Do you feel sorry for Boris?

[User133847]

Seeing the headlines in the papers today and there seems a lot of sympathy for him. The front pages see him looking really forlorn and sorrow regarding the death toll.

When you think a year ago he was planning on ushering in what he deemed as a golden age of Britain. Now 12 months later it's in tatters.

I can understand the sympathy, but wonder whether a Labour PM would be offered the same.

Calling it hate speech is hyperbolic. You don't appear to understand the meaning of the words you're using to describe the posts you've highlighted, @trulydelicious.

You must struggle to read MN with such a sensitive disposition.

What's the purpose of the hyperbole? What are you trying to achieve?

To answer the question, no not at all.

True. It's even more seriuos to be racist

Which BoZo is known to be, yes. Funny how you're so intent on defending him given this fact.

@trulydelicious Carrie, is that you?!

'The ironic thing is the culprits of these posts are supposed to be from ‘caring nice people’. It’s not limited to Boris either, it seems to be if you disagree with someone you can gleefully talk about their death - sometimes very violently. This year has really ramped up the ugliness of online abuse/trolling/attacks'

Yes it is quite astonishing the hate that people spout about him, when he did exactly the same as every other nation in the UK and Europe. Following the scientific evidence and advice available.

The pandemic has given the tory haters a lovely opportunity. What was it Labour said, 'don't let a good crisis go to waste'..

@mouldygrapes

I find it inexplicable that people still think Johnson is a good enough PM that they spend their time defending his piss-poor record.

I quite agree! Defence and also over inflating his “achievements”. Apparently he “sorted” the EU vaccine issue last night

Who did sort it then?

The one good thing Johnson's done in relation to vaccines is not giving his friends/relatives a fortune in government money to fuck it up with, for once.

Not RTFT. But no!!!

'trulydelicious Carrie, is that you?!grin'

All the lolz 🙄.

That's about the standard of debate on here. I've been accused of being an intern or something because I've pointed out repeatedly we are in a similar sad boat to similar sized countries like Italy and Spain.

I cant believe people keep bringing China, Taiwan and Japan into it. It has been well documented that Japan didn't do much at all, the leader there has put it down to 'mindo' which means a 'higher cultural level', when actually previous SARS outbreaks have probably played a part with possible widespread immunity. That or the virus doesn't affect those in easy Asia severely for some reason.. We all know china's numbers won't be credible so we can discount them anyway.

Not at all. He is arrogant and totally underestimated the role of PM. I think the latest reports are just to make the British public feel sorry for him, so when the next election comes round they forget how much of a shit-show his first year in power was.

@trulydelicious it is a very serious allegation which is why it needs to be backed up, I have yet to see why you are stating someone has been racist against Johnson. Could you show us the post, not just tell people to go find it ourselves.

'He is arrogant'

Yeah and he talks posh, oh and his messy hair. Seems to be the problem because his actions are the same as every other European country.

Clearly Johnson's actions aren't the same as every other European country, witness the results. Which other country had their leaders condoning their cronies taking ridiculous 260 mile trips with suspected Covid?

'it is a very serious allegation which is why it needs to be backed up'

Oh calm down are you Laurence fox?

Tbh racist accusations are chucked about frequently on mn anyway, you really need to toughen up.

I would have said criticism about him is often biased and prejudiced because he is posh. Innit.

Tbh racist accusations are chucked about frequently on mn anyway, you really need to toughen up.

@trulydelicious is the hyper-sensitive soul banging on about hate speech when nothing fits the legal definition of this. I suggest it is they who should toughen up and stop making hyperbolic accusations.

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'The ironic thing is the culprits of these posts are supposed to be from ‘caring nice people’. It’s not limited to Boris either, it seems to be if you disagree with someone you can gleefully talk about their death - sometimes very violently. This year has really ramped up the ugliness of online abuse/trolling/attacks'

Yes it is quite astonishing the hate that people spout about him, when he did exactly the same as every other nation in the UK and Europe. Following the scientific evidence and advice available.

