Thread by @staff_ex

My thoughts on the latest Johnson comments. First up - it looks highly likely that Johnson had to be persuaded ‘big time’ to enter a 2nd lockdown. This is for a number of reasons, and we’ll come back to these, but suffice it to say his lack of appetite to lockdown is clear. 1/n.

Reports of Johnson’s reluctance to lockdown spread from the disreputable (yesterday’s Daily Mail headline) to vastly more reputable news sources. @thetimes et al, do not publish such headlines without a strong source in the top-left. So we can be quite sure of their voracity. 2/n

But how believable are the stories? Well let’s examine the evidence. Has Johnson showed reluctance to lockdown before? He absolutely has. The ‘take it on the chin’ comments from as late as Feb 20 show this in spades. But such a sentiment is almost excusable. 3/n

It was after all a ‘novel’ coronavirus. We had plans for influenza, and we assumed they would work. Arrogant? Yes. Misinformed? Possibly. A display of epic amounts of hubris? Absolutely. Callous and criminally incompetent? Unproven...for now. 4/n

Johnson’s reasons for failing to lock-down in time to prevent 70,000 excess mortality between Feb and June 2020 will be examined, and I suspect will not lead to lasting damage to the PM (though I believe it should). 5/n

Instead fast forward to Aug 21. Cases were increasing gently (but still exponentially - ask a mathematician!) And this in the height if summer before the children returned to school. In short, at a time when we, humans, mingle indoors the least. 6/n

It was v clear to all that as children returned to school, as businesses traded more, as the weather deteriorated, as the days grew shorter, as people forgot about the spring and grew weary... I could go on...for all these reasons a second wave was inevitable. 7/n

I foresaw this. And I wrote to my MP to say so. I also wrote to members of #Sage in August and discussed the need for a circuit breaker, to be implemented over an extended school half-term. This would allow us to be proactive and get ahead of the virus. 8/n

This would allow us to, for once, take the fight to the virus that had caused so much damage. It would give people a chance to spend a short amount of time indoors, knowing they were helping. It would give businesses time to prepare (shift stock, warn workers etc). 9/n

My (very kind and respectful) replies from members of #sage in the first week of Sep stated that the proposal of a circuit breaker had been put forward and strongly recommended to the decision makers, but rejected out of hand “for political reasons”. 10/n

This would have around the time of the “bodies piled high” comments. The takeaway here is that his refusal to lockdown a second time was in direct opposition from the advice given by his own advisors. This will be important at the enquiry. Ignorance became negligence. 11/n

I am appalled at how callous our leader is. This may be because I, a former army officer, care deeply about leadership. I recall the love that I, and my leaders, had for their/our subordinates. In contrast to this the PM’s sentiments are incomprehensible. 12/n

But unfortunately lack of empathy will not depose a poor leader. Johnson’s callousness and entitled air of superiority is public domain (bum-boys/picaninnies/watermelons/letterboxes/Kipling), and as the @BBCNews stated over the weekend “does any really care?” Perhaps not! 13/n

What will finish Johnson is that 1. he failed to learn from other nations. 2. He failed to learn from the Spring. 3. He went against the advice of #sage. 4. He was content for 10s of thousands of people to die to protect his ego. 5. 120,000 people died as a result. End.