UKH

There are plenty Johnson critics on here (myself included). 

Whilst criticising his every move, the mood changed as soon as it was indicated that we may be allowed some limited climbing, with a clamour of intentions to go out, discussions of whys and wherefores.

Instead, why not join the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish in sticking two fingers up to him.

Stay in, pretend that it is raining. 

In a time of national crisis encouraging others to behave in a way that frustrates the attempts of the democratically elected government to tackle the situation isn't particularly responsible. In fact in many countries it would be seen as sedition and you'd likely end up in prison. It amazes me how far certain peoples hatred and of Boris and Tories goes in this place. 

Really? Voluntarily limiting the spread of a virus is sedition?

I think that Mr Whippet is saying that he does not feel that it is the right time to be letting up on restrictions to the degree that is being allowed, as many do not want to lose some of the hard won ground that has been gained so far in the struggle against the Corona virus.

I think that Mr Johnson and his colleagues may be gambling on a good proportion of the populace feeling like Mr Whippet, and therefore the relenting on restricted movements may be more graduated and have less of a negative effect.

Correction " certain people's hatred".

Are you questioning the advice of our dear leader. Sound seditious to me.

That's the beauty of it, how to prove sedition. 

"I was just watching telly like everyone else your honour" 

Or is it now our civic duty to go out climbing whilst not using public transport? 

Come off it. I’m ‘staying in’ because I don’t trust the people who have shown themselves capable of lies and distortion. If you want an alternative example of ‘hatred’ check the subhead in today’s Mail - apparently every teacher union (yes - they all have communicated the same message) is ‘militant’ simply for asking for safe working conditions in schools. 
 

‘We’re all in this together’? Don’t make me wet my pants
 

But that is not what my post said or implied, and you know it. There's an increasing amount of non-cooperation, or talk of such, especially on the left, and the original post in this thread was made in that context and referred specifically to the actions of Welsh and Scottish politicians which took it beyond the realm of climbing matters. 

yeah that leftie who is trying to get all the politicians to gather together in one undersized chamber is disgraceful. 

We as a household closed ranks about two weeks before lockdown - cupboards stocked, disengaged as much as possible with other people and pulled Jr out of daycare etc.  We had no interest in playing a part in spreading the disease long after lockdown should have happened (even if we likely weren’t at risk ourselves) and when the gov apparently thought herd immunity was a good idea.

At the time I wondered how long it’d be before some people started demanding that holdouts like us took part in infection as it’s what our glorious leaders believed in. 54 minutes in to this thread and it’s cries of “sedition”...  

'referred specifically to the actions of Welsh and Scottish politicians which took it beyond the realm of climbing matters. '

Would those be the politicians democratically elected to exercise devolved powers about such matters as dealing with pandemics?

I believe the sensible thing to do with a  lock down such as this is to start early and finish late if your circumstances enable this.

This not only protects you but also those whose circumstances are different. 

What's your evidence that this is happening on the left? It seems to be at the level of individuals and families rather than having any particular political tendency.

How exactly are the divergent policy decisions of elected Scottish and Welsh politicians in their own parliaments/assemblies 'seditious'?

What a load of tosh.

If you're looking for seditious activity then take a closer look at the libertarian right wing - https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/anti-l...

But tarring either the 'left' or the 'right' as 'seditious' is really not helpful, these extremes don't represent the vast majority of people who are generally just trying to do the best they can in a difficult situation irrespective of their political views.

Both leaders claimed publicly not to understand what “Stay alert” meant. Neither sought any clarification directly from Downing Street, and neither waited for the speech. Maybe if you’re Welsh or Scots you see that as sticking it to Boris and exercising your independence. From my point of view it’s pretty pathetic if you have leaders publicly claiming to be ignorant. 
 

Fair enough, continue with the message “Stay at home”, the ‘UK’ government are still using the term stay at home. The idea is not to go out madly and spread the virus, the idea is to slowly lift lockdown to see how much of the economy we can recover without affecting the R value. That’s pretty simple to understand isn’t it? We are still in lockdown, there’s still a load of companies closed and people on furloe.  Why does everything have to have some sinister controlling motive. It’s always been the left that want to have big controlling government and high taxation, the right want small government, low taxation and people free to manage their own lives. 

