UK Justice Forum 🇬🇧
UK and North American politics. => A look at British politics in the light of the decision to leave the EU. => Topic started by: faithlilly on March 14, 2020, 06:32:07 PM
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From elsewhere.
Despite the sudden announcement of 10 deaths in 24 hours in England, there's no information about the number of cases in the UK. My daughter's housemate came back from Spain with symptoms on Weds. Though he reported to 111, they refused to test and no one has traced contacts or taken any details. He clearly has Covid 19 at this point. But no-one knows or is interested. The virus is being allowed to run unchecked and only deaths are recorded. A BBC news channel said there are only estimates but it's thought there are currently as many as 10,000 live cases of the virus in the UK. No-one can be sure. The government is not keeping proper statistics!!!!!! Everyone calling 111 is just told to self-isolate. My daughter and her other housemate are bound to catch this. It is unavoidable. No instructions have been given that they should isolate too; no-one after a few calls to 111 even asked about the living situation of her infected housemate.There must be millions of people living in multiple occupation in this under-housed Country. And how can people claim sick pay without proof of infection, or because they are living under the same roof as an infected person, who they can't prove has got it and they don't know whether they have? This is nuts! How can they reasonably ask their employer for time off either? My daughter is the Events Manager for one of the Country's major museums and art galleries working with a vast number of corporate and general visitors to this nationally famous facility on a daily basis. Her other flatmate is a local authority music therapist who works with young people with a variety of disabilities and mental health problems on a peripatetic basis - her case load must be what would be called vulnerable! The infected housemate is the manager of a touring opera company. Most of his company must have become infected in Spain, surely? (Spain was locked down this afternoon following 1500 new cases in one day. All incoming planes were turned back mid flight.) Between them by daughter, her housemates and their fellow workers they could infect millions!!!!
Meanwhile, the Irish are trying to co-ordinate their response to the virus but the North has to follow Boris's half-cocked approach, while the South has closed schools and followed the rest of Europe. It is clear to me that no-one is actually doing anything about this in the UK at all. Bozo is guilty, at the very least, of dereliction of duty. His approach is not scientific, it isn't even being scientifically recorded. He is insane He has to be removed from office. THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CARRY ON. Within a very short time this could develop into a massive and fatal tragedy. Millions will die. Far from controlling some peak on a graph, or slowing it down, the government don't even know how many people are on the graph at all! If this is an example of how we are being managed from the top down, what price the input of the rest of Bozo's incredibly lax and often cerebrally challenged cabinet members and their weird, bullied, anti-social staff? Why is nobody taking this under control? Maybe we need to contact the WHO and ask them to send in a management team to take over? This Tory government have completely lost the plot!
Your thoughts ?
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From elsewhere.
Despite the sudden announcement of 10 deaths in 24 hours in England, there's no information about the number of cases in the UK. My daughter's housemate came back from Spain with symptoms on Weds. Though he reported to 111, they refused to test and no one has traced contacts or taken any details. He clearly has Covid 19 at this point. But no-one knows or is interested. The virus is being allowed to run unchecked and only deaths are recorded. A BBC news channel said there are only estimates but it's thought there are currently as many as 10,000 live cases of the virus in the UK. No-one can be sure. The government is not keeping proper statistics!!!!!! Everyone calling 111 is just told to self-isolate. My daughter and her other housemate are bound to catch this. It is unavoidable. No instructions have been given that they should isolate too; no-one after a few calls to 111 even asked about the living situation of her infected housemate.There must be millions of people living in multiple occupation in this under-housed Country. And how can people claim sick pay without proof of infection, or because they are living under the same roof as an infected person, who they can't prove has got it and they don't know whether they have? This is nuts! How can they reasonably ask their employer for time off either? My daughter is the Events Manager for one of the Country's major museums and art galleries working with a vast number of corporate and general visitors to this nationally famous facility on a daily basis. Her other flatmate is a local authority music therapist who works with young people with a variety of disabilities and mental health problems on a peripatetic basis - her case load must be what would be called vulnerable! The infected housemate is the manager of a touring opera company. Most of his company must have become infected in Spain, surely? (Spain was locked down this afternoon following 1500 new cases in one day. All incoming planes were turned back mid flight.) Between them by daughter, her housemates and their fellow workers they could infect millions!!!!
Meanwhile, the Irish are trying to co-ordinate their response to the virus but the North has to follow Boris's half-cocked approach, while the South has closed schools and followed the rest of Europe. It is clear to me that no-one is actually doing anything about this in the UK at all. Bozo is guilty, at the very least, of dereliction of duty. His approach is not scientific, it isn't even being scientifically recorded. He is insane He has to be removed from office. THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CARRY ON. Within a very short time this could develop into a massive and fatal tragedy. Millions will die. Far from controlling some peak on a graph, or slowing it down, the government don't even know how many people are on the graph at all! If this is an example of how we are being managed from the top down, what price the input of the rest of Bozo's incredibly lax and often cerebrally challenged cabinet members and their weird, bullied, anti-social staff? Why is nobody taking this under control? Maybe we need to contact the WHO and ask them to send in a management team to take over? This Tory government have completely lost the plot!
Your thoughts ?
"Despite the sudden announcement of 10 deaths in 24 hours in England, there's no information about the number of cases in the UK. My daughter's housemate came back from Spain with symptoms on Weds. Though he reported to 111, they refused to test and no one has traced contacts or taken any details. He clearly has Covid 19 at this point. But no-one knows or is interested. "
I agree we should have closed the borders to those coming from infected areas.
" It is clear to me that no-one is actually doing anything about this in the UK at all. Bozo is guilty, at the very least, of dereliction of duty. His approach is not scientific, it isn't even being scientifically recorded. He is insane He has to be removed from office. THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CARRY ON. Within a very short time this could develop into a massive and fatal tragedy. Millions will die "
Sounds a bit like the TRUTH from Greta and her 11 years to die story.
FACTS: there are over 1billion people in China- it started there- millions didn't die!
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I found this interesting piece...
Krista Moen Moyer wrote on Facebook:
“And just like that, the government controls all sporting events, concerts, jobs, colleges, medical facilities, whether or not you can leave your house, controls depleted resources such as toilet paper and food, controls all travel…. And you guys wonder why they develop and use viruses to scare the public. They now control you and everything about your life. See how easy it was? Mass panic, hysteria, complete control of, literally the world. Over a virus. One that has an extremely high survival rate. All freedom has been limited overnight. See how easy that was?”
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"Despite the sudden announcement of 10 deaths in 24 hours in England, there's no information about the number of cases in the UK. My daughter's housemate came back from Spain with symptoms on Weds. Though he reported to 111, they refused to test and no one has traced contacts or taken any details. He clearly has Covid 19 at this point. But no-one knows or is interested. "
I agree we should have closed the borders to those coming from infected areas.
" It is clear to me that no-one is actually doing anything about this in the UK at all. Bozo is guilty, at the very least, of dereliction of duty. His approach is not scientific, it isn't even being scientifically recorded. He is insane He has to be removed from office. THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CARRY ON. Within a very short time this could develop into a massive and fatal tragedy. Millions will die "
Sounds a bit like the TRUTH from Greta and her 11 years to die story.
FACTS: there are over 1billion people in China- it started there- millions didn't die!
‘Infect’ millions...not kill millions.
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‘Infect’ millions...not kill millions.
the piece you quoted said millions will die.
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‘Infect’ millions...not kill millions.
" It is clear to me that no-one is actually doing anything about this in the UK at all. Bozo is guilty, at the very least, of dereliction of duty. His approach is not scientific, it isn't even being scientifically recorded. He is insane He has to be removed from office. THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CARRY ON. Within a very short time this could develop into a massive and fatal tragedy. Millions will die "[/b]
I did read this correctly.
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" It is clear to me that no-one is actually doing anything about this in the UK at all. Bozo is guilty, at the very least, of dereliction of duty. His approach is not scientific, it isn't even being scientifically recorded. He is insane He has to be removed from office. THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CARRY ON. Within a very short time this could develop into a massive and fatal tragedy. Millions will die "[/b]
I did read this correctly.
Apologies you did but millions worldwide..that is not a ridiculous suggestion.
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the piece you quoted said millions will die.
Your one contribution to this thread was to correct me...that says it all.
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He’s beyond parody.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18310479.boris-johnson-makes-last-gasp-joke-lack-ventilators-amid-pandemic/
BORIS Johnson left manufacturers unimpressed last night after making light of the lack of available ventilator equipment in the UK as the coronavirus spreads.
Ventilators are critical in the care of some people suffering coronavirus, and there is concern that the NHS will face a shortage of the life-saving equipment as need increases.
A recent report from the Imperial College Covid-19 response team also warned that, under the UK Government's current plan to curb the spread of the pandemic, the health system will be "overwhelmed many times over".
In a conference call with over 60 businesses last night, Johnson and Michael Gove asked manufacturers to step up to help deal with the shortage.
However, according to POLITICO, Johnson joked that the initiative to build more ventilators could be known as "Operation Last Gasp".
One participant speaking with POLITICO journalist Charlie Cooper said “He couldn’t help but act the clown, even though he was a on call with serious CEOs from goodness knows how many companies.”
55 people in the UK have died as a result of Covid-19 as of Tuesday morning.
Downing Street did not comment.
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Apologies you did but millions worldwide..that is not a ridiculous suggestion.
I read it to be millions in the UK as it says Boris is insane lol..
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Your one contribution to this thread was to correct me...that says it all.
Oh? What does it say? Why so sensitive?
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The government has just announced a massive bailout package for business and I for one am thankful for it.
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Apologies you did but millions worldwide..that is not a ridiculous suggestion.
The hysterical rant you quoted is blaming Boris personally for the potential death of millions, how could he be held responsible for deaths worldwide?! Utterly absurd hyperbole, but typical lefty hysteria.
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The government has just announced a massive bailout package for business and I for one am thankful for it.
What about renters ?
What about people on zero hour contracts ?
France is halting all payments for gas, water etc etc...measures that would really help the lowest paid...even Trump is giving out money to those who really need it. What is Johnson doing ?
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The hysterical rant you quoted is blaming Boris personally for the potential death of millions, how could he be held responsible for deaths worldwide?! Utterly absurd hyperbole, but typical lefty hysteria.
Isn’t the help you’re getting for your business from the government socialism in action ?
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Isn’t the help you’re getting for your business from the government socialism in action ?
Oh god is it?! I better refuse it then!! Who knew Boris was a raving Socialist?!
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What about renters ?
What about people on zero hour contracts ?
France is halting all payments for gas, water etc etc...measures that would really help the lowest paid...even Trump is giving out money to those who really need it. What is Johnson doing ?
Eating the babies of the poor, I expect.
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Isn’t the help you’re getting for your business from the government socialism in action ?
No, That is capitalism.. money raised by taxes,by those who work for those who create the wealth in the first place. remove them and you have poor chasing poor crumbs.
Boris is working on it...
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If I get a handout from the government I won’t have to suspend paying my employee’s wages, which will prevent him from falling into debt and potential homelessness, so people complaining that Boris is only interested in helping business and not the poor don’t really seem to understand that helping business IS helping the people some of whom are in the lowest socio-economic groups.
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No, That is capitalism.. money raised by taxes,by those who work for those who create the wealth in the first place. remove them and you have poor chasing poor crumbs.
Boris is working on it...
Of course it’s not capitalism...the market is collapsing. You obviously don’t understand socialism.
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If I get a handout from the government I won’t have to suspend paying my employee’s wages, which will prevent him from falling into debt and potential homelessness, so people complaining that Boris is only interested in helping business and not the poor don’t really seem to understand that helping business IS helping the people some of whom are in the lowest socio-economic groups.
Are you paying your employees if they are unwell ?
Socialism in action.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/boris-johnson-will-have-to-adopt-some-very-socialist-principles-whether-he-likes-it-or-not/17/03/
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If I get a handout from the government I won’t have to suspend paying my employee’s wages, which will prevent him from falling into debt and potential homelessness, so people complaining that Boris is only interested in helping business and not the poor don’t really seem to understand that helping business IS helping the people some of whom are in the lowest socio-economic groups.
If your employee really is such a short hop from homelessness, may I suggest you pay him a bit more in the first place.
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Are you paying your employees if they are unwell ?
Socialism in action.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/boris-johnson-will-have-to-adopt-some-very-socialist-principles-whether-he-likes-it-or-not/17/03/
Of course I am, I’m not a monster.
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Of course I am, I’m not a monster.
Good to hear it.
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If your employee really is such a short hop from homelessness, may I suggest you pay him a bit more in the first place.
You might be interested to learn that he earns more per hour than I do most weeks.
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You might be interested to learn that he earns more per hour than I do most weeks.
Mmmm...that suggests to me that you’re not so great at this business malarkey.
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Mmmm...that suggests to me that you’re not so great at this business malarkey.
Thanks for that, such a thoughtful comment x
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Thanks for that, such a thoughtful comment x
As most of my posts are met with derision and disdain by your good self I’m surprised that you felt deserving of any other response.
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As most of my posts are met with derision and disdain by your good self I’m surprised that you felt deserving of any other response.
How childishly tit-for-tat. I tend to attack your opinions, not you personally. Your suggestion that I’m no good at business is derived from a position of almost complete ignorance, a quite blissful state for you no doubt. Have a nice day.
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How childishly tit-for-tat. I tend to attack your opinions, not you personally. Your suggestion that I’m no good at business is derived from a position of almost complete ignorance, a quite blissful state for you no doubt. Have a nice day.
I didn’t say that you were no good at business...as you say I’m completely ignorant of your level of business acumen...you suggested in in your comment about your employee earning more than you.
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I didn’t say that you were no good at business...as you say I’m completely ignorant of your level of business acumen...you suggested in in your comment about your employee earning more than you.
You need to read what I wrote again then, this time try and understand what I wrote. Many thanks.
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Mmmm...that suggests to me that you’re not so great at this business malarkey.
”you’re no good at business”
What’s the difference, essentially?
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You need to read what I wrote again then, this time try and understand what I wrote. Many thanks.
Nope still reads the same. Some weeks your employee earns more per hour than you do..isn’t that what you wrote ?
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Nope still reads the same. Some weeks your employee earns more per hour than you do..isn’t that what you wrote ?
