You Are The Prime Minister

Here's a fun game you can play at home. It's called 'You Are The Prime Minister'. You will be faced with various posers relating to public health - just choose A or B as the option you would take if you were leader of this country. Let’s go!

You have known for many months that there will be pressure on the NHS this winter. Do you:

A) Up ICU capacity; increase the number of beds generally; enlist retired medical professionals; promote vitamin D and zinc; lead an anti-obesity drive

B) Introduce restrictions on people's liberty that will severely damage the economy and people's mental health, keep families apart, erode trust in the state for decades, sack 30,000 care workers, have even fewer hospital beds than 12 months previously, make friends fall out over mask wearing etc 

Widespread evidence from Europe shows that vaccine passports do not stop the spread of Covid. A 70-page Scottish report commissioned by the Scottish government does not include any evidence for their efficacy. With this in mind, do you introduce vaccine passports in England?

A) No

B) Yes, let's grab that lovely data

A report from the UK spending watchdog National Audit Office (NAO) reveals that 240,000 to 740,000 urgent referrals for suspected cancer were missed by GPs during the pandemic. There are also a record six million people waiting for hospital treatment. Do you:

A) Immediately resolve to fight the cancer crisis, appointing Dr Karol Sikora as the head of the operation, and tackle the non-Covid health crisis by introducing surgical hubs across the nation

B) Despite 95% of the population now possessing Covid antibodies, choose to redouble your focus on that disease, give vaccines to robust young adults who don't need them while canceling health checks for the over-75s. You also give GPs £15 a time for each jab they administer, thus ensuring they perform other duties less 

Extensive global data indicates that there is absolutely no correlation between mask mandates and stopping the spread of this virus. Taking this into account, do you:

A) Refrain from a mask mandate

B) Introduce a new mask mandate

(Note: in answering this and other questions, always bear in mind that the manufacturers of masks - and tests and vaccines - love money and have an awful lot of influence on global governments)

The chairman of the Commons education committee, Robert Halfon, tells you that 100,000 pupils are “lost in the system” and vulnerable to cruelty at home; it is estimated that 20,000 children have dropped off school rolls since March 2020; and children’s NHS mental health referrals have doubled during lockdowns. Do you:

A) Get children’s routines and activities back to normal immediately, insisting that their work and play should be no different from how it used to be - and introduce heavy fines for schools who don't implement this 

B) Reintroduce mandatory masking in schools

You note that Nigeria has vastly lower omicron cases per test than France, Spain and Portugal (and the UK). Which countries do you put on the red travel list:

A) France, Spain and Portugal (although you then decide that the whole red list thing is absolute madness because this disease is endemic, and in any case the omicron variant is very mild)

B) Nigeria (and Grunt Shipps, or whatever his name is, deals with that sort of thing, you can’t be bothered with such piffling things like the destruction of the tourist industry in the UK and abroad)

Even if travellers from red list countries test negative and have been fully vaccinated they still have to pay £2,285 for eleven nights’ hotel quarantine. Do you think this is fair and just?

A) Of course not. It’s absurdly disproportionate and ethically and morally obscene

B) Yep - keep locking those suckers up! (And the hotel owners are Tory party donors)

The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has warned you that a move to ‘Plan B’ restrictions could cost the British economy £4 billion a month and knock two per cent off GDP,  thus further reducing the amount you will have to spend on health and other things in the future. Do you:

A) Conclude that to move back into restrictions would be suicidal and you ditch any plans to do so immediately

B) Implement Plan B restrictions. Who gives a damn about the nation’s finances anyway?

You are tasked with ordering vaccines to battle this virus. Do you:

A) Order enough to cover the UK population, and prioritise giving it to the elderly and immune-compromised who make up 99.9% of the deaths caused by this virus

B) Order enough to cover your population seven times over and choose not to give any surplus to the vulnerable in developing countries and instead give this vaccine (which we will not know the long-term effects of for many years) to young people who have a 99.997% chance of survival from Covid

Some of your staff have been found to have broken lockdown restrictions last Christmas. Do you:

A) Admit that although the restrictions were wholly disproportionate and inhuman, it was rank hypocrisy for those making the rules to not follow them while expecting others to. You then offer your resignation

B) Within hours of the leak, announce restrictions for this Christmas that you expect to be adhered to, or heavy fines will be issued. Throw the staff under the bus

How did you do?

Mostly As - sorry, you are way too sensible and rational-minded to head the British government

Mostly Bs - well done, you are the prime minister! Your lack of wisdom, foresight and courage is only matched by your serial incompetence and mendaciousness