five day thing is safe. Would people be happier?

For every person who says he should have a back bone and enforce stricter rules, there will be another who doesn't agree with the it and thinks it doesn't apply to them.
Consider if he'd said in say, November, no mixing at Christmas. Would the whole country have said oh well best to be safe?
Consider if he'd said last week actually we've looked at the figures and we no longer think the five day thing is safe. Would people be happier?
I can't stand the man, but when we finally locked down I backed him and followed the rules. It was needed.

If he said in November something like 'we hope to relax a little over Christmas if the numbers allow, but it will not involve lots of household mixing' then I'd have supported him.
If he knew the cases in London were bad and allowed schools in Grenwich and others to move to online learning for a week and then despite that had to change the agenda then I'd have supported him.

But he didn't. He is a populist who wanted to have 'Boris saved Christmas' headlines, he's lacked clarity throughout, refused to challenge Cummings and then threatened schools with legal actions 72 hours before he announced there's apparently a more contagious version of covid in london and then he locked them down.

I really think most people could put their ideological differences to one side if he was doing a half decent job in the national interest, but he isn't.

People will blame the Conservative Gov, because they are the ones in charge and make the decisions.
Obviously, the public fall into two groups; those who think the lockdown should be stricter, longer, harder, etc, and those who think the restrictions should be more relaxed, if at all.
In the case of Christmas, only a few days ago, the prime minister ridiculed the leader of the opposition, saying Keir Starmer wanted to 'cancel christmas', and reiterated the relaxation of rules over the 5 days from 23-27 December (which excludes New Year), saying people should use their common sense. It was not a 'requirement' to mix with 3 households, but a maximum, not a minimum.
On the basis of this, many people would have bought food and drink with the expectation of having family members, some will have booked rail tickets to visit family, etc, only to be told 3 days later, that there is a new tier for London and the South-east (no mixing at all), and the rest of the country can only have Xmas Day, with 'limited mixing'.
Whether you believe he is right or not, I think changing his mind at such short notice, has fuelled a lot of anger, directed at the Government, especially, when it was subsequently revealed that this 'new strain' was known about since September.
This has been the problem with the current Government. A constant flip flop of rules, arbitraily imposed at very short notice, with some rules seemingly contradictory and absurd.
For this I DO blame the Government.

@Hoppinggreen

I think his whole strategy is designed so that nothing is actually his responsibility or fault They could make the rules stronger but by issuing guidelines instead it means whatever happens isn’t the Governments fault

This. Their whole strategy now and since the beginning has been a clusterfuck of massive proportions and they have designed the whole thing to blame the plebs. It will always be the common folk to blame for their stupidity, disorganization and selfishness. And Boris loving Tories will continue to fight the good fight for the Etonions and their ability to disregard the middle/working class. I'm sure it's no coincidencethis lateness u turn is after people have already spent their money on preparations for their christmases.