Which is true but doesn’t mean that overall they make more out of the business than I do. It helps if you think laterally and not just see what you want to see. I work more hours each week, some weeks I earn more per hour, ergo overall I make more money. Now berate me for being a capitalist pig.
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Could we keep to the subject matter of the thread please and desist from the noxious comments. TY
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Which is true but doesn’t mean that overall they make more out of the business than I do. It helps if you think laterally and not just see what you want to see. I work more hours each week, some weeks I earn more per hour, ergo overall I make more money. Now berate me for being a capitalist pig.
Not at all...I admire you. It’s not easy to run a small business.
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Not at all...I admire you. It’s not easy to run a small business.
Thanks for your words of admiration
“you’re not so great at this business malarkey”
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Thanks for your words of admiration
“you’re not so great at this business malarkey”
Not sure why you are still banging on about this. Why does what I think matter to you ?
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Not sure why you are still banging on about this. Why does what I think matter to you ?
It doesn’t, I’m just pointing out your inconsistencies. You admire me (yeah right!) but also don’t think I’m much good at this business malarkey. You decided to have a dig at me and expect me to accept it without comment? Tough. If you don’t want me to challenge you, don’t make provocative posts in the first place because I will call you out on your nasty nonsense. Now, back to more important matters.
Boris’s leadership is putting us all in danger. Does anyone actually believe this?
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It doesn’t, I’m just pointing out your inconsistencies. You admire me (yeah right!) but also don’t think I’m much good at this business malarkey. You decided to have a dig at me and expect me to accept it without comment? Tough. If you don’t want me to challenge you, don’t make provocative posts in the first place because I will call you out on your nasty nonsense. Now, back to more important matters.
Boris’s leadership is putting us all in danger. Does anyone actually believe this?
Whether I think you are a good businessman is immaterial....I admire your spirit and determination....even though, on occasion, your hourly rate is less than your employee.
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Whether I think you are a good businessman is immaterial....I admire your spirit and determination....even though, on occasion, your hourly rate is less than your employee.
I’m not a businessman but thanks. Now, back on topic?
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I’m not a businessman but thanks. Now, back on topic?
That explains a lot.
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Pantomime clown Boris Johnson flounders as crisis deepens
John Crace
John Crace
Hopelessly out of his depth, PM is levitas incarnate as he addresses half-empty Commons
@JohnJCrace
Wed 18 Mar 2020 16.46 GMT
The Labour benches had already long since stopped cheering on their leader at prime minister’s questions, but now the Tories have also fallen silent. This is politics in the time of coronavirus. No braying. No waving of order papers. No wild acclaim for the repetition of mindless soundbites. The silence of MPs breaking the habit of a lifetime and trying to treat one another with respect and leading by example.
Not that there were many MPs. For what is normally a guaranteed full house, there were barely 100 members in the chamber, all of whom were trying to maintain a safe distance from one another. And on Tory faces there were growing flickers of concern. Choosing Boris Johnson as their leader suddenly wasn’t looking like such a good idea. Boris is a good-time party guy. The sort of man who can be the life and soul of the Olympics and be relied on for any upbeat bollocks about Brexit.
But Boris just can’t do the serious stuff. He is levitas incarnate. A man with an unbearable lightness of being. At a time of national crisis, the country wants a man who is willing to put in the hard yards. Who can be bothered to read briefing papers longer than two sides of A4.
What’s more, deep down, Boris knows he is floundering. That he is hopelessly out of his depth. Up till now he’s always got away with somehow coming up with the right words. The master of the glib. A catchphrase for every occasion. Now though, those same words are dying in his throat. They don’t even convince him, let alone the other members of the cabinet. Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove could barely look at him. Liz Truss was lost in a world of her own. But then she often is.
The pantomime clown with the pantomime hair has morphed into a pantomime villain. Someone even children can identify as inherently untrustworthy. And it’s taking its toll. Over the last few weeks – since he first got round to taking the pandemic seriously – he has aged years. His eyes are red and puffy, his complexion pallid and the bags deepening into furrows. At night he weeps, though mostly for himself. Of all the gin joints in all of the towns in all of the world, why did he have to walk into this one?
This may well have been Jeremy Corbyn’s last PMQs, if rumours that parliament might shut for ordinary business at the end of the week are true or self-isolation for the over-70s is brought in at the weekend. If it is, then at least he can say he went out on a high, for his questions struck just the right tone and manner. While promising to work with the government in doing whatever was required, he pointed to some abject failures in the government response. Why couldn’t statutory sick pay be raised to EU levels? Were families really meant to get by on £90 per week? What about those on zero-hours contracts? What about those who couldn’t pay the rent? And why wasn’t more being done to test NHS workers – as well as the rest of the population – and provide more vitally needed protective clothing and ventilators?
Unusually, the Tory benches were just as keen – if not more so – to hear the answers. Because up till now most of Johnson’s public announcements have been somewhat on the vague side, and their constituents are just as concerned as Labour’s. Trying to convince the country that the UK’s science is miles ahead of the rest of the world’s science hadn’t been a spectacular success, and it’s often felt like the rest of the country has been streets ahead of the government in its preparations for coronavirus. Just suggesting that people might like not go to pubs too often is hardly groundbreaking advice. Even if it does help bail out the insurance industry. Important to have your priorities right.
Here Boris unwisely felt himself to be on stronger ground. The government had been doing a brilliant job by employing the nudge economics of such superb super-forecasters as Dominic Cummings and Steve Hilton, who have so far managed to get just about every forecast wrong. The thing was, these geniuses had managed to subvert nudge theory into turning it on its head. Long live the weirdos and the misfits. The model the government was using was to do nothing and just wait until everyone introduced sensible panic measures of their own. Then once the public had done its job for it it, the government would then be nudged into turning it into official policy. Ideal for the Boris with No Clothes, who couldn’t face the responsibility of decision making.
Every question was on the coronavirus and the longer the session progressed, the more Tories began to further self-isolate from Boris. His answers on protective wear, ventilators and widespread testing sounded borderline delusional. How can one man have done so little when NHS staff have been begging him to do more for weeks? The prime minister couldn’t even bring himself to contemplate a possible extension to the Brexit transition. Imagine it. When the country might be economically on its knees, we have a prime minister happy to bankrupt it completely just to keep the rightwing Brexiters on board.
There were no answers on closures of schools either, despite several questions on them. Looks like the plan is to be nudged into doing it later after Scotland and Wales have taken the lead. It won’t be long before cities are in lockdown. A policy many people have already taken for themselves. Lions led by donkeys.
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That explains a lot.
What does it explain?
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deleted
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Britain’s death rate (deaths per million) is currently lower that of Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland. If Boris’s “lax leadership” is putting us all in danger we would expect that death rate to rise significantly in the coming days.
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Britain’s death rate (deaths per million) is currently lower that of Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland. If Boris’s “lax leadership” is putting us all in danger we would expect that death rate to rise significantly in the coming days.
Try telling that to families who will loose their loved ones because they couldn’t financially afford to stay off of work.
You really have been easily bought. You personify the ‘I’m alright Jack ‘ society we now, sadly, seem to live in.
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Try telling that to families who will loose their loved ones because they couldn’t financially afford to stay off of work.
You really have been easily bought. You personify the ‘I’m alright Jack ‘ society we now, sadly, seem to live in.
You just can’t stop insulting me and allowing your argument to be emotive and personal can you? What did I write in the post that you commented on that gave you to make such a provocative and inaccurate observation?
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You just can’t stop insulting me and allowing your argument to be emotive and personal can you? What did I write in the post that you commented on that gave you to make such a provocative and inaccurate observation?
I find it really interesting that when Labour’s manifesto suggested £96 billion of spending there was cries of derision not least from you yet fast forward 3 months and you are set to benefit from the government’s £330 billion payout for businesses and not a peep about spending. Further having given socialism a kicking for months yet when your business is at risk of going down the tubes you don’t mind benefiting from that very same ‘ failed ideology’. So much for capitalism !
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I find it really interesting that when Labour’s manifesto suggested £96 billion of spending there was cries of derision not least from you yet fast forward 3 months and you are set to benefit from the government’s £330 billion payout for businesses and not a peep about spending. Further having given socialism a kicking for months yet when your business is at risk of going down the tubes you don’t mind benefiting from that very same ‘ failed ideology’. So much for capitalism !
Can you tell me how your off-topic rant is relevant to what I wrote, which was:
“Britain’s death rate (deaths per million) is currently lower that of Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland. If Boris’s “lax leadership” is putting us all in danger we would expect that death rate to rise significantly in the coming days”
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Can you tell me how your off-topic rant is relevant to what I wrote, which was:
“Britain’s death rate (deaths per million) is currently lower that of Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland. If Boris’s “lax leadership” is putting us all in danger we would expect that death rate to rise significantly in the coming days”
You do not dictate the direction of the debate, much as you’d like to. I understand the attempt to deflect though.
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You do not dictate the direction of the debate, much as you’d like to. I understand the attempt to deflect though.
Oh the irony. I post on topic, no ad homs, and you completely deflect with insults and false accusations. Hilarious!!
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Oh the irony. I post on topic, no ad homs, and you completely deflect with insults and false accusations. Hilarious!!
So you now believe in government intervention ?
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So you now believe in government intervention ?
In case you haven’t noticed, the government (and governments throughout the world) haven’t decided to throw money at business and people because they suddenly decided socialism was the way forward, it’s because the world is facing an unprecedented crisis. Once the health crisis is over, it will be back to the evils of capitalism just you wait and see! FYI I believe in caring capitalism, a concept you have previously sneered at. I think what is happening right now around the world demonstrates that concept pretty well.
Congratulations for successfully taking the thread away from the topic and from the point I made. It’s certainly something you are skilled at, well done.
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Britain’s death rate (deaths per million) is currently lower that of Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland. If Boris’s “lax leadership” is putting us all in danger we would expect that death rate to rise significantly in the coming days.
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In case you haven’t noticed, the government (and governments throughout the world) haven’t decided to throw money at business and people because they suddenly decided socialism was the way forward, it’s because the world is facing an unprecedented crisis. Once the health crisis is over, it will be back to the evils of capitalism just you wait and see! FYI I believe in caring capitalism, a concept you have previously sneered at. I think what is happening right now around the world demonstrates that concept pretty well.
Congratulations for successfully taking the thread away from the topic and from the point I made. It’s certainly something you are skilled at, well done.
But socialism is the way forward...the market couldn’t answer the questions asked of it but socialism could, as it did with the recession of 2008...and will in the future.
Caring capitalism @)(++(*
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But socialism is the way forward...the market couldn’t answer the questions asked of it but socialism could, as it did with the recession of 2008...and will in the future.
Caring capitalism @)(++(*
Socialism is the way forward @)(++(*
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Britain’s death rate (deaths per million) is currently lower that of Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland. If Boris’s “lax leadership” is putting us all in danger we would expect that death rate to rise significantly in the coming days.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-uk-scientists-letter-government-plan-herd-immunity-a9402661.html
https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/analysis-discovery/2020/03/15/johnsons-coronavirus-chaos-criticised-by-uk-doctors-demanding-greater-transparency/
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-uk-scientists-letter-government-plan-herd-immunity-a9402661.html
https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/analysis-discovery/2020/03/15/johnsons-coronavirus-chaos-criticised-by-uk-doctors-demanding-greater-transparency/
These are already massively out of date, things have moved on at a pace since the weekend. You can cut and paste as many links as you like, at the end of the day the facts will speak for themselves. If the Government’s handling of this crisis is causing unavoidable deaths then the stats will reflect this. So far our death rate per head of population is well down compared to other EU countries, maybe that will change, maybe it won’t. Perhaps you’d like to give examples of governments doing a much better job at containing the virus? China perhaps? Are they socialists in your view?
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These are already massively out of date, things have moved on at a pace since the weekend. You can cut and paste as many links as you like, at the end of the day the facts will speak for themselves. If the Government’s handling of this crisis is causing unavoidable deaths then the stats will reflect this. So far our death rate per head of population is well down compared to other EU countries, maybe that will change, maybe it won’t. Perhaps you’d like to give examples of governments doing a much better job at containing the virus? China perhaps? Are they socialists in your view?
The amount of deaths are going up day on day. How many of those were AVOIDABLE we will only see in the fullness of time. That Johnson has changed the direction of travel on the virus this week ( remember I started this thread 6 days ago ) suggests that a change was needed. Perhaps the scientist pointing out he was making a hash of it changed that direction....who knows...but the fact that frontline NHS workers still have inadequate protection and are not being tested for the virus suggests that Johnson’s slow response is still impacting on those bearing the heaviest burden.
I noticed Johnson talked this afternoon about remote briefings....he really doesn’t like scrutiny, does he ?
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Now this is leadership and solid, sensible proposals to protect jobs and lives.
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Labour%E2%80%99s-Economic-Plan-for-Individuals-Affected-By-Coronavirus-Final.pdf
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The amount of deaths are going up day on day. How many of those were AVOIDABLE we will only see in the fullness of time. That Johnson has changed the direction of travel on the virus this week ( remember I started this thread 6 days ago ) suggests that a change was needed. Perhaps the scientist pointing out he was making a hash of it changed that direction....who knows...but the fact that frontline NHS workers still have inadequate protection and are not being tested for the virus suggests that Johnson’s slow response is still impacting on those bearing the heaviest burden.
I noticed Johnson talked this afternoon about remote briefings....he really doesn’t like scrutiny, does he ?
Being flexible, not dogmatic, acting on new information, all to be applauded. I really can’t stand people who are using this crisis to score political points and promote their own ideology. Now is not the time. We’re all in this together, we’re all human, we all need to be a bit more understanding and accept that these are unprecedented times. Take a leaf out of Andy Burnham’s book on QT last night. He managed to discuss the issue constructively without playing the blame card (too much). Should the Government have put the country on complete lockdown from Day One like happened in Wuhan? Well it certainly seems to have worked there but would people here have acquiesced meekly, done as they were told, without criticism? Highly unlikely!
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Now this is leadership and solid, sensible proposals to protect jobs and lives.
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Labour%E2%80%99s-Economic-Plan-for-Individuals-Affected-By-Coronavirus-Final.pdf
Watch the briefing tonight. Government has recognized their are holes in their support package and hopefully these will be plugged by their new measures.