I never said they were "seditious", I said that behaving  in a way that frustrates the attempts of the democratically elected government to tackle the situation isn't particularly responsible and in some countries that would be seen as sedition. I was just conveying that I think deliberately trying to undermine the government at the moment is wrong, that could include the far right, but it's mainly the left, a daily read of the Guardian will provide plenty of evidence of that, plus the contents of this forum including statements like "why not join the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish in sticking two fingers up to him". That's my opinion. If you think it's "tosh" then tough. 

It's nice to know that leaders can be humans too.  I've yet to meet anyone who knows what "Stay alert" actually means.  Ever alert for the call to action?  Step up to red alert?   Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb.

Yes, because leaders of your devolved nations are supposed to get their information from the PMs speeches.

STAY ALERT people.  Just make sure you have an alertness rota for sleep time. 

I'm not sure which leaders you mean, but Starmer said that the message wasn't clear enough. And large swathes of the UK population of all stripes agreed with him. 

As for 'sinister controlling motive', I wouldn't accuse the government of that at coronavirus policy and information level - it's more a case of sheer incompetence. Any 'sinister controlling motive' is at the level of lack of transparency and employment of spin to distract from their failings. 

“This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”

Seditious bastard, criticising the government at a time of crisis.

They've taken the easy but politically-optimal option of positioning themselves far enough away from the main UK policies so that they can say "I told you so" if it all goes wrong in England, but if it works fine they'll just follow on behind with the same things. That's not done in the national interest, it's done for political points. It's obvious. In fact it is damaging of the overall national interest because it creates mistrust and doubt. I'm not saying that is "sedition", but considering the position of the SNP I'm sure it would be considered so elsewhere.

I am also a critic of this government however I think they have called it right on this occasion 

We are a liberal democracy and it's quite right that the bar for ordering us to stay home is set quite high. The NHS is coping and this virus is not going anywhere, so the slight easing seems like a sensible move.

If I was in wales I'd be quite annoyed that there is still no plan published when the lockdown is being extended to a total of 10 weeks. 

Great idea, don't leave your house until the virus disappears.... 

They've taken what they think is the right decision for them, just as has happened in England.

I'm amazed by your blinkered view on democracy - If my 'side' do it it's the correct decision of a democratically elected parliament. If the 'other' side do it it's political posturing (and would be considered sedition elsewhere! Wtf is that point saying!).

I think you're confusing disagreement with sedition. Which is the stance taken by authoritarian states the world over. 

As far as I'm aware the goverment advice is that we can exercise outside, not that we must. So not really sure how choosing to stay at home is frustrating our democratically elected government. Although if the police come round tomorrow and force me to leave my house all day I will definitely come back and concede that you are correct

ha ha ha ha

172,000 test they said they'd done on Tuesday, that's how many people got tested?

Around 74,000!?!?!? that's how well they've got this under control. From the ministers own mouth last night on question time, so either people were getting tested twice or over half the tests weren't carried out.

Every other country which has, a proper hold on the virus and relaxed the lockdown, has a widespread testing, some form of tracking system in place.

Where's ours?

You do know R is higher in Scotland than in England? Also much lower in London than other parts of England. Why not take a ‘national’ approach based on evidence by location rather than one based on borders?

That would make sense. I'm sure it varies across Scotland, too. 

Good. I’m glad we agree. The hatred directed at the PM and current government mirror everything directed at the FM and government in Scotland. The Tories don’t have a monopoly on being hated.

Not blinkered at all. If politicians can't cooperate at a time of national emergency you might soon find you don't have a democracy anymore. 

There's a fundamental right in a democracy to disagree.

More than that, criticism and debate are vital for a democracy to work, this 'Shut up unless you agree with me' is what is dangerous to our democracy.

Maybe if Johnson had consulted them (or even his own cabinet) before making his speech...?

Are you for real?

Staying at home is sedition? Not going climbing is sedition? Is that what you're saying?

And a fundamental of good judgement for an elected individual is knowing there are times when you don't take actions that make that disagreement obvious.

Try reading what I actually typed.

Now that is truly odd. You don’t know what “Stay alert” means? 
 

Let me help you out. It means don’t drop your guard. Continue washing your hands, stay 2m from people. Remember that there is still people around with the virus and to keep doing what you were doing. The lockdown has only been lifted slightly. It’s not business as usual yet. 
 

