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TRULY AGOG

January 1st 2021 - A GRUMPY REVIEW OF 2020.

Everyone does it, so, not wishing to appear abnormal (again), here I go. A review of the year, to end the year. Now it's possible that someone may come to this site and say "what's going on", so I thought a brief explanation, indeed the full text, from my first blog on May 12th 2015. Why I decided to write such a blog has long been lost in the mists of cataracts.

May12th 2015

Official Statement following the General Election

YES, it's true. I can now confirm that I have accepted David Cameron's unspoken offer to take on the portfolio for Grumpy Old Grandads in his new administration. I understand, from our leader, that if I can get 3.8 million followers I may be offered a seat in the commons but, at the moment, I am quite happy sitting out in the posh seats in the open. I was told that if I had 56 seats I would need to find 55 other stupid arses to sit on them so declined this idea too.

I intend to remain in situ for the full 5-year term and will start work almost immediately. My prime role, as I see it, is to complain, vociferously and continually, about anything and everything. My lifetime experiences mean I am fully qualified to take up this position.

As well as these blog pages, whatever that means, I also have a twitter account where you can follow my thoughts in 140 characters. I must admit 140 pages would not suffice but I intend to keep up with modern communication methods and trends.

BTW (see, got it already) I will most likely blog daily; from what I have been reading this is as healthy as a daily opening of the bowels and in many cases not dissimilar in content. My simple reason for this, the blogging not the shit, is that at my age by the following day I will have forgotten the previous one completely.

I must now go and meet with my team of extremely uncivil servants, re familiarise myself with my briefs, which I actually last pulled on after the morning bowel movement, and prepare for my first official statement. I should point out that if at any stage I do offer to resign I will make sure I am ready to ask myself not to do so and continue as before. Hat and kilt eating will not be on offer at any stage.

That's how it came about. If you wish to be sectioned, you can check out all my blogs since May 2015 from the links on the right. I have to point out that my initial intention to blog daily rather fell by the wayside and, although there have been periods when dailies have appeared, that has not always been the case.

Having decided to embark, for the first time, on a annual review of my grumps, the question arose as to how to do it. This year has also been erratic blog-wise with one blog in January, two in February and one in March. I do have another life and that took over for a while but, after five months basking in the Chiltern Hundreds, I returned in September and did amazingly well at weekday daily blogs during that month and October and November before tailing off again.

The question, which appeared in the previous paragraph as to how to do, is back again. Should I go chronologically through my grumps, quoting the odd piece of text (obviously the highly witty, intelligent bits) from a few, or should I go subject by subject (there are some subjects about which I blog quite a lot). I decided, after reading my first blog, that I would take the latter approach so here goes.

I started my grumps on January 31st with a little piece about leaving the EU. By the way, or BTW to prove I'm still with it, words in italics come straight from the actual blog. It's 11.01 pm on January 31st 2020 and I am no longer a part of the European Union. Neither are you. We have taken back control. We are our own bosses. Can you see the difference? Well, of course, if you could, if we were and if we had, we would be leaving at midnight GMT not midnight European time.

Never mind, we've cleared the first fence in what will be the Grand National of sovereignty. Sadly, the first fence is but a twig scattered idly on the ground in front of us. The next 29 fences are far higher, far more imposing and far thicker. Why did typing that last word make me think of Boris Johnson (the ex BOJO) and Nigel Farage (he of the petty little union flag waving)?

Legally we may have left but we are now entering into a transition period where nothing will change, we will still abide by EU laws, we will still contribute to the EU budget but we will have no control whatsoever as to what laws the EU bring in and what they do with our contribution. Those who campaigned so hard for us to leave will tell you not to worry as this transition will only last until the end of December. They will also tell you that in the 11 months before then we will negotiate wonderful trade deals with the EU, the USA and probably most of the rest of the world. However, this time they may not paint it on a big red bus.

Sadly, and I think this word may appear quite a lot now I am back grumping, if we fail to get this trade deal with the EU by the end of 2020, we will leave with no deal, something we could have done two years ago at least. We will have wasted time and money to achieve nothing.

It's a funny old world isn't it? Yes, is the answer you should be shouting from wherever you have chosen to celebrate this momentous occasion when nothing has changed......yet. It's a bit like celebrating the birth of a child by not putting on a condom.

I returned to Brexit in September, the 14th to be precise. I intend to pass comment once again on a weekday, nightly basis and weirdly, as I return, so does that great monster, Brexit. To be honest we have actually brexited but we are now negotiating a trade deal. Or not. Last year we signed an oven-ready withdrawal agreement but it would appear that rather than still being oven-ready it is about to get stuffed. Our beloved Prime Minster, despite knowing it is an international treaty, signed, witnessed and a thing to be honoured is about to break it in a specific way. His ministers admit that such a break is illegal but he still intends to do it. What more can I say? Tomorrow you may well find out.

I then returned to the EU and what once was Brexit on October 16th. Just when you thought it wasn't safe to go out again, just when you didn't think the government could bungle anything else, Brexit rears its head again. Now strictly speaking you can't call it Brexit any more because we have brexited and nothing can change that fact. We left the European Union on 31 January 2020. Fact. I put that in because yesterday I heard the Conservative MP for Ipswich somewhere stating that it was important we honoured the vote of 2016. We've done that. It's over. We've left.

What happened after we left is that we agreed with the EU to have eleven months in which we would negotiate a trade deal and sort out a few other things. BOJO said it would be the easiest trade deal in the world. BOJO said we hold all the cards. BOJO said all that and more and he got the vote of quite a lot of you who thought he was telling the truth.

