James O’Brien claims Covid-19 crisis exposed how out of touch Boris Johnson’s government is with reality

“The contradiction of telling us for months that it was all going brilliantly and now us simply looking at the statistics as November nears, I’ve never known anything like this,” he said.

“The gulf between what our leaders are telling us and what we can see with our own eyes has never in my life been bigger than it is now.”

He argued the current situation was even worse than the invasion of Iraq by British and American forces.

“Even if you went back to Iraq and that the consensus now that the weapons of mass destruction we were told existed didn’t exist,” he pointed out, “then there are two problems with that comparison.

“Number one, we’ll never whether or not Tony Blair and his colleagues really did believe the weapons of mass destruction existed because we can’t read their minds.

“The other reasons you can’t make comparisons… is because there is a huge different between finding out that something isn’t true and living through the evidence that it isn’t true.

“And we are now living through the evidence that what the prime minister has said to us for months was never true.”

James O’Brien claims the coronavirus crisis has shown Tory g (1)

He mentioned the NHS Test and Trace system as a case in point. He said: “The test and trace system was never world-beating. It categorically hasn’t delivered any of the things he promised it would and they are now advertising for someone to turn around call centres which until recently were called ‘world-beating'”

In a clear swipe at the prime minister’s most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, he asked: “Why do you need to pay someone two grand a day to turn around a call centre, Dominic?”

He added: “Looking at some of the polling, people are still on board with this.

“It’s incredible.”

TV broadcaster Stuart Duncan tweeted: “I just don’t get it either. The UK needs qualified, capable and caring leadership right now and this current government couldn’t be further away from that. Nobody in their right mind could possibly disagree.”

One user pointed out: “I’m doing my best with what I can affect; but I don’t have the combined assets of the entire civil service/British industry, and the modern communications network, the UK media, and the greatest minds of our time at my beck/call. This gov’t doing it’s best should be world beating.”

“I’d go as far as to say it’s a chasm James,” said another.

“Yep but when did you last believe a secondhand car salesman selling a Ferrari with heat blued exhaust pipes who told you it was only used to go to the Co Op by a 70 year old granny…” quipped another.