This England

This England explores the Boris Johnson year(s) as PM, years that included the covid-19 pandemic. As the 6-part series unfolds, the images of despair, panic, death and national misery becomes harder and harder to witness, still so close to those events are we. The Tory gov't shows itself to be craven, wilfully deaf and blind to the needs of those less fortunate than themselves, which is to say the massive majority of the UK. Scenes in which Johnson romps through #10, his dog firmly in his grasp until he hands same off to any nearby staff, i.lustrate a man so completely consumed with his own image and his delight in who he is and what he 'owns'. Scenes of his young wife's baby shower are set against lives of people that are being ripped apart, families being decimated. And through the horrors, Johnson, his wife and much of the staff carry on without seeing or feeling the reality of a world outside their cosy bubble. Dom, the PM's chief strategist is a monster of maddening arrogance, one who in our current climate might be a match for Stephen Miller. Kenneth Branagh presents a PM with all the stammer and charm of a spoiled brat who knows that getting his way is his birthright. I found the episodes more and more difficult to sit through -- watching people choke to death, viewing one intubation after another, seeing doctors and nurses doing their very best against odds too many and too heavy to get past, thanks to gov't neglect and gov't indifference, takes its toll. And this is with the freedom to watch, to pause, to walk away, actuons that were clearlynot options for any of us in the terrifying reality of that time.