Covid Flip-Flopping is Cock Up, Not Conspiracy

I’ve written a piece for Mail+ today trying to explain communications omnishambles of the past few days. Here is an extract:

Boris Johnson has executed so many U-turns in the past 18 months, it’s as if his solution to the supply chain problem is to retrain as an HGV driver. But even by this Government’s standards, the past few days have seen some spectacular flip-flopping.

Will vaccine passports be introduced for nightclubs, sports stadiums and other large venues? Judging from the string of contradictory ministerial statements about this, the answer seems to be: “No, but, yeah, but…”

The week began with Boris saying he wanted a “bonfire of Covid regulations”, only for him to give a press conference yesterday warning of more restrictions to come this winter.

Then there was Professor Chris Whitty’s bizarre remarks on Monday about vaccinating healthy 12 to 15 year-olds, which will have left most parents none the wiser about whether it’s a sensible precaution or not.

The only thing Boris seems to have set fire to this week is his last vestige of credibility.

According to some cynics, this conflicting advice is a deliberate attempt by the Government to gaslight us. Trying to discover some rhyme or reason beneath the recent spate of back-of-the-envelope announcements is to misunderstand what Boris is really doing, which is to deliberately confuse us.

In their conspiratorial eyes, it’s designed to soften us up for the mass rollout of ID cards, digital currency and – eventually – a Chinese-style social credit system in which anyone who challenges the billionaire-financed technocratic elite will be socially isolated and financially impoverished. They refer to this diabolical plan as ‘the Great Reset’.

I’m not convinced. As a journalist who has been writing about politicians and their shenanigans for more than 30 years, I’m a subscriber to what’s known as ‘Hanlon’s razor’ – never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. In other words, it’s usually cock-up rather than conspiracy. Most politicians I know couldn’t even reset their alarm clocks.

Worth reading in full.