Today Corid-19, the virus, has managed to achieve something that no referenda have been able to and that is to create four separate State's in the United Kingdom. I have much sympathy with the Northern Ireland assembly as they struggle with two neighbouring Countries each with a different approach. They are fortunate that they can focus on their common border colleagues while taking a 'watch and wait' approach to events across the Irish Sea.
I fail to have the same sympathy for The Crankie who is First Minister in Scotland. She spouts parrot fashion how she will not politicise the coronavirus challenge, and then does all she can to undermine the Prime Minister. If she is an intelligent person, then she should get the 'Be Alert' instruction, particularly as it is linked to a terror related status indication system too. If she is playing to the minority social networking trolls who have nothing but negative comments about everything, then she is succeeding. As I see it, her no change strategy allows her to stand back and see how things go in England. If it works as planned she can relax lockdown in Scotland and say she was just being cautious, if it goes pear shaped in England she can use the 'told you so' card. She is in a win-win situation and as she and Boris clearly do not get on, maybe even to the extent that they dislike each other with a passion, she can only come out of this smelling of roses, and without having to make any decisions herself.
The Welsh are dragged along in her slipstream somewhat although do seem to be prepared to take some individual decisions in isolation. The leader of the opposition, Kier Stammer just disagrees with most of what the government is doing without offering any alternatives, and must be pleased as punch that Labour lost the election.
The situation regarding children returning to school has also woken up the trade union movement who like nothing better than having a poke at a Conservative government. Press reports at the weekend indicated they were advising teachers not to provide lessons for absent pupil, not to do Zoom type lessons or talk one-to-one which them as it may expose them to pressure inconsistant with that normally experienced in the classroom. What a load of tosh!! They are now campaigning for the correct PPE for teahers when schools do re-conveen, which is right and proper, but there seems little in the way of help and assistance being offered as to how to make the classroom equally a safe and happy place to return to.
Boris has long been an admirer of Sir Winston Churchill. Churchill must be thinking how lucky he was to only be confronted by the Nazi's and Lord Haw Haw during the Second World War. He had no social media criticising his every move, he had no television and had total censorship of the press. Boris has none of that. He has a population of Remainers he has upset together with Labour, Lib Dem and other opposition party members who are happy to wade in while having no responsibility for anything important themselves. He has the Press putting their spin on things and a gullible proportion of the population soaking it up as true.
It's a tough time for all of us, but nobody would want to be in Boris's shoe's at the moment, that's for sure. We can all be alert and start to allow the Country to open up a small amount, step too far though and we will all be back where we started and none of us want that.