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Something to note is that even if we get to grips with the virus and manage to get to a point where we can return to some level of normality in this country (say in 3 months), it doesn’t mean that parts of the rest of the world won’t still be struggling with it and that therefore a ban on international travel esp. for holidays is likely to be in place for much longer.
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Watch the briefing tonight. Government has recognized their are holes in their support package and hopefully these will be plugged by their new measures.
Let’s hope so.
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Something to note is that even if we get to grips with the virus and manage to get to a point where we can return to some level of normality in this country (say in 3 months), it doesn’t mean that parts of the rest of the world won’t still be struggling with it and that therefore a ban on international travel esp. for holidays is likely to be in place for much longer.
If disruption to our holiday plans is the worst effect we suffer then I think that we can all agree that we have got off very lightly.
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Being flexible, not dogmatic, acting on new information, all to be applauded. I really can’t stand people who are using this crisis to score political points and promote their own ideology. Now is not the time. We’re all in this together, we’re all human, we all need to be a bit more understanding and accept that these are unprecedented times. Take a leaf out of Andy Burnham’s book on QT last night. He managed to discuss the issue constructively without playing the blame card (too much). Should the Government have put the country on complete lockdown from Day One like happened in Wuhan? Well it certainly seems to have worked there but would people here have acquiesced meekly, done as they were told, without criticism? Highly unlikely!
It’s not playing the blame card to point out that when push came to shove the free market ideology so beloved of this government had nothing to offer. That’s simply fact.
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Nailed it.
https://youtu.be/-Ai7gwV7glE
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It’s not playing the blame card to point out that when push came to shove the free market ideology so beloved of this government had nothing to offer. That’s simply fact.
Don’t be silly please.
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Don’t be silly please.
In what way is that silly ?
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In what way is that silly ?
In what way is it true? You are using an international crisis, a completely extraordinary situation that demands completely extraordinary measures to promote your socialist agenda. You seem to be suggesting that had Labour won the election everything would be so much better. You seem to be suggesting that the Conservatives are now all socialists. If that’s the case you should be delighted and supportive but I don’t get that sense at all. You actually seem to be enjoying this crisis as it’s giving you and your fellow Tory bashers plenty to crow about. I wish you’d all grow up and behave with some decency and understanding. Fat chance of that though!
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I think Johnson and his government are stepping up to the oche.
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In what way is it true? You are using an international crisis, a completely extraordinary situation that demands completely extraordinary measures to promote your socialist agenda. You seem to be suggesting that had Labour won the election everything would be so much better. You seem to be suggesting that the Conservatives are now all socialists. If that’s the case you should be delighted and supportive but I don’t get that sense at all. You actually seem to be enjoying this crisis as it’s giving you and your fellow Tory bashers plenty to crow about. I wish you’d all grow up and behave with some decency and understanding. Fat chance of that though!
I’m not suggesting any of the above. I am suggesting that a socialist solution had to be put in place when the market could not offer one....the end.
I’m not sure why you think Johnson should be immune from criticism....especially the criticism of experts.
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I’m not suggesting any of the above. I am suggesting that a socialist solution had to be put in place when the market could not offer one....the end.
I’m not sure why you think Johnson should be immune from criticism....especially the criticism of experts.
It’s not a socialist solution, it’s the ONLY solution. Criticising Johnson at a time when he is struggling to do the best for the country is not really helping. Do you really think the government has done nothing right in the last week? How about some credit where it’s due, or are you simply too churlish to do that?
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Let’s hope so.
So my employee will definitely better off than me now thanks to the latest government announcement
“There is mounting anger among the self employed over what they regard as insufficient support for them in the emergency measures announced this evening in the UK by chancellor Rishi Sunak.
The self employed will gain access to the equivalent of Statutory Sick Pay, and be given tax deferrals, but are not part of the 80% earnings pledge.
The Federation of Small Business said: “The question at this point is – with firms beingforcedto close – why have the self-employed been excluded from the commitment to pay 80% of earnings?
“It cannot be right that an employee currently earning £25,000 a year could access £20,000 per annum through the new job retention scheme, while someone who’s self-employed earning the same sum might only access around £5,000 worth of support.”
Phillipa Childs of the Bectu union, which covers thousands of freelancers in the entertainment and media industry, added: “The Chancellor’s support package for workers will come as a devastating blow to freelance and self-employed workers who needed much more support than they are being given.
“He must urgently revise his income support plan to include these workers and not force them onto the welfare system and we will be making urgent representations to government to make sure all our members are protected during this crisis.”
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It’s not a socialist solution, it’s the ONLY solution. Criticising Johnson at a time when he is struggling to do the best for the country is not really helping. Do you really think the government has done nothing right in the last week? How about some credit where it’s due, or are you simply too churlish to do that?
Turn the tables...imagine Corbyn was PM and had been soundly criticised by over a hundred scientists for his actions....would you be so magnanimous then ?
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So my employee will definitely better off than me now thanks to the latest government announcement
“There is mounting anger among the self employed over what they regard as insufficient support for them in the emergency measures announced this evening in the UK by chancellor Rishi Sunak.
The self employed will gain access to the equivalent of Statutory Sick Pay, and be given tax deferrals, but are not part of the 80% earnings pledge.
The Federation of Small Business said: “The question at this point is – with firms beingforcedto close – why have the self-employed been excluded from the commitment to pay 80% of earnings?
“It cannot be right that an employee currently earning £25,000 a year could access £20,000 per annum through the new job retention scheme, while someone who’s self-employed earning the same sum might only access around £5,000 worth of support.”
Phillipa Childs of the Bectu union, which covers thousands of freelancers in the entertainment and media industry, added: “The Chancellor’s support package for workers will come as a devastating blow to freelance and self-employed workers who needed much more support than they are being given.
“He must urgently revise his income support plan to include these workers and not force them onto the welfare system and we will be making urgent representations to government to make sure all our members are protected during this crisis.”
But Johnson’s doing his best !!!! 8)><(
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Turn the tables...imagine Corbyn was PM and had been soundly criticised by over a hundred scientists for his actions....would you be so magnanimous then ?
Yes. You seem to have forgotten that I can’t stand Boris either. Rishi though, now he’s a little star isn’t he?
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But Johnson’s doing his best !!!! 8)><(
Child.
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I love Matthew Parris, he so often puts into words what I am thinking
“Crashing the economy will also cost lives
Just like the virus, impoverishment kills, and locking down the elderly might have been a drastic but fairer solution
Matthew Parris
Saturday March 21 2020, 12.01am, The Times
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From the start we’ve all agreed on one thing: we must follow the science. Viruses, we say, are blind to politics and the coronavirus emergency requires only one political choice: to listen to the experts. Our prime minister is hardly seen except flanked by two of these and the intended message is clear: there are no political choices here. “The science” will tell us what to do.
But when people tell you there is no place for politics in a decision, it is almost always the case that they have already made a political choice, often without knowing it. Boris Johnson has. He may well have made the right choice. God knows, when as prime minister you face the possibility that within a year we could lose more of our citizens than we lost during the Blitz, the pressure must be almost intolerable. He has decided to proceed, as have most world leaders, on the basis that it’s best to err on the side of caution and throw everything we have at this pandemic. Including our economy, as evidenced by the chancellor’s astonishing measures to try to mitigate the harm.
I cannot say he is wrong. What do I, what does he, what does anyone know? One writes with great hesitation on an issue like this. But there’s a lurking doubt in my mind that still seems worth thinking about, if only for when the next pandemic strikes, as it surely will.
World leaders have decided to prioritise the reduction of deaths among the old and very old at the expense of the livelihoods and prospects of those who are still at work. Even that is only a guess at this stage. It does seem that the elderly and those with underlying health conditions are overwhelmingly going to be the casualties but information is still coming in and it’s too early to be sure. But on that basis we’re weighing the nation’s jobs, businesses and the whole of the younger generation’s and working population’s prospects against an imperative to keep one smaller part of the population (to which, being 70 years old, I belong) alive. Must it be either/or?
If the aim is finally to corner and isolate the virus, and if we throw everything into the attempt, we shall almost certainly succeed but at enormous cost. What, though, if this is not the last time a virus mutates into a fast-spreading threat to life? Even after we beat this one, we won’t know whether Covid-19 is annihilated for good or just beaten into a temporary stand-off. So it’s worth attempting a dispassionate survey of the battle, to see what can be learnt for the next one.
Some things seem increasingly likely. That, for instance, Covid-19 is much better at spreading itself than the influenzas we’re familiar with; that it appears much, much more dangerous to the old or physically fragile than to the rest of the population; and that the fatality rate is much higher than from flu. Figures vary wildly between countries, however, and can be especially unreliable when they come from countries like ours where (to the bafflement of most of us) there has been little or no testing of the general population. The most reliable figure probably comes from South Korea and that figure so far is just short of 1 per cent.
The Korean rate may look small but could still mean about half a million of us British would die, far more than seasonal flu kills; and my guess is that this is the worst-case scenario ministers are contemplating. It would overwhelm our NHS, which explains this week’s U-turn on the previous policy of attenuating the spread rather than trying to stop it. Most of these deaths would probably occur among our oldest citizens plus some younger people already at risk.
Given what we already know, or surmise, might it be worth considering a more ruthlessly but more narrowly targeted drive to confine the most apparently at-risk (like me, I fear) for our own protection, rather than (as it seems) wreck the economy by confining almost everybody else? Are we going to do this all over again next time a mutant virus threatens the ever-increasing number of fragile elderly that modern medicine adds to our population? My mother is 93 and very frail. My father was kept alive for 15 years with heart operations and drugs. I wouldn’t wish to sacrifice a day of their lives but if we could design a way to keep grandparents safe without closing down the economy, then their many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren would thank us and so, I think, would they.
“Epidemic” is an emotive word; “pandemic” even more so. A virus, especially a “foreign virus” roots easily in the public and political imagination as an identifiable enemy, an alien assassin. Fatality statistics look like brute and indisputable facts, especially when the figures for “would have died anyway before long” are beyond our grasp and sound so unfeeling. Contrast these all-too vivid and immediate spectres with cloudy abstractions like “the economic health” of a nation or the planet.
But economic distress is no less real for being stealthy. Impoverishment kills. Redundancy can be a physical or mental health disaster. Bankruptcy wounds. Debt scars. Austerity comes calling in its own hood, wields its own scythe. People die quietly, alone and unreported — through drink, drugs, unhealthy living, depression or despair. Read Sir Michael Marmot’s 2010 report, Fair Society, Healthy Lives, and you will see hard statistics about the links between poverty and reduced longevity — longevity which in the poorer parts of Britain is already dropping. And if this is true of a rich country with a well-resourced health service such as ours, what will a global recession do in places where provision is already thin and overstretched?
If you kick the global economy in the guts, you kick billions of real people in the guts too: it’s just that, unlike coronavirus victims, we’ll never know who they were. For good and honourable reasons our government is straining to protect the identifiable, but perhaps at the expense of the less identifiable. We can’t change course now, and nor am I even certain our present course is unwise, but let’s give some brutally honest thought to how we approach the next epidemic when it hits us. Is crashing the economy, every time, the only answer? If so, and given this pandemic is not the last, we’re in for a rollercoaster ride.“
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"Given what we already know, or surmise, might it be worth considering a more ruthlessly but more narrowly targeted drive to confine the most apparently at-risk (like me, I fear) for our own protection, rather than (as it seems) wreck the economy by confining almost everybody else?"
This was precisely what I suggested last night, for which I received a 50% warning.
It's only the old & ill that are dying, so ship them all off somewhere, quarantine them all together & let the rest of us young healthy individuals go about life as normal.
Quite why that warranted a 50% warning I've no idea.
Perhaps the mod that issued the points might like to explain the reason, I won't hold my breath.
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Yes. You seem to have forgotten that I can’t stand Boris either. Rishi though, now he’s a little star isn’t he?
The hedge fund speculator who helped bring about the 2008 recession....that Rishi ?
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From elsewhere.
Despite the sudden announcement of 10 deaths in 24 hours in England, there's no information about the number of cases in the UK.
This site will tell you how many cases, how many deaths, how many recoveries etc., worldwide and by country. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
If you look at the country stats, the UK is actually doing much better than some countries on complete lockdown and so is the USA. I wouldn't panic.
It's amazing that they don't shut the whole world down in a bad year of flu which kills around 650,000 and in a good year around 250,000 don't you think?
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The hedge fund speculator who helped bring about the 2008 recession....that Rishi ?
He must only have been 12 then! Rishi, the one whose actions even Trade Union leaders are praising.
https://unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2020/march/chancellors-measures-historic-bold-and-very-much-necessary-mccluskey/
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He must only have been 12 then! Rishi, the one whose actions even Trade Union leaders are praising.
https://unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2020/march/chancellors-measures-historic-bold-and-very-much-necessary-mccluskey/
Sunak is 39... that would make him 27 in 2008.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-chancellor-rishi-sunak-cashed-in-on-fund-that-helped-break-banks-rb7zgfqkz
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Sunak is 39... that would make him 27 in 2008.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-chancellor-rishi-sunak-cashed-in-on-fund-that-helped-break-banks-rb7zgfqkz
It was a joke dear.
Thanks for posting the link, he has risen even further in my estimation having helped raise £900m for the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation charity. And he makes Keir Starmer look like Shrek. 8**8:/:
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It was a joke dear.
Thanks for posting the link, he has risen even further in my estimation having helped raise £900m for the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation charity. And he makes Keir Starmer look like Shrek. 8**8:/:
It was a joke ? Really ? Isn’t a joke supposed to be funny ?
Helped crash the economy....which necessitated ( allegedly) austerity which plunged one in four children into poverty.
As to your last comment...I prefer the Paul Begala quote “Politics is just show business for ugly people.”
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It was a joke ? Really ? Isn’t a joke supposed to be funny ?
Helped crash the economy....which necessitated ( allegedly) austerity which plunged one in four children into poverty.
As to your last comment...I prefer the Paul Begala quote “Politics is just show business for ugly people.”
I wouldn’t expect you to have a sense of humour so don’t worry about it, most strident lefties don’t. Rishi Sunak’s economic package is being praised by those on both sides of the political spectrum, shame you’re too churlish to recognise what an incredible bailout this is, and to give credit where it’s due, but then would require a degree of maturity which it seems you just don’t possess..