We have now been negotiating for nearly nine months and still nothing is signed. BOJO, with a lack of understanding of simple geography, thought it would be easy to have the same deal that took Canada and the EU eight years to bring into force. I guess that BOJO thought that as it had been done for Canada all we needed to do was substitute United Kingdom for Canada in the treaty. Oh BOJO! Canada is almost 7,000 kilometres away from the nearest EU country, we're 40. Canada is not joined to the EU by a tunnel, we are. Canada was never governed by EU rules, we were. The EU didn't fish in Canadian waters, they do in ours. How anyone with an ounce of intelligence could think we could negotiate the same deal in a tenth of time is way beyond me?

In September he said the deadline was October 15th to sort things out or we would walk away and leave with no deal. On October 15th he said he would say something tomorrow. He did. He said we should prepare for no deal but implied we could still keep trying otherwise, of course, he would have said we're leaving with no deal. About an hour after he said this, a government spokesman said talks were over. It's no deal. Sensibly the EU seems to be ignoring what the British government and BOJO say and waiting to see what they do. If only they realised how much better off they will be without us, especially this present government.

My biggest fear is that BOJO will get confused and enter into a three tier trade agreement with the EU subject to whatever goods each area produces, and have a no-deal Covid where you pick a card to see who has to be isolated and stick with it. You can't deal again.

In early February, the 4th to be precise, I took aim at politicians who make promises they won't be around to have to carry out. Our illustrious PM, BOJO, has announced that any new cars sold after 2035 will be electric or hydrogen powered. This is the UK's contribution to solving climate change. Sounds wonderful. Well done the UK. Leading the way. Brilliant BOJO. This could well be another Do Or Die Offer (so BOJO the DODO is back).

The problem is, and where the sceptics may tut and the realists laugh their heads off, the infrastructure is not there, electric cars are far more expensive and the car industry may not be able to meet this absurd deadline. The lack of a problem is that the target is fifteen years away and so it is not a particularly brave or useful thing to say. Say it in 2034 and I would applaud such bravery while laughing my head off into the nearest available ditch.

Climate change, and the inevitable death of our planet, has reached a crunch point now. Transport is a major polluter. We MUST change the way we all travel starting now not in fifteen years. To do this we need more public transport. We need more rail lines and more trains. Not high speed ones running between major areas but little ones linking small communities where people can only get around by cars. Oh Doctor Beeching what did you do? Removing all diesel and petrol cars and vans by 2035 is probably too late as well as being impossible. To do it we would need investment in the car industry now, incentives for buyers now, deterrents for users of the petrol and diesel vehicles now (yes, I do mean an increased fuel duty) and the provision of alternative means of getting around now.

In the immortal words of Messrs McGuinn and Hillman "Change is now, change is now Things that seemed to be solid are not". Sadly BOJO seems to have taken his line from a Bob Dylan song and says "Let me forget about today until tomorrow." BOJO thinks tomorrow will never come so let's all do something by tomorrow.

By the time I came back in September COVID was rampant and many of my blogs reflected on this and the ridiculous, nay incompetent, way our government handled it. By 9th September I was confused. According to Matt Hancock these (new instructions) are simplifying the rules. With a last-time measured IQ of 162, I don't understand them but it seems to mean I, who live alone, can only mix with one family of less than 6 people apart from my daughter's family of 7 people with whom I am in a social bubble.

However if I go out to a pub or restaurant I can mix with as many people as happen to be there, socially distanced where possible, wearing a face mask if not and washing my hands at every available opportunity. If I do all that, I should be safe from catching the disease. So says my Prime Minister who did of course catch the disease.

On September 12th I commented on Operation Moonshot. Operation Moonshot rapidly became Operation Footshot as, yet again, our blundering Prime Minister appears to have placed a bullet or two into his own foot. The question is as to whether this bullet through the foot was concocted so people wouldn't take quite so much notice of his attempt to fire a cannon through international law. This was all to do with testing people and I then continued. BOJO thinks, that may not be correct but anyway, that a test that hasn't even been invented yet will be used to get us back to near normality. To BOJO this will be as simple as a pregnancy test. I assume he has some considerable experience of these. However I need to point out to the young man that pregnancy tests are usually only used by women of child-bearing age who have a reason to believe they are pregnant. To compare this to a test that, in practice, should be needed by nearly all the population, possibly every fourteen days, is an astounding performance of stupidity.

By the way, ooops BTW, in these extracts I have ignored all my blogs about the POTUS. I don't do fantasy novel reviews but let's say he annoyed me many, many times. Go take a look through this year's blogs to see.

When I started these diatribes many thought I would be moaning about young people but quite the reverse. I have felt the need to try to stand up for them many times. The exam farce was one example and making sure that their mental health didn't suffer by opening universities and then locking them all in with no food and little info was another. A few quotes; I want to react to something I have found out, hopefully true, from the BBC website about the way students are being treated and to be honest I'm horrified. There is no doubt that if everyone adheres to the current government guidelines we are hitting young people the hardest. They have already, in some cases, had the farcical situation about their exams this summer, the stress of whether they can go to uni and the situation now where many of them are virtually imprisoned on campus. I think most people, experts, too, agree that the death toll of this virus has fallen on the elderly. Young people may carry it, may transmit it and may be ill from it but, in general, it is not fatal. They are suffering for us, the oldest generation and I would like to thank them for that.

What has really annoyed me is how these students, unable to go out, socialise, have fun and make the most of this time of their lives, are being treated. There are stories that food being provided for them is out of date. I am an old age pensioner and my weekly food bill is usually less than 30 pounds per week. I have seen instances where students are being charged 170 pounds for 10 day isolation. Really? What's more undergraduates say food parcels are full of junk food such as pot noodles and frozen ready meals. Showing a nice sense of humour, one student said the only thing saving them was that half of them had Covid and can't taste the food anyway.

