Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
Let’s just look at this objectively by not mentioning either of the two main parties by name and just look at the raw politics of the last week. We have a Government which enjoys the support of enough of the news media to ensure that if they want a particular week to be assigned to a certain cause, it will be.
This was going to be “small boats” week - forget about the rights and wrongs of the cause, the Government wanted to see it front and centre because they thought it would get the public on their side and embarrass the opposition. We’ve had a blatant attempt to stir things up and get the opposition on the back foot by the party deputy Chairman using the eff word as he spoke in his trademark, blunt “man of the people” terms - the language used was, almost certainly, pre determined and meant to stoke the culture wars, although the strange acknowledgment that the Government had failed on immigration seemed to take things a bit too far.
The Bibby Stockholm barge was supposed to be a major part of this Government “fight back”, but, if the subject wasn’t so serious it would have become a national laughing stock. I missed the story earlier in the week about a drone which was supposed to be watching the barge crashing into the sea at a cost to the Government of hundreds of thousands of pounds, but it was to be expected that we’d see a fight back from opponents and this has often been to contend that the barge was a health risk (especially as it seems that it was housing twice as many people as it was built to do). The Government response to these arguments was to accuse the source of the story as being purely politically motivated- the fears, often expressed by health professionals were dismissed in language which sounded like “we know best”.
Was there any real surprise when today’s news of the potential Legionnaires disease outbreak on the barge surfaced? Whatever the rights and wrong of the matter, having to take everyone off the barge a few days after it was being trumpeted as the solution to a problem is a terrible look and caps a week that has not gone anywhere near as well as intended.
Meanwhile, the official opposition has not had a glove laid on it and we’re now reduced to the aforesaid party deputy Chairman contacting a tame newspaper to ask why the leader of the opposition has had nothing to say about his pre planned “outrageous language”.
it’s been another shambles from a Government that has specialised in them - okay, I’m showing my bias there, but I reckon any objective observer would conclude that the week has not gone anywhere near as well as the Government hoped it would.
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