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All the Times Boris Johnson Has Shifted the Goalposts

by Michael Curzon
9 April 2021 4:11 PM

We recently marked the first anniversary of “three weeks to flatten the curve”. It has been difficult at times to keep up with the latest requirements set by the Government to unlock Britain. Our vaccine rollout has been successful – almost half of our total population has received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine and more than six million people have received both. This was supposed to set us on “a one-way road to freedom” but the rhetoric seems, not for the first time, to have changed. Matt Hancock has suggested that freedom can now only be reclaimed through weekly mass testing.

Everyone will be able to take a free rapid coronavirus test twice a week from the 9th April.

Reclaiming our lost freedoms & getting back to normal hinges on us all getting tested regularly.https://t.co/4i53gOmykA

— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) April 5, 2021

MailOnline has compiled a list of all the times the Government has moved the goalposts when it comes to relaxing restrictions.

Ministers introduced the first lockdown last March in order to “flatten the curve” of Covid infections, preventing a crisis that would overwhelm hospitals. 

People were ordered to stay in their homes to prevent the pandemic ripping through society and causing the NHS to come under strain it could not cope with.

Experts agreed infections would inevitably occur but that spreading them [sic] the cases over a longer period of time… would make it easier for hospitals to cope. 

In an attempt to justify hitting the nuclear button on lockdown, the Prime Minister presented graphs at Downing Street press conferences to illustrate why the plan would bring the outbreak to manageable levels. 

Striking a sombre tone on March 12th, Mr Johnson warned of severe disruption lasting for “many months”.

But the PM – who later publicly backed calls that Britain needed to learn to live with the virus, saying restrictions did not provide an “enduring solution” because the price was “too heavy” – refused to budge on easing lockdown until late in the summer, even though cases had dropped to negligible levels. 

Restrictions weren’t drastically lifted until “Super Saturday” on July 4th, by which time just 45 Britons were dying of Covid each day, on average. For comparison, the current figure stands at 30.

Critics accused Number 10 of silently changing its Covid-fighting strategy, morphing from containing the virus to seemingly trying to eliminate it – which experts insist is impossible. 

Cinemas, pubs and hairdressers were finally allowed to open again on July 4th…

In a calculated gamble designed to rescue Britain’s crippled economy, Mr Johnson hailed the move as being the “biggest step yet on the road to recovery”.

But, in a sign of the risks involved, he warned that the changes would be reversed immediately if people abused the rules and the epidemic began to take off again. …

And promising to never resort to another full-blown lockdown again, he admitted Number 10 needed to “move away from blanket, national measures, to targeted, local measures”, saying the Government would not hesitate to impose whack-a-mole-style restrictions if the virus started “running out of control again”.

But the PM failed to stick to his pledge, with nationwide restrictions creeping back into the Government’s arsenal from September, with the rule of six followed by a controversial 10pm curfew for pubs and restaurants.

Since Mr Johnson’s promise, England has been dragged through two separate attempts of tiered lockdowns and two full-blown national shutdowns. 

Worth reading in full.

Tags: GoalpostsVaccine

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21 Comments
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Old Bill
Old Bill
4 years ago

Hey, it goes back even further than ‘3 weeks’. Doesn’t anybody remember:

“Britain will have to take it on the chin”. (Probably the only sensible thing he has ever uttered throughout the manufactured crisis).

Then somebody like Whitty or Valance did a ‘Sir Humphrey’ on him and told him:

“That was a brave speech Prime Minister”

And so the fear began!

26
0
NonCompliant
NonCompliant
4 years ago

Imagine what kind of country will be left when this cretin has completed a full term !!! Vote him out? I suspect you’ll not be voting in a GE again by the time 2024 comes around.

24
0
TheBluePill
TheBluePill
4 years ago
Reply to  NonCompliant

If there is another general election it will be a fight to see who has the best election fraud strategy. I’m sure that both the main parties will have learnt lessons in what is possible after seeing the US elections. And now there is no free press, the parties just need to sell us down the river to the elites enough for big tech to censor the truth in return.

11
0
Banjones
Banjones
4 years ago
Reply to  TheBluePill

The petition demanding that electronic counting machines should not be used has grown very very slowly (suspiciously so). I’m only surprised the petition was ”allowed”.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/572973

6
0
iane
iane
4 years ago
Reply to  NonCompliant

Yes – though what really worries me is what happens when someone competent, hard-working and dominating gets into his shoes. Inevitably, it is the very worst people who get to the top and, in an increasingly totalitarian world, that will include Hitlers and Stalins. Bad enough now, but we ain’t seen nothing yet!!

11
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago

Just took a quick trip up the deserted local high street (4pm on a working Friday), 4 pantie people queuing Socially Distanced outside the chemist, I’m the only bareface in Tesco Metro and so home.

Meanwhile in Local Live (mirror group news).
“Covid Extra Read All about It !”
‘There were no Covid patients in the two main hospitals yesterday, this is down from one the day before.
In the previous week 307 people died in the County of which 5 had Coronovirus mentioned on the death certificate’.

The population remains in frantic fear of a disease that might have been responsible for less than 2% of deaths last week.

I give up and am going to spend my time worrying about the survival of Orangutans in the wild in Borneo and Indonesia, they are more worthy.

Last edited 4 years ago by karenovirus
46
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
4 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

Last week in Shropshire (Largest inland county) there were 6 Covid? patients in hospital and 1 Covid? death.
Cue mass panic!
I DON’T THINK SO.
SHEEP AND COLLABORATORS, GROW UP.

23
0
Banjones
Banjones
4 years ago
Reply to  Fingerache Philip

They are so used to wearing muzzles now, that they’ve forgotten what they were for. They’re now a ‘safety blanket’ and they’ll scween and scweem if anyone suggests they shouldn’t wear them.

17
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
4 years ago
Reply to  Banjones

Till they are “thick”.
Whoops!, sorry, they already are.

5
0
Judy Watson
Judy Watson
4 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

One day I hope(maybe dream) when flying becomes easier I will go and see these beautiful creatures.

Until then I will keep buggering on and hope for the best – but plan for the worst.

5
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  Judy Watson

There are plenty of Orangutan rescue videos on YouTube, many have a fundraising feature.

0
0
LMS2
LMS2
4 years ago

Not so much moved the goalposts as smashed them to pieces.

16
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
4 years ago
Reply to  LMS2

They moved the stadium!

18
0
Banjones
Banjones
4 years ago

That there are so many people dimwitted enough to demand a test EVEN IF THEY’RE WELL just shows what a parlous state our social system is in.

26
0
Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
4 years ago

Remember when Hancock claimed he would, “Cry freedom!”?

13
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  Steve Hayes

Or Hancock “the Cavalry (vaccine) is coming round the corner!”
Twat.

10
0
isobar
isobar
4 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

Twat is far too kind!

9
0
Nessimmersion
Nessimmersion
4 years ago

Remember when muzzles were a symbolic of repression

IMG_20210409_095657_273.jpg
15
0
Noumenon
Noumenon
4 years ago
Reply to  Nessimmersion

I don’t want people to protect me, I want them to relate to me.

11
0
Noumenon
Noumenon
4 years ago

They’ve pushed it on so that when autumn approaches they can justify locking everything down again. Permanent lockdown.

13
0
esseepee
esseepee
4 years ago

He hasn’t moved the goalposts, he has moved the pitch and changed the game from flatten the curve to zero Covid. A game that however long you play it, will not and cannot be won.

11
0

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