I read that the University of York gave students the option of a 70 pounds meal deal for their 10 day isolation. This consists of a sandwich, crisps, chocolate and water. If there were three meals a day, the cost is 170 pounds for ten days, about 4 times my weekly food bill. It is opportunism at the expense of the young people who are suffering so much. Some universities actually charged 30 pounds for washing 7kg of clothes.

More followed from the world champion grumper on September 28th. The more this pandemic goes on, and it will go on, the more I am embarrassed at the stupidity and hypocrisy of BOJO, our beloved Prime Minister. A few weeks ago he said "we will ensure that schools, colleges and universities stay open because nothing is more important than education, health and the well-being of our young people." Does the man, his henchman DOCU and the health and education ministers really think that locking first year students up in their halls of residence without adequate warning to get food in, is good for anyone's health and well-being? Bear in mind many of these young people have already been stressed by a faulty algorithm. Did he and his advisers really think that putting thousands of students into fairly crowded accommodation where they share bathrooms, kitchens and living quarters would not result in a COVID-19 spike, because I knew? Does he think that he is improving their anxiety by saying they might not be able to go home for Christmas? Their argument for destroying the social lives of these youngsters (to me anyway) was "don't kill granny" and this from a man who fronts up the ministry which discharged old people into care homes without testing and "killed off" quite a few. I notice that in the government's latest figures on the spread of the disease, partly used to justify this action against uni students, the largest rise in infections are in the 15-19 age group and, in my mind, only 25% of that age group would be uni students. Could it possibly be that opening all schools again means 15-18 year-olds are the biggest spreaders but they couldn't tell us that could they? And finally I would politely refer you to my post on September 17th. I'm not one to say "told you so" but I'm quite happy to write it. Am I such a genius as being able to foresee this? Based on the intellectual ability shown by our leaders the answer is an emphatic yes. Intelligence in government and related agencies is as dead as a dido.

Finally I returned to education on December 1st with a blog entitled ABSENCE MAKES THE EXAMS GROW HARDER.

While we all await the result of the vote on the new Covid restrictions, which we all know will pass, I thought I'd look somewhere else. In any case I'm writing this before the vote has been taken and I can comment tomorrow on the hypocrisy of some MPs and the steadfastness and stubbornness of others. I want to look at education because old BOJO has said all along that a major priority has been to keep schools open at all costs and we now see what that cost is. Ofsted regional bosses have warned that education has been completely disrupted by the number of Covid absentees in some schools. Indeed some pupils have been away from school on more than one occasion as they have had to self-isolate. Last Thursday, 22% of pupils were absent from secondary schools. The problem this brings, compared to when all schools were closed except to key worker's children, is that this is now random and of course it is not only pupils but teachers who may have to be sent home or are off sick. It is almost impossible in such circumstances to have lessons flowing. It would also now appear that some parents might be losing faith in a school's ability to keep their child safe from Covid and are deliberately, and legally, keeping their child at home. The problem again seems to stem from BOJO's announcement that schools were not a source of transmission of the disease as young people didn't seem to be catching it. That was in September when it was decided to open all schools. Now the picture looks a bit different and, next week, ministers will decide how to deal with 2021's exams. Personally I do not agree with the Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, who some weeks ago, stated that damage was caused to pupils by not being in school. I'm sorry but I think keep going in and out of school, having to isolate, missing lessons, returning to lessons, other pupils missing lessons, will cause far more damage, especially if the government decide to carrying out exams next May/June in a near-normal way.

Leaving education, by October 9th I was losing all hope. Now we are all truly agog as we wait for our much maligned, correctly in my view, Prime Minister to speak to us on Monday with the latest ideas to come from intense cabinet discussions. I must admit that most boy scouts could probably come up with something better from their own in tents discussions. Reliable sources are saying, and let's face it this government operates through leaking from reliable sources, that the Cabinet have not yet reached agreement on how to operate the three tier system that has been leaked as the next solution but, quite seriously, if you have only shed three tears over the way this has all been handled you haven't been following things that closely.

Monday is the day of disclosure and I hope that this closure of this part of our fight against this pandemic achieves something more than previous ones.

By 27th November I tried to clear up the confusion. I thought I'd finish the week by sharing a few thoughts I have had with regard to the latest decisions concerning lock downs and tiers. These are my thoughts, not necessarily facts just observations. In October, against advice from Sage who recommended a short circuit breaker, the government introduced a tier system the purpose of which was to reduce the R number and get the virus under control. They said this was the right way to go. In that system roughly 23.5 million people were in tier 1, 24.0 million in tier 2 and 8.7 million in tier 3 with the most restrictions. In early November, this tier system obviously wasn't working because we all went into a 4 week national lock-down which should have, and indeed has, driven down the R number. We are now due to come out of this lock-down next week and return to a new, stricter, tier system although with the same number of tiers. This time, providing parliament approves everything next Tuesday, we will have just 713,573 people in tier 1, 32.2 million on tier 2 and 23.3 million in tier 3, a staggering increase in those of us now in higher tiers. As the lock-down was supposed to be an improvement on the original tier system, things must surely now be better. We must now be at a better starting point. The only conclusion I can draw is that last time, when going against Sage advice, the government made a massive mistake as to which area should be in which tier. The lock-down has allowed them to make the changes which should have been there last time and not have to admit they got it completely wrong, something this government continually fails to admit. I would love to be proved wrong but, after the relaxation of rules for the five days of Christmas I feel we may all be ending up in a higher tier. If so, I will say I told you so and many others could do the same.

