Tonight has encapsulated my opinion - a Minister/SPAD or Downing Street Comms person thought that calling it “mutant Covid-19” would nullify the criticism of inadequate planning and for killing Christmas
But as always the Ministerial team had not thought past the headlines in UK papers the next day
I guess they forget that the rest of the world can read English and fear that UK really has mutant #Covid19UK - with resulting devastation to their countries
Hence hardly surprising that borders get closed with result food shortages etc etc
Now if UK really has got mutant #Covid19UK then we do need to be put in full isolation at a level tighter than March
If there is no mutant #Covid19UK and it was all about UK media management Boris and the Cabinet have hit the corner flag instead of scoring when there was no goalkeeper or defenders
Tomorrow will tell but I fear spin has backfired badly
The correct approach was “we have a slightly different strain of #Covid19UK nothing major as the vaccine will still work. However, it does seem to spread at a slightly faster rate so as a Country we need to all 100% embrace need to ventilate houses & adopt “hands,face,space”
In addition, given at Christmas it is hard to ventilate houses because of low outside temperatures when you have guests especially the elderly we recommend that people have a quiet Christmas and don’t mix with other households
We know this will disappoint but better to be safe than risk guests getting pneumonia from having all the windows open or #Covid19UK from keeping them shut
By Easter the vaccine will have received by a significant number in the UK but not quite enough for a jamboree However, things will be so much better by Whitsun that we have decided as a Government to make Friday 21st May and Tuesday 25th May bank holidays as well so families
Can really celebrate things getting back to normal What a positive thought
The end
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By having a journalist as PM & Cabinet made up of former journalists/PR and SPADs you have a Government for whom words don’t mean deeply help convictions but rather words without consequence They think you can always write something different tomorrow (Boris 2 articles at a time)
As someone said to me this morning the issue with Johnson’s Conservatives is that “they will always give false hope if it avoids a difficult message on trade offs at the time In the end the false hope kills all trust in the team but who cares Telegraph/Mail headlines positive
The above is Boris and Christmas - he over promised in September, November and December. I spent one day in Tier 3 - that in itself should make PM and most in Cabinet fall on sword of incompetence
Shutting non essential shops which are on the street and could limit customers to no more than 3 at a time are by closing going to suffer significant loss of sales, unwanted stock etc Is this necessary?
Customers who wanted to buy are going to be upset and only be left with Amazon etc as a solution
Imagine if you have not yet purchased wrapping paper or a card for your loved one or worse no present for your partner
2m social distancing means that half the desks are unavailable hence maximum capacity becomes 50% in ac well designed open plan space of that available on 28th February 2020. In old badly designed buildings like you have in Whitehall you lose 70% of desk capacity
Lift capacity is also a barrier as the maximum capacity under #Covid19UK rules is 4 people in a lift at a time and lifts would readily have had 12-15 in them at peak times pre lockdown Hence very long queues at 2m if no staggered arrivals Exits cannot be delayed as all desks
Now that Williamson/Gibb have done what they should have done pre announcement of A level results I thought I would write down the basic data questions any senior corporate manager would have asked in mid July when still masses of time to tweak things (ie not use the algorithm or
the Algorithm plus compensating procedures to remove anomalies which will cause justified emotion). Once the answers are received the solution is identified based on where you know emotion will naturally arise
How many students will be awarded a grade lower than their CAG. For how many students is this for all 3 or 4 A levels, how many for 2 and how many for just 1 subject