However, in this ‘panto’ it certainly isn’t a case of ‘it’s behind you!’
This Villain/virus is clearly in front of us!
The extension of the Furlough scheme, although welcome, was the clearest signal yet that we are all in for more misery in 2021.
Northern Ireland has announced that it is going into a 6-week lockdown even before we have finished the Christmas Day leftovers, let alone thought about making a Turkey curry or soup!
Christmas hasn’t been cancelled in Wales but the Boxing Day sales are banned and all non-essential shops are being ordered to close. All pubs, restaurants and cafes will also be closed at six on Christmas Day. Merry Christmas!
Mark Drakeford has torn up the joint agreement between the devolved nations that Boris was bragging about only a few days ago. We are clearly now living in the Dis-united kingdom.
Now the Times are reporting that England is probably going to be put into a full lockdown after Christmas unless cases dramatically drop.
This full lockdown will be imposed with stay at home orders being put in place, commuting banned and all non-essential shops closed.
Forget about welcoming in the New Year, we are going firmly back to March 2020.
However, Boris, the Panto Dame, is still offering the five-day Covid Christmas relaxation?!
Meanwhile it’s not a case of ‘Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho - it’s off to work we go’ for the Politicians, it’s more like, ‘Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho – it’s off on holiday we go’, as they leave the mess and the confusion they’ve largely caused behind them.
None of them should be on holiday, they should be working night and day to get us out of this mess and that’s before I mention the Brexit shambles too!
However, we the audience are getting angry and frustrated, and unlike an afternoon panto crowd of restless kids it will not just be sweets being thrown at the actors on stage if these clowns don’t get a grip soon.
However, they just keep repeating the same mistakes. The latest example being that, as schools break up, they announce that there will be mass testing of secondary pupils for Covid but they don’t announce how it will happen.
They Do NOT Have a Plan, AGAIN!
This morning, Nick Gibb the schools minister was all over the news and suggested that schools would recruit volunteers and agency workers to carry out the tests!
But who, in their right mind, would volunteer to go into the ‘Covid Petri dish’ of a classroom and start shoving swabs up kids’ snotty noses!
Perhaps politicians could volunteer?!
Why haven’t they got a proper worked-out plan and why wasn’t it devised weeks ago in consultation with the schools and the teaching unions?
They’ve known for weeks that schools are breeding grounds for infections and that teachers have been screaming for a mass testing programme.
The wicked witch in Snow White had a more worked-out plan with her poisoned apple than this bunch of clowns.
Only last week, hopeless Education Secretary Gavin Williamson was threatening to sue schools who wanted to close early for Christmas to stop the spread. Now he is closing them himself after Christmas?!
Schools are going to have a staggered start in the new year with many pupils having lessons by Zoom, but again where’s the detail?
Similarly, are the Government going to repeat the mistake of last term and allow students to go back to their University Towns?
If they do it will be a major schoolboy error with the only winner being the virus.
Also, where’s the joined-up plan for hospitality?
We Need Truth, Not Fantasy
The extension of furlough is great but there’s no point in keeping jobs, if there are no businesses to go back to. Hospitality is in crisis and a 2 or 3 grand grant isn’t going to help them, is it?
Pubs, hotels and venues need some certainty about their future.
If you are going to introduce lockdowns you must have the compensation and support packages worked out in advance. That’s just plain logic, isn’t it?
Then you get the industry onside and also promote an atmosphere of compliance.
Likewise, Boris should no longer ignore the self-employed and the so called Excluded three million who have not had anywhere near the level of financial support of those on PAYE or sole traders.
These people are cabbies, theatre workers, designers, truckers, musicians, backstage roadies and many more who make our normal life bearable.
How dare Boris and his bunch of posh lads in government ignore their pleas for help?
The same applies to the public.
Boris just tell us the truth, the reality, the facts, not the fantasy.
We are big boys and girls, so stop treating us like naive kids who believe your fairy stories or panto plots!