Perhaps my biggest grump, and highest level of annoyance has been the government's use of statistics and the feeling that that they can explain everything away with a set of briefly viewed, badly constructed slides made up from figures of which we have no idea of the source. When I was at school I studied statistics for an "A" level. This has allowed me to see, yet again, that this government is the most devious I have known in my lifetime. Let's look at a statement made today by Matt Hancock. He said the average distance travelled to a test site is just 5.8 miles. Um. What does this tell us? Nothing. It is possible in using that statistic to count everybody who goes to a test site but can't get a test there. Obviously most people being told to travel over 100 miles don't go so their distance, although offered, doesn't count either. Of course if I wanted to be totally devious I would tell you that this average distance also includes all the workers and health care professionals at the site.

Let's look at something the government was saying last week. Here a spokesperson or a minister, I can't remember, announced that the median distance people travelled was 20 miles. Now I'm sure many people do know what the median of an array of figures is but by the same token I think a lot of people would think it was like the average, the mean. So if we hear the figure 20 miles spoken about it doesn't sound too bad but let me give you an example.

We check the distance for nine people and have the following distances travelled to a test site. 4,6,7,9,20,150,170,200,300. The median distance travelled is indeed 20 but the average distance would be nearly 100 miles. Doesn't sound quite so good?

The other problem with any figure being given is we can't really check them because no one is releasing the official figures. Mr Hancock said the backlog in laboratories was less than a day's capacity. Sounds nice doesn't it? However that could mean up to 244,000 tests. That's nearly a quarter of a million possible infections not being spotted as soon as they should.

In the majority of the cases where the government or ministers churn out a statistic, a percentage, even a figure, it is meaningless. The facts are infections are rising and the world-beating test and trace system that we were promised is a failure. If you can't test everyone who needs it, if you can't track more that 50% of possible contacts then no figure makes the slightest difference. The government is failing, has failed and until they remove their heads from the sand, will continue to fail and, in rather too many instances are treating us, the public, as gullible idiots.

That was from September 15th. BOJO's comment from almost any time needed clarification too. September 22nd. However, one small point needs to be made. BOJO keeps saying we are testing more people than any other country in Europe. There is only one country in Europe with a larger population than us. What would be far more interesting, relevant and even truthful, would be to say what percentage of the population we are testing because the truth is that if we only test 30% of our population we would still test more than all but 7 of the 44 European countries. Doesn't sound nearly as good, does it?

By November 12th I was almost apoplectic. I promise that this will be my last grump about statistics...........................until tomorrow. Probably. Maybe until next week, maybe next month but I just hate see a load of figures being shown as statistics. Statistics is complicated. It is, by definition, the collection, organisation, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data. It is not giving out a set of figures.

For example, we were told yesterday that they were 1,518 new admissions to hospital, presumably with COVID although the BBC statistics didn't actually say that. That is a figure. It is a fact, if data collection is correct. It is not a statistic. It does not help us in any way to know if hospitals are getting overwhelmed. Firstly, we don't know how many people were discharged from hospital over the same period. If it was only 2, we are in trouble. If it was 2,000 then, at the moment, we have nothing to worry about hospitals not being able to cope.

We were told there were 595 new deaths. Were they in hospitals, were they at home? Again those deaths are not a statistic, they are a figure, a tragic figure but a figure. If the deaths were in hospital then, sadly, they will free up hospital space.

We were told there were 22,950 new cases, again merely a figure. Remember statistics involves not just the collection and display of data but its organisation, analysis and interpretation. All of these facts are why I get so annoyed about people referring to the latest statistics. It is the latest figures. Figures, quoted without proper analysis and also without an indication of the source of the figures and the size of the sample, can be used to portray anything. Our friends, Witty and Valence, have been most guilty of this. Their misleading data displays are further compounded by a ridiculously complicated method of display. If you are going to use statistics please use them wisely, carefully and make sure they are not just a set of figures. I could tell you how much money I have spent on filling my car with petrol. That would be a figure; nothing more. If I told you how far I had driven that would give you more information and you could calculate how much it has cost me per mile. But to further analyse that you would need to know the engine size of my car, how much I had driven in urban or motorway conditions and even how heavy my right foot was, metaphorically speaking. Then you would have some statistics to work with. Statistics are complicated or else I wasted a good few of my teenage years studying something I could have understood in ten minutes. It was my favourite subject at school, probably. But, unlike this piece, I never wrote an essay on it because I think, on average, the range of what I would have said and the mode in which I was writing it, would have meant there was no correlation between what I wrote and the title, which would have been very mean. I might also have deviated from the standard required, possibly while chewing on a mint cake (that one;s subtle). End of grump.

The mention of Witty and Valence reminded me that, although I have no doubt about their ability to do their jobs, they did seem to lack some basic communication skills. Today Prof Witty said he was confident that tier 2 had had an effect and tier 3 had had an even greater effect. If more stringent measures had less effect it would seem stupid to apply them. They then said that numbers they produced for their graphs were less accurate the further into the future they went. I also don't think it requires a medical qualification to know that deaths from Covid will tend to occur some weeks after a person is diagnosed with the virus. A little later in the month I read that a survey has found that in the UK living with children under 18 does not make you more likely to die from Covid. In fact, you are less likely. Now as to my trained statistical eye most adults living with children under 18, their children presumably, will be under 50, I think they are less likely to die of anything. Who funds these researchers who spend hours, and pounds, on research that you or I could pronounce in seconds?Even later I moaned that It's all based on computer modelling and, as I've never seen a computer on a catwalk I do worry how good they may be at this task. I now think that the reason these experts produce so many graphs and statistics is purely because they are trying to befuddle us and I'm not alone in this.

