New York Times evaluation of Boris

And yet Boris and Trump's popularity hasn't taken a hit. It might yet when reality bites (it bloody should) but absolutely terrifying that many people still can't see through them. Power of the media?

Boris I can kind of understand. I agree with the article's criticism, but his incompetence isn't that obvious. He will claim, with a degree of truth, that he's based his decisions based on scientific advice (of course there's been plenty of advice to choose from, often contradictory but hard for Jo Public to understand that if they're not interested like some of us on here are).

Trump on the other hand. Jesus wept. 49% of Americans think he's doing a good job? WTF.
 
This is worse:

Several small suppliers of ventilators have said the government has not responded to their offers to make more.

The head of Direct Access, Steven Mifsud, told the Nantwich News he had sourced 5,000 ventilators and millions of face masks and personal protective equipment through its United Arab Emirates partners. He registered the supply on the “ventilator challenge” page of the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy website, but after five days he had hear nothing and the supplies went elsewhere.
 
Let's hope that this was an oversight by the government, or there was a very good reason for not responding. Otherwise what would be the reasoning?
 
Let's hope that this was an oversight by the government, or there was a very good reason for not responding. Otherwise what would be the reasoning?
A supplier of components for ventilators said the same thing last night and earlier this week the major (small!) UK supplier said the same.
 
That he's looking after his Tory financing Brexit backing friend Dyson?
If that is the case BlindBoy then he is a sociapathic fu(kwit. I don't know the reasoning, but god I hope we are not being goverened by someone who puts monetary concerns over the health and wellbeing of the electorate that trusted him enough to put him in power.

Oh and in case there is any confusion I don't like the tory ideology, but have tried to keep my political leanings out of these threads and play the facts not the party.
 
If he's not your loveable cuddly mate please stop calling him 'Bxxxx', it's what him and his backers want

Amazing how a British journo could only get this printed outside UK. Perceptive and accurate, well done Jenni Russell
 
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Buying ventilators from a company that doesn't make them and has none available. What could possibly go wrong? Shades of Grayling's ferry contract to one of his mates that had no ships, it's what they do.

I'd like to be wrong.

But.
 
This is worse:

Jesus Christ Bear, some of the comments under that report. People actually blaming the middle man for not spending tens of millions of pounds on equipment and then distributing it themselves in the hope of getting their money back later. If Johnson shat in a babies mouth people would defend him.
 
I do not take on board the opinions of the press in a country which elected Trump.🤡
To be fair the NYT have been consistently critical of him, as have many of the more serious newspapers.

Johnson is out of his depth; the piece hits the nail on the head when it describes his 'artful ambiguity' - its precisely the apposite to the clarity needed at the moment. He has deliberately styled himself as a latter-day Churchill and the only similarities I can see is that they both liked a drink and don't treat their wives/ partners particularly well.

Sunak and Hancock are propping the show up for him at the moment, if the reports are to be believed it seems his own cabinet don't have the faith in him to carry the country through this.
 
"Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy website"

Which just goes to show, that you can build a website in short order, but putting in place the processes behind the website is quite another matter.

The Civil Service is under incredible pressure. Bureaucracies thrive on processes. In the Civil Service, you can't breathe unless it's documented in a process manual somewhere. A smarter government would have had business call their local MP.
 
despite following scientific advice - there are things as a politician the Gov could have done sooner (better?) close borders is the obvious one, especially in hindsight however that would have created its own problems in that how long would we have to wait before opening them again... 3, 4, 5+ months?

We don't know when a vaccine may be ready so as a nation we'd all be open to the virus again when boarders open again.. & we'd be back in the same boat.. slowing the spread - flattening the sombrero - has been the action of many counties rather than stopping it outright like China tried to do.. Singapore, it may turn out, had the best approach: testing, testing & more testing - time will tell...

As a person I don't like either Boris or Trump though I think the NYT's article is typical of modern media - easy & lazy to criticise.. It's a character assassination without ever exploring the consequences of alternate actions..

Bernie Sanders says he thinks Boris & the Gov are doing - things right - yes he was speaking specifically about economic support... “What is going on in the UK, what is going on in Denmark is I think the proper approach,” Sanders said.
 
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