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I wouldn’t expect you to have a sense of humour so don’t worry about it, most strident lefties don’t. Rishi Sunak’s economic package is being praised by those on both sides of the political spectrum, shame you’re too churlish to recognise what an incredible bailout this is, and to give credit where it’s due, but then would require a degree of maturity which it seems you just don’t possess..
And you berated me for ad homs...ssshhhh you really are the worst kind of hypocrite.
Most commentators agree that while the chancellor’s economic package is welcome it does not go far enough.....the self-employed, as you yourself pointed out, are going to lose out.
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And you berated me for ad homs...ssshhhh you really are the worst kind of hypocrite.
Most commentators agree that while the chancellor’s economic package is welcome it does not go far enough.....the self-employed, as you yourself pointed out, are going to lose out.
If you insult me then expect to be insulted back. Treat me with respect and I will treat you with respect. I think that’s only fair. I am self-employed. I hope more will be done for me and I believe that it will but if it isn’t then I will have to find ways to help myself. The government cannot guarantee the financial solvency of every single citizen. Despite your nasty earlier accusation that “I’m Alright Jack”, the truth is I’m quite the opposite, you’re just so intent on slagging me off you can’t see it.
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If you insult me then expect to be insulted back. Treat me with respect and I will treat you with respect. I think that’s only fair. I am self-employed. I hope more will be done for me and I believe that it will but if it isn’t then I will have to find ways to help myself. The government cannot guarantee the financial solvency of every single citizen. Despite your nasty earlier accusation that “I’m Alright Jack”, the truth is I’m quite the opposite, you’re just so intent on slagging me off you can’t see it.
TBH I’m really not too fussed about your insults....sticks and stones and all that....what I do find amusing is the hypocrisy....berating tit for tat tactics as being ‘childish’ when indulging in them yourself.
And of course the government can’t guarantee that every citizen is compensated but when someone who is earning £30000 is compensated to the tune of £24000 while self-employed, zero hours contractors etc etc are all but ignored then Sunak’s economic package certainly is too little. I do wonder whether Sunak’s striking good looks (! ) and your pragmatism will be enough to carry you through when the consequences of his decisions really start to bite.
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TBH I’m really not too fussed about your insults....sticks and stones and all that....what I do find amusing is the hypocrisy....berating tit for tat tactics as being ‘childish’ when indulging in them yourself.
And of course the government can’t guarantee that every citizen is compensated but when someone who is earning £30000 is compensated to the tune of £24000 while self-employed, zero hours contractors etc etc are all but ignored then Sunak’s economic package certainly is too little. I do wonder whether Sunak’s striking good looks (! ) and your pragmatism will be enough to carry you through when the consequences of his decisions really start to bite.
I find you hypocrisy a constant source of amusement too, so perhaps that is why we get on so well. @)(++(*
Don’t you worry your little head about me, I’m alright Jac 8(0(*
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TBH I’m really not too fussed about your insults....sticks and stones and all that....what I do find amusing is the hypocrisy....berating tit for tat tactics as being ‘childish’ when indulging in them yourself.
And of course the government can’t guarantee that every citizen is compensated but when someone who is earning £30000 is compensated to the tune of £24000 while self-employed, zero hours contractors etc etc are all but ignored then Sunak’s economic package certainly is too little. I do wonder whether Sunak’s striking good looks (! ) and your pragmatism will be enough to carry you through when the consequences of his decisions really start to bite.
Universal basic income has been mooted as a possible response to the situation....
"Daniel Susskind, a fellow in economics at Balliol College, Oxford university, suggests in the Financial Times today that a £1,000 cash payout per person, per month would cost the Government about £66bn a month"
He says this is "a fraction of the nearly £500bn bailout the UK needed to stay afloat during the 2008 financial crisis", adding: "Universal Basic Income is an affordable and feasible response to coronavirus."
Boris Johnson said introducing Universal Basic Income to aid financially hit workers "will certainly be considered" and agreed to hold talks with supporters of the proposed scheme.
But Downing Street sources indicated that the preferred option for supporting people would be to use the existing welfare system, according to North Wales Live."
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/coronavirus-universal-basic-income-uk-17948185
Seems like a sensible temporary solution to me, but I think it pretty much guaranteed it won't happen.
The Tories can bail out banks, the aviation industry, car manufacturers & such like, but when it comes to actually helping the average Joe, I think they'd prefer he died in a ditch from starvation & dysentery, without the luxury of toilet paper.
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I find you hypocrisy a constant source of amusement too, so perhaps that is why we get on so well. @)(++(*
Don’t you worry you’re little head about me, I’m alright Jac 8(0(*
That should be Jack.
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Universal basic income has been mooted as a possible response to the situation....
"Daniel Susskind, a fellow in economics at Balliol College, Oxford university, suggests in the Financial Times today that a £1,000 cash payout per person, per month would cost the Government about £66bn a month"
He says this is "a fraction of the nearly £500bn bailout the UK needed to stay afloat during the 2008 financial crisis", adding: "Universal Basic Income is an affordable and feasible response to coronavirus."
Boris Johnson said introducing Universal Basic Income to aid financially hit workers "will certainly be considered" and agreed to hold talks with supporters of the proposed scheme.
But Downing Street sources indicated that the preferred option for supporting people would be to use the existing welfare system, according to North Wales Live."
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/coronavirus-universal-basic-income-uk-17948185
Seems like a sensible temporary solution to me, but I think it pretty much guaranteed it won't happen.
The Tories can bail out banks, the aviation industry, car manufacturers & such like, but when it comes to actually helping the average Joe, I think they'd prefer he died in a ditch from starvation & dysentery, without the luxury of toilet paper.
The financial aid package for “the average Joe” has already in the space of a week risen to £330bn, quite a large fraction of the banks bailout (which incidentally happened under a Labour government) but hey, don’t let actual facts get in the way of your drivel.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/coronavirus-bailout-business-banks-rishi-sunak-financial-crisis-covid-19-a9407691.html
£1000 each per person per month, would amount to nearly £200bn in 3 months. Would this money go to those with tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds or more in savings? Those with private pensions? The super rich? Asylum seekers? Those already receiving benefits? Apprentices? Students?
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The financial aid package for “the average Joe” has already in the space of a week risen to £330bn, quite a large fraction of the banks bailout (which incidentally happened under a Labour government) but hey, don’t let actual facts get in the way of your drivel.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/coronavirus-bailout-business-banks-rishi-sunak-financial-crisis-covid-19-a9407691.html
£1000 each per person per month, would amount to nearly £200bn in 3 months. Would this money go to those with tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds or more in savings? Those with private pensions? The super rich? Asylum seekers? Those already receiving benefits? Apprentices? Students?
The suggestion is 'universal' meaning all encompassing, & there are 66 million people in the UK. If you gave each one of them £1000,.....you do the math (s).
£200 billion in 3 months, by which time we should be able to leave our houses & resume normal life.
Asylum seekers? Personally I'd pack them all of to Italy without face masks or hand sanitiser.
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The suggestion is 'universal' meaning all encompassing, & there are 66 million people in the UK. If you gave each one of them £1000,.....you do the math (s).
£200 billion in 3 months, by which time we should be able to leave our houses & resume normal life.
Asylum seekers? Personally I'd pack them all of to Italy without face masks or hand sanitiser.
You think normal life will resume in 3 months if we’re each given a grand a month? Hmm, ok. Well personally we as a family would be positively rolling in cash if the government did that, so bring it on, we’d be able to spend the £9k on a nice foreign holiday in the summer, I hear Wuhan’s nice...
Actually, make that 12k, didn’t realise teenagers would be eligible for the £1k hand out too. KERCHING.
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You think normal life will resume in 3 months if we’re each given a grand a month? Hmm, ok. Well personally we as a family would be positively rolling in cash if the government did that, so bring it on, we’d be able to spend the £9k on a nice foreign holiday in the summer, I hear Wuhan’s nice...
Actually, make that 12k, didn’t realise teenagers would be eligible for the £1k hand out too. KERCHING.
I'm only going by Daniel Susskind's figures as quoted in the article.
The actual cost would be considerably lower if it excluded unnecessary groups such as the super rich, under 16's & Muslims.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-universal-basic-income-uk-mps-lords-boris-johnson-a9413046.html
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"Given what we already know, or surmise, might it be worth considering a more ruthlessly but more narrowly targeted drive to confine the most apparently at-risk (like me, I fear) for our own protection, rather than (as it seems) wreck the economy by confining almost everybody else?"
This was precisely what I suggested last night, for which I received a 50% warning.
It's only the old & ill that are dying, so ship them all off somewhere, quarantine them all together & let the rest of us young healthy individuals go about life as normal.
Quite why that warranted a 50% warning I've no idea.
Perhaps the mod that issued the points might like to explain the reason, I won't hold my breath.
three doctors under 30 are on ventilators in London due to the virus...no doubt they will make a full recovery...But if the young dont practice some sort of isolation they will be responsible for the spread of the disaes and there wont be enough ventilators to go round...and the will die too....you really dont talk a lot of sense
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three doctors under 30 are on ventilators in London due to the virus...no doubt they will make a full recovery...But if the young dont practice some sort of isolation they will be responsible for the spread of the disaes and there wont be enough ventilators to go round...and the will die too....you really dont talk a lot of sense
I'm young & I've been self isolating so don't blame me, blame the Chinese, they started it.
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I'm only going by Daniel Susskind's figures as quoted in the article.
The actual cost would be considerably lower if it excluded unnecessary groups such as the super rich, under 16's & Muslims.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-universal-basic-income-uk-mps-lords-boris-johnson-a9413046.html
As long as trolls and other undeserving idiots were excluded I’d be cool with that.
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https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/cummings-led-government-strategy-which-protected-economy-and-put-elderly-at-risk/22/03/
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https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/cummings-led-government-strategy-which-protected-economy-and-put-elderly-at-risk/22/03/
I thing Cummings is a nasty little weasel and I can imagine him saying it, but suppose this was the calibre of evidence for something being put forward by a McCann supporter as evidence of a point they were trying to make in the other forum. It would be rejected by you a) on the grounds that it was in the MSM and b) on the grounds that no individual was specifically quoted as saying this. Do your standards wax and wane according to what debate you’re having?
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I thing Cummings is a nasty little weasel and I can imagine him saying it, but suppose this was the calibre of evidence for something being put forward by a McCann supporter as evidence of a point they were trying to make in the other forum. It would be rejected by you a) on the grounds that it was in the MSM and b) on the grounds that no individual was specifically quoted as saying this. Do your standards wax and wane according to what debate you’re having?
I’m not asking you to believe it....just putting it out there.
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I’m not asking you to believe it....just putting it out there.
Well if it’s true I guess we can be thankful that the little weasel changed his mind. It is somewhat disturbing to know just how much the government is in thrall to this man. The sooner he gets the boot the better IMO.
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Well if it’s true I guess we can be thankful that the little weasel changed his mind. It is somewhat disturbing to know just how much the government is in thrall to this man. The sooner he gets the boot the better IMO.
At last something we agree on ?{)(**
It is worrying though that Johnson is so easily swayed by very bad advice.
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/22/nhs-staff-cannon-fodder-lack-of-coronavirus-protection
NHS staff feel like 'cannon fodder' over lack of coronavirus protection
Frontline staff in plea for PPE as some improvise by tying plastic aprons around their heads
Coronavirus – latest updates
See all our coronavirus coverage
Haroon Siddique and Sarah Marsh
Sun 22 Mar 2020 14.19 GMT Last modified on Sun 22 Mar 2020 14.39 GMT
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Play Video 1:05
'Lambs to the slaughter': NHS staff say they feel abandoned by government – video
Frontline NHS staff are not getting the protective equipment they need to treat coronavirus patients, leaving them feeling like “cannon fodder”, a grassroots doctors’ organisation has said.
Healthcare workers in hospitals have been voicing frustration and fear over the lack of personal protective equipment, saying they are having to substitute the correct gear with items that are less effective – or even improvise with non-medical materials.
Responding to staff concerns, Dr Rinesh Parmar, chair of the Doctors’ Association, told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show: “We have had doctors tell us they feel like lambs to the slaughter, that they feel like cannon fodder. GPs tell us that they feel absolutely abandoned.
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“We are all pleading with Boris Johnson that [the government] really look into arranging the vital personal protection equipment that all of us need on the NHS frontline. What our doctors are telling us is that although equipment is arriving, some of it is inadequate, some of it doesn’t meet the World Health Organization guidance. That really doesn’t fill frontline healthcare staff with the confidence that they need.”
Nurses in the Royal Free hospital in north London have been affixing clinical waste bags around their legs, the Guardian has been told, while at North Middlesex hospital they have been tying plastic aprons around their heads.
One nurse, who did not wish to be named, said: “Widespread nurses are making their own PPE. I know friends I trained with doing the same. We have to protect ourselves, some of us have children and babies. We are trying to help people but have to protect families. I don’t know why we are not getting PPE.”
Coronavirus: the week explained - sign up for our email newsletter
Read more
The lack of PPE raises the prospects of NHS staff falling ill – and potentially spreading Covid-19 – at a time of unprecedented demand, when attempts are being made to bolster the workforce.
But there are also concerns that existing staff members who are unwell are not getting sufficient support or being tested.
A nurse at a London trust said one of her colleagues was asking for help from her, having failed to get it elsewhere. “One of my colleagues was asking for help from me, to check if he can come to A&E,” she said. “The colleague’s temperature is spiking at 40.3C [104.6F] – before, it never went below 38.6 [101.4F]. They are taking paracetamol every four hours.
“We wanted them to go to A&E but the advice of 111 is not to go. We have said they have to come and be tested. This person is staff – why can they not get this? I am worried about them as they are having body pains and no one seems to care.
“Our colleagues in A&E said: ‘Come in and we will test you.’ Sometimes we have to save our colleagues.”
Jason Leitch, NHS national clinical director of healthcare quality and strategy, insisted there was sufficient supply of PPE but admitted distribution had been an issue.
He told BBC Breakfast on Sunday: “I know there is enough supply, the distribution has been challenging, because we’re adding in new places, we’re adding in care homes, we’re adding in community pharmacies. We’ve not had to do regular PPE transmission to those places before, so that is causing some individual challenges around the four UK countries.”
He said staff had to be trained in how to fit the high-end masks, adding: “I am confident that the beginning of that supply chain is robust
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At last something we agree on ?{)(**
It is worrying though that Johnson is so easily swayed by very bad advice.
