Iains - thank you for making the effort to submit a more intelligent post - I'd echo that comment from pfr.   We are sorely missing a considered view from 'non-lefties'. As with pfr I don't agree with the bulk of it, but that does not mean it could not be discussed sensibly and without insults flying about.

So I will pick out a single point: just think how much worse the response would have been had we 10years of corbyn misrule.

Leave out the Corbyn reference: your argument is essentially 'just think how much worse it could be.' My rejoiner is of course it could be worse, but could it be better?   To do that, we have to examine decisions that are being taken now and saying "does this seem right?" I have tried to do that in a fairly non-partisan way: a specific decision is not wrong because the Tories are made it. If I say it is wrong, I have always attempted to say why I think so on other grounds.


Let's take the critical early decision on whether to follow the WHO "test, test, test" advice and go with our home grown advice that is not the best approach. Both are scientific advice, but they are contradictory. I have few objections to a politician who says "We have to make a choice. We have thought long and hard and our political choice is to follow the home advice. We believe that is right, but recognise it could be wrong. If so we will take every step we can to overcome whatever has gone wrong."

That is a mature and responsible approach, and I think few fair minded people could object to it. But that is not what is happening. They are holding this shield of "always following the scientific advice" without admitting they are making political choices at every step because there is not a uniform scientific advice: how could there be at such an early stage of the virus? My objections to Patel's approach is not so much about the decisions but the refusal to accept the government's part in the decisions: it is not all the scientists, however often they say it.

Similarly the decisions whether to build up the existing manufacturers of ventilators or try to get new companies to build new designs. Or when and how intensely you support care homes: all these are political decisions and we have every right to question whether they are the correct decision. It is nothing whatever to do with who is in power.   There is no problem, in my mind, asking new companies to build new designs of ventilators as a 'back up' plan - putting 90% of your effort into the 'known to work' approach and 10% into 'might not but worth a try' approach is reasonable. Leaving people who could make them in the cold so that haven't even been asked to help is not.