“THE machine will miss his drive and energy at such a critical moment. The public will miss his bouncy optimism.“ A quotation from Andrew Grice at The Independent on the continued absence of the Prime Minister.

One must take such adulation with a heady dose of scepticism.

For “bouncy” optimism one must surely substitute “delusional hoorayism” at its worst, spiced with inappropriate terms and tags such as “last gasp”. “Drive and energy” must be modified with an enjoinder as to what ends this drive and energy were directed and over which time span one is reviewing and evaluate success or failure.

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Boris Johnson 'responding' to intensive care treatment

In all critical scenarios such as this there is no one person ever so important that he or she cannot be replaced if need be, be it through illness, incapacity or even death.

If any governmental machine is built around one person without fall-back set-ups, if an unforeseen need arises then that is an inbuilt weakness.

The present government at Westminster is one structured around Global-UK-Brexit, whatever that is, with World Tradge Organisation rules fallback and its resultant phases, which were prefaced around timescales which now cannot be met given the economic turmoil expected here and beyond on the continent, let alone in China and the Americas.

READ MORE: Toby Young's fawning Spectator piece about Boris will make you sick

Given the prognostications of recovery and recuperation for persons after release from intensive care units after Covid-19, they, like the present PM, are going to be physically, psychologically and mentally in need of a long period of time out from work, or in this case the government machine.

One could even postulate there is a real possibility that Boris Johnson may well relinquish office and return to the back benches in this pandemic.

He has not had much experience in high office at Foreign Secretary level to have proved himself, if one actually reviews his time there.

His premiership has stuttered since the coronavirus pandemic and drift set in.

The so-called “bouncy optimism” of the PM led him to say just before the lockdown that coronavirus is “likely to spread a bit more”. This is just one example of the offhand, jokey-folksy way that one does not and should not react when head of government.

John Edgar
Kilmaurs

WHAT is it going to take for the BBC and mainstream media to start questioning the UK Tory government on their failed and failing policy on containing coronavirus?

On the day that the UK sees almost 1,000 people die from this virus, the lead story isn’t about the impact this is having on individuals, families and communities but that the Prime Minister is still in intensive care but feeling better!

I can understand the concern for the Prime Minister – and everyone else battling to survive this virus – but when the UK has its highest daily death toll you would have thought that deserved to be more than a footnote in the news coverage!

This is the same media who were vociferous in their attacks on the former Scottish Chief Medical Officer for breaching the stay-at-home guidance yet turn a blind eye to the royal family (both Prince Charles and the Queen), celebritie (such as Gordon Ramsay) and even the PM’s father moving to holiday homes to try to outrun the virus – and putting pressure on rural communities.

Is it any wonder there is little concern about newspapers losing readers and potentially going bust if this is the standard level of “journalism” we are subjected to?

Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley

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