Time to keep the message clear

SO it would seem Nottingham is on the verge of our own local lockdown.

Which is weird, because I thought the policy of telling everyone to go back to their offices and eat and drink in pubs and play sports together was a sure-fire way to get the rates down.

Then there was sending thousands of students back to universities - surely that would help slow the infection rates?

This week, the Prime Minister told us to ‘go to the cinema’ - a clinically proven pandemicbusting measure.

Then we were instructed by the same Great Communicator to ‘act fearlessly but with common sense’. Because everyone knows what that means.

“Fearless?” In a pandemic? Has he actually lost his mind?

Perhaps he ‘misspoke’, as he’s so fond of doing. Perhaps he meant ‘proceed with caution’, or ‘stay alert’. Because surely, he can’t actually mean that we should be ‘fearless’.

Should the students act fearlessly? Or the care home workers? Or perhaps just those on Covid wards?

Never mind, at least we’ve got a world-class test and trace system.

What better way to show how ‘world beating’ you are than losing 16,000 test results by using an old version of Excel.

Let’s be honest, living through a pandemic is rubbish enough without the Government’s staggering incompetence adding insult to injury.

The job facing the Government is incredibly complex. Everyone knows that.

Extremely difficult decisions need to be made about when to prioritise economic well being, and when to save lives, and that’s not a political choice you would wish on anyone.

But the current fudging strategy is so confusing that no one really knows what they’re meant to be doing.

Even the Prime Minister and his own cabinet can’t remember what their own rules are.

Those who want to stick to the rules - and that’s still the majority of us let’s not forget have been given such confusing messaging that people are just giving up.

The collective good will of the first lockdown has been retired to the history books.

The Blitz mentality so often referred to has now descended to people leaving their curtains open, and fearlessly flashing torches into the sky for the bombers, because they’ve been told a million different things by the Government.

Anyone with a brain can see this winter is going to be a difficult one - economically, mentally and physically especially for those of us in the city. A calm, measured and clear message from our politicians would at least give people reassurance that those in charge know what the hell they’re doing.