You’ve been pretty vocal with your calls to alert people of the presence of a virus for weeks now, and now you don’t know what it means. 
 

I’m sorry. I truly believe these people are pretending not to know what they’re supposed to do, to make a political point. 
 

If they don’t know what they’re staying alert for by now, then the last 7 weeks have been a complete waste of time. 

What about, as a radical idea, that they believe the actions being taken are dangerous and so disagree with them?

This attempt to portray disagreement with government as sedition (and yes thats what you are doing with your "well I am not saying this but other countries would" weasel words approach) is far more damaging to democracy than people expressing concern at the way the government is, or isnt, governing.

As are your attempts to politicise it by blaming the left.

When actions over the pandemic and the public health messages about those actions are the basis of what's being disagreed over perhaps you could explain how those disagreements could be kept private?

Not that I agree with you in any case. Public debate is part of a healthy democracy and the current situation doesn't make that less true.

Particularly given that those well-known pinkos the DUP have chosen a different route to Johnson's route. 

In fact, in a rare break with tradition, Northern Ireland has given a welcome demonstration of non-partisan decision-making, with agreement from the DUP and Sinn Fein. 

Presley Whippet suggested "sticking two fingers up to [Boris Johnson]" by "Stay[ing] in, pretend that it is raining."

And you said that doing the above was "encouraging others to behave in a way that frustrates the attempts of the democratically elected government to tackle the situation" and that this amounts to sedition.

Is that really what you think? Do you know what the "sedition" means?

I know what I’m supposed to do.  I don’t think “stay alert” describes that in any way.   I’m not the only one.

> You’ve been pretty vocal with your calls to alert people of the presence of a virus for weeks now, and now you don’t know what it means. 

For months.  Which is why I’ve consistently rejected your claims of calling things in hindsight.  

Why would I make my life miserable just to score some political points? Lmao..

Come on now. 

I don't believe that the outdoors is remotely an infection vector, and think this lockdown could have been done a lot better from the start if the outdoors wasn't put off limits. 

I'm not going to voluntarily stay away from the outside activities I enjoy, just to 'stick one to Boris', when I never agreed that said activities should have been banned in the first place. 

That's fine if it is what you want to do, but why refer to it as giving anyone else a "poke in the eye"?

Well that’s a start I suppose. Keep focused on doing those things and you’ll be fine. Think of staying alert as maintaining vigilance over those things. 
 

Glad to have helped. Maybe if we all helped each other by explaining what things mean to those struggling we might get somewhere. And those struggling could maybe have a bit of think about what it means before taking to social media about  something that most people understand. 
 

Well yes. My point has always been, it’s easy to say you’re right in hindsight when you suspect something is going to happen and it does. The problem is you can’t use hindsight to persuade people of future events. I’m sure if you had been wrong we would have seen countless posts where you keep saying you were wrong. 

Whilst all that specific guidance may be entirely appropriate, "stay alert" has never before meant "wash your hands" or "stay 2m away from people". Why does this government seemingly intend to boil absolutely every problem, no matter how complex, down to a 2 or 3 word slogan? The slogan, for this next phase, advisable or not, is entirely unnecessary and makes no sense without paragraphs of further explanation, i.e. it's shit even in terms of being a slogan.

What do we want? No more slogans! When do we want it? One at a time in a park 2m away but not in a garden.

Maybe instead of criticising and achieving nothing, your time could be better spend enducting those that are having difficulty with it them.

Just to clarify. Pretty much everywhere was put off limits to stop the disease spreading. It was vitally important that no matter how remote the possibility was of catching the infection doing an activity, we had to stop socialising. We were in serious danger of overwhelming the NHS and hundreds of thousands of people dying. Washing hands wasn’t working. 
 

Now we have a better understaing of how the disease spreads and we have dramatically reduced the numbers of people flooding into the hospitals.
 

Remember the numbers were increasing exponentially and doubling every three days? We now have capacity in the hospitals and the numbers of people infected in the wider community has dropped. 
 

Couple this with people have now worked out what 2m means, that it’s ‘not just the flu’ and some are even now religiously washing their hand and clothes and groceries and parcels and anything else they can possibly wash.

So now we tinker round the edges and lift restrictions in areas where we think it’s safer. And we monitor to see what the effects of those changes are. If they make it worse we put the restrictions back and try something else. 
 