The pandemic has given the tory haters a lovely opportunity. What was it Labour said, 'don't let a good crisis go to waste'..

But we didn’t do the same as every other nation in Europe. As I mentioned upthread there were travel restrictions in Italy and I believe Spain and a curfew in Austria.

For those who were unaware, the deleted post from user2921 was a direct quote from Boris Johnson.

@ShanghaiDiva

curfew in Austria

Some posters seem to go into full blown panic attack when the word 'curfew' is mentioned here. Do you think it would have worked in the UK? It would have given the usual 'we've lost our human rights for ever' extremists even more ammunition. Dont' think so

My husband has messy hair and talks posh. I love him dearly. He’s also very competent at what he does. Therein lies the difference.

No, definitely not the same as any other European leader. Look at somewhere like Jersey. They appointed a senior epidemiologist in 2016 to plan and deliver a swift, science based approach to Coronavirus when it hit. That sits as a polar opposite to the U.K. government who buried the report and chose to reduce of our pandemic capacity and resources.

Japan is also entirely comparable. An island nation with greater population density. They were better prepared because of universal access to sufficient high quality healthcare.
Japan followed expert scientific advice. They instituted a special kind of contact tracing called “retrospective tracing.” This approach differs from standard methods that focus mainly on the period after a patient contracted the disease. With retrospective tracing, health workers try to ascertain a patient’s movements and interactions before they became infected. By mapping them and cross-referencing them with those of other infected people, tracers can identify common sources of infection—the people and places behind an infection cluster.
They gave clear and widespread unambiguous messaging on the Three Cs. Following declaration of a state of emergency 80 % of businesses shut voluntarily and restrictions could be lifted after about two months.
They have ultra fast antigen testing. They have readily available saliva testing. They have extensively promoted advanced teleworking.

No, Japanese success is not entirely down to bowing instead of handshakes.

Look at Iceland. European. Island country. Less than 7 deaths per 100k population. They were pro-active and responded long before the virus appeared on their shores. They tracked every single contact who had spent more than ten minutes with the first infected person. They found every single person and had them in quarantine within 24 hours.

Remind me - how much did our Dido Harding track and trace cost compared to other nations? How efficient and effective is it? How was the contract awarded?

@NoWordForFluffy

is the hyper-sensitive soul

You wouldn't call someone hyper-sensitive if these insults had been directed at someone with (what you perceive to be) the right characteristics, would you?

Then why do we have to accept them when targetted at someone like Johnson?

My post is not hyperbolic at all (if you mean by this that I'm exaggerating)

I’m answer to the OP question, yes I do.

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'trulydelicious Carrie, is that you?!grin'

All the lolz 🙄.

That's about the standard of debate on here. I've been accused of being an intern or something because I've pointed out repeatedly we are in a similar sad boat to similar sized countries like Italy and Spain.

I cant believe people keep bringing China, Taiwan and Japan into it. It has been well documented that Japan didn't do much at all, the leader there has put it down to 'mindo' which means a 'higher cultural level', when actually previous SARS outbreaks have probably played a part with possible widespread immunity. That or the virus doesn't affect those in easy Asia severely for some reason.. We all know china's numbers won't be credible so we can discount them anyway.

I think it’s a mistake to discount China. If we look at how they managed the return to school process this was a considered and thorough approach compared to the shambolic approach taken in January this year here.

• phased return starting with oldest kids
• temp checks on entry for all students and again at lunchtime. If student has a high temp then check is repeated and if still high, go to isolation room and the collected by parent for covid test
• no entry to school for 10 days if you leave the province
• two lunch sittings to allow for social distancing at break time
• no parents on campus
• queuing area at the front of school to facilitate social distancing
• enhanced cleaning procedures
• mask wearing in class

This is what happened in my dd’s School. Since reopening they have had zero cases. Reopening started back in May with all students back by June.