These words from Priti Patel at today’s UK government briefing was nothing short of pathetic:

“I’m sorry if people feel that there have been failings but...we are in an unprecedented global health pandemic.right now...”

There are at least three things wrong with that.

1/
1. “I’m sorry if people feel that there have been failings...”

This isn’t a real apology at all.

Being sorry if someone “feels” something isn’t the same thing as being sorry for that thing.

She was talking ablevtje lack of PPE for doctors and nurses, not something trivial.

2/
2. “unprecedented...”

Yes, this is an unprecedented crisis but, no, it didn’t come completely out of the blue.

The UK government knew from its own disaster planning exercises that it wasn’t equipped to deal with this.

Yet wasted the weeks it had to prepare for the worst.

3/
3. “global health pandemic...”

Once again, Patel shows that she doesn’t understand the meaning of the words she uses.

A pandemic is, by definition, a global health crisis. There is no such thing as a pandemic that isn’t global, or isn’t related to health.

4/
The rest of Patel’s answers to serious press questions were little better.

Granted, individually, nothing was as bad as her talking about “counter-terrorism offences” repeatedly (as she did recently) but put together it was just woeful.

Frankly, she’s not up to the job.

5/5
PS, yes, that should say “were” not “was” in the first sentence of the first tweet of this thread.

I edited the first half of that sentence but then forgot to read it in full before I hit send.

Mea culpa.

Always proofread everything. Twice.
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