It’s not Safe and never was safe to go to the park sunbathing or go rock climbing. You are just part of a huge experiment. 

Where's your evidence that most people understand? All I've seen is this:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/new-stay-alert-message-government-a44373...

- which suggests that 2/3rds don't.

Well it does now. It’s been explained by Boris and pretty much everyone, except those that are being belligerent, understands it  

Stay alert for further guidance. Stay alert to what the threat level is. It will change, and probably often, depending on how the R number changes. 
 

And you know what? As far as ‘Stay Alert‘ goes as a slogan, it’s absolute genius. Absolutely everyone is saying it, it’s gone viral. They’d better be paying that person millions. 

Even that is optimistic since the question was "do you understand". So the other 1/3 might not understand but just think they do.

On Tuesday. If they still don’t understand it we’re doomed, unless of course they deliberately and wilfully don’t want to admit they understand it. 

 And only if you have a mask on, or not.

Are we supposed to be wearing masks?

Maybe you could, because stay alert is probably the shitest slogan in the history of slogans.

I can't go and see my parents, but I can share a car with someone from another family, I can do a look around someone else's house, if I'm thinking of buying it, but not go and visit my mate?

I should wear a mask on public transport, but I don't need to, and we can all walk around without one.

Easy isn't it?

With whom is Johnson cooperating, might I ask?

That’s not what ‘Stay Alert’ means is it. 
 

How is it this country suddenly needs to be spoon fed?

There are 5 levels of alert. Each one has different sets of conditions. If you can’t even cope with the current one, level 4, god knows what happens when we move to another level. 
 

Do you want 5 slogans each several paragraphs long?
 

What did ‘Stay at Home’ mean? It certainly didn’t mean stay at home, but millions of people worked that part out. 

If the government said that we all had to wear masks there would be a lengthy and pointless debate about what constitutes a mask.

If the government said it had to be a mask of a certain type there’d be an uproar about some people not being able to afford that type of mask.

Sometimes people spend too much time looking for problems.

Where matters of life and death are concerned, that is rather understandable...

It would be more productive if people offered sensible solutions instead of looking for problems.

I agree it's shit but they couldn't put much more on the podiums. We know the risks, close contact and surface transmission, so go out more but stay alert.

The economy does seem to be taking priority over family and friends, ie you can only car share in the way to work, but you should still be mindful of socal distancing. We've got pay for this somehow, seems like the question is how deep is the coming recession going to be.

I'm sure Everyone what's to go and see their falily and friends.

I tired at the start of lockdown and got a lot of flack and grief.  

I would be far from the only person up to and including it would seem devolved leaders and a lot of the press to have commented on the lack of clarity in government messaging throughout.

Generally speaking it rather depends on the nature of the issue under discussion. We may criticise Hitler for his genocidal policies but we are not under any obligation to come up with a sensible solution to the problem of how to kill Jewish people. Similarly, if the government is hell-bent on pursuing policies that will kill more people we have no more obligation than to say 'This is wrong, stop it!

Unfortunately more people are going to die.

The only way to completely minimise that risk is for us to isolate ourselves completely.

Unless we want to stay in lockdown for ever we have to ease the restrictions.

No matter how careful we try to be, once we emerge from isolation we increase our risk of infection.

We need people to engage in discussion about how to keep people safe beyond just staying inside.

If I was 30 years old I’d be really annoyed about being isolated given the relatively low risk to my health.

At 62 I’m a bit more careful about any social interaction that I engage in.

My 83 year old mother doesn’t want to die but neither does she want to spend what might be her final days locked away.

Maintaining the lockdown is the safest option for reducing Covid transmission but that doesn’t mean that it’s the right choice for everyone.

I'm pretty sure both things are valuable.

I think this is a positive step - https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/car-free-zones-in-london-a...

Absolutely. So I wonder then what is not sensible about the current request by the teacher unions for certain concrete assurances about viable social distancing arrangements to be in place prior to the return to school of all children/young people?

How?

To go out for a long solo run is minimal risk. That's an evidence based decision to encourage socially distanced exercise. I can't believe I've turned into a defender of Bojo..

Nothing.

Like what?