My moans about Track and Trace or Test and Track or Test and Trace were fairly frequent and you can read about my opinion of Dodo (dead as a) Harding if you search through the archives. October 22nd saw a particular outpouring. Tom Watson, ex deputy leader of the Labour Party and an ex MP has written a fictional novel. It seems that many MPs, some ex, some still sitting, have taken this route. It would appear that MPs have an ability to portray fiction. I only mention this in context of the next few paragraphs.

Cast your minds back some six months when dear old, and he is looking it, BOJO stood at his lectern and alongside him was Dodo Harding, the woman who would lead our world beating track and trace system. BOJO has continued to claim its world beating status and DODO has continued to lead it, also becoming interim head of the body that has replaced Public Health England. DODO is married to a Conservative MP, John Penrose, who is part of a think-tank known as 1828 which had called for the NHS to be replaced by an insurance system and for Public Health England to be scrapped. Just saying.

Yesterday BOJO was back at his lectern but this time, perhaps realising he could not compete with Watson's ability, the PM admitted that the track and trace system needed to improve. Back in June he had proudly proclaimed that everyone would have their test results back in 24 hours. Figures for the week ending 14 October show that just 15.1% actually did that week. Now you could argue that may be a world beater but let's not. Johnson then appeared to try to shift the blame to the old general public by saying that "We need to make sure that people who do get a positive test self-isolate - that's absolutely crucial if this thing is going to work in the way that it can". However one could argue that if you have not got your result back in 72 hours, isolating may be a bit late.

Another major failing in this system is that for all those people who did get a positive result only 60% of their close contacts were actually reached. Sir Patrick Valence, the Chief Scientific Officer, made a brief attempt to paint a nice picture by saying the capacity for testing had increased, but then admitted that it was very clear there was room for improvement. A fine example of litotes when it is clear there is not just a room for improvement there is a whole bloody 240 room palace for improvement. I feel proud to have managed to fit Sir Patrick's litotes example in the same post as BOJO's hyperbole on track and trace. On that point of use of English I must criticise Sir Patrick for some of his almost way beyond bloody obvious, and hence useless, statements coupled with meaningless ones.. Yesterday he said:-

  • The numbers (of cases) speak for themselves. They are increasing and they are not going to decrease quickly. (OBVIOUS)
  • I think it is likely that some measures of restriction are going to need to be in place for a while to try and get those numbers down.. (MEANINGLESS - for how long and OBVIOUS)
  • A lot depends now on what happens over the next few weeks.(OBVIOUS)
  • At the moment, the numbers are heading in the wrong direction but there are some signs in some places of a potential flattening off of that. (OBVIOUS and MEANINGLESS as the flattening out might be in the Scilly Isles)
  • We need to wait and see and monitor the numbers very carefully.(OBVIOUS)

Let's just say I have little confidence in those running this thing and the disappearance of the aforementioned DODO should not lead us to think she has become extinct.

I think that will be enough for this review. During the year there have been numerous other grumps about subjects of which I have grumped about in other years. The false apology, the belief that acting stupidly or maliciously is OK if you then apologies, the BBC, BBC presenters, celebrities who are not and, of course, Dominic Cummings (DOCU) and Dido Harding (DODO). They are all there. Check them out but let me just finish with my dear friend BOJO, probably the worst Prime Minister ever. I listened to Prime Minister's question time today and, once more, realised the futility of it all when one of the people involved has no intention of taking part. It's not a good advertisement for any young person watching and I fear an even worse one for Eton and Oxford.

BOJO kept repeating the same old thing about the leader of the opposition, a man quite clearly way more intelligent than the BOJO. He kept saying he supported us on Monday in Parliament but now he's changed his mind. BOJO didn't seem to understand....anything. BOJO didn't seem to understand that after he made a statement in the Commons and then went on TV to speak to the nation, new facts came to light.

Now personally I am delighted that a highly intelligent man can see these new facts, understand them and then, in light of being aware of these new facts, change his mind. I'm concerned that our PM couldn't grasp this might happen.

The other problem, and maybe life lesson, for BOJO is if you keep asking Captain Hindsight why does he criticise if he hasn't got an alternative then when he presents an alternative, backed by expert opinion, you look plonker of the year if you can't produce any facts to back up your decision.

BOJO did say that although he knew he was right (I might be making this bit up but the gist is correct) he ruled nothing out and for the time being that is what he would do. Circuit breaker within two weeks. You heard it here.

A little later in the month and We are not a united country and I'm talking about England here. We are not a well-governed country either. The farce of today's briefing from Downing Street and the ridiculous situation with Greater Manchester is an embarrassment to anyone who would like to feel proud about being English. I've lived through other similar situations and, on reflection, they all occurred under a Tory PM. Heath, Thatcher and now Johnson all brought a feeling of shame for some of their actions.

The problem is, as I see it, that they don't want to govern by consensus, they try to govern by imposition. It doesn't work. BOJO's performance tonight was nothing short of woeful, pathetic, blundering. He lost his notes, he failed to clearly answer any questions, and he looked a wreck, both sartorially and intellectually. I remember David Cameron once suggested his mother would not approve of Jeremy Corbyn's attire but at least he looked respectable. BOJO has obviously created an indoor garden at No. 10 as he definitely had gone through a hedge backwards before arriving at the lectern and that would be my mother's opinion.

