28th April 2020
WHO’S GOING TO BE WATCHING TONIGHT’S PRESS CONFERENCE AND PMQs TOMORROW ?
This blog post will be short and sweet today – but expect more before the weekend.
Why short ?
Well mainly because I’m waiting to see if Johnson turns up tonight or if he hides behind Raab or another of his minions, claiming exhaustion following his self-inflicted ‘battle’ with Covid-19 and consequently I don’t want to get embroiled with one of my usual rants and end up missing the start of tonight’s show.
Of much more importance than the nightly doctored statistics show (do they really think we believe they don’t know how many people have died in Care homes or the community since the start of this ?) is the prospect of tomorrows PMQs when, maybe, Johnson will show his face and take on Kier Starmer across the Despatch Box in an under-populated House of Commons. Starmer dealt with Raab with ease last week and left him in no doubt what was to come tomorrow and I don’t think Johnson will be looking forward to facing up to what will be his most testing Parliamentary encounter since becoming Prime Minister. His very own social distancing rules (which I totally agree with by the way – stay home, stay safe, protect all our Health and Care workers and save lives) will leave him no where to hide as the usual baying mob of brain dead zombies in the seats behind him will find themselves muted by the technology. His banter and bluster will be seen for what it is and the more people who watch it the better. You might also want to see what John Crace has to say in Thursdays’ Guardian – again another moment of great delight in the offing.
Johnson has had it relatively easily from a Parliamentary scrutiny point of view, yes he was (supposedly) poorly and recovering/resting/skiving and yes the Labour Party have been extremely compliant since the outbreak, which comes as no surprise considering the challenges we all face, but it is now time to challenge the Government over what are blatantly obvious mistakes in both the science and Ministerial decisions.
The facts are that under 12 years of Conservative government the NHS and Social Care have been woefully, even criminally underfunded – the lowest number of ICU beds per head of population in all of Europe, chronic staff shortages, chronic staff retention, I could go on and on but you get the picture. Now, on Johnson and Hancock’s watch we find out that PPE stocks were low to almost non-existent at the start of this – even though Operation Cygnus – a ‘flu pandemic scenario dummy run warned of the dangers to the NHS.
The Government have failed in their duty of care to us all – patient and care worker alike – and they need to be held to account – as a direct consequence of their failures over 21,000 people have died – and they still aren’t coming out with the number who have died in Care homes or the community
There can be no hiding from the facts and Kier Starmer and the Press need to start asking the right questions and stop taking Johnson and his cohort of co-conspirators’ lies and bullshit any longer.
There’s a storm coming – and we can’t let him run from it
Stay home, stay safe, protect the Health and Care workers, protect the NHS and save lives.
Thanks
Jem
PS – all the links work 🙂