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Friday 5 June 2020

How bad does it have to get to change your mind?

In a week when one day the UK "Covid deaths exceeded the whole of the EU put together" and President Trump plumbed new depths stoking racial tension in the US, I am forced to wonder just how bad does your leader have to be before you disavow him (or her)?

I know that it is only human to believe that one makes good choices. In exactly the same way that nearly all of us believe that we are better than average drivers. This is ordinary cognitive bias. I also understand the most of our political opinions are emotional rather than rational. We retrospectively allocate reason to defend positions we instinctively already 'feel' are correct.

But surely there comes a point when you say, "OK this is nuts, that's enough" 

For those still clinging to the idea that Boris Johnson is doing a good job, how can you read that headline above (specially selected from a rabble rousing right wing red top) and not have your brain try to escape from your head? 

You can't read that and hang on to, "It's too early to make international comparisons" or, "You can't compare as the UK's population is much denser" or "We're the only people accurately recording our death rates, the others are hiding things".

That's some fairly extreme mental gymnastics. If you have to create an alternate universe in your head where simple rules of mathematics no longer apply and the entire world is engaged in a conspiracy against the plucky Brits, who are the last bastion of truth and decency...

Then you deserve this bloody shambles of a government. Better still, why not buy some cammo gear and an assault rifle and move to America. You'll fit right in.

I gave up on Labour less than a week after Corbyn took over and he never saw power. These guys are letting people die.

1 comment:

Caroline Whalley said...

not strong enough, more more more