It’s hard to believe that not quite 12 months ago Boris Johnson scored such a decisive election victory. He won because he said he’d agreed a deal to get Brexit done. Now he says we’ll have to leave without one and ignores the damage that will do to the Midlands.
We’re already on our knees coping with the virus and can’t afford more reckless gambles. The government has just renewed its emergency coronavirus powers and although some may be necessary, people are worried. They’re particularly concerned at laws which allow compulsory detention of those who may be infectious. The announcement that the police are being given track and trace details fuels such suspicions. All of this makes it harder to accept extra judicial arrangements especially when faced with a government that seems to be making it up as it goes along.
Not a single council leader in the West Midlands backed Boris Johnson’s decision to place us under his Tier2 Covid restrictions. Its almost impossible to see how that decision was made or why he ignored the scientists’ option for a circuit breaker. Already it’s evident that some areas in Tier1 have only marginally lower numbers of cases, per 100,000 of the population, than Birmingham but we’re forced into Tier2. The damage it will do to jobs and businesses is the last thing we need.
People are beginning to have real doubts. We don’t have good enough testing procedures or a proper track and trace system, no matter what ministers say. They’re spending plenty of money but it looks increasingly like a gravy train for Conservative Party donors. Directly elected mayors and council leaders are ignored. Members of Parliament are kept in the dark and prevented from properly scrutinising decisions.
The constant chopping and changing, without valid explanations, smacks of incompetence. Meanwhile, the government assumes more and more power. The Prime Minister has failed on the one promise he made the British people about getting a Brexit deal. Now he’s gambling with our lives and livelihoods on two fronts. This country is a democracy, not a tinpot dictatorship, we deserve better.
Published by