Extra finally, my take of the government's rule of six

  1. Don't let anyone know we have no idea what to do to stop this pandemic coming back
  2. Keep doing something so that it looks as though we do know
  3. Make all pubs and restaurants shut at 10.00pm to demonstrate our attempts to stop the spread
  4. Let pubs and restaurants stay open until 10.00pm to show we care about the economy and hospitality
  5. Never admit that this is a half-hearted mish-mash that will make no difference
  6. Keep talking to people, telling them how well they've done so as to avoid anyone seeing how badly you have done. Tell them that the more infections we have, the more people are being infected. Tell them there could be 50,000 infections if we do nothing and hope they've forgotten you said under 20,000 deaths would be a good result, hence showing figures are meaningless and this is a very bad result. Do this every seven days, hence the rule of six.
    7. Welcome to 2021.

    January 2nd 2021 - THE LEAKING WILLI SCREWS HIMSELF INTO THE GROUND.

    What can one say about little Willi (the Minister of Education or whatever they call it these days). He's done so many U-turns he must have screwed himself into the ground except what he has done is screw up the lives of all children and most teachers.

    When I took on this role as Minister for Grumpiness in 2015, we had just had 4 years, 2 months and four days of Michael Gove running education. In my view he was one of the worst ever and when you consider David Blunkett and his literacy hour, one of my really pet hates and one of the main reasons I stepped out of the classroom, Gove had really achieved something. Also Margaret Thatcher (let's stop free school milk) and Sir Keith Joseph (the mad monk, mainly because of his philosophical speeches) were other holders of the post.

    However, having decried Gove, along came Nicky Morgan who managed, in a short time, to prove to be even worse. But, without a doubt the leaking will has proved the worst. He has no idea about education; all he thinks, and maybe he doesn't and someone else has told him, is that all children must be in school at every possible opportunity. Forget health, forget controlling the pandemic, get them all in school. We must not cause them stress and damage their mental health by disrupting their schooling.

    Forget his stupid idea of opening most primary schools, u-turned to almost most primary schools and by the time you read this, maybe no primary schools. Forget his statement that all exams will go ahead this year but a few weeks late. You can even forget his wonderful idea that schools, set up to educate young people, will be responsible for carrying out medical tests on young people. Forget the idea that the army will be there to help or at least 1,500 of them may offer a few words of advice over the phone. Just think about what this last idea will probably mean.

    When BOJO increased the testing capacity for the nation, it resulted in far more diagnosed cases. I can assure you that when we start testing secondary school pupils we will pick up more cases, force more young people to isolate, disrupt their schooling even more but in a truly random way. One pupil will isolate one week, then a few more next weeks while teachers are having to teach those still in their classroom and can't be expected to provide on-line learning for the random isolators. The government are constantly telling us the virus is changing so they have to change their rules. What they don't say is that they, the government, are unable, incapable, or just plain too thick, to anticipate the probable result of their decisions. If you need proof, then ladies and gentlemen, I give you eat out to help out.

    January 3rd 2021 - SENSATIONALISM TO MAKE AN INDEFENSIBLE POINT.

    Oh dear, I'm having to grump on Sunday and, once again, it's to do with education. This time I have to take issue with Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted. If any of you have read some of my previous grumps you will know I have an issue with the very existence of, and money spent on, Ofsted but that is not the point here.

    Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Ms Spielman said that she welcomed the consensus that schools should be the last places to close and the first to reopen. She provided no proof as to where she had obtained this consensus and it seemed she was merely parroting young Willi and BOJO. A consensus, in my book, is a general agreement not just the fact that those in power keep saying it.

    She then went on to say that long periods of remote learning had led younger children to regress in basic skills such as how to hold a pencil or use a knife and fork. With many children taking packed lunches I'm not totally convinced that schools should be teaching how to use a knife and fork but there we go.

    However, it was another comment that really worried me and seemed to me as though Ms Spielman was using sensationalism, with no defined proof, to make her point. She said that for older children forced to spend time away from school, Ofsted had observed increases in eating disorders and self-harm. Both are serious issues but who is to say that worry about Covid, being in and out of school at random times while having to self-isolate, concerns about their elderly relatives or even the constant U-terns of this increasingly incompetent government are not taking their toll on the mental health of the younger generation and bringing on these increases. There could be many reasons but to pin it on school closures while trying to defend schools being open was, in my humble opinion, very, very wrong and, as I said, smacked of sensationalism to support an increasingly unsupportable argument.

    Now should Ofsted have some concrete proof of the fact that these worrying increases are caused by school closures, I will happily stand corrected but Ms Spielman's words, probably carefully chosen, just said that they had "noticed" the increase.

    I have never in my life been a member of a union, personal choice, but I did find the comments of Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, extremely intelligent. He said, as I have been saying, that if we don't close all schools now for a short period of remote learning there will be a chaotic period of opening and closing throughout the early part of the year while the vaccine takes hold, and that will be far more damaging to children's welfare and education.

    All those of us who care can do is wait and see what those in power will cock-up next. I have a feeling little Willi will be involved in some way.

    January 4th 2021 - AS INTELLIGENCE HAS FAILED BOJO, SO WORDS ALMOST FAIL ME.

    Many of us knew it was unsafe to re-open schools but BOJO told us it was. Twenty four hours later, he tells us it isn't. Are so many of us perceptive, intelligent humans able to understand facts while our PM is a stupid, dithering, indecisive idiot or ........... nope, sorry there isn't an or. In fact, as long as this guy is in charge of our country we are up shit creek without a paddle and an oar.

    January 8th 2021 - DONALD TRUMP DEMONSTRATES HOW TO LEAD THE LEMINGS. IS THE 25th AMENDEMENT HIS CLIFF?

    I don't believe, as I am not a news provider, in rushing into print about world events. I always like to take a considered view before I comment.

