BoJo's Bang Up Job

In recent PMQ's, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has spoken of his 'pride' at his Governments record in handling the global Covid-19 epidemic.

According to a yougov poll, 41% of Britons agree he has done a good job (https://yougov.co.uk/topics/international/articles-reports/2020/03/17/perception-government-handling-covid-19)

My question is simple: which part do these respondents think has been handled well?

Is it from back in January and February, when warnings were being issued of an oncoming pandemic but Boris thought it was more important Big Ben be allowed to ring for Brexit?

When Johnson failed to attend any of the six COBRA meetings to prepare for the pandemic but went on holiday instead?

When he failed to close down major sporting events to large crowds, including a rugby match he himself attended?

When he used his'common sense' to shake hands with confirm Covid sufferers?

Was it the dither and delay in going into lockdown? His government has been 'following the science' after all, even though we now know said science advised him to do it two weeks sooner than he did. A move that would likely have saved thousands of lives.

Was the good response on PPE, where hospitals claimed of severe shortages despite recommendations being made years earlier of what would be required for a pandemic. How about when they pretended they knew nothing of the EU procurement scheme we were invited to join but they couldn't keep their story straight. Brexit ideology being more important than lives.

Maybe the Governments good handling was on the care homes? No, definitely not that.

Was it on testing? That thing they told us was only for 'lower-middle income economies.' That they have had to fiddle the numbers on to reach their 100,000 daily target.

The track and trace initially scrapped in March but revived end of May, promised to be 'world beating; but reported to be barely functional.

Were people impressed by the PM's failure to act on his chief advisor making a mockery of the same lockdown rules he had helped to create?

Furloughing has in fairness been good but even that was less than perfect. It took a long time for it to cover self-employed and there has still been a number of people who have fallen through the cracks.

These are just the things I have thought of off the top of my head.

The Governments response has been a massive failure. The UK has the second highest death toll in the world, the highest rate of excess date. The fourth highest number of cases.* This despite having a figurative head start on countries such as Italy and Spain.

The UK is now bringing in quarantine rules for air travel at the time other countries are lifting restrictions on theirs. This is atypical of what has been a slow and confused approach from those in power.

Boris Johnson is promising there will be an investigation and report into the UK response when the pandemic has passed.

The British public can expect to see it about the same time as the Russia report.