As a teacher, grades 9-12 (so 13-18), I want to be back in my classroom, with as much risk mitigation as we can. I don't think I can be offered assurances. Part of going back in a classroom will be limited interactions, you can't expect a 4 year old not to have contact off a teacher all day. We can't have 15-20 students in a class and always maintain distance, but we can wear masks and eat separated etc. This will all be school specific though really.

We, as teachers, need to think what risk we are willing to take on. Trump was actually right on this, maybe teachers over a certain age shouldn't return.

As someone living in Wales I am surprised to find myself agreeing with the Welsh Assembly on continuing the lockdown here. If ‘Herd Immunity’ Johnson wants to relax the rules in England then that gives the regions an opportunity to see what happens over the next couple of weeks. If in the unlikely event that this doesn’t go horribly wrong then we can have more confidence on relaxing the rules here. But if, as I suspect, it goes all South Korea then we will know that it’s too early and at least in the meantime we won’t have M4 acting as a conduit for the virus from London which is why I suspect the hotspots here, are all on the route of the M4.

<Nothing>

That's a pretty barren response, baron

You're pointing to some of the dilemmas. These have been actively discussed by headteachers that I interact with on a regular basis. There has been virtually zero proactive and useful engagement on the part of Government. Nothing but a series of generalisms which are (in school terms) virtually context free. In any case, DfE keeps changing its messaging (as in the case of their stating that schools can't use a rota system, to reduce class numbers at any one time). 

A wider point is that the teacher unions have made some reasonable suggestions regarding a plan for re-opening of schools. The trigger-mechanism from government and its media brotherhood has been to cast them as 'militant' straight away (the subhead in the Mail today was uncalled for, for instance). This is an appalling and confrontational approach to reaching a settlement at any time - let alone one that we are currently experiencing.

You asked me if there was a problem with the Unions seeking assurances about the return of schools.

I can’t see any problem with that approach.

It would be remiss of any union that didn’t seek to look after the safety of its members.
 

I dont know about the Northern Irish one but I'm pretty damn certain that Nicola Sturgeon knows what it means.

ANY woman that worked alongside Alex Salmond knows what it means...

Then why does all the research show that the virus only really spreads indoors? It's a respiratory virus. Obviously the outdoors is its kryptonite, and indoors is where it best spreads. 

There's a reason outdoor activities was the relaxation the government decided on as stage one. It's because it's extremely low risk. They can let people do things they enjoy, with minimal impact on the R, thereby keeping the lockdown functioning pretty much the same as it ever did but with people more likely to continue abiding by it as now it's not so miserable. 

What research? Haven’t we all been kept indoors? Has that skewed where it’s being caught? Are care homes indoors or outdoors? Cheltenham wasn’t indoors was it? I’m not sure, maybe the bars are? 
 

What about all this passing it on by touching. That’s one of the main reasons for keeping apart 2m from people. Does that not happen outside? 
 

“Extremely low risk” not zero risk. We were trying to get to minimal infections. 

No it's not. That's for airborne particulate transfer.

But I think you know that...

Well there’s two aspects isn’t there? You can’t touch someone if you’re 2m apart. Unless your arms are particularly long. 

I get what you mean - it spreads mainly by droplets - but it’s shaping up more like a vascular virus that affects the absorption of oxygen within the lung’s vasculature.  It’s really interesting...

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.28.20029272v2

Fill your boots. Coronavirus doesn't break the mold when it comes to the way it infects people. Just like all other respiratory viruses before it, being outdoors in the wind and sun is the best way to stop yourself from getting it. 

Read this good write up from Vox for more explanation of the research:

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/24/21233226/coronavirus-runners-c...

Interesting comment on the 2m rule earlier this week on Radio 4.

Droplets bigger than 5um fall out of the air within 1m, smaller droplets that can remain in the air and drift about have such small volume they're much less likely to contain enough virus to infect you. 

"More or Less, Vitamin D, explaining R and the 2 metre rule"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000j2r7

The Scottish Government policy is that people are allowed to go out for exercise as many times as they want in a day for as long as they want as long as social distancing is maintained and this doesn't involve long car journeys. Sensible policy in my opinion. So how would staying in be joining the Scots?

Yeah it’s a tough one. I was just in a whole school meeting and the head fired back when asked if we’d have fall school. 

I think we need to go back for the kids and the economy. But what that looks like I don’t know yet. Maybe we’ll have better testing. But it'll be very different for sure. 

