I think when lives are on the line, including your own, people are going to see more clearly. While enough people saw Johnson as as a blustering charmer to let him do something that felt distant, like the run the country, when it comes to something this immediate people are just not going to trust him. He’s a poor fit for bad times. Corbyn would have been like supply teacher trying to reason with an unruly class, so that’d have been difficult too, I absolutely admit. The Johnson cult is a lot less durable (and less unhealthy) than that around Trump, imo - there isn’t that unquestioning faith that Trump can still rely on from his base.

I think the emergence people from political fringes, like Corbyn and Johnson and Rees-Mogg, was an understandable reaction against the smooth managerial style of the likes of Blair, Cameron and Clegg. In turn, I can see Starmer and Sunak representing a reaction against the oddballs.

Not a penny - there is simply no chance - if I were the Tories I would pick a hot spot offer an inducement for people to download the app and run a trial and report on it everyday. The general public could see things were happening and it would give the developers a breathing space of a month.

I agree with your last statement - lying is completely counter-productive. The next election will be all about trust - who do you trust to run the country and these lies will come back again and again. That's why I can't see Boris leading the country into the next election.

The government would do better to announce these things with a bit of restraint, and be honest that these things take time. But that's not where we're at in this current political cycle. It has to be overinflated hyperbole every single time. Charisma over clarity. Brawn over brains. "We'll fight them on the beaches..." and all that populist nonsense.

Instead of, "we will have a system in place by x date, and it will be capable of testing x million people, and it will be world-leading, best in its class, great British technology, with a 100% accuracy rate". Why can't they just say, "we are working on a competent system to deal with the ever increasing demands of this pandemic". How hard is that? I know it's a bit boring, and it doesn't appeal to the clapping seal brigade, who just want tossing a fish, but it saves a lot of squabbling down the line.

I often see Boris fans on social media asking his critics why they want the UK to fail. They don't want the UK to fail. It's just inevitable when you hype something up so much, and you don't deliver, it's viewed as a failure in the eyes of others.

Classic "over promise, under deliver"

I was taught early on in my career to 'keep a bit back'. The work place equavalent of telling your wife you'll be home half an hour later than you know you will be. That way everybody's happy!

Good to see all the labour councils denying the local kids an education, despite the science.

This is why the nation sees them as a joke and they lost the last election by a landslide

What science, that is the problem, the government keep it to themselves. I suppose the new app will be the difference, oh wait something else promised but not delivered.

Those who voted Tory pretty much have blood on their hands.

I have no political agenda,but your comment is just plain stupid.

The Tories won the election,because many traditional Labour voters switched to Conservative in a vote that was pure and simply about Brexit.
The electorate were essentially given a e binary choice.
Even members of my own family that had voted Labour for 40 years refused to vote Labour in the GE,as they simply didn't want another Brexit referendum,which is what Corbyn wanted.

And they got what they wanted (or did they? They all wanted out, just not sure they wanted the same kind of out).
Anyway, they got their "Let's get Brexit done", the rest of the policies, who cares eh?

And if you were a teacher, mixing with "x" number of kids, from a different range of backgrounds etc, would you be confident of avoiding the virus.
Not to mention how you get a class of 30+ kids to be socially distant in a room that was already cramped for space

There are two primary reasons for trying to get kids back to school, without adequate planning and the main one is to allow their parents to return to work.

You will notice that child minders cant yet re open, apparently it's not safe yet but, schools can - do you see the contradiction in the advice
Or that, its safe for teachers to "look after" the kids but, those same children cant visit their grandparents ? in case they pass something on to people in the "vulnerable" group

So its ok to have a few hundred kids at school but, not allow one or two to visit people that are "healthy"

With the consistent mis leading of the public and endless spinning of the truth by this Tory government, would you put your trust in them

The same science that has shown the rest of Europe that they can open schools.

But hey, who cares, LA dinosaurs know best.

Theyve been pretty much open straight through, dealing with 40 kids not 400

And as for this
"Given the vast majority of deaths have occurred within the elderly community is quite right that this group is protected so most people can see why keeping kids away from their grandparents forms part of a logical strategy to protect the elderly."

Thought your perception was that all over 70s just want to get out and live their lives?
So let em get on with it then, let em see their grandkids, children, family, they're part of the generation that "just want to get on with it".

Which is it?