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Clear that society is moving ahead of #UKGoverment now. This is good: (neighbourhood & community groups coming together/social distancing etc. Institutions incl care homes & premier league closing). Also bad: (panic buying, hoarding, acting on rumours, factoids etc).

Either way it’s a testament to the ongoing leadership drift and the disastrous and terrifying absence of clarity & direction from a government that we cannot rely on to protect the most vulnerable.

This absence of leadership is not surprising: Johnson & his gang have demonstrated again and again that they are bluffers and chancers, good at campaigning, sloganising, ‘stealing the impression of other people’s fantasies’, to paraphrase Shakespeare

Many of them have demonstrated repeatedly in their votes and their actions, that they regard a significant section of the population as expendable, lacking in Tory virtues, parasitical, ‘economically inactive’ - a burden on society that society as defined by them, cannot afford

With regards to Brexit, they demonstrated again and again a willingness to gamble without even knowing what chips they had and what was even on the table.

Now they are faced with a virus that does not accept bluff, that cannot be dealt with by slogans to please the electorates.

In response they have combined weak leadership, contradictory & incoherent messaging & ‘nudge theory’ with a questionable strategy w/ no other country has adopted that, according to some estimates, could kill bet 500,000 or a million people at worst case scenario.

Whatever its scientific merits, and there is no consensus on this, most of these people will be the elderly & the vulnerable - whose protection is or should be - the hallmark of a humane and civilised society.

Is the UK prepared to accept this ‘gamble’, as the Times calls it?

I really doubt it. Not from politicians who forced even sick and dying people to work. Who breezily lied about having a care plan for the elderly when they didn’t have one & introduced an immigration policy that will potentially lose 500, 000 EU care workers

That won’t even access the EU’s pandemic early warning system because ‘independent nations don’t take rules’. This is akin to Trump’s refusal to introduce WHO coronavirus testing kits - the triumph of small-minded nationalism over decency & the protection of the population

Now these same politicians ask us to accept the deaths of possibly 500,000 people as if it were an inevitablity, while not testing people, identifying clusters, nor taking firm action on hoarding, panic buying & giving clear guidance on social-distancing etc?

It won’t wash.

So if they won’t, or can’t, let’s find ways to care for each other and protect each other, as Jurgen Klopp suggested.