The one good thing about covid 19...

[peeledplumtomatoes]

...Boris Johnson and the Tories will get booted out in 5 years time.

Do you wonder if Boris has a severe case of 'careful what you wish for'?

What a spiteful post. This is not a time to making political capital out of a situation that could kill many people
I'm not a Boris fan but I don't think I'd want Corbin in charge either

I bet they won't.
Look at the last ten years. They couldn't have damaged the country more if they'd deliberately set out to do so. There were people on TV in food banks saying they would be voting Tory before the election. I just don't know what they'd have to do before people stopped voting for them.

Yes, I hope so as his and Dom's master plan has been struck a severe blow from left field.

I can't help but wonder how much worse this would have been if it had happened Jan 2021 during the start of the car crash of a no deal Brexit...

I think you’re right OP, but that it’s pretty poor taste to celebrate right now, when we don’t know how bad this is going to be and most people are preparing themselves that people we know are going to die. This isn’t one of those things that happens to other people, this is going to affect all of us one way or the other

@CalmYoBadSelf, you don't need to stick up for BJ, he's got plenty of money to cushion himself from this.

The NHS would have been far better equipped to cope with this if the Tories hadn't been in government for the past 10 years.

Depends, doesn't it? Maybe they're doing the right thing and we'll avoid the worst of what they're seeing in Italy and China. It'll not work well for them if we end up worse off for our course of action and it is a gamble, but it's too soon to say which way the chips will fall.

@Eireni, I'm not celebrating, just hoping.

Whatever I say or do right now isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference to the spread of this virus.

We don't know just yet it he's done the right thing or not.

Personally, I think he has right now. But we will wait and see.

Slight backtrack from yesterday’s Cobra meeting already just announced (en masse gatherings to be banned, but only from next weekend🤷🏼‍♀️) ..... pleased they are being forced to do the right thing, but I do wish they’d done it in the first place and were capable of doing it properly😔

Whatever happens, nothing can change the fact that had the NHS not been starved of funds for 10 years it would be able to cope much better with this. There's a 40,000 shortage of nurses. I'm sure that's not helping.

Slight backtrack from yesterday’s Cobra meeting already just announced (en masse gatherings to be banned, but only from next weekend

It's not really a backtrack- in the press conference yesterday they said they were considering it and would be making a further announcement about it very soon.

Regardless of what he is doing now about the virus going forward, it is absolutely the case that we’re all about to learn what the consequences of a decade of ideologically driven austerity and deep cuts to the welfare state really are.

If you have the means to do so, please donate to food banks. They’re going to be needed more than ever in the next few weeks and months.

One good thing about the Coronavirus - kids don't seem affected.

It's only going to go one of two ways. Either he will end up looking like a forward-thinking steady steward who brought us through the worst health crisis any of us have ever known or an evil psychopath who threw all us under the bus while he plays chess with a virus.

It will all come down to the figures. If China and Italy manage to successfully stop the virus reseeding after their lockdowns and quarantines then it'll be his neck and not his job title he has more to worry about.

Do you honestly think labour would have been better? Jeremy Corbyn as PM during this crisis?

I suspect a Labour government would have handled it very similarly. They would have relied on the advice of experts.
(Those same experts the Tories decried till they needed them.)

If I had my pick of (fairly) recent Prime Ministers to handle this, I'd choose Gordon Brown. If it had to be a Tory, John Major.

No I don't think JC would have been any better or worse during this crisis. I just hope that the crisis has clearly highlighted the consequences of 10 years of Tory govt.

JC will not be the labour leader at the next election and whichever way this thing goes, I think labour might now have a much stronger chance of being elected or at the very least drastically reducing the Tory majority. And that's not even taking into account Brexit from Jan 2021 which is the next crisis that is lying in store for us. And it is very likely that next January BJ will have to navigate the 2nd wave of covid and brexit at the same time. He is most definitely not up to that task.

Let's turn this into a proper 'one good thing about the coronavirus' thread. I'll go next:

People pulling together and caring about each other.

People learning how to wash their hands

Clutching at straws OP. Any PM would be struggling to get things right in these unprecedented times. It’s not politics at play here, it’s about getting it right every time you speak, no matter what your political party.

@Timefor45, yes I probably am clutching at straws, but there's no harm in hoping.

In 12 months time, regardless of our political persuasions, will we be laughing or crying?
Or moving on to the next worry?

People might have forgotten about it by then whatever happens as the electorate seem to have a short memory.