Northern Ireland and the UK governmment

I don't profess to know the history of Northern Ireland however I know enough that I am surprised at how the UK Tory government are pretending that it is not a issue. History tell us that it if the UK government do not deal with Northern Ireland, then it will just escalate and will ultimately come to mainland England and may spiral out of control. 

The main problem is Boris Johnson is focused on this issues affect mainland England and for some strange reason he does not see Northern Ireland as a big problem. This really makes me question how serious Boris takes the history of Northern Ireland. 

The previous Tory governments have had a similar approach and the worst being Margret Thatcher her lack of interest motivated the IRA to commit regular terrorist attacks in London in the 80s and 90s. It was not until 1999 that then Prime Minister Tony Blair brokered the Good Friday agreement. 

This agreement has agreed upon by all the relevant parties and end helped to end IRA terrorist attacks in mainland England. Then in 2016 UK agreed to leave the UK and it became named as "Brexit" and whilst UK Tory government where pursing Brexit they did not really think about the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland and as Ireland are part of the EU and it was clearly impact on Northern  Ireland. 

Every economist and politician has pointed this out to the Tory government, however they have behaved like it will not impact. Now in the last few days there has been violence on Belfast streets and again Boris is slow to intervene and is just putting out feeble statements which has done little to quell the violence. 

So I think this Boris biggest test after Brexit and Covid and it will be interesting to see if Boris starts to take this serious and make a proper intervention and quell the violence and broker peace.

Covid- UK Lockdown

The UK has now been in lockdown since mid December and this has helped to bring down the infection rate and the deaths. Boris Johnson is planning a big speech on the 22nd February and he will layout is road map out of lockdown. 

Newspaper reports suggest that schools will reopen in March and shops and pubs around May. This lockdown has been very difficult for a lot of us. A winter lockdown when it has been cold and snowing and very much restricted to our homes as been a huge challenge. 

From what the newspapers have leaked about what Boris will be announcing not much is going to change for UK people. If that is the case I think he will start to have a real problem with compliance. 

Which may end up increasing the infection and the death rate. Boris’s road map out of lockdown is problematic on a few levels. Boris has vaccinated the most vulnerable people in the UK with one dose and they are due to get their second dose in three months.

The problem is for those 15 million people to be protected from Covid they need both doses. Boris is taking gamble and hoping that if the vaccinated meet the unvaccinated then the vaccinated will still be protected. 

This approach is based on zero research and Boris’s could end up dragging this out even longer than it needs to be. The UK are the only country given three months space between the first and the second dose. All we can really hope for is Boris’s gamble pays off.

The reality is Boris has taken a lot of gambles since this pandemic started with masks and keeping quiet about the variant so children could go to school and as a result we currently have over 130,000 Covid deaths if you include the ONS data. 

So there are more difficult days ahead for the UK and we can only hope that Boris’s gamble pays off so we can have a little bit more freedom than we we currently have.

Covid and the UK government response

 We are now nearly a year to when the first Covid case came to the UK and sadly it is as bad as ever. In the UK we are now on our third lockdown and this last lockdown started on the 17th December. 

I always knew that we would have a winter lockdown because I didn’t think that this country would be able to cope with Covid in wintery conditions. However even I didn’t think it would be as bad as it has been. 

Last March people like myself didn’t really follow the Covid pandemic so the first lockdown came as a shock! At first I felt a little sorry for Boris and his government but has the summer came and went and I started following more scientist on Twitter. I soon realised that the government could have done more to reduce transmission. 

I was horrified when the government encouraged UK people to go on holiday and then “Eat out help out” I generally believed it was a recipe for disaster. Then in September the same government then reopened all the schools, colleges and universities. All the while the number kept rising and even encouraged us to go back our physical work place. 

What makes this even more astonishing is around this time the government scientist had identified a new Covid variant in Kent but kept quiet about and only decided to tell the UK people on 17th December. 

By this time the damage was done and the Kent variant is highly transmissible and had ripped through Kent and London. Once the government announced the Kent variant other countries started seeing it in their own countries. 

So right now the UK is month into its third lockdown and the government does not seem to have a definitive plan of exiting lockdown. The NHS trace and trace system is overwhelmed and the vaccines are now being rationed out and the second dose can now be given at up to twelve weeks and this not what the manufacturer of the vaccine had said. 

So the UK government is going by its own rules and dragging 70 million people with them. What  I find truly outstanding is that the British people still believe in this government. 

We are now fast approaching the truly horrific number of 100,000 dead UK citizens and deaths are still rising with little accountability from the UK government. 

All we can hope for is that in the next few weeks they will find a road map out of lockdown and start listening to scientist. The more the government runs away from the science the harder it will be to get out of and stay out of lockdown. 

So the next few weeks will shed some light on which pathway this UK government will take.. One thing is for sure this is no way to run a country and use 70 million Brits as little pet projects. 

The end of Trump’s presidency

 Wow! Well it’s been a while and it’s the last few days of the Trump’s presidency and what a real eye opener it has been! Culminating in the insurrection rally two weeks ago. 

Frankly I am relieved that the social media giants started to take action by removing him from their platform. It actually helped the last few days to be normal. 

I have never followed Trump on Twitter but I couldn’t help but to regularly check what incendiary things he was tweeting out. 

What I think is super sad about the Trump’s presidency our his enablers... there where clearly people in his inner circle who encouraged and turned a blind eye to his behaviour. 

This brings me to his family.. I am honestly think one of his biggest enablers was his daughter Ivanka Trump. She is one the few people that he listened to and to me did little to rein her father in. She came across someone who enjoyed being in the corridors or power and little about her father’s behaviour.

One person I couldn’t figure out for long time was Trump’s wife Melania Trump. At first I thought she was too embarrassed to do anything but has time went on I realised she shared a lot of his opinions.

The reality is when Donald Trump is long gone the likes of Melania and Ivanka will be regularly reminded how they contributed to crazy four years. 

Neither women maybe bothered now but at some point both women will hopefully be held to account for their actions and it will be interesting to see long it takes before both are made accountable for their role in Trump’s presidency.