Final Word from Thursday, December 9, 2021
Andrej Babiš said on Fri. that it would make no sense to approve a vaccine mandate for those aged 60 and above if the next government planned to abolish it, but then his cabinet approved it anyway. Hardly anyone even noticed the discrepancy, because Babiš's prevarications have become such a routine matter. If his comments aren't time-stamped, it's hard to keep up with what is valid. This should theoretically make things easy for a straight shooter like Petr Fiala, but it doesn't. Just as Babiš's conflicts of interest made life more difficult for Věslav Michalik, Babiš's looseness with the truth puts a greater demand on Fiala. If his cabinet lets the vaccine mandate for the 60+ age group stand, which seems highly likely, he won't be just another politician who changes his mind as circumstances change. He'll be like Babiš. When his cabinet then fails to make a real dent in the Kč 377bn budget deficit, people might start thinking that Fiala's lies actually bother them more than Babiš's did. [ Czech Republic vaccination groups industry minister STAN ]
Glossary of difficult words
discrepancy - an illogical or surprising lack of compatibility or similarity between two or more facts;
prevarication - an act of speaking in an evasive way;
straight shooter - an honest and forthright person;
to be loose with the truth - to speak or write about something in such a way that what is true or false is misleadingly or deceptively unclear;
dent - a reduction in amount or size.