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.

Nope, not one jot of sympathy from me. People can point out that he's had to lead the country through a pandemic which is a situation none of us could have seen coming, but he hasn't learnt from early mistakes, he's just kept making them. We're not even back at square one, we've gone so far backwards we've left square one way off in the distance. He's focused on him and his mates making money and brexit. The economy is fucked and over 100000 people are dead so he's failed on both counts. People say they don't know if anyone else could have done any better, and I'm not Corbyn's biggest fan by a long shot but some of his ideas aren't seeming so fucking ridiculous now are they!

I think he should go for his own sake. A very sad situation.

@lunapeace

I do yes, he's made mistakes but he's a human being. He's even admitted responsibility for the 100,000 deaths caused by a virus which he really didn't have to do. But he did. Give the man a break.

But he's a blatant liar and cheat so we know that when Johnson talks about 'responsibility' it doesn't have the same meaning as for other people.

Nope. Not an ounce of sympathy for him.
He lied about Brexit
He took his sweet time sorting out lockdowns and now more British people have died due to Covid 19 in the UK than died in the World Wars (both of them).
He didn't do anything about Dominic Cummings when he had the chance to - some quick decisive action there would have been better than what happened.
Nope.
No sympathy for him at all.

@Dontforgetyourbrolly

I include him in everyone I feel sorry for at the moment which is pretty much all of us!

I am pretty sure his power and big fat bank account will insulate him from the troubles that are going to plague the rest of us for decades.

GDP isn't expected to get back to 2020 levels in my industry until 2026; how many forloughs is that, how many redundancies is that, how many mortgages unpaid is that, how many divorces will that lead to, how many suicides will there by by middle-aged men who can't see their future.

Boris will be just fine. Unfortunately.

@dottiedodah

I feel sorry for him yes .No government in recent times has had to face such a difficult crisis .Labour would probably not have fared any better really .Lots of hindsight about how they would have done things differently .Not so easy at the time though!

Well, apart from those governments all over the western world who have had the same or a worse crisis to deal with and have done so much better ...

@Remmy123

Yes I do - he is human after all.

So were the 100,000 people who have died, many of whom might still be here if it weren't for his criminal 'leadership'.

Nope

@lunapeace

I do yes, he's made mistakes but he's a human being. He's even admitted responsibility for the 100,000 deaths caused by a virus which he really didn't have to do. But he did. Give the man a break.

Well, he kind of did have to, given that it all happened on his watch. Trying to claim he had no or little responsibility would probably have got him lynched.

@WanderingMilly

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......

You are saying that he did what he did because he was listening to the public isn't true. How can he or you know what everyone wants? Maybe those people who shout loudest might not be the majority. My extended family decided before he did that we shouldn't mix at Christmas and I'm sure other people did the same. If holidays abroad were allowed and encouraged why wouldn't people go on them?

Boris had access to the data and science that many other people didn't. If you look at the rates of hospital admissions in December they are not far off those at the peak of the first wave. Yet his government were threatening to sue schools for closing when they could see cases soaring.

A strong leader would have shown the evidence to the public and acted decisively. He should have looked at Asian countries who already knew what to do because of SARS and followed their example. He could have done so much more that would have kept case numbers down and not wrecked our economy.

@dottiedodah

I feel sorry for him yes .No government in recent times has had to face such a difficult crisis .Labour would probably not have fared any better really .Lots of hindsight about how they would have done things differently .Not so easy at the time though!

Every government around the world is facing the same crisis. Nearly all of them have done better than us, without the benefit of hindsight. Unless of course you count the hindsight from the first wave which BJ could have benefitted from when dealing with an impending second wave... But chose not to.

@wonderstuff I have relative in Australia. They got one case in their town who was a visitor. It's not quite the same is it? And their leisure / tourism industry has been ruined. Many people lost their jobs, my relative had to cut to 2 days a week and was only paid for those. He lost all his staff in his dept and now it's just him, but still nothing to do, because no one is visiting.

Absolutely not, not a tiny bit.

Yes I do, he has the weight of the world on his shoulders and all people can do is twist the knife constantly, I wonder what other people would have done better in his shoes.

*Sandybanana7

Yes I do feel sorry for him.
He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

MN is a 99% Labour leaning site so naturally everyone on here is going to hate him.*

Judging by the Brexit post I find this laughable - MN seems as polarised politically as everywhere else. DH and his family, and most of their friends, are staunch Tories, and have voted for them consistently as far back as family memories go, as are most of the people I work with and half the blokes in the pub and every one of them, to a man/woman think he's done a shit job. DH and mates are now actively talking about voting for s different party next time, which will be the first time ever.

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

You won't get many admit they do on this site

Mostly everyone on MN seem to believe they are compassionate (I see that word thrown around a lot) and have the ability to understand complexities

Yet when it comes to the PM some become vicious, vile and irrational

I do, a little.

Hes been in an impossible situation and no doubt has many advisors, scientists all telling him what's best. He can't do right from doing wrong.

Hes made mistakes so he needs to stop making them from on. Lift these lockdowns at the end of march and stop this shower of shite.

Everyone knew laughable, fluffy haired Bojo was a workshy liar, but who else was willing to take the poisoned chalice of Brexit that he campaigned for by using lies. His ego has got us where we are now, and the lack of criticism of him in our press shows how corrupt the media is.

The Tories ran the NHS into the ground because they wanted to sell it off and profit from it. They have pushed child poverty into Victorian era levels, they have ground public services to dust. Boris was clapping and cheering with the rest of his billionaire mates when nurses were refused a pay rise. We now can't open the nightingale hospital because there is no staff to run it.

This whole shit show is Tory policy and it doesn't affect them because they are all living in a billionaire bubble, sipping chamgagne paid for from the public purse.

If you want to feel sorry for someone, how about those who have lost a loved one or those with life long debilitating conditions with long Covid? What about those who have lost work and are having to rely on charity handouts and can't afford to feed their kids? Or the fact that a footballer forced government U turns because, although there's a magic money tree for a failed track and trace system, there isn't one for starving children. Whose parents have been forced further and further into poverty because of a decade of austerity.

If the man had any integrity he would resign. But he doesn't so here we are.

Absolutely not. A lying, scheming, egocentric and manipulative prick. Misogynistic, racist, xenophobic and homophobic to boot. Any person that could cheat on their spouse while they have cancer is the lowest of the low in my eyes.

No

No, can't stand the man.
However, he isn't the only one responsible for this. He is not up to the job, but in his arrogance, probably unconsciously incompetent. His colleagues and party, some of whom must surely see this, share responsibility for allowing him to blunder on.

When he does go, I sincerely hope that he does NOT go on the usual moneygoround of after dinner speaking, as to profit from that would be blood money imho. He is despicable enough to do it though.

No I don't. He needs to open the country back up and get the economy running again.

@DamnUserName21

No fan but, yes, I do a bit.

He was dealt a shit hand and he played it badly.

Playing it badly implies he tried his best but wasn't quite up to scratch.

This venal arsehole has lied and cheated and enriched his pals through the entire thing! That was his priority, his number one jobs has never been to keep his citizens alive. And really as PM if you're ever faced with a choice between killing citizens and saving them, you shouldn't actually have to think about it.

No. He has blood on his hands, I do not know how he sleeps at night