“Wots all this then?” Boris Johnson asks as Freedom Day Looms
The people want to participate in the time-honored tradition of British surfing
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson invented a July 19 holiday called “Freedom Day” to celebrate his work in defeating coronavirus just in time for England’s hottest surf destination, Cornwall, to open up for unfettered summer fun. Virtually all restrictions in bars, pubs, and clubs across the UK will lift on Freedom Day, even as cases surge to numbers equivalent with those of last January.
Johnson’s government believes that the NHS’s vaccination campaign has kept those testing positive out of hospital beds despite rising case numbers. However, Johnson himself warned citizens to beware of premature celebrations of the pandemic’s end. “I cannot say this powerfully or emphatically enough. This pandemic is not over,” he said, before reiterating that he still plans to lift most restrictions across the country as though it is.
According to The Guardian, his cabinet is not behind him and Johnson is befuddled. Freedom Day presents a moral dilemma for the rumpled populist leader, who, despite almost dying last year “in hospital,” knows in his heart that The Only Way Is Essex (clubbing, luv; maskless indoor tanning to prepare for a surf holiday in southwestern England; whatever the British equivalent of Sun-In is on hairpiece), and yet, his country is at stake, innit?