Boris set to return to work soon - perhaps this time he can actually attend some COBRA meetings?

[Bouledeneige]

The Sunday Times have reported that for the first 5 weeks Boris didn't bother attending COBRA meetings...

'Boris Johnson skipped five Cobra meetings on the virus, calls to order protective gear were ignored and scientists’ warnings fell on deaf ears. Failings in February may have cost thousands of lives.

It would not be until March 2 that Johnson would attend a Cobra meeting about the coronavirus. But by then it was almost certainly too late.

Britain was on course for one of the worst infections of the most deadly virus in more than a century.'

Sorry the Sunday Times article is behind their subscription firewall.
www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-38-days-when-britain-sleepwalked-into-disaster-hq3b9tlgh

metro.co.uk/2020/04/19/boris-johnson-return-prime-minister-end-next-week-12577390/?ico=pushly-notifcation-small&utm_source=pushly

Well that's going to see the popularity he gained through being so ill take a bashing.
Illustrates a lot of what people previously said about him shirking responsibility and delegating.
Quite how he'll recover from that will be interesting.

He's not supposed to, it's not fair reporting. PM's don't generally - this according to Gove just now on the Marr Show

It's the oblivious gobbling up of whatever is in the media as fact that causes problems. Maybe people should actually understand things before writing such nonsense articles. The PM ordinarily doesn't attend these meetings. They are chaired by the relevant Secretary of State who reports the meetings contents to the PM. Always been this way, regardless of topic.

Yawn OP.

I’m no Boris fan, but I don’t think PMs traditionally attend Cobra meetings. Aren’t they usually led by the minister in charge of the particular area being discussed?

He doesn't have to. It's kind of like police operations when they have a GOLD command. It's the person best places to be in charge on that particular topic. It is lazy journalism to assume it's always the PM. Frankly, he's such a flighty lazy arse, I'd rather grown ups were in charge. Even average grown ups like Hancock.

The Sunday Times and The Times are not the respected news sources of old. I take everything that quotes them as a source with a large pinch of salt.

The article refers to a study published in The Lancet on the 24th January - but fails to mention that the editor of The Lancet tweeted this on the 23rd January;

"A call for caution please. Media are escalating anxiety by talking of a “killer virus” + “growing fears”. In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity.There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language."

The issue is not that he failed to attend.
The real issue overlooked as always by Cocaine Mick is that Boris failed to take heed of the content of these meetings, the warnings these clearly brought and that we as a nation were (and now still are) woefully ill-equipped for the global pandemic about to hit us. This info would all have been fed back to him via those ministers attending but he chose to ignore, keep calm and carry on- wasting precious weeks, most certainly causing the virus to unnecessarily spread as the likes of the Cheltenham festival and other mass gatherings were permitted to continue. Hundreds of deaths were thus unavoidable , specifically as the majority of those who have had to go to hospital have not had the luxury of nurses at their bedside for 48 hours straight.
But we are all in this together remember...

Once again the uneducated come on and spout nonsense. If you are going to start threads about ploitcal matters then please at least take the time to understand how these things work. The PM would not normally attend, it is the ministers best placed to deal with the situation that would.

Laughing at all these threads started by people who have absolutely no clue. It’s embarrassing

@HonestCentrist I find it more embarrassing we live in a country where this type of discussion is even needed 🤷🏼‍♀️

@rainbowunicorn well at least the Mumsnet prepper threads were on the money at the time. But Boris, of course, had more important things to attend to. Like Getting Brexit Done.

This news article sounds like it has been deftly planted by someone who is keen to shove Boris and be prime minister himself not naming any names.

@Barbie222 You have to give it to Gove he never gives up - sensing the Great Beast may be mortally wounded.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/michael-gove-fails-to-deny-pm-missed-five-coronavirus-cobra-meetings

Who is cocaine Mick? Mg?

I think it is shocking. I hope he resigns when this is done.

The attendance or otherwise of BJ at COBRA is not the biggest issue. It's the absolute failure to listen to the experts or to take any steps to plan or prepare. Even when we could clearly see the scale of the disaster in Italy the government still wasn't taking any sensible steps to get us ready. Their arrogance will have cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives.

Prime Ministers do chair cobra meetings in situations of high threat. May did so and so did Cameron.

Who chairs these meetings in "ordinary" situations is irrelevant. This is not an "ordinary" situation, and that has been apparent since at least the beginning of February.

PMs can and do attend COBRA meetings if they choose to. Here's some more information about how Civil Contingencies Committee works: www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/cobr-cobra

Yes I suppose he didn't have to, in the way that he didn't have to work weekends, but in retrospect it might have been a good idea to take the looming national crisis a bit more seriously.

Has this board been invaded by shills for the government? It's quite extraordinary. That Sunday Times report is absolutely damning.

Lazy journalism my arse. Do you really think we're that stupid?

Yes I suppose he didn't have to, in the way that he didn't have to work weekends, but in retrospect it might have been a good idea to take the looming national crisis a bit more seriously

This.

His behaviour, and that of the government generally, has been indefensible.

This is scandalous. The government has blood on its hands. Am surprised people aren't angrier.

Yup Prime Ministers can and do attend COBRA meetings for significant crises - eg. London bombing etc. I do work in policy but I’m surprised people aren’t aware and don’t recall the many instances when Blair, Cameron and May did so. Still if you’re taking Gove as your source of truth then that explains it.