Frederick Augusta was the Duke of York… the real, actual, Grand Old Duke of York.
In 1793, when war broke out between Britain and France, he captured Dunkirk but outnumbered, was pushed back. He spent several months marching his army back and forth from Hondschoote to Dunkirk, in minor fruitless skirmishes, until, a year later, the French sent him packing.
Hence the nursery rhyme, marching his troops up and down, what is, today, the 102 bus route.
In 1928, Pedro Flores, a US, Filipino migrant, opened the Yo-yo Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara.
On 25 October 1854, during the Battle of Balaclava, the Charge of the Light Brigade was a failed military action, led by Lord Cardigan.
Just like Fredrick, BoJo has marched us up the hill of lockdown and down again. Now, he is marching up the hill, for another six-months of not-lock-down, lock-down.
Because he hasn't realised all lockdowns have to be unlocked and will create a new bounce of infection.
Just like Pedro, Bojo has yo-yoed us away from the office, back to the office and don’t go to the office. Stand two-meters apart, or one-meter. We didn’t need masks but now, we can be fined, if we don’t use a face-covering.
Because he hasn't realised complex messages get a simple response, they are ignored.
Just like Cardigan, as the Covid guns blaze at us, BoJo is leading us, unprepared, into the Valley-of-Brexit.
Because he hasn't realised orders are only worth following if they recognise the entire operational environment.
It’s ok, because BoJo tells us we are a great nation. I’d say, part of being a great nation is the fact we’ve had some great leaders making some great decisions.
BoJo’s problem is, he can’t make decisions.
Pulled in one direction by the economy and the other, by epidemiology, he’s dithered. Pushed by backbenchers and shoved by the press, he’s hesitated.
Yesterday, he froze.
BoJo’s best to beat Covid;
Face-masks for bar-staff and shop workers. Because they are spreading the virus? Or to stop us giving it to them?
Fines, that if not paid, we’ll spend thousands trying to collect.
Ten o’clock closing will push people onto the street, to mingle.
Work-from-home if you can, most office workers never went back.
The rule-of six extended to five-aside football… oh, yes?
Sisters school in separate bubbles but go home to the same household.
Uni-students can still have their Covid-Campus-Carry-On’s
BoJo's quest, reduce the R number but quite how any of this is going to reduce it, is anyone’s guess. R doesn’t capture the current status of an epidemic. It’s an average for a population and hides local variation.
Unless HMG regularly test an entire population, epidemiologists can’t measure R, thus it’s usually guessed at, retrospectively.
If MPs think these measures are going to see us out of the woods, then they just haven’t been paying attention.
What BoJo is missing is a clear Covid management approach.
Recognise the pandemic is complex, its impact complex, the response can be no better than the best compromise, admit it.
Timely policies to rejuvenate the economy will fail if policies to contain infection fail.
Testing and tracing, in the absence of a vaccine, is the only response that matters.
Covid infection data should be published, to make it clear to the public where the risks are.
Instead, we’ve had daft phrases; ‘send the virus packing’, ‘gone in six weeks’, ‘whack-a-mole’, ‘get it done’ and the latest… ‘a stitch in time’… when obviously, we need more than a stitch and it is certainly not in time.
Leading a nation through a pandemic isn’t easy. It demands clear thinking, an understanding of the science over the long-term, the ability to communicate and create a sense of confidence and trust.
We've had amateur politics, foolish rhetoric, pick-n-mix science and a boxed-in BoJo compromising to placate restless back-benchers.
We can’t turn back the clock but we can invest the time we’ve spent learning covid lessons, to change the future.
They are lessons for us all. The future is in our hands. BoJo is irrelevant, the fines of little consequence, masks or face covering, one meter or two, in a pub at ten or ten past. It's not regulations that will keep us safe, it us.
You and me, pragmatic, sensible, responsible, doing the right thing.
This is what I'm hearing; if you know different tell me, in confidence, here
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>> I'm hearing -that ‘satellite tests’, which mainly take place in care homes, were picking up an estimated 1,100 new cases every day. there is growing disquiet from relatives that the CQC won't release data on which care homes have the worst infection control outcome data. Are they there to serve the industry or the public?
>> I'm hearing - the NHS covid incident response level remains at three, despite BoJo's shenanigans.
