TONYJOHNSON

Back to school?

THIS was a week when one man single-handedly just about wrecked the government’s credibility. It was a week in which our Borough Council discussed giving itself permission to do something it might not permit to others to do.

And it was a week in which ‘back to school’ ran into the sand – but not for quite the reason you’d have expected.

Back him or sack him?

A news story about a Government SpAd (special adviser) broke in the latter part of the week, where the SpAd had travelled from London to Durham to live in a second home at the height of the lockdown.

It’s newsworthy because the

SpAd’s name is Dominic Cummings and his boss is Boris Johnson, and he runs the country.

Government ministers were cluelessly trying to answer the nation’s questions. Even after he changed the schedule on Sunday and personally went on air to support his man, the Prime Minister’s problem of a SpAd dominating the news just wouldn’t go away.

So the SpAd himself faced the media for 90 minutes, during which it became clear that the newspapers had got the main points of the story correct, but that the media at large had got some details wrong.

At the end of March, every minister including the Prime Minister had been telling us every day that we should stay at home then isolate ourselves and our families if any of us had symptoms.

The SpAd’s version of events made it obvious that ministers hadn’t explained ‘the small print’.

Namely that we could (and should) use our own judgment. Especially if the health and wellbeing of a young child was involved.

What the SpAd went on to say sounded like he was still seriously unwell when he undertook the side-trip to Barnard Castle, sat with his family by the river, then on the way back stopped for a brief walk in the woods. ‘Not a problem’ some might say, yet the police were arresting and fining other citizens for this sort of behaviour at the time.

So it’d be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that there’s one rule for the public and a different rule for the rich and privileged elite who ‘run the country’.

But the SpAd also said that we shouldn’t believe what we see on television or read in newspapers either.

In my opinion, he’s right and we shouldn’t.

We shouldn’t believe what government ministers tell us.

We shouldn’t believe ‘the rules’ of the lockdown nor ‘the numbers’.

We shouldn’t believe that the government is ‘being led by the science’.

So as a result of one person’s arrogance and conviction that they’ve done nothing wrong, the worm of doubt has entered the nation’s head and people won’t be as trusting of what this government, led by this PM, says they should and shouldn’t do.

One SpAd, one PM.

The PM lost.

What’s the plan?

As if the week wasn’t exciting enough, good old Wokingham Borough Council’s Planning Committee discussed building a massive extension at the back of a rundown property on the way into town on London Road, to turn it to an eightbedroom HMO (house of multiple occupation).

Parking not up to borough standards? No problem.

Over-development? Not here it isn’t. Flood Risk assessment? Not needed (apparently).

Community Involvement? One neighbour only

You get the idea … with deflector shields set to maximum and dilithium crystals fully charged, the Planning Committee Councillor’s questions and concerns just bounced off.

As for WBC’s own application? It passed of course – nothing to see here, move along.

Not going back to order

Everyone’s been told to go back to ‘Big School’ on June 2, with all

650 boys and girls expected to be in attendance.

Here in the Borough, in a press release about schools going back, our cheerleader-in-chief has said that WBC “recognises the Government announcement … working to support schools … we wholly support the benefits of children re-engaging with learning”.

But the big boys and girls have cut up rough and a growing number of the 650 MPs have realised that cramming everyone into the house of commons might not be so good for their health.

One wonders if they’ll be ‘using their own judgment’ about the small print in Jacob Rees Mogg’s orders?

Even so, in one respect Mogg is right. Parliament needs to lead by example. When they go back to ‘big school’, it might be safe for our children to go back to primary school.

And if ‘they’ lead by example, so ‘we’ will surely follow.

Possibly.

As long as the SpAds explain the rules. All of them.

So you might want to read all of WBC’s advice in their press release, very very carefully. Then use your own judgment to decide whether you’re doing the right thing for young children – yours or other people’s.

What the Neighbours said

The neighbours’ cat has been stalking the parrot, managing to give the bedraggled bird a right old mauling despite the protection of its locked, barred and gilded cage.

Apparently, the patchy psittacoid has tried retaliating but seems distracted and lacking in energy.

Excepting ‘co powiedzieli sasiedzi’, that was the tenth week of the lockdown, that was.