We’ll see. I also think we shouldn’t force parents to send kids in and as teachers maybe we take on more work teaching in person and online, it’ll keep class size down. Likewise I don’t think we should force teachers to go back, the average age is 40-45, a good 10-20% of the teachers will be at risk on age alone. But that’s then a union issue how this all going to work.

Boris wont give a shit if you dont go climbing.

Doesn't it depends on what they're telling people to do? Current news on the radio is that the R rate is showing signs of going up, with experts hoping it is a blip, otherwise lock down measures will need to be reintroduced. I have the horrible feeling that we're going to linger in the 'no man's land' between severe enough restrictions to harm the economy and not quite enough to stamp on covid effectively (while realising that flare ups may happen). Hopefully not. 

- Going against what the government advises and encouraging others to is sedition.

- Those who speak ill of the party are reported.

- We never question our Great Leader because we know he loves our country.

My last 2 examples are a bit at the extreme end, but to question, criticise, contradict and oppose is the lifeblood of a democracy and free society.

So will we all stay indoors for the next 18 months?

let's not forget that although covid is deadly, overwhelmed hospitals are worse. I think the biggest threat to Wales right now is this 'english people coming here and spreading their virus' attitude. A Welsh person that went on a ski trip to Italy in Feb is more likely to be a source than a londoner out for the day climbing pen y fan due to their increased interaction with people in the areas most at risk of transmission (indoors).  I mean have you considered that the reason that along the m4 is a hotspot because motorways usually join population centres and has a much higher population density than the rest of wales?

I agree with absolutely everything you say except...

18 months? Where do you get that from? The record for a vaccine is 4 years and the average is 10. If one is ever found at all.

It's probably going to be a damn sight longer than 18 months!

"Nurse! I've found another one!... We're going to need stronger tranquillisers, a bigger needle, and very probably an elephant gun here... Lock and load!" 

Those bloody militant unions! Remember when that uppity doctor's union thought they knew more than Jeremy Hunt! Fortunately when their new contract got implemented that removed the governments last hurdle and they quickly implemented that 7 day NHS plan. 

Or did they immediately drop that? I forget which.....

Yes, they are a bit extreme. And we are not talking about just criticism and questioning, anyway. To set the context first, we have a government elected not long back, they are now faced with dealing with a crisis most of us haven't experienced in our lifetime. I'll add that I don't think most people realise how bad it may get economically as they've been isolated from it with the furlough scheme or are public sector workers who get paid anyway (nothing wrong with that, by the way, and credit where it's due that people are still getting paid). Plus few of us will actually know someone who's died from the virus (although I appreciate some people will have seen a lot of death and suffering recently, but they are in the minority). Add the global situation to that, including Trump with an election coming up -- god knows what might happen -- and things aren't looking too bright. In that situation, and keeping in mind your statement on the lifeblood of democracy, then individual British citizens still have a legal and moral obligation to act in the interests of the nation when the government needs maximum unity to get us through things. That includes journalists, politicians and people on UKC. Statements such as "why not join the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish in sticking two fingers up to him" are irresponsible, although I accept we all get carried away now and then and I do have a real dislike of certain politicians myself, both Tory and Labour. Refusing to work, if reasonable steps have been taken to protect you is also irresponsible. Refusing to comply with the social distancing measures is irresponsible. What I think certain politicians in Scotland are doing goes beyond irresponsible into a more serious domain.

It is possible to question and criticise, constructively and respectfully, in the current circumstances whilst recognising that we have an elected government and pm of the UK that call the shots until another is elected -- a few journalists manage it, as do many UKC users. That's what is needed now and takes us nowhere near your last two examples.

You were doing ok until you said this.

Well, I doubt I'll be north of the border anytime soon. But, seriously, I did use the word "think" indicating it is an opinion. An opinion formed by the interviews I've listened to and what I've read. I could be wrong. I'm sure things will become clearer with time. To be honest this does highlight the problems with this devolved system. It's always seemed crazy to me, even more so now.

Again you focus on ‘devolved’ and not ‘centralised’ as the issue. And yes I appreciate it’s an only an opinion.

If England is the only country out of the 4 in the UK where 'going out again to work more as normal' is what is advised, rather than staying in, it suggests that there is a moral duty to carefully consider whether Johnson is actually just wrong and worth ignoring, or 'giving a poke in the eye'.