Quote Originally Posted by tforturton View Post
Boris and his government can't win whatever they do. It's been a mess-up from the start, but that's exactly because they have tried to keep everyone happy. Sadly, that doesn't work, but if they had instead go one way or the other (total and complete lockdown OR just ride it out) they would have been hammered.

The thing is, not making that definite decision, and instead, bumbling along jumping from one tack to another, has made things worse. If we'd had total lockdown, we might have been out of it by now, but we'd have no business, no food, and no jobs. Riding it out would have meant normal life, but a lot more deaths. The government chose to carry out a mixture of the two, but that doesn't really work either. But, in reality, EVERYONE, of ANY PARTY, would have done exactly the same thing. They would have opted for the path that causes the least damage to both health and economy.

So what to do? Who knows? The damage is done now, so it looks like a case of occasional lockdowns, while science searches for a vaccine.
No government could find a course through Covid that kept everyone happy if that's what you mean by 'can't win', but this government and Prime Minister has been an international outlier in its' ineptitude and incoherence.

The 'jumping from one tack to another' was not part of a calculated balancing act between health and economic concerns - but the result of confusion, lack of leadership and strategy, and making up policy off the cuff on a daily basis. The contradictory and confusing messages to the public - on some days we had three or more Cabinet ministers saying totally different things - together with symbolic disasters like the Cummings road trip - were totally avoidable.

Any conceivable alternative government (Labour or even one led by Theresa May) would have had a very hard job on their hands, but they would be unlikely to cock it up as badly at this lot!