He is in a very difficult position and thank god he is being flexible and now moving swiftly to adopt new measures based on the latest advice. Thank god he is not Donald Trump.
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He is in a very difficult position and thank god he is being flexible and now moving swiftly to adopt new measures based on the latest advice. Thank god he is not Donald Trump.
Two agreements in one day. ?{)(**
Still as long as Cummings is still advising it’s still a worry.
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Two agreements in one day. ?{)(**
Still as long as Cummings is still advising it’s still a worry.
Cummings appears to have done a complete volte face and the government’s instructions are now much more in step with the rest of the world. No matter how vile he is I don’t seriously believe he wants us all to die.
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Cummings appears to have done a complete volte face and the government’s instructions are now much more in step with the rest of the world. No matter how vile he is I don’t seriously believe he wants us all to die.
Of course he doesn’t want us all to die....he just doesn’t care if we do.
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Of course he doesn’t want us all to die....he just doesn’t care if we do.
Oh well, then we owe to ourselves to ensure we don’t all die, just to spite him.
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Oh well, then we owe to ourselves to ensure we don’t all die, just to spite him.
Now you’re talking 8(0(*
-
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/22/nhs-staff-cannon-fodder-lack-of-coronavirus-protection
NHS staff feel like 'cannon fodder' over lack of coronavirus protection
Frontline staff in plea for PPE as some improvise by tying plastic aprons around their heads
Coronavirus – latest updates
See all our coronavirus coverage
Haroon Siddique and Sarah Marsh
Sun 22 Mar 2020 14.19 GMT Last modified on Sun 22 Mar 2020 14.39 GMT
Shares
347
Play Video 1:05
'Lambs to the slaughter': NHS staff say they feel abandoned by government – video
Frontline NHS staff are not getting the protective equipment they need to treat coronavirus patients, leaving them feeling like “cannon fodder”, a grassroots doctors’ organisation has said.
Healthcare workers in hospitals have been voicing frustration and fear over the lack of personal protective equipment, saying they are having to substitute the correct gear with items that are less effective – or even improvise with non-medical materials.
Responding to staff concerns, Dr Rinesh Parmar, chair of the Doctors’ Association, told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show: “We have had doctors tell us they feel like lambs to the slaughter, that they feel like cannon fodder. GPs tell us that they feel absolutely abandoned.
Advertisement
“We are all pleading with Boris Johnson that [the government] really look into arranging the vital personal protection equipment that all of us need on the NHS frontline. What our doctors are telling us is that although equipment is arriving, some of it is inadequate, some of it doesn’t meet the World Health Organization guidance. That really doesn’t fill frontline healthcare staff with the confidence that they need.”
Nurses in the Royal Free hospital in north London have been affixing clinical waste bags around their legs, the Guardian has been told, while at North Middlesex hospital they have been tying plastic aprons around their heads.
One nurse, who did not wish to be named, said: “Widespread nurses are making their own PPE. I know friends I trained with doing the same. We have to protect ourselves, some of us have children and babies. We are trying to help people but have to protect families. I don’t know why we are not getting PPE.”
Coronavirus: the week explained - sign up for our email newsletter
Read more
The lack of PPE raises the prospects of NHS staff falling ill – and potentially spreading Covid-19 – at a time of unprecedented demand, when attempts are being made to bolster the workforce.
But there are also concerns that existing staff members who are unwell are not getting sufficient support or being tested.
A nurse at a London trust said one of her colleagues was asking for help from her, having failed to get it elsewhere. “One of my colleagues was asking for help from me, to check if he can come to A&E,” she said. “The colleague’s temperature is spiking at 40.3C [104.6F] – before, it never went below 38.6 [101.4F]. They are taking paracetamol every four hours.
“We wanted them to go to A&E but the advice of 111 is not to go. We have said they have to come and be tested. This person is staff – why can they not get this? I am worried about them as they are having body pains and no one seems to care.
“Our colleagues in A&E said: ‘Come in and we will test you.’ Sometimes we have to save our colleagues.”
Jason Leitch, NHS national clinical director of healthcare quality and strategy, insisted there was sufficient supply of PPE but admitted distribution had been an issue.
He told BBC Breakfast on Sunday: “I know there is enough supply, the distribution has been challenging, because we’re adding in new places, we’re adding in care homes, we’re adding in community pharmacies. We’ve not had to do regular PPE transmission to those places before, so that is causing some individual challenges around the four UK countries.”
He said staff had to be trained in how to fit the high-end masks, adding: “I am confident that the beginning of that supply chain is robust
If we must have point scoring then we need to have a balance.
Iraq war started by Phoney tony and bampot Bush:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/mod-left-uk-forces-in-iraq-ill-equipped-amid-lack-of-plan-chilcot-report-says
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If we must have point scoring then we need to have a balance.
Iraq war started by Phoney tony and bampot Bush:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/mod-left-uk-forces-in-iraq-ill-equipped-amid-lack-of-plan-chilcot-report-says
You seem to be under the illusion that I would offer any support of Blair’s actions.
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You seem to be under the illusion that I would offer any support of Blair’s actions.
No, I am not under that impression Faith. I am pointing out that labour and Tory make errors. None are out right wonderful.
I read that your political affiliation is with the far left of the party political spectrum- I have no issue with that.
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No, I am not under that impression Faith. I am pointing out that labour and Tory make errors. None are out right wonderful.
I read that your political affiliation is with the far left of the party political spectrum- I have no issue with that.
I am a social democrat therefore I’m left of centre but not hard left.
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“Boris deserves measured praise for the tone, content and delivery of his address. For the first time in his premiership I saw an embryo statesman emerging - discarding the natural bonhomie that had become his stock-in-trade - replaced by the gravitas which was required. Not too much distracting hand-waving, thank goodness but with a reasonably-paced delivery and a clear, short unambiguous message. As someone who was appalled at his rise to the top of the Tory party and even rejoiced when he continued to make gaffes, this morning I have to eat a starter portion of humble pie. Cometh the hour, cometh Boris. May he lead the nation successfully through this test.”
I think you would have to be extremely bitter and churlish to disagree with this comment from a Times reader, following yesterday’s announcement. He needs our collective support now, love him or loathe him.
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I am a social democrat therefore I’m left of centre but not hard left.
I don't have a set political position it changes for many reasons. I do listen to all partys' claims and make a judgement call on that from very far right to very far left, and everyone in between.
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Itelexit is coming!!!
Thanks to the EU's open borders which are not being closed which is against the EU laws ^*&& when it suits them.
Here we see the open wounds of the struggling countries and the UN-ELECTED saviors in EU land...
France and Germany refusing to export masks and other vital equipment to save their own and the uninvited asylum seekers via boats to Italy. have Fined them for helping their own economy in the light of lock down.
THANK YOU BREXITEERS FOR GETTING UK OUT IN TIME!
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1259031/coronavirus-news-italy-cases-deaths-eu-italexit-gdp-recession-spt
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1259031/coronavirus-news-italy-cases-deaths-eu-italexit-gdp-recession-spt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-12/italy-fined-by-eu-top-court-for-failing-to-recoup-sardinian-aid
Scottish Independence with EU status.... not looking so good now is it.
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“Boris deserves measured praise for the tone, content and delivery of his address. For the first time in his premiership I saw an embryo statesman emerging - discarding the natural bonhomie that had become his stock-in-trade - replaced by the gravitas which was required. Not too much distracting hand-waving, thank goodness but with a reasonably-paced delivery and a clear, short unambiguous message. As someone who was appalled at his rise to the top of the Tory party and even rejoiced when he continued to make gaffes, this morning I have to eat a starter portion of humble pie. Cometh the hour, cometh Boris. May he lead the nation successfully through this test.”
I think you would have to be extremely bitter and churlish to disagree with this comment from a Times reader, following yesterday’s announcement. He needs our collective support now, love him or loathe him.
It shows how low a bar we have set for Johnson when we it takes for him simply to read a pe-written statement for us to be impressed. Was it only last week that he told us that he was going to visit his mother on Mother’s Day while simultaneously telling us to stay away? Was it only a couple of months ago that he was enjoying a Caribbean freebie when he should have been putting in place measures to negate the worst of this horrendous virus ? We knew it was coming. We had all seen Wuhan. Lest we ever forget, if Johnson hadn’t followed his ‘herd immunity’ strategy we might not have had 89 dead in one day.
I’m aware the right would like to paint those criticising Johnson’s woefully inadequate response as somehow part of the problem but even in times of crisis our elected government’s actions should be scrutinised. In fact it’s arguably more important now than ever before.
-
Itelexit is coming!!!
Thanks to the EU's open borders which are not being closed which is against the EU laws ^*&& when it suits them.
Here we see the open wounds of the struggling countries and the UN-ELECTED saviors in EU land...
France and Germany refusing to export masks and other vital equipment to save their own and the uninvited asylum seekers via boats to Italy. have Fined them for helping their own economy in the light of lock down.
THANK YOU BREXITEERS FOR GETTING UK OUT IN TIME!
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1259031/coronavirus-news-italy-cases-deaths-eu-italexit-gdp-recession-spt
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1259031/coronavirus-news-italy-cases-deaths-eu-italexit-gdp-recession-spt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-12/italy-fined-by-eu-top-court-for-failing-to-recoup-sardinian-aid
Scottish Independence with EU status.... not looking so good now is it.
To add insult to injury:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1259673/EU-news-coronavirus-outbreak-Iran-foreign-aid-latest-covid19-update
Oh Dear.
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It shows how low a bar we have set for Johnson when we it takes for him simply to read a pe-written statement for us to be impressed. Was it only last week that he told us that he was going to visit his mother on Mother’s Day while simultaneously telling us to stay away? Was it only a couple of months ago that he was enjoying a Caribbean freebie when he should have been putting in place measures to negate the worst of this horrendous virus ? We knew it was coming. We had all seen Wuhan. Lest we ever forget, if Johnson hadn’t followed his ‘herd immunity’ strategy we might not have had 89 dead in one day.
I’m aware the right would like to paint those criticising Johnson’s woefully inadequate response as somehow part of the problem but even in times of crisis our elected government’s actions should be scrutinised. In fact it’s arguably more important now than ever before.
" I’m aware the right would like to paint those criticising Johnson’s woefully inadequate response as somehow part of the problem but even in times of crisis our elected government’s actions should be scrutinised. In fact it’s arguably more important now than ever before."
I agree, we do need to keep up pressure for bad or poor judgement on the government.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-boris-johnson-medical-equipment-eu-brexit-a9424631.html
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Rishi has come to the aid of the self-employed just as I knew he would. Thanks Rishi. 8**8:/:
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Rishi has come to the aid of the self-employed just as I knew he would. Thanks Rishi. 8**8:/:
And it only took several weeks of sustained pressure.
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)
And it only took several weeks of sustained pressure.
9 days actually.
PS I regret to inform you that your new avatar is completely illegible but thanks for ditching the “I Am Jew” one.
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)9 days actually.
PS I regret to inform you that your new avatar is completely illegible but thanks for ditching the “I Am Jew” one.
Still...you only have to wait until June....bit like being on Universal Credit really.
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Still...you only have to wait until June....bit like being on Universal Credit really.
I will eventually get far more than being on Universal Credit and unlike some people I realise that government does not hsve a magic wand and that some things take time to set up. This is why people should try and put aside a little bit of the ir income as contingency for such events. I have enough saved to see me through until June because I have been prudent. Also, I expect ten grand to be landing in my business account well before June. I do feel sorry for those who are in a less fortunate position than myself but what do you suggest the govt should do more than it is already doing (which is a pretty magnificent effort imo)?
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I will eventually get far more than being on Universal Credit and unlike some people I realise that government does not hsve a magic wand and that some things take time to set up. This is why people should try and put aside a little bit of the ir income as contingency for such events. I have enough saved to see me through until June because I have been prudent. Also, I expect ten grand to be landing in my business account well before June. I do feel sorry for those who are in a less fortunate position than myself but what do you suggest the govt should do more than it is already doing (which is a pretty magnificent effort imo)?
Then let’s hope your expectations are met.
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I will eventually get far more than being on Universal Credit and unlike some people I realise that government does not hsve a magic wand and that some things take time to set up. This is why people should try and put aside a little bit of the ir income as contingency for such events. I have enough saved to see me through until June because I have been prudent. Also, I expect ten grand to be landing in my business account well before June. I do feel sorry for those who are in a less fortunate position than myself but what do you suggest the govt should do more than it is already doing (which is a pretty magnificent effort imo)?
Provided your trading profits have been below £50,000 on average, the maximum you will receive under the scheme is £2,500 per month for the three months March-May. Payments will begin in June.
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Provided your trading profits have been below £50,000 on average, the maximum you will receive under the scheme is £2,500 per month for the three months March-May. Payments will begin in June.
I am very well aware of the details thanks.
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I am very well aware of the details thanks.
Then it’s surprising you’re so enthusiastic.
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Then it’s surprising you’re so enthusiastic.
Why is that?
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Why is that?
You could die of the virus before you get paid.
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You could die of the virus before you get paid.
So be it.
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Maybe that's why the Tories are withholding payments until June.
They are hoping people snuff it , keeping the cost down.
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Maybe that's why the Tories are withholding payments until June.
They are hoping people snuff it , keeping the cost down.
Yes that’s very likely. In fact I heard that the testing kits they’re planning to roll out have actually been deliberately infected with the virus in the hope that even more people dies because the Tories are evil like Nazis and secretly want lots and lots of people to die, because obviously that will save them LOADSAMONEY..
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Yes that’s very likely. In fact I heard that the testing kits they’re planning to roll out have actually been deliberately infected with the virus in the hope that even more people dies because the Tories are evil like Nazis and secretly want lots and lots of people to die, because obviously that will save them LOADSAMONEY..
Then maybe you can explain why the government are cancelling the much needed production of ventilators ?
https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/18339699.worcesters-gtech-told-not-produce-much-needed-ventilators-government-chief-executive-says/?ref=fbshr
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Then maybe you can explain why the government are cancelling the much needed production of ventilators ?
https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/18339699.worcesters-gtech-told-not-produce-much-needed-ventilators-government-chief-executive-says/?ref=fbshr
Obviously because they want everyone to die.
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Obviously because they want everyone to die.
