{"id":2437,"date":"2021-05-26T19:00:16","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T19:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/?p=2437"},"modified":"2021-05-26T19:01:38","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T19:01:38","slug":"wednesday-26th-may-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/2021\/05\/26\/wednesday-26th-may-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, 26th May, 2021 [Day 436]"},"content":{"rendered":"

So another Wednesday rolls by and, as usual, I had to update my Waitrose<\/em> order ready for delivery tomorrow. Fortunately, I remembered to book my slot for about three weeks time which I did whilst waiting for a few minutes after midnight on Tuesday at which time they tend to release new time slots for the weeks ahead. So after all of this was done we walked down to town, picked up our newspapers and then popped into Waitrose<\/em> where we picked up\u00a0<\/span>some milk and a birthday card for our next door neighbour for next Sunday. Whilst we were there, we bumped into one of our ex-Waitrose<\/em> friends that we used to see quite regularly in the park during the wintertime when she was involved in undertaking long walks around Bromsgrove. But we haven’t seen her for some time because she is quite busy off playing golf – she has a good and supportive circle of good friends in the golfing community (which is great, as she lost her husband just before the pandemic really got underway). Whilst we were in\u00a0<\/span>Waitrose<\/em>, we noticed a sign to say that the cafe – the hub of many\u00a0social activities – was due to\u00a0reopen again on Wednesday, June 17th which is some three weeks\u00a0away. We reminded the staff to reward their first few\u00a0customers with a free bottle of champagne when we walk through the doors in three\u00a0weeks time and the staff promised to send the message onto the manager. On our way\u00a0down to the\u00a0park this morning, we were delighted to have a few words with our Irish friends who live down the\u00a0road. They were looking after their grand-daughter for the day (which they do for a day or so in the middle of the week) and\u00a0were delighted to be going off to spend a few days in Llandudno next week now that the\u00a0restrictions are being lifted and the weather is set as a high pressure system sets in\u00a0for the next few days.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Today was the day when Dominic Cummings (ex principal adviser to the Prime\u00a0Minister) gave evidence to a Parliamentary select committee. The word used most often by the media today is ‘excoriating’ and one\u00a0has to say, that at least\u00a0superficially, his evidence seems compelling in the extreme. Cummings has argued that Boris Johnson is completely\u00a0unfit for office and that Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary,\u00a0should have been sacked for lying on multiple occasions. A picture is painted of a complete lack of preparedness at the start of the pandemic, a reluctance to lockdown (initially and on subsequent occasions) and a\u00a0dysfunctional, ‘rabbits in the headlamps<\/em>‘ approach to \u00a0government (i.e. paralysed into inactivity) Cummings himself is apologetic for not having pressed the ‘panic’ button and added new information to ‘explain’ his flight to Barnard Castle at the height of the pandemic. \u00a0What I think is\u00a0often forgotten is that a long way before Boris\u00a0become leader of the Tory Party and therefore before Brexit, there was a large group\u00a0often Tory MP’s who were arguing for a ‘Anybody but Boris<\/em>‘ \u00a0candidate. I think it was well anticipated that Boris Johnson might have great skills with his rhetorical or journalistic flourish but as a practical decision maker he\u00a0would prove to be a disaster. Privately, many of the current crop of Tory MPs would agree but\u00a0they do not really care so long as Boris\u00a0Johnson managed to secure 80 strong majorities for the Tory party. As I blog, Channel 4 news is attempting to interview a Tory MP (Tobias Ellwood) and\u00a0asked who he\u00a0would believe when Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings completely contradict each other.\u00a0Of course, no answer was forthcoming,\u00a0despite repeated\u00a0questioning \u00a0and all we got was the the\u00a0typical politician’s evasiveness. The particular question to which everyone would like an answer is that\u00a0Dominic Cummings says he heard Boris Johnson say he would rather ‘let the bodies pile high<\/em>‘ than hit the economy again with a third lockdown and this is the oft-repeated quote which Boris Johnson denied in the House of\u00a0<\/span>Commons (was he lying to the House of Commons?) and which Dominic Cummings claims he overheard (was he lying as well?)<\/span><\/p>\n

Apart from the raw politics involved, what has been fascinating about today’s proceedings has been the spotlight that has been thrown onto the machinery of government. It is well known that ‘scientists advise, politicians decide<\/em>‘ but even so it sobering to realise that our whole machinery of government were not very good – and the South East Asian economies of Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea and so on dealt with COVID-19 so\u00a0very much better than we did. Also, the Prime Minister comes out as a person who does not seek advice or even consult with cabinet colleagues (e.g. Michael Gove seems to be almost completely lacking from\u00a0today’s accounts). As the days roll by, we can expect to hear rebuttals of what Cummings has to say, not least from Matt Hancock who Cummings felt\u00a0should have been sacked for multiple transgressions.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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So another Wednesday rolls by and, as usual, I had to update my Waitrose order ready for delivery tomorrow. Fortunately, I remembered to book my slot for about three weeks time which I did whilst waiting for a few minutes after midnight on Tuesday at which time they tend to release new time slots for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2437"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2441,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions\/2441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}