    As a child, growing up in the fifties, I was aware of the atrocities that had been committed against humanity during and before the second world war. I watched such programmes as "The Valiant Years" and questioned my parents about how it had been living in London during the blitz and at other times. But the thing that amazed me most was how a man who even looked slightly deranged had been able to cajole, brainwash, incite, normal people to follow his outrageous behaviour in a civilised country..

    This week, in the United States of America, I have seen how that can happen in my lifetime. Forget Colonel Gaddafi, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot and a number of South American dictators; one almost expects the behaviour they exhibited. No, we are talking about the leader of a country which claims to be the most advanced, democratic and civilised in the world. I may well argue with that but nevertheless, they are viewed as a beacon of human society.

    The behaviour of both the President and the people who he incited to do what they did is not only outrageous but also that of a man who believes he is above the law, and that can't happen in a democracy. The extrapolation of that is that he behaves in an undemocratic way.

    Today he appears on twitter in a home-made video and says that the events were a heinous crime but they were scenes he virtually requested. If anyone was in any doubt that the man was mentally unstable and also a denier of reality, that doubt should now be removed. Personally I am not an admirer of many things in the United States of America. Yes, it is a big country, yes, a few people have a lot of money, yes they show off better than a parading poodle at a dog show but there are many countries in the world who have a landscape, nature that is as good if not better than the United States.

    You may notice that in my writings about the country I make sure I always refer to it as the United States of America not simply as America, a failing the Thumper Trumper displays. America is a continent, divided into North and South by some geographers. Even if he had been able, he could never make America great again. As it happens he has only managed to become the laughing stock of the world and his supporters have shown me how Hitler achieved what he did.

    January 11th 2021 - LIFE ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE EASY BUT IT IS WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT.

    We all know, from events in the United States of America last week, how a person in power can keep saying ridiculous things without any evidence to support them and how some members of the public will believe them. They will also be convinced to take action to back up these obvious lies.

    In the modern world, with 24 hour news channels and in-your-face social media, it is easy to feel drowned under news, views and opinions, right or wrong. I am concerned about how some in authority treat our young people. From what I read, and these young people can read, if they are not allowed to go to school they may end up with mental health problems. Say it often enough and those young people will begin to wonder if they will.

    I would prefer, as far as learning about life, young people were told that schools have to be closed, it's not what anyone wants, it's bloody annoying but you have to make the best of it. In life, or at least the 72 years of it I have experienced, these things happen fairly often, at different levels. Losing a parent has to be dealt with. Far better for someone comforting someone in that situation, whatever age they are, to explain that either they have been through that situation or that it is a part of life than to turn around and say that when you lose your parent it may cause you some mental health issues.

    Life is not easy for the majority of us. Things go wrong, things over which we have no control. That is where we are with school closures. I am truly sorry that young people are missing out on some learning and missing out on seeing their friends but it has to be coped with as best you can. Whether you are nearer to the end of your life, living alone, having no face-to-face contact with anyone and missing out on spending time with grandchildren (my position) or are at the other end of life's cycle and missing the joys of school, friends, playing etc, we have to cope. I know that for some, a few, it will trigger mental health issues but for the majority it is just life and as far as mental health issues go, I have lived with mine for over 60 years. I feel a reat sense of achievement in having coped with my problems and got to where I am. Let's not suggest problems where they may not, indeed don't have to, exist. Think before you speak please. Tell these young people how brilliant they are in coping with all that is being thrown at them not how it will result in mental health issues.

    January 17th 2021 - IN THIS GOVERNMENT, A QUESTION IS NOT SOMETHING WHICH WILL EVER GET AN ANSWER.

    You may notice that nearly a week has passed since my last grump. The reason is not that I am happier about the world, or more precisely the way my country is run. The reason is that, in some respects, I have just given up. Sometimes in life you have to realise that whatever you may say, nothing will change so, after a while, it becomes pointless to keep moaning about it.

    This week I watched Pretty Petal give a Downing Street briefing. Later in the week I watched our PM, the indomitable BOJO, at Prime Minister's Question Time. After this I came to the following conclusion. There are three possibilities with regard to member's of the Cabinet. They are either complete idiots unable to understand, or communicate in, the English language. They are nasty, devious deceivers trying to bluff people and hide their own utter incompetence or, worst still, they are as thick as two short planks.

    Then I had an epiphany moment. Petal, BOJO, Hancock et al are actually all three. I have to say it wasn't a particularly pleasant moment; it's quite frightening to think that you are being governed by people who have these three qualities. However, if you ever heard a government minister fail to answer any question they have been asked and yet triumphantly look at you, or the camera, at the end of their idiotic, devious, thick reply, you will understand my point. Over the last five years I have gone on many times about this failure to answer a question but after this week I decided I could grump no more. Nothing will change while these fools are in government. I need to forget them and find something else to upset me; and rest assured, there is much

    Then, just as I was finishing writing this, a cabinet minister suddenly spoke the truth. Grant Shapps, Transport Minister, was asked whether pensioners who have had the vaccination should now book their summer holiday. "I'm the last person you should take travel advice from," said the Transport Minister.

    Now if only the Education Minister would admit that he is the last person to give any education advice or rulings, we would all be a lot happier, nay ecstatic.

    January 24th 2021 - THE WEEK THAT WAS WITH FIGURES, A QUESTION ON DEMOCRACY AND CONVENTIONS AND GIVING EUROPE BACK OUR BUSINESSES.

    Here we go with a weekly set of thoughts by a grumpy old grandad.

