This what happens when you elect journalists. And not just journalists: columnists.

They have no skills in doing stuff: only in presenting stuff. And because they're columnists rather than journalists, they don't have any skills in fact-chasing, only in skewing facts.

Our Prime Minister's primary skill (other than self-promotion) is not organisational or strategic: it's half-reading a brief, finding something in it he can turn into a funny phrase, and totally ignoring the reality. He's been sacked twice for making shit up.

And this isn't a "party political" point: other parties also have more than their fair share of inept, over-promoted columnists playing with peoples' lives (i.e. Seumas Milne).

All this bullshit is fun and games until something serious happens. And then... this is the result

We aren't getting ventilators. We aren't placing orders. We aren't delivering protection or testing. There's no strategic "end-game" for how lock-down comes to a finish. There's no consideration of anything past the next headline.

And people are dying. Actually fucking dying.

I'm not a cynic, I'm a sceptic.

A sceptic just wants evidence that suggests a good way forward.

A cynic believes nothing can ever be fixed and that everybody acts with bad intentions.

I don't think that of this government. They aren't evil, they're just incompetent.

Electing incompetent people is what led to a crisis becoming a farce.

And not just Tories. Labour chose a leadership team with dreadful skills, and the result is the Tories got away with murder, and felt safe enough to get lazy and believe their own bullshit.

No politician is to blame for Covid.

But a whole generation of politicians, left, right and centre, is to blame for not just the response, but the environment in which this response can happen. Useless leaders should be weeded out by a functioning system

And while I'm having a teeny rant, let's not forget the supine, complicit, lazy, biased, cowed or broken media landscape that lets them get away with it. Too many long lunches, old pals from school, arms around shoulders and cosy chats. Not enough knifing.

When this ends - and it will end, even if right now it doesn't feel like it - we need major change. Cos this terrible event is a foreshadowing of the rolling disaster of disease and structural collapse that climate change will bring. And it's only a decade away. Buckle up.