could one say “trussed up like a turkey”? 
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Oven ready, of course!
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Caroline Dinenage was appointed Minister of State for Digital and Culture in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 13 February 2020.
Now those are rather wide terms of reference and it would take considerable intellect and broad experience to encompass all those disciplines and I have to confess that I had never heard of her, wasn’t it Hancock, Dowden, one of that crowd? So I was very interested to see the latest incumbent of this important post when she appeared on BBC TV this morning.
The questions were all about swimming and cultural events, so even if they were not her main areas of expertise, we would have expected her to have been well briefed. But she appeared to be unable to answer any questions, simply coming back with the standard government response, "What we have been doing. . . . " Charlie Stayt let her off lightly. Maybe he felt sorry for her, being completely out of her depth on the subject of swimming.
Wonder if she knows anything about data or media?
Wonder how long she will last?
I presume she is the same person who was on Radio 4 this morning as well. She was asked a fairly straightforward question about the wearing of masks and leading by example and all she manage to do was to tie herself up in knots.
The BBC have a habit at present of getting some ministerial talking head on, then asking them questions outside their competence. Generally it seems to be a waste of time.
I wouldn’t blame the BBC. Ministers at all levels are (or ought to be) briefed on a wide range of issues that might arise in an interview, particularly those within the Ministry’s remit, even if outside the Minister’s immediate responsibility . If the Minister’s Private Secretary can’t put together a proper briefing, or if the Minister chooses not to read it, then they will come across as Ms Dineage did.
The trouble is that the current crop of ministers are barely competent within their remit.
Mostly they just lie - in fact I suspect their brief is to lie (or perhaps they are briefed with lies; it amounts to the same thing), the present government seems incapable of honesty at any level.
The penny just dropped!
Boris has a reputation for being a bit of a linguist.
He must have thought, “Dine-nage? She sounds like the ideal person to answer questions about eating out and swimming!”
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The latest idiocy that I heard on the Today programme was that there was a rumour that Chris Grayling was to become the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Intelligence and Security.
You couldn’t make it up!
Oh, it’s no rumour
Stunning, they must be rolling in the aisles in Moscow Central and the Beijing equivalent. I’m sorry for you Paul but from afar this could be very funny.
Another joke…
UK : 68367 deaths projected by November 2020. France : 34805 deaths in the same period.
No surprise there then.
Probably this is the reason that BoJo is considering wearing masks compulsory.
It has become obvious that there are certain sections of the population who consider their personal rights to freedom more important than their obligations to society.
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I agree Jane. It looks like many governments are coming down to enforcing mask wearing as the only way - even a simple last resort (without a vaccine) to give people some freedom to move about and go about their everyday lives, in the hope of avoiding lock-downs a,d overstretched ICUs. If only everyone got over having to wear a mask it would cut down the transmission of the virus.
Projected deaths for Germany with a population of 83 million (over 20% higher than either UK or France) is 12,409 while Poland with a population of 38 million has just 3,065 projected deaths. Unless there are some other factors going on then neither UK (68,367 deaths), Spain (34,174 deaths), Italy (39,703 deaths) or France (34,805 deaths) has handled the pandemic well in comparison.
At current levels of infection mask wearing is almost completely pointless other than as a gesture to show the government is doing something just like the token pointless short-lived quarantine .
Is mask wearing a token? I see it as a very small price to pay in the push to keep the virus under control while being able to enjoy most of the trappings of normal life.
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