Thread by @atatimelikethis

Wasted Opportunity

Once upon a time Government would harness any spare resources to do things that benefited all:

A waterwheel
A mill
A school
A doctor
NHS
National Grid

What's sickening isn't just #TeamJohnson's waste
It's why they waste
To cover up failure.
They fail us all

Did you think about how they managed to get the 1% for the NHS so wrong?

1% is worse than 0. It's what you give a member of staff to show you think they should be leaving.

Explaining (a theory of) how this happened will need a little context.

Northern Ireland:

Let's think about how much time, effort, and expense have been spent failing to resolve the Northern Ireland issue...

What could have been achieved if they'd instead solved it?

At every point, #Johnson has promised solutions while providing none at all.

The damage isn't just in time, effort or cash.

It's far more challenging to replace, say, international reputation?

You remember how this went, right?

2016 UK in SM and CU. No NI problem (Norway)
2017 Rewrite of history. SM/CU no longer acceptable. NI Border problem created.

2018 Managed Divergence
2019 Backstop
2020 Mini Backstops (in WA Oven)
2021 UK Internal Market Bill (breach)
2021 UK in breach of intl law.

This all while we need to be regarded as straight shooting.

We walked away from 100s of agreements we need to re-sign as an honest player

The cost of 5 years of this nonsense
Constant denial
Constant blame of the other side
Escalating to a breach of contract
And the undermining of our reputation internationally?

That's uncountable damage.
It'll take decades from which to recover if ever we do (see free ports)

Imagine instead that we had set about solving for the issue that the 2017 rewrite of the referendum created IN 2017, instead of pretending it didn't exist?

Or that the ERG, which proposed the 2017 rewrite, was held to account to explain how their idea would work AND deliver it.

The truly obscene thing is this.

The ERG were allowed to
- propose their mad idea
- with no test of credibility
- and no plan to implement
- lobby against and destroy functional alternatives

And then waive away reviews that would have shown how damaging it would be.

Democracy?

Even crazier, of course, is the chaos in Northern Ireland and at Dover and other ports isn't even being reported, so many papers are in cahoots with the Government.

For British News you now need to read the NYT, Bloomberg or Reuters.

reuters.com/article/us-bri…

What's reported here is nonsense like "Johnson says Protocol was always going to be like this"

As if

a) it wasn't his protocol
b) lauded as the oven baked backstop solution
d) that he sold into Northern Ireland as "best of both worlds"

Empty food shelves deny that irreality

That's just Northern Ireland
How many others do you remember?

80,000 unnecessary deaths of the 125K total

Failure to close borders (unlike any other country) that created the massive spikes here

BTW your taxes paid for advertising in March to tell you why that was a good idea.

Care homes shield of protection. Yet until April no PPE, and guidance saying it wasn't necessary.

Months of inaction at the start on PPE, ventilators, NHS preparation.

The test we co-developed for Covid19 in January with Germany ignored...while they put it into mass production.

Schools.
(Add your own list. I got to 10)

Too many failed small businesses

The insanity of needing nurses but charging them visas and refusing family rights.

The U-turn on visas and right to remain

Secret re-introduction of NHS Visas Jan 31st 2021, that no Paper reported.

Summer jingoism causing the second spike lockdown.

Except it was the first spike:

We failed to control it by firing our world class test and trace teams and replacing them with massive nepotistic contracts.

Christmas days
Day
Don't

And vaccines?
Didn't they do that at least?

Vaccines are what test and trace could have been.

A combination of excellent military logistics combined with specialist NHS medial expertise.

(And Government, thank God, no where to be seen)

No dodgy contracts, no nepotistic appointments, no politicians involved.

This list is just scratching the surface. It's endless.

You have the background now for the 1% theory.

Through all that time the NHS is where we placed our thanks as a nation.

We could afford £37B on failed T&T
More again on dodgy PPE
And pay rises for Barnard Castle eye tests

You think 1% for the NHS is an insult. You're right.

But why be so stupid? Better to say 0 for all than 1%.

Pause
Why NI?
Why this endless list?
How could it be that no senior member of Cabinet, including Johnson, read the final Brexit Agreement.

It's like they're just Lazy

A Lazyment: 1% theory

1% = what you get when,
no one could be bothered to review it.
A passive insult
And so much the worse for it

Our 'Lazyment'.
Promise everything.
Does nothing.
Blames anyone but themselves.

We deserve better, while sadly they just get worse⏬