The Corona Diaries – Day 153

I wonder how you are all doing out there? I sometimes forget that I have an audience from all over the world. I’m sure things are very different in other parts of the world.

In England, we’ve had another glorious summer day. We went out for a lunch at a local inn and sat out in the garden with a steak and beer. I’ve now done 12K walking to deal with some of the calories!

The weather has certainly made this lockdown bearable. We had a friend around for a drink in the garden and were discussing it all. They were totally fed-up with all this. We had both expected more evidence of the virus around us. A lot of people are no longer locked down. They are back at work and town looks almost back to normal, yet we are not hearing of cases around us. It is almost as if the virus doesn’t exist around here. It feels like we’ve given up meeting friends and family for nothing. After 153 days I was expecting more.

The one thing we were agreed on is that the government has been lamentable throughout.

They are atrocious and utterly immoral. Despite all the cock-ups, the waste of money on PPE, the awarding of contracts to friends, the cronyism, the visiting castles, messing up exam results, having the worst death-rate in the world, have the worst-hit economy, nobody is accountable, there are no resignations or apologies. Instead, they are shifting the blame on to others. It is the unions, OfQual, PHE and civil servants that are to blame – not the people giving the instructions (the MPs).

We have £500 million allotted to Tory sponsors with no hint of tendering.

We have Dido Harding making a pig’s ear of Track and Trace (remember all that world-beating tosh) and being promoted to run the whole health show.

We have Dominic Cummings lying and breaking every rule and not only staying in place but orchestrating reprisals.

We have Gavin Williamson (already sacked once by May for incompetence) messing up the exam qualifications but being allowed to go on.

We have Johnson himself disappearing, dithering and making a right mess.

Then we have all those faceless Quangos loaded with bureaucrats – with lots of high-paid jobs for the boys.

It is corrupt. Is there no accountability?? This is worse than the expenses scandal.

It seems that all you need to do is to be a Tory sponsor, vote Brexit and be loyal to Johnson and you’re in.

Loyalty comes before competence.

Just ask Philip Hammond, Kenneth Clarke, Michael Heseltine, Rory Stewart, Jeremy Hunt – and all the others kicked out.

What we have left are an incompetent bunch of Tory right-wing extremists!

We have another 1041 new cases yesterday.

Speaking of right-wing extremists, Donald Trump and Bolsonaro are presiding over disaster areas – in the USA – another 36,426 cases and 554 deaths (it’s killed 177,000 people so far) – so much for the hoax. Obviously, the bleach isn’t working.

In Brazil it is another 23,421 new cases and 494 deaths – the ‘little flu’ has so far killed 115,000 people.

Another day down! Let me know what it’s like in your part of the world. Stay safe everyone!