In my opinion, for what it’s worth (and it is probably not worth much), I think that critics of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson should ask themselves if they could do a better job?
In a nutshell, the man listens to all his advisers’ and then makes a final, official, decision on what course of action the UK government should take as a result, based on their guidance and the facts as he sees them.
In this respect, yesterday, I watched The Sound of Music on TV. At one point, the Reverend Mother told a group of onlooking nuns, that two of her senior sisters were trying to help her to make a decision about sister Maria’s future at the abbey, by ‘expressing opposite points of view’. It appears to go with the territory, that people in positions of power, who rely on advisers to help them with decision-making, will inevitably get a variation in the points of view put forward.
Every time he has to make any specific decision, Boris Johnson will not have the benefit of hindsight. Nobody, not even the cleverest person in the world, has the benefit of hindsight relative to decisions they have made, that have not yet been put into effect.
As ammunition, pundits can say, “Well the last time the Prime Minister made a similar decision, such and such happened”.
My question to them would be, “Maybe so, but are you prepared to stake your life on exactly the same outcome resulting again, this time around?”
One thing is outrageously obvious, once these publicity hungry, scandal-seeking bloodsuckers have the benefit of hindsight, after the results of the actions are known, they do go for blood. It makes no odds as to whether the action was effective, successful, or not. They will burrow into the finite detail, drilling down to look for the tiniest scrap of evidence that indicates a miniscule part the action was not achieved or was in some way ‘a failure’ and have a field day blowing it up into banner headlines that are way out of proportion to reality and the overall success of the decision and its positive consequences.
Boris Johnson often has two teams of experts advising him, with one team suggesting ‘GO NORTH’ as the best option and the other team telling him to ‘GO SOUTH’ as the best decision.
Occasionally, there will be times when, as PM, he is privy to confidential information that only himself and a few other people are aware of. I am referring to top secret stuff and there must be occasions when it plays a part in influencing decisions he makes, causing the rest of society to not understand why that contentious decision was made.
What I really, really don’t understand, is why people queue up to take on the job of Prime Minister of any country, apart from dictatorships.
My comments are not solely relative to the UK Prime Minister. The leaders of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, European countries and the rest of the world at large, are all having to battle with the same problems at this time and face the consequences of their actions.
In all of those situations, someone has to stand up to be cajoled, ridiculed, shouted at and generally made to look an incompetent fool, when they are actually anything but. Generally, they are very brave individuals, who are committed to their country and their cause.
I cynically suggest that, if we had been able to put the best Prime Minister the UK has ever had, into power on 1st March 2020, within weeks, the nation’s perception of the person being a brilliant PM would have been decimated, as the person was picked on and ridiculed by some fame-hungry media hacks trying to make a name for themselves by making irresponsible, out-of-context statements and asking stupid questions, very often regarding situations that the PM has absolutely no control over and little or no knowledge of the catastrophe that is trying to be controlled. Neither does anyone else, apart from the media flunkies who all seem to have degrees in hindsight.
In my opinion, such as it is, these people do absolutely nothing to help the cause of everyone uniting for the benefit of their own country and the whole world, to overcome its current problems.
What do you think?
Comments and opinions expressed in the above blog are personal to the writer and not representative of the official views of Solar Solve Ltd or any of its other employees.
John H Lightfoot MBE