Obviously that’s not true so are the government simply an inadequate bunch of self-serving individuals who when push came to shove couldn’t cut the mustard ?
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Obviously that’s not true so are the government simply an inadequate bunch of self-serving individuals who when push came to shove couldn’t cut the mustard ?
What reason have they given for cancelling the order?
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What reason have they given for cancelling the order?
Read the link.
Last week the government were crying out for firms who could reconfigure their machinery in order to make the thousands of ventilators that are thought to be needed. What do you think could possibly be an acceptable reason for then telling those firms that the ventilators were no longer required ?
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Read the link.
Last week the government were crying out for firms who could reconfigure their machinery in order to make the thousands of ventilators that are thought to be needed. What do you think could possibly be an acceptable reason for then telling those firms that the ventilators were no longer required ?
That they had procured them from elsewhere? That they didn’t meet strict quality requirements? That they want to put lives at risk and hope many die? You tell me.
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That they had procured them from elsewhere? That they didn’t meet strict quality requirements? That they want to put lives at risk and hope many die? You tell me.
I have no rational answer....and it’s obvious you don’t either.
In case you haven’t read it here is the article.
CITY-BASED manufacture Gtech has been told by the government to not produce much-needed ventilators less than a week after getting the go-ahead, the company’s chief executive has said.
Nick Grey, chief executive of Gtech, said he had been advised by the government on Thursday (March 27) to not push forward with production of ventilators, despite answering a call for help to assist in producing more than 30,000 ventilators, less than two weeks ago.
A statement from the Gtech chief executive said: “Thank you so much for offering to help Gtech with our medical ventilator. I have been absolutely overwhelmed by everyone’s support and generosity.
“On Friday (March 20), the cabinet and medical group co-ordinating the project gave us the go ahead to prepare for production.
“However last evening (March 26) they advised that they did not want us to proceed at this time.
“Everyone involved can be proud that we were ready to respond to the nation needs and start production in such a short time.
“We will still complete and publish our design as there has been a lot of interest for it from around the world.
“Thanks again for all your support and Gtech stand ready to go into production with your support should they be asked to do so.”
The government has been contacted for comment.
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I read the article the first time. What makes you so certain there is no rational answer?
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From Faithlilly’s favourite newspaper, the Guardian
Manufacturing sector
How the UK plans to source 30,000 ventilators for the NHS
New designs, scaling up of existing production and imports in progress to treat Covid-19
Coronavirus – latest updates
See all our coronavirus coverage
Rob Davies
@ByRobDavies
Thu 26 Mar 2020 17.36 GMT Last modified on Thu 26 Mar 2020 19.40 GMT
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Medical ventilators are constructed at the OES medical supply company in Witney,
Medical ventilators are constructed at the OES medical supply company in Witney. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
The government is pursuing a three-pronged strategy to source 30,000 ventilators for the NHS to treat Covid-19 patients, ordering newly designed models, scaling up production of existing ones and importing machines from overseas.
The defence firm Babcock joined the engineering company Dyson on Thursday in revealing plans for an entirely new medical ventilator working to specifications set by the government.
A consortium called Ventilator Challenge UK, involving companies including Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Ford, is separately providing the manufacturing muscle to scale up production of proven models already made by the specialist UK firms Smiths and Penlon.
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A small firm called Inspiration Healthcare has received a £4m order from the NHS for which it will import hundreds of the devices – used to keep patients with respiratory problems breathing – from the US and Israel.
Late on Thursday, the government said it would also join an EU scheme to procure ventilators, having initially said it would not take part because it had missed an invitation to do so owing to a “communication problem”.
A Westminster source said it made sense for the government to pursue multiple strategies in parallel to mitigate the risk of any one option failing.
The firms involved are waiting for the government to go public with its plans but the delay in announcing them is not thought to be holding up the production effort.
Dyson has revealed the most detail about its progress, including pictures of its CoVent prototype. It hopes to begin producing within weeks, pending approval from the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which has been talking to Dyson during the design phase.
Sir James Dyson.
Sir James Dyson. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
However, the government has placed firm orders for 10,000 of the Dyson machines, which will be made at the company’s lab in Hullavington, Wiltshire, a former wartime RAF base, and supplied at cost price.
The company’s founder, Sir James Dyson, has said he will pay for the provision of a further 5,000 machines out of his own pocket, with 1,000 reserved for the NHS and the remainder available to underpin international healthcare efforts.
Babcock is working on a new model in partnership with a leading medical equipment manufacturer that has asked not to be identified but that has experience making hospital ventilators.
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Jon Hall, the managing director of technology for Babcock, said: “This is a critical time for the country as a whole and for the NHS in particular. When the opportunity arose for us to get involved in helping the NHS to save lives, we knew it was the right thing to do. Combining our engineering expertise with advances in medical technology has resulted in a solution that will help the NHS save lives.”
The supply chain will come from factories in Scotland and south-west England.
Dyson and Babcock both expect it to take a couple of weeks before they reach production, meaning the government faces a race against time to produce enough machines to deal with an anticipated surge in patients.
But Ventilator Challenge UK, bristling with the UK’s best-known industrial names, is thought to be ready to move faster because it is working from existing models.
The group is headed by Dick Elsy, of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult research group, coordinating efforts from Airbus, Meggitt, GKN, McLaren, BAE Systems, Ford, Inspiration Healthcare, Renishaw, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Thales and Ultra Electronics.
These firms will help massively scale up production lines for Smiths, which already produces a lightweight portable “paraPac” ventilator, and Penlon, which makes a more heavy-duty machine suited for hospital use.
Ventilator experts said smaller models typically cost about £5,000 to make, while the larger devices could sell for £25,000.
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All of the companies involved are expected to waive any profits, given the national crisis, and the supply chain will come entirely from the UK, in case of any disruption to cross-border trade.
In the meantime, the government has also ordered ventilators from overseas to ensure that it can bridge the gap until the other working groups can get up and running.
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Inspiration Healthcare, based in Crawley, West Sussex, said it had taken a £4m order from the NHS and was importing ventilators from suppliers in the US and Israel.
It typically ships medical equipment to the UK but its chief executive, Neil Campbell, said the devices would come in by air because “time is of the essence”.
Breas UK, a Stratford-upon-Avon company that specialises in ventilators, is also working with the NHS to supply ventilators in the more immediate term.
The company has tripled its capacity since December, adding employees and production lines, and moving to seven-day working at factories in the UK, Sweden and the US. It is also offering remote training on how to use the ventilators for medical staff unfamiliar with them.
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I read the article the first time. What makes you so certain there is no rational answer?
“On Friday (March 20), the cabinet and medical group co-ordinating the project gave us the go ahead to prepare for production.
“However last evening (March 26) they advised that they did not want us to proceed at this time.
Your explanation?
-
From Faithlilly’s favourite newspaper, the Guardian
Manufacturing sector
How the UK plans to source 30,000 ventilators for the NHS
New designs, scaling up of existing production and imports in progress to treat Covid-19
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Rob Davies
@ByRobDavies
Thu 26 Mar 2020 17.36 GMT Last modified on Thu 26 Mar 2020 19.40 GMT
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Medical ventilators are constructed at the OES medical supply company in Witney,
Medical ventilators are constructed at the OES medical supply company in Witney. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
The government is pursuing a three-pronged strategy to source 30,000 ventilators for the NHS to treat Covid-19 patients, ordering newly designed models, scaling up production of existing ones and importing machines from overseas.
The defence firm Babcock joined the engineering company Dyson on Thursday in revealing plans for an entirely new medical ventilator working to specifications set by the government.
A consortium called Ventilator Challenge UK, involving companies including Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Ford, is separately providing the manufacturing muscle to scale up production of proven models already made by the specialist UK firms Smiths and Penlon.
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A small firm called Inspiration Healthcare has received a £4m order from the NHS for which it will import hundreds of the devices – used to keep patients with respiratory problems breathing – from the US and Israel.
Late on Thursday, the government said it would also join an EU scheme to procure ventilators, having initially said it would not take part because it had missed an invitation to do so owing to a “communication problem”.
A Westminster source said it made sense for the government to pursue multiple strategies in parallel to mitigate the risk of any one option failing.
The firms involved are waiting for the government to go public with its plans but the delay in announcing them is not thought to be holding up the production effort.
Dyson has revealed the most detail about its progress, including pictures of its CoVent prototype. It hopes to begin producing within weeks, pending approval from the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which has been talking to Dyson during the design phase.
Sir James Dyson.
Sir James Dyson. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
However, the government has placed firm orders for 10,000 of the Dyson machines, which will be made at the company’s lab in Hullavington, Wiltshire, a former wartime RAF base, and supplied at cost price.
The company’s founder, Sir James Dyson, has said he will pay for the provision of a further 5,000 machines out of his own pocket, with 1,000 reserved for the NHS and the remainder available to underpin international healthcare efforts.
Babcock is working on a new model in partnership with a leading medical equipment manufacturer that has asked not to be identified but that has experience making hospital ventilators.
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Jon Hall, the managing director of technology for Babcock, said: “This is a critical time for the country as a whole and for the NHS in particular. When the opportunity arose for us to get involved in helping the NHS to save lives, we knew it was the right thing to do. Combining our engineering expertise with advances in medical technology has resulted in a solution that will help the NHS save lives.”
The supply chain will come from factories in Scotland and south-west England.
Dyson and Babcock both expect it to take a couple of weeks before they reach production, meaning the government faces a race against time to produce enough machines to deal with an anticipated surge in patients.
But Ventilator Challenge UK, bristling with the UK’s best-known industrial names, is thought to be ready to move faster because it is working from existing models.
The group is headed by Dick Elsy, of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult research group, coordinating efforts from Airbus, Meggitt, GKN, McLaren, BAE Systems, Ford, Inspiration Healthcare, Renishaw, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Thales and Ultra Electronics.
These firms will help massively scale up production lines for Smiths, which already produces a lightweight portable “paraPac” ventilator, and Penlon, which makes a more heavy-duty machine suited for hospital use.
Ventilator experts said smaller models typically cost about £5,000 to make, while the larger devices could sell for £25,000.
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All of the companies involved are expected to waive any profits, given the national crisis, and the supply chain will come entirely from the UK, in case of any disruption to cross-border trade.
In the meantime, the government has also ordered ventilators from overseas to ensure that it can bridge the gap until the other working groups can get up and running.
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Inspiration Healthcare, based in Crawley, West Sussex, said it had taken a £4m order from the NHS and was importing ventilators from suppliers in the US and Israel.
It typically ships medical equipment to the UK but its chief executive, Neil Campbell, said the devices would come in by air because “time is of the essence”.
Breas UK, a Stratford-upon-Avon company that specialises in ventilators, is also working with the NHS to supply ventilators in the more immediate term.
The company has tripled its capacity since December, adding employees and production lines, and moving to seven-day working at factories in the UK, Sweden and the US. It is also offering remote training on how to use the ventilators for medical staff unfamiliar with them.
“A Westminster source ”.....ah that explains it.
“What are the chances? All those ‘technology lessons’ in that flat with the pole dancing pole in, and still the urgent email from the EU about buying cheap ventilators ends up in Boris Johnson’s spam folder.
The detail we shall come on to shortly, but first there’s the even more unfortunate matter of the timing.
As emergency plans are activated all over the country, turning crematorium car parks and other such places into temporary mortuaries (when your delayed wedding day eventually comes around, do try not to think too hard about what the marquee’s been used for), truly it provides no pleasure to wheel out that old phrase about ‘burying bad news.’
At 5pm, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, strolled out again to face the TV cameras, delivering what, by my count, was his twelfth budget of the last nine days. It is hard not to wonder whether the real news snuck out at 4.57pm.
Not so long ago – less than a fortnight, in fact – though it feels like another geological era, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, was issuing a call to arms to every manufacturer in the UK to start producing ventilators. “If you make one we will buy it,” he said. “No number is too high.”
So there was some confusion over the fact that the UK had chosen not to take part in the EU’s ventilator procurement scheme, to which we had expressly and very publicly been invited, despite having left the EU what feels like several lifetimes ago.
The same old Brexit arguments apply here, which we’ll only trot through briefly. All the world wants ventilators; being part of a big bloc, as opposed to being a small country, increases your bargaining power and makes you more attractive to suppliers as you’ll be ordering in larger quantities, yada yada yada.
Surely we weren’t sitting out of the EU scheme out of sheer Brexiteer bloody-mindedness? Actually, it turns out, no, we weren’t. The reasoning provided (yes, at 4.57pm), is that the government didn’t get the emails.
Yes, that’s it. That’s really it. There’s a mad rush for ventilators, no number is too many, and there’s absolutely no time to lose, but an offer to join a massive ventilator procurement scheme somehow ended up in Boris Johnson’s spam folder or something like that.
Government sources have explained that there is no blame involved, and that it was just a mix-up. Given that it has somehow become generally accepted wisdom that it’s not OK to criticise the government (although we notice that the moment Johnson does something 93 per cent of the public support – namely bringing in a lockdown – is also the moment the Daily Telegraph withdraws its backing for him), we must take this explanation at face value.
It would be churlish to point out that, well, the 27 countries that are still in the EU all got the email, didn’t they?
We are continually told that now’s not the time to say such tiresome things as, well, Brexit was very obviously always a terrible idea. So we’d best not seek to make cheap political capital about the sad fact that those much-needed ventilators somehow ended up sitting in Johnson’s junk mail, stuck in grim purgatory somewhere amid the ads for penis-enlargement pills and various scam emails about outstanding child support payments (NB: not all junk emails are actually junk).
There’s also the small matter that the EU’s ventilator procurement scheme was announced at a public press conference, and that the UK could take part was said, on camera, on live television.
Still, we are told that we will consider taking part in “future rounds” now that we’ve missed out on this one.
After all, what’s the rush? At the time of writing, the government is still insisting that the Brexit transition period will end on 31 December, and that the most severe public health and economic crisis quite possibly of all time will have no bearing upon it. That completely pointless event must be rushed through in about a seventh of the time that any sensible analysis dictates is required.
But getting the ventilators in? Don’t panic: there’ll be another boat along in a minute.
It has been stressed that this has nothing to do with ideology. It’s not about Brexit, it’s just a “communications mishap.” At this point, the traditional rhetorical method is to point out that they’re either lying or they’re incompetent.
