Image. Matchbox Series No. 29. Arthur Cooper Matchbox and Acrylic on Canvas. 12.7 x 17.7 x 1.5 cm. 2014.

U TURN.

Another week with U Turns in particular making the news. Marcus Rashford showed the Government how to feed the poor during the school holidays. It took a full day for the pressure of public opinion to force a UTurn. Earlier in the week there was another U turn from promises regarding preserving food quality standards, made during Brexit. Changes to food standards are now NOT ruled out during US trade talks. Another U turn came today. The world beating, or was that world class, NHSX app ( essential according to Matt Hancock ), has now been scrapped, for the eminently more sensible E.U. de-centralised app. I would like to think that someone in the government read my Day 43 Lockdownblog on 4th May, ( to app or not to app ), but I reckon not! It seems that the UK technology was not so world beating after all, perhaps due to the reports that NHSX app only works on the latest apple smartphones, which rules out anyone who hasn’t got one! It may of course be just coincidental that President Macron’s visit is scheduled for today, when talks are likely to focus on future travel arrangements between the EU and Britain. Strange how things pan out?

It is plain to see that the wheels are gradually falling off the wagon. Scientists are increasingly absent from the daily briefing, we continue following the science though scientists have been gagged, just incase they accidentally let the truth slip out. The ministerial scripts, and indeed the ministers, are becoming more robotic by the day. Questions regularly get short shrift, ‘answered’ or is that ‘deflected’, by platitudes and statistics. The spectre of Mr. Cummings hangs like the sword of damocles above the heads of an incompetent Government. Stay alert and say nothing is the new instruction. Winston has been let out of the box for Macron’s visit, so things can appear normal and we can pretend that the Black Lives Matter protests never happened. As we stagger towards 50,000 deaths things look bleak, but at least the guards outside Buckingham Palace can be relied upon not to do U turns.