    Firstly, an old grump back again. The stupid way that government minister in particular throw figures at you which they hope you find impressive. At the beginning of the week we were told we were doing 140 vaccinations a minute and then 200. Well, at 200 jabs a minute, average over 7 days a week and a 12 hour day, it would take a year to vaccinate with one dose all over 18s in the UK. That means 2 years to get the full doses out and I have heard we might need to be vaccinated every year. Oh dear, doesn't sound so good now.

    The other thing about the vaccine is that we don't know how effective it is if it is given with a twelve week gap, we don't know whether once you have been vaccinated you can still pass the disease on and we don't know how long immunity will last. In other words, in my mind, a vaccination might be effective in stopping me from becoming seriously ill from coronavirus but little else; as yet. The danger is that I really think the way BOJO and his ministers have been trumpeting the wonderful vaccine, most people think that once vaccinated we can go and mix anywhere and with anyone. Only this past weekend has anyone began to pour cold water on that idea.

    Finally this week a serious question about democracy, especially in that bastion of democracy, the United States of America. When I was studying politics and indeed the British Constitution, I was taught that the three parts of government, the executive (PM and cabinet), the legislature (Houses of Parliament) and the judiciary (Judges and courts) MUST operate independently. With this in mind, how on earth can the executive (POTUS) issue hundreds of pardons as he leaves office completely overruling decisions made earlier by the judiciary. I don't understand it.

    We were also taught about cabinet collective responsibility and so, once again, that doyen of breaking all ministerial rules, Pretty Petal, does it again by saying she said all borders should have been closed months ago. That was not the decision the cabinet made so how come she breaks yet another convention but still hangs on to her job. I'm not going to ask anyone who thinks they matter because they are the people who have lost the ability to answer a question, if they indeed ever had such a skill

    Oh and vaccinations, different variants of Covid and all that has kinda overshadowed the mess that is growing regarding our dealings with the EU. Apparently the answer for all businesses is to go and open a subsidiary in a European country follow their laws, pay them taxes, employ their citizens but reduce the paperwork. This is how we take back control and become an independent sovereign state.

    January 31st 2021 - THE WEEK THAT WAS WITH A SURFEIT OF BRIEFINGS, A PLAN TO HAVE A PLAN ABOUT A PLAN, A WORLD LEADING IDIOT, AND MORE SENSATIONALISM WITH FIGURES, AMONGST OTHER THINGS.

    I'm fed up with BOJO and his experts giving us briefings about things the BBC news has already told us or will later tell. You can have too much of a good thing and, let's be perfectly honest, this was never a good thing anyway. Bumbling away from BOJO, meaningless slides from Witty and much hope tempered with caution in case we believe the hope.

    On Tuesday young Witty said that we now had only 20,000 or so new cases as opposed to 70,000 a week or so earlier. However he didn't tell us how many people had been tested so the reduction in cases MIGHT be because less tests were done. We couldn't tell.

    From what BOJO said it seemed that he wanted to tell us that he had a plan to have a plan and when he had that plan he would tell us what that plan could lead to but schools wouldn't return till 8th March at the earliest but we'd all have two weeks notice. Enter BOJO Baldrick.

    I also felt a little uncomfortable about the fuss made about passing 100,000 deaths and BOJO's "heartfelt" apology and his saying he and his government had done all they could. Firstly, for people affected, death 3,574 or 26,952 were the major tragedy. Secondly he plainly had not done all he could. Maybe he did what he thought was correct but a complete lock-down of all places of entry in March would have resulted in far less deaths. Check out New Zealand or Australia. We have done far worse than many countries when it comes to the number of deaths.

    On Wednesday I listened for as long as I could to Pretty Petal. She had a phrase that punctuated, many times, her speech to the House of Commons. It was "world leading" when referencing our country. Following the demise of the former POTUS, can I now apply world leading to Ms Petal when looking for useless figures in government.

    Another annoying factor returned this week and, while I understand journalists almost expect not to have their questions answered, I do feel they could be a little more forceful, listen to what is being said to them and not just follow the list of questions they have. Young Pretty, in her statement, said she had been in talks with the hotel industry about using quarantine hotels for people we did allow in. Simon McCoy asked the head of the Acora hotel chain if he had been contacted by the government, a pretty important point in view of my experience of Ms Patel's honesty. The boss then told McCoy that his hotels had practiced measures and were used to dealing with providing accommodation at short notice with delayed flights etc. He did not say if the government had been in contact nor did McCoy then ask him again. I assume that hoping for some business the Acora boss didn't want to say the Home Secretary had been careless with the truth.

    Finally, education and children. Once again the children's commissioner has, in my mind, been telling those kids coping with this lock-down and remote learning that they should really be having mental health problems. A few will indeed find it difficult but it's like constantly telling a plane load of passengers, of whom one or two are nervous flyers, that they really should be scared of taking off in this metal contraption. Say things often enough and those listening who are not affected will begin to think they are abnormal.

    And my week came to a close, literally figuratively, when the Institute for Fiscal Studies said, in a report, that pupils in the UK could lose an average of £40,000 each in their lifetime earnings from the effects of Covid-hit school closures. A staggering, headline grabbing figure. Or is it? The effects, it said, would be felt most by children from disadvantaged backgrounds, say those unlikely to go into further education but start work on leaving school.

    This would mean, assuming by the later part of this century a retirement age of 70, that these pupils might have a working life of 52 years. This means they would lose an income of about £770 a year or 37p an hour on their wages. The institute did say their report was an illustration not a predication but they also said with weaker assumptions it could be a quarter of that figure. Whilst losing any money is serious I can assure this generation who have had their education disrupted that they will lose much more than 9p an hour from tax increases to pay for this pandemic.