Mercifully, such is the accumulated evidence that we aren’t required to make that choice. It might very well be a matter of life and death, but it’s certainly not a case of either/or. Both of these options are very much alive. They’re practically indestructible.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-boris-johnson-ventilator-eu-scheme-nhs-a9429196.html?fbclid=IwAR03b6ApGaMyFcu2TB1-P_S_54KsVWqzreDh1SgPLmdHZitKJ4p9Qjlr-Oo
I can see you sitting there VS, muttering to yourself “ mmmm ended up in Boris’s spam folder....sounds rational to me “
@)(++(*
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From the Lancet 28th March 2020.
Offline: COVID-19 and the NHS—“a national scandal”
Richard Horton
Published:March 28, 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30727-3
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“When this is all over, the NHS England board should resign in their entirety.” So wrote one National Health Service (NHS) health worker last weekend. The scale of anger and frustration is unprecedented, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the cause. The UK Government's Contain–Delay–Mitigate–Research strategy failed. It failed, in part, because ministers didn't follow WHO's advice to “test, test, test” every suspected case. They didn't isolate and quarantine. They didn't contact trace. These basic principles of public health and infectious disease control were ignored, for reasons that remain opaque. The UK now has a new plan—Suppress–Shield–Treat–Palliate. But this plan, agreed far too late in the course of the outbreak, has left the NHS wholly unprepared for the surge of severely and critically ill patients that will soon come. I asked NHS workers to contact me with their experiences. Their messages have been as distressing as they have been horrifying. “It's terrifying for staff at the moment. Still no access to personal protective equipment [PPE] or testing.” “Rigid command structures make decision making impossible.” “There's been no guidelines, it's chaos.” “I don't feel safe. I don't feel protected.” “We are literally making it up as we go along.” “It feels as if we are actively harming patients.” “We need protection and prevention.” “Total carnage.” “NHS Trusts continue to fail miserably.” “Humanitarian crisis.” “Forget lockdown—we are going into meltdown.” “When I was country director in many conflict zones, we had better preparedness.” “The hospitals in London are overwhelmed.” “The public and media are not aware that today we no longer live in a city with a properly functioning western health-care system.” “How will we protect our patients and staff…I am speechless. It is utterly unconscionable. How can we do this? It is criminal…NHS England was not prepared…We feel completely helpless.”
England's Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jenny Harries, said on March 20, 2020: “The country has a perfectly adequate supply of PPE.” She claimed that supply pressures had now been “completely resolved”. I am sure Dr Harries believed what she said. But she was wrong and she should apologise to the thousands of health workers who still have no access to WHO-standard PPE. I receive examples daily of doctors having to assess patients with respiratory symptoms but who do so without the necessary PPE to complete their jobs safely. Health workers are challenged if they ask for face masks. Even where there is PPE, there may be no training. WHO standards are not being met. Proper testing of masks is being omitted. Stickers with new expiry dates are being put on PPE that expired in 2016. Doctors have been forced to go to hardware stores to buy their own face masks. Patients with suspected COVID-19 are mixing with non-COVID-19 patients. The situation is so dire that staff are frequently breaking down in tears. As one physician wrote, “The utter failure of sound clinical leadership will lead to an absolute explosion of nosocomial COVID-19 infection.” Front-line staff are already contracting and dying from the disease.
The NHS has been wholly unprepared for this pandemic. It's impossible to understand why. Based on their modelling of the Wuhan outbreak of COVID-19, Joseph Wu and his colleagues wrote in The Lancet on Jan 31, 2020: “On the present trajectory, 2019-nCoV could be about to become a global epidemic…for health protection within China and internationally…preparedness plans should be readied for deployment at short notice, including securing supply chains of pharmaceuticals, personal protective equipment, hospital supplies, and the necessary human resources to deal with the consequences of a global outbreak of this magnitude.” This warning wasn't made lightly. It should have been read by the Chief Medical Officer, the Chief Executive Officer of the NHS in England, and the Chief Scientific Adviser. They had a duty to immediately put the NHS and British public on high alert. February should have been used to expand coronavirus testing capacity, ensure the distribution of WHO-approved PPE, and establish training programmes and guidelines to protect NHS staff. They didn't take any of those actions. The result has been chaos and panic across the NHS. Patients will die unnecessarily. NHS staff will die unnecessarily. It is, indeed, as one health worker wrote last week, “a national scandal”. The gravity of that scandal has yet to be understood.
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Advice on protective gear for NHS staff was rejected owing to cost
Exclusive: DoH dismissed call for eye protection – now needed for coronavirus – in 2017
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Harry Davies
@harryfoxdavies Email
Fri 27 Mar 2020 15.04 GMT Last modified on Fri 27 Mar 2020 18.20 GMT
Guardian documents may help explain the shortage of protective gear in the NHS that is currently hampering efforts by medical staff to manage the coronavirus outbreak.
The Department of Health rejected high-level medical advice about providing NHS staff with certain protective equipment during an influenza pandemic because stockpiling it would be too expensive, the Guardian can reveal.
Documents show that officials working under former health secretary Jeremy Hunt told medical advisers three years ago to “reconsider” a formal recommendation that eye protection should be provided to all healthcare professionals who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients.
The expert advice was watered down after an “economic assessment” found a medical recommendation about providing visors or safety glasses to all hospital, ambulance and social care staff who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients would “substantially increase” the costs of stockpiling.
The documents may help explain a devastating shortage of protective gear in the NHS that is hampering efforts by medical staff to manage the Covid-19 virus pandemic.
Doctors are threatening to quit the profession unless they are properly equipped, and NHS trusts across England have been asking schools to donate science goggles due to the shortages, the Guardian revealed on Wednesday. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has acknowledged “challenges” with the supply of protective material to NHS staff and has drafted in the army to get supplies to frontline workers.
In recent days, his department says, more than 15m face masks have been delivered to the frontline, including 24.6m gloves and 1.9m sets of eye protection delivered on Wednesday.
However documents seen by the Guardian suggest officials working under his predecessor resisted advice about stockpiling supplies of eye protection in case of a pandemic of this kind.
In 2015, what is now the Department of Health and Social Care tasked one of its independent advisory committees, the new and emerging respiratory virus threat advisory group (Nervtag), to review the UK’s approach to stockpiling personal protective equipment (PPE) for use in an influenza pandemic “to help inform future stockpile and purchasing decisions”.
Nervtag had been created the previous year to advise the government on pandemic influenza and new virus threats to the UK. The advisory group made a series of “formal recommendations” to the department in March 2016, which had been compiled by a subgroup of senior NHS clinicians and scientists, and agreed by the wider committee.
Asked what items of PPE would be required in a pandemic, the government’s advisers recommended “providing eye protection for all hospital, community, ambulance and social care staff who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients.”
They said the protection could be either visors or safety glasses, adding such equipment was necessary because there was some evidence of risk of infection via the eyes when in close contact with pandemic influenza patients.
However, according to minutes of a Nervtag meeting in June 2017, a health department official told the advisers to reconsider their advice as information had emerged about “the very large incremental cost of adding in eye protection.”
A minute from the meeting stated that “a subsequent internal DH health economic assessment has revealed that following these recommendations would substantially increase the cost of the PPE component of the pandemic stockpile four-to six-fold, with a very low likelihood of cost-benefit based on standard thresholds.”
The department asked Nervtag “to clarify the detail of their advice in light of the costings, and reconsider its recommendations against the strength of the scientific evidence of the ocular route as a source of infection, and the likely incremental cost-recommendations”.
The advisory committee then changed its official advice. The recommendation over protective eyewear was rewritten so that it instead told the department to buy enough eye protection for “exceptional usage” in higher-risk circumstances and when used with respirator masks during aerosol generating procedures.
According to a January 2018 minute, the update was made “in light of emerging evidence around cost-effectiveness, and the evidence around the incremental benefits of wearing eye protection.”
It is not clear at what level of seniority in the health department the Nervtag recommendations were considered back in 2016 and 2017. In a statement to the Guardian, DHSC said it would be incorrect to say ministers “intervened in this decision making”.
“As the public rightly expects, decisions of this nature are evidence-based and take into account a number of factors, including expert clinical guidance, cost effectiveness and practical consideration, such as shelf life and storage,” a DHSC spokesperson said.
“The government has prepared and stockpiled for an influenza pandemic. The documents clearly state that the scientific evidence did not support a vast increase in procurement expenditure on face masks with integrated eye protection for pandemic influenza.”
The DHSC is now scrambling to find ways to better supply hospital staff as it faces Covid-19, a highly infectious respiratory disease, with reports of doctors and nurses frantically trying to buy their own PPE and a particularly acute need for eye protection.
At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, highlighted that the Healthcare Supplies Association had appealed to DIY shops to donate PPE. On Twitter, the association said it needed visors and protective glasses, tweeting: “Do we have to commandeer the stocks of DIY stores?????”
Hunt, who ran the department between 2012 and 2018 and now chairs the House of Commons health select committee, has in recent days led calls to better equip frontline staff battling the coronavirus. Last week, he told the BBC: “We must sort this out. We are asking people to put their own lives at risk on the NHS frontline...It is absolutely heartbreaking when NHS frontline professionals don’t have the equipment that they need.”
His spokeswoman told the Guardian: “Jeremy does not believe he was personally involved in decisions about PPE for NHS staff, but was acutely aware of the shortage of funds in the NHS budget which was why that year he fought for and secured an £8bn rise in the NHS annual budget followed by a £20bn rise two years later.”
However, the documents suggest the efforts by Hunt’s department to water down the advice on PPE impacted a round of procurement that was due to take place in 2017 to stockpile for a possible pandemic.
In addition to the discussions over eye protection, the documents also raise questions about the UK government’s policy regarding face masks for doctors, nurses and other health professionals dealing with Covid-19 patients.
In 2016, Nervtag advisers told the government that intensive care units (ICUs) should be designated “hot spots” carrying out aerosol generating procedures. Therefore, they said, a particular kind of mask known as an FFP3 respirator “should be recommended for all staff at all times in these areas when a patient with pandemic influenza is present”, except for some circumstances.
One intensive care nurse at a hospital in Yorkshire told the Guardian earlier this week she had had to spend £100 of her own money to buy a full FFP3 respirator mask online. In her unit on Monday, there were no masks or surgical gowns, another vital piece of PPE kit which has also been in short supply.
There have been other reports in recent days of NHS improvising in the face of insufficient PPE, with nurses in the Royal Free hospital in north London affixing clinical waste bags around their legs, while at North Middlesex hospital they have been tying plastic aprons around their heads.
Back in 2016, Nervtag advisers also recommended the government commission an update to its infection control guidance, which by then was seven years old. The guidance, they said, needed to recommend PPE usage “in line with the current evidence base and guidelines”.
In June that year, the department responded to Nervtag’s initial recommendations about pandemic stockpiling, saying work to reflect the advice was being prioritised and progressed. However, with regard to updating the control guidance to bring it in line with current evidence, officials replied: “This work is not considered a priority at this time and will be deferred for consideration at a future time.”
Frontline doctors and nurses have said recent changes to official advice in the UK have meant many NHS staff have been wearing less protective gear than the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends when caring for Covid-19 patients. The WHO’s advice recommends different standards of PPE to the UK advice in certain clinical situations.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/advice-on-protective-gear-for-nhs-staff-was-rejected-owing-to-cost
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“On Friday (March 20), the cabinet and medical group co-ordinating the project gave us the go ahead to prepare for production.
“However last evening (March 26) they advised that they did not want us to proceed at this time.
Your explanation?
There must be one (unless the government is insane), I already posited a couple of possibilities, so I will hold off judgement until the full facts are known if that’s all the same with you?.
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Fairhlilly, imo you really should try and get more sleep instead of pouring out your bitterness about Boris et al on here at two thirty in the morning. It really can’t be good for your health or well being.
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If the government has acted madly or badly then our death toll will be huge. The latest predictions from the statisticians at Imperial College London is that around 5700 will die, far fewer than originally predicted. Are they not factoring in government action (or inaction) when calculating their figures?
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There must be one (unless the government is insane), I already posited a couple of possibilities, so I will hold off judgement until the full facts are known if that’s all the same with you?.
Of course you will.
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Of course you will.
Is that so bad - not to jump to conclusions and apportion blame without having all the information? If so I am happy to be bad.
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Fairhlilly, imo you really should try and get more sleep instead of pouring out your bitterness about Boris et al on here at two thirty in the morning. It really can’t be good for your health or well being.
And you make my case for me.
I post an article from the Lancet no less in which the government and NHS England’s reaction to the pandemic is called ‘a national scandal’, another in which cost was put above the safety and well-being of our NHS staff in the event of a pandemic, another which questions the government’s investment in vital equipment and yet another where we have clearly been lied to by our government and you see my ‘bitterness towards Boris’ is the problem.
The government has been bounced by criticism into every decision they have made. Bounced into abandoning their herd immunity strategy, bounced into joining the EU procurement scheme for ventilators, bounced into locking down the country, bounced into more testing, bounced in fact into making sure you and other self employed individuals had money to live. In fact if you’re not ‘pouring out your bitterness about Boris’ at this time you’re part of the problem and not the solution.
I’m afraid if we’d left things to people like you women still wouldn’t have the vote.
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Is that so bad - not to jump to conclusions and apportion blame without having all the information? If so I am happy to be bad.
If only you gave the Labour Party such consideration.
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If only you gave the Labour Party such consideration.
What have they got to do with the price of fish? What blame have I apportioned to the Labour Party without having all the information? Is this another of your little diversionary tactics?
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What have they got to do with the price of fish? What blame have I apportioned to the Labour Party without having all the information? Is this another of your little diversionary tactics?
And again you deflect by accusing me of deflecting....a tactic which is becoming boringly familiar.
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And you make my case for me.
I post an article from the Lancet no less in which the government and NHS England’s reaction to the pandemic is called ‘a national scandal’, another in which cost was put above the safety and well-being of our NHS staff in the event of a pandemic, another which questions the government’s investment in vital equipment and yet another where we have clearly been lied to by our government and you see my ‘bitterness towards Boris’ is the problem.
The government has been bounced by criticism into every decision they have made. Bounced into abandoning their herd immunity strategy, bounced into joining the EU procurement scheme for ventilators, bounced into locking down the country, bounced into more testing, bounced in fact into making sure you and other self employed individuals had money to live. In fact if you’re not ‘pouring out your bitterness about Boris’ at this time you’re part of the problem and not the solution.
I’m afraid if we’d left things to people like you women still wouldn’t have the vote.
Can we have the evidence that the government has acted only on receipt of criticism please? Are you suggesting if it hadn't been for people like you harping on in the Guardian Boris would still be advocating we all shake hands with a Coronavirus victim? How about growing up and accepting that the government is being flexible and adapting to the situation as it unfolds rather than waiting to be told what to do by the likes of you and other bile-pourers.
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And again you deflect by accusing me of deflecting....a tactic which is becoming boringly familiar.
You WERE deflecting but I am not allowed to point it out? PLEASE. Get a grip.
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It seems that the Carpers who are hell-bent on making political capital out of this crisis are in the minority:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-28/coronavirus-gives-boris-johnson-s-political-immunity
As elsewhere, the coronavirus has turned British politics on its head. Unlike Brexit, which continues to divide opinion fairly evenly, the coronavirus crisis has prompted an outbreak of recently unfamiliar unity. Number Cruncher polling (excusive to Bloomberg) finds personal ratings for Boris Johnson -- himself now diagnosed with coronavirus -- that have not been seen for a British Prime Minister since the early days of Tony Blair’s premiership in 1997.
Fully 72% of eligible voters are satisfied with Johnson’s performance as Prime Minister, with 25% dissatisfied. Ninety-one per cent of those currently supporting the Conservatives count themselves as satisfied, along with about half of Labour voters and those voting for other parties and a large majority of undecided voters. Johnson’s government gets similar approval ratings, both overall (73% to 24%) and on its handling of the Coronavirus outbreak (72% to 25%).
The 1,010 interviews were conducted Tuesday through Thursday, following Johnson’s televised address on Monday, but completed before Johnson himself revealed that he had tested positive for the virus. There is some evidence in our data to suggest that these figures were higher in the immediate aftermath of the pre-recorded broadcast, which was watched by around half of the adult population.
The strongest numbers of all are for the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak (77% satisfaction). Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose successor will be named on April 4, remains in negative territory (with 54% dissatisfied).
While wartime metaphors are now commonplace, this pandemic is not, of course, a war in literal sense -- people are being killed by a disease, not each other. But it does share many of the same characteristics and a similar “rally around the flag” sense. The most obvious of these is the unity against a common enemy, with a lot of agreement across parties and across the public. There is also clear sense of “national effort,” and some extremely large government spending on its way
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Can we have the evidence that the government has acted only on receipt of criticism please? Are you suggesting if it hadn't been for people like you harping on in the Guardian Boris would still be advocating we all shake hands with a Coronavirus victim? How about growing up and accepting that the government is being flexible and adapting to the situation as it unfolds rather than waiting to be told what to do by the likes of you and other bile-pourers.
Give your head a wobble. Anyone with a modicum of sense can see what’s happening.
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It seems that the Carpers who are hell-bent on making political capital out of this crisis are in the minority:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-28/coronavirus-gives-boris-johnson-s-political-immunity
As elsewhere, the coronavirus has turned British politics on its head. Unlike Brexit, which continues to divide opinion fairly evenly, the coronavirus crisis has prompted an outbreak of recently unfamiliar unity. Number Cruncher polling (excusive to Bloomberg) finds personal ratings for Boris Johnson -- himself now diagnosed with coronavirus -- that have not been seen for a British Prime Minister since the early days of Tony Blair’s premiership in 1997.
Fully 72% of eligible voters are satisfied with Johnson’s performance as Prime Minister, with 25% dissatisfied. Ninety-one per cent of those currently supporting the Conservatives count themselves as satisfied, along with about half of Labour voters and those voting for other parties and a large majority of undecided voters. Johnson’s government gets similar approval ratings, both overall (73% to 24%) and on its handling of the Coronavirus outbreak (72% to 25%).
The 1,010 interviews were conducted Tuesday through Thursday, following Johnson’s televised address on Monday, but completed before Johnson himself revealed that he had tested positive for the virus. There is some evidence in our data to suggest that these figures were higher in the immediate aftermath of the pre-recorded broadcast, which was watched by around half of the adult population.
The strongest numbers of all are for the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak (77% satisfaction). Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose successor will be named on April 4, remains in negative territory (with 54% dissatisfied).
While wartime metaphors are now commonplace, this pandemic is not, of course, a war in literal sense -- people are being killed by a disease, not each other. But it does share many of the same characteristics and a similar “rally around the flag” sense. The most obvious of these is the unity against a common enemy, with a lot of agreement across parties and across the public. There is also clear sense of “national effort,” and some extremely large government spending on its way
Just over 1,000 interviews....very representative.
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You WERE deflecting but I am not allowed to point it out? PLEASE. Get a grip.
?8)@)-)
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Give your head a wobble. Anyone with a modicum of sense can see what’s happening.
As I thought, no evidence just more rudeness from you. Why don’t you take YOUR head out of your Guardian (or is the Morning Star?) and see if you can try and bring the lefty brainwashing under control?
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Just over 1,000 interviews....very representative.
LOL. I just KNEW you’d reject this poll.
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?8)@)-)
Cheer up Chicken, it might never happen.
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I get the feeling that the more deaths there are in this country, the happier those seeking to make political capital out of this crisis will be. They don’t want the government to do a good job managing it, they decided on Day One that they would be rubbish and have been desperately shrieking “I told you so” on a daily basis. The time for smug recriminations is later, in the meantime we should all be on the same side, pulling together and be doing our best to minimise the blaming, the hysteria and negativity as well as the spread of the virus. Even Labour’s Top Brass recognise this (apart from Corbyn who simply couldn’t resist an “I told you so” himself).
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Here’s something else for you to shit on Faith:
Response to the Financial Times article on ventilators
Response to 28/03/20 edition of FT Weekend's claims on ventilators.
Published 28 March 2020
From:
Cabinet Office
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The 28/03/20 edition of FT Weekend contains a number of inaccurate claims about the UK’s efforts to procure and manufacture ventilators in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
To date, there are more than 8,000 ventilators available to NHS patients, with another 8,000 expected from existing international manufacturers in the coming weeks. We have also been clear that the UK must step up production of ventilators even further to support the UK’s response to the virus and save lives.
The government has partnered with a number of the UK’s leading technology and engineering firms with smaller manufacturers to rapidly build existing, modified or newly designed ventilators at speed, with seven priority projects underway. They are working to improve the speed at which current UK ventilator manufacturers can produce their devices, with larger companies changing their existing operations to help provide the UK with the equipment and personnel it needs for this effort. Many other UK manufacturers are building, designing and developing new effective, safe and easy-to-build ventilators – all orders from the government will be subject to them passing stringent safety tests.
The government’s overriding aim is to protect the NHS and save lives.
Claim:
Several companies have complained that offers were not taken up to provide some of the additional machines needed to save the lives of people with acute respiratory difficulties caused by Covid-19.
Response:
The response we’ve had from British industry has been nothing short of incredible, with an overwhelming response from companies offering help including designing and building new devices, manufacturing components or transporting them to NHS hospitals. To say we have ignored suppliers is wrong – we have responded to all companies that contacted us with offers of help. We are working with a number of firms to scale up production of existing UK ventilator manufacturers, as well as designing and manufacturing new products from scratch, and procuring thousands more machines from overseas.
Claim:
The Government should have been in touch with companies sooner and has now missed out.
Response:
We would expect suppliers of ventilator parts, like MEC Medical, to receive orders from companies for some of the components needed to scale up production of UK ventilator manufacturers.
Claim:
The Government doesn’t follow through with their promises that they’ll buy any new ventilators.
Response:
This is untrue. We have over 8,000 machines arriving in the coming weeks and we are working to procure more everyday. We are also working alongside industry to scale up existing UK manufacturing and, simultaneously, design and manufacture new products. Of course, any new orders are all dependent on machines passing regulatory tests. We are rapidly ramping up ventilator production in response to this crisis.
Anyone who has existing ventilator stock and can support should email here and if you want to offer wider support visit this page.
Claim:
The Government didn’t get in touch quickly and now the lead in times for ventilators from abroad are months away.
Response:
Many distributors are offering us plans for future supply from overseas, but unfortunately many of these simply did not stand up to due diligence, where safety of our citizens is of paramount importance. However, the government has been successful in recent days buying directly from factories. Indeed we took a delivery from a manufacturer in an EU member state just this week. Of course we have bought from agents where that is not possible.
We are doing whatever it takes to protect the NHS and save lives.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/response-to-the-financial-times-article-on-ventilators
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As I thought, no evidence just more rudeness from you. Why don’t you take YOUR head out of your Guardian (or is the Morning Star?) and see if you can try and bring the lefty brainwashing under control?
Why are you so sure that you are right ? Did you see Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the medical journal The Lancet tear Robert Jenrick’s claims regarding PPE etc to pieces on Question Time ? Expert after expert have exposed the government’s handling of the crisis as nothing short of incompetent. Why do you think that you know better ?
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I get the feeling that the more deaths there are in this country, the happier those seeking to make political capital out of this crisis will be. They don’t want the government to do a good job managing it, they decided on Day One that they would be rubbish and have been desperately shrieking “I told you so” on a daily basis. The time for smug recriminations is later, in the meantime we should all be on the same side, pulling together and be doing our best to minimise the blaming, the hysteria and negativity as well as the spread of the virus. Even Labour’s Top Brass recognise this (apart from Corbyn who simply couldn’t resist an “I told you so” himself).
Do you include the myriad of experts who have criticised Johnson and his merry band of morons in your analysis ?
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Here’s something else for you to shit on Faith:
Response to the Financial Times article on ventilators
Response to 28/03/20 edition of FT Weekend's claims on ventilators.
Published 28 March 2020
From:
Cabinet Office
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The 28/03/20 edition of FT Weekend contains a number of inaccurate claims about the UK’s efforts to procure and manufacture ventilators in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
To date, there are more than 8,000 ventilators available to NHS patients, with another 8,000 expected from existing international manufacturers in the coming weeks. We have also been clear that the UK must step up production of ventilators even further to support the UK’s response to the virus and save lives.
The government has partnered with a number of the UK’s leading technology and engineering firms with smaller manufacturers to rapidly build existing, modified or newly designed ventilators at speed, with seven priority projects underway. They are working to improve the speed at which current UK ventilator manufacturers can produce their devices, with larger companies changing their existing operations to help provide the UK with the equipment and personnel it needs for this effort. Many other UK manufacturers are building, designing and developing new effective, safe and easy-to-build ventilators – all orders from the government will be subject to them passing stringent safety tests.
The government’s overriding aim is to protect the NHS and save lives.
Claim:
Several companies have complained that offers were not taken up to provide some of the additional machines needed to save the lives of people with acute respiratory difficulties caused by Covid-19.
Response:
The response we’ve had from British industry has been nothing short of incredible, with an overwhelming response from companies offering help including designing and building new devices, manufacturing components or transporting them to NHS hospitals. To say we have ignored suppliers is wrong – we have responded to all companies that contacted us with offers of help. We are working with a number of firms to scale up production of existing UK ventilator manufacturers, as well as designing and manufacturing new products from scratch, and procuring thousands more machines from overseas.
Claim:
The Government should have been in touch with companies sooner and has now missed out.
Response:
We would expect suppliers of ventilator parts, like MEC Medical, to receive orders from companies for some of the components needed to scale up production of UK ventilator manufacturers.
Claim:
The Government doesn’t follow through with their promises that they’ll buy any new ventilators.
Response:
This is untrue. We have over 8,000 machines arriving in the coming weeks and we are working to procure more everyday. We are also working alongside industry to scale up existing UK manufacturing and, simultaneously, design and manufacture new products. Of course, any new orders are all dependent on machines passing regulatory tests. We are rapidly ramping up ventilator production in response to this crisis.
Anyone who has existing ventilator stock and can support should email here and if you want to offer wider support visit this page.
Claim:
The Government didn’t get in touch quickly and now the lead in times for ventilators from abroad are months away.
Response:
Many distributors are offering us plans for future supply from overseas, but unfortunately many of these simply did not stand up to due diligence, where safety of our citizens is of paramount importance. However, the government has been successful in recent days buying directly from factories. Indeed we took a delivery from a manufacturer in an EU member state just this week. Of course we have bought from agents where that is not possible.
We are doing whatever it takes to protect the NHS and save lives.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/response-to-the-financial-times-article-on-ventilators
Government response. I doubt many of this government could lie straight in bed.
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Why are you so sure that you are right ? Did you see Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the medical journal The Lancet tear Robert Jenrick’s claims regarding PPE etc to pieces on Question Time ? Expert after expert have exposed the government’s handling of the crisis as nothing short of incompetent. Why do you think that you know better ?
What have I claimed to be right about? Do tell..
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Do you include the myriad of experts who have criticised Johnson and his merry band of morons in your analysis ?
Jeez, you really are full of hate aren’t you? My observations were about people like you, no marks with a political agenda crowing with glee because you believe socialism has won and that Boris is toast. You’re revelling in it, and it’s sickening. IMO.
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Government response. I doubt many of this government could lie straight in bed.
So which bits, specifically, are lies, with evidence please.
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Britain’s death rate (deaths per million) is currently lower that of Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland. If Boris’s “lax leadership” is putting us all in danger we would expect that death rate to rise significantly in the coming days.
And this is still true nine days later. We had our first case of Coronavirus the same day as Spain and and day after Italy and yet their deaths per million are much, much higher than ours. The Netherlands had their first case a month or so after us and their deaths per million are more than double ours. The measure of the government’s effectiveness versus other European governments will be this statistic above all others, IMO.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
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For anyone interested in reading an unbiased, unhysterical, non-political, non-judgemental assessment of the data (obviously that doesn’t include Faithlilly) then this is an excellent article, and it’s not written by Matt Chorley either but an actual expert!
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/The-evidence-on-Covid-19-is-not-as-clear-as-we-think
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What have I claimed to be right about? Do tell..
#172.
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LOL. I just KNEW you’d reject this poll.
Then you were right.
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And this is still true nine days later. We had our first case of Coronavirus the same day as Spain and and day after Italy and yet their deaths per million are much, much higher than ours. The Netherlands had their first case a month or so after us and their deaths per million are more than double ours. The measure of the government’s effectiveness versus other European governments will be this statistic above all others, IMO.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Do you really think how many deaths there has been in