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.

AgeOfExploration - are you okay?

@ssd

Has no one posted

'At least it's not Corbyn' yet??!!??

Blimey

Oh yes, we've had that one.

Corbyn would've done better. I say that not as a fan (I wasn't) but because Paul the fortune telling octopus would've done better. Anyone would.

@LaurieFairyCake

Corbyn would have followed Europe (particularly Germany) more closely

And crucially wouldn't have handed millions to people in his social circle to provide masks/ventilators/the worst test and trace system known to human kind

Yes I agree. He wouldn’t have been capable of making any kind of decisions they were all too busy wrapped up in he/she/them movement.

@Wartigen

No. And he is putting a stake in the ground for resignation. His premiership wasnt meant to be this way. It was meant to be ALL the Coke, and ALL the women and ALL the garden bridges and trains. He’s skint, and all his financial problems disappear the second he resigns and hits the public speaking circuit.

I thought exactly that when I watched him yesterday. He had “Get me the fuck out of here” written all over him. He wanted to be King of the World, it’s a lesson in being careful what you wish for.

@lauriefairycake how could he have followed germany more closely when we don't have the same infrastructure ? And have you looked at how it is affecting them now ?
They had quite similar lockdowns to us .

No. HTH

@Crowsaregreat

No. He's the most irresponsible man I can think of. Bluffed his way into being PM and had not the slightest clue what to do when he got there.

He's apologising to try to shape how he is seen by posterity, it won't work. There's probably also pressure on him from donors and the cabinet to show humility because of what a shitshow everything is.

This.

He just followed through on what the majority of people wanted

No, he helped shape the narrative of Brexit as it was a route to power. The fact that it's not even something he believed in personally shows what a moral void of a human being he is.

Yes I do, but clearly in the minority.

Boris actually wanted to stay in the EU. Google it’s easy to find. So no he didn’t actually cultivate it. He just followed through on what the majority of people wanted.

But he decided the best way to get to be PM was to support Vote Leave. So betrayed his supposed Europhile roots. Which means he either lied about wanting to stay in the EU or switched teams to achieve his political aim. If it's the latter it makes him even more contemptible. Machiavellian in the extreme.

To say he didn't cultivate it when he was Vote Leave's poster boy / chief drum-banger is changing history somewhat.

He has still refused to meet the bereaved families group from the very early deaths onwards. He knows he fucked up and can't look them in the eye and face them. They have asked over and over for a meeting, it is rebuffed by No. 10 every single time. That tells me a lot about this self serving, pompous, lazy buffon we have as prime minister.

Do I fuck!
It’s been a shambles from the beginning. Most papers are Tory anyway - so biased

i love how most on mn could so easily run a country and would do so much better , labour didn't get in due to their own issues . They have had to get a new leader themselves to address issues , so lets not pretend they would of got everything right either, they would of come up against the same challenges and say they had got some things right earlier but then been in eu and had to wait on vaccine that would be a disaster.
No one can way anyone would of been worse or better as its an impossible question to answer , one different move and it coUld of gone another way.

Yes, I do feel sorry for Boris actually. I'm not expecting anyone to agree with me but I genuinely think he has tried to listen to the people from the outset, and had nothing but hatred for it.

As far as he was concerned, the people had voted for BREXIT, he promised to make it happen...and then the pandemic came along. He has had to juggle BREXIT talks alongside the changing pandemic, often being blamed for not being around...he was still having to be at BREXIT negotiation meetings as well.

On top of that, he can't do right for wrong. He has tried to steer a path between the opposing demands of the citizens, scientists, economists and back-benchers, to name but a few.

At the start of the pandemic, everyone round my home area was saying "it's nothing, just a flu" and wouldn't have stuck with a lockdown if we'd locked down sooner. At the school I worked at, staff were openly saying it was rubbish and were cross about the closures. Now of course, everyone says we should have locked down sooner.

I remember as soon as the infection rates began to lower, everyone was calling for shops and pubs to be open. And summer holidays, there was a tidal wave of people saying they 'deserved' their holiday abroad. So they get it and lo and behold, everyone says it's Boris' fault that we all went to the beach and Spain...and that everything should have stayed closed.

And then there was Christmas.....short memories again. Remember everyone calling for Christmas, "we've had a shit year, no-one has seen their family, at least give us Christmas"...... so Boris listened but now everyone says, if we hadn't got together at Christmas, we wouldn't have had another lockdown. Yes we would. The current lockdown is because of the new variant which has shown a spread across the country (Christmas doesn't spread across the country, it would have been high in all areas at the same time).

Finally we got our 3rd lockdown as teachers felt unsafe in schools, the unions were calling for it and children were finally seen to be taking the virus into homes and then the community. We've barely got the infection rates falling when there's a clammer of voices calling for everything to open up again. Honestly, what is wrong with the British public? Nothing but moans and complaints, and then blame it all on the PM......

No. He squandered time and taxpayers’ money at the cost of human lives. He enabled his cronies to profit from a crisis while ordinary people faced destitution. He wanted the top job to satisfy his overblown ego but didn’t have the courage to make tough decisions when it would have counted. He’s a failure as a leader and a human being.

I do, would you have done any better ? It's easy to preach from your armchair. No one knows how to handle this. I do think "eat out to help out" was a blunder, and giving in to certain pressures from
hysterical people, but otherwise I think we all just have to get through it together. It would help if people just got on, wartime spirit.

God, no. How could anyone? I can’t even be bothered to list why as everyone else has done that.

I don't feel any sympathy at all, he's spectacularly failed to take responsibility, take good decisions, engage with scientists - he should resign in my opinion.
Brexit is a shambles as well.
Like Trump though I think he represents a symptom of a wider political failure, he should never have been elected. The political parties, and the country need to take a long hard look at what's happened and start voting for serious people rather than clowns that look like they might be fun.

Labour's lack of support for unions has been very disappointing, but I do think they would have taken the situation more seriously.

I like to think I'd have actually 'followed the science', rather than saying that's what I was doing, whilst actually actively ignoring the scientific advice I was being given, yes.

@WanderingMilly very well said , I think people forget how things have to be considered from a social side as well , as we are not a police state.
Its like vaccines ,scientists have decided order not the goverment and goverment have followed advice but thats not good enough either , everyone else wants it first and the medics are wrong ,

No. He deserves to be punished for his lack of leadership and open corruption that's firmly placed the money of his pay makers and cronies ahead of the greater public's health and ability to work.

No. He's been extremely privileged his whole life and used that to get into high places without having the credentials to back it up.

He championed Brexit then had no idea what to do when it actually happened.

And now he's dealing with a pandemic - which is the kind of thing the PM has to deal with - while he thought he would have an easy time and enjoy the perks while avoiding all the responsibility the way he has done all through his life.

So no he didn’t actually cultivate it. He just followed through on what the majority of people wanted

Some people have got fucking short memories - he stood in front of the £350 million for the NHS bus and campaigned for Brexit.

Hell no! I feel sorry for us having him as our PM.

Nobody make him take on this role and nobody is making him stay in tit.

@beingmorehappy there are countries who clearly do know how to handle this. Look at Australia & New Zealand, they looked at the last coronavirus outbreaks and acted accordingly.