That’s his name now. We have ourselves a Caveat King (please, someone, do make a flag).
Lo and behold, Caveat King of Plague Island, the Rt.Honourable Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has said this evening that the aim to lift lockdown from mid-February is subject to “lots of caveats, lot of ifs” (Jessica Elgot and Peter Walker, The Guardian, 5.1.21).
Provided we don’t t learn anything new about the virus that we don’t yet understand, there’s not some new mutation that we haven’t currently bargained for; provided the vaccine rollout goes according to plan; provided the vaccine is as efficacious as we think it is; but above all, provided that everybody follows the guidance now.
That’s a hell of a lot of ifs, big man. Love the way you caveat people following guidance at the end, rather than your constant trail of fuck-ups for the last 9, nearly 10, months.
“I believe that when everyone looks at the position we are in, they understand we have no choice.” Indeed, as Johnson and his cabinet have backed themselves (and us) into a corner. There is little room left for manoeuvre.
It was also dropped on the nation that there is no guarantee that children will be fully back to school before the summer. This is quite the about-turn, even by Caveat King’s standards! Didn’t he have no doubt in his mind less than 48 hours ago that schools were absolutely safe?
Regardless of all this, we are being told that 1 in 50 people have now got Covid-19 on Plague Island. That figure will surely increase over the next 2-3 weeks. We are bracing ourselves for 1000+ deaths each day.
It’s grim out there and it could have been so very different.
~ L&A 5.1.21 ~