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. 

Prime Minister's Questions 12th February

Today's Prime Minister Questions between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn was about the deportation of the fifty British Jamaicans. As usual Johnson referred  to them as dangerous "foreign nationals" however Corbyn reminded Johnson that  Johnson himself was not born in the UK and had dabbled in class A drugs.

This response seems to upset Johnson who gave a reply that made no sense  to me but  it felt like he was outraged to be compared with who he feels are foreign criminals. Johnsons' hypocrisy was breath taking and infuriating for anyone who believes these men's human rights have been  infringed.

In fact the rest of PMQs was equally frustrating with Johnson getting nice "softball" questions  and the issue of crime, health and  the economy barely touched on. You could tell from Johnson's body language that he seemed to enjoy it and he came out of it unscathed.

Whilst I am convinced the UK economy is slowing down and we are heading for recession, I hope our MPs will hold  Johnson to account. However after what I watched today I am feel that he may not be held to account.   

UK deportation of British Jamaicans

Well  Boris Johnson won the recent  election and sadly the election was all focused on Brexit. The Windrush scandal did not come at all and now the election  has been won the Tories have  resumed with deporting Jamaicans  who came  to the UK as children. The children  who to British schools and did not  go back to Jamaica are now being deported due to crimes they have committed.

I think the UK needs to realise if continue to sit back and allow Boris Johnson to continue with his ethnic cleansing". Then this government  like  President Trump will feel emboldened and attempt more human rights abuses.

Who will be the next ethnic group targeted for deportation under the guise that they are being deported because the are 'harden criminals?.... What of the families of these deportees left behind? Are the  government  going to step in and play the father role ? Now the Mothers of these children will have  to fend for children and themselves.

My wish is that the children of these deported fathers will grow and becomes a valuable member of the UK. That somehow if at all possible achieve their life goals not end up in a position of weakness because of what this Tory government have done.    

Scotland says No....

So the people of Scotland rejected independence and it was right result. I don't think that financially Scotland could look after itself and the UK needs Scotland. 

I still fundamentally believe that David Cameron messed this up from the get go. 

He never took it serious before polling  day and then when he realised that the Scottish people might vote for independence he started offering them everything and the kitchen sink. 

He has now realised that he needs to offer English voters something too and to me it is like watching a man a totally out of his depth.

For the people of Scotland this has been a win/win situation they had David Cameron and Westminster begging them to reject the referendum, so they will now get more power. 

The rise and rise.....of food banks!

Ok I will be honest before 2010 I did not know that food banks ever existed in the UK. Now there are apparently over one thousand food banks in the UK. 

Now as a mother of one myself I can see how more and more families are beginning to rely on food banks. 

Now that we are deep into winter most people are probably wisely saving money for their heating bills. This may mean making cut backs in other areas and for some families it is food. 

These days I guess that a decent family shop for food is about £200 a month and if the family eats meat then the monthly shop might be even higher. 

When times are tough spending £200 plus a month food can be very challenging. 

At this stage it looks like food banks are to stay, unless there is a change in the economy that struggling families can benefit from. 

Prime Minister's Questions review 03/07/13

Today PMQ's started off fairly nicely with Ed Milliband asking about the UK government responses to the clashes in Egypt. David Cameron provided a nice considered response about how the government was liaising with the Egyptian government and how President Obama had spoken to President Morsi.

However when Ed Milliband asked David Cameron about primary school places that's when Cameron became defensive and started his usual "its all Labour's fault". Today Cameron went a step further and most of his responses to the Labour MPs was embedded with "they are all here because of Len McCluskey"

Cameron responses were a little interesting at first but then just got repetitive and boring and he came across to me as quite desperate as well. Cameron is clearly gearing up for the next election and he thinks that it can be fought on painting Ed Milliband as a die had trade unionist.

Cameron was asked various questions ranging from food banks to bedroom tax and his standard response was either it is all Labour's fault or the Unite union is pulling the strings of the Labour party.

I thought Ed Milliband did quite well today in raising issues that are affecting families up and down the country. Whilst David Cameron does not come across as a man who understand the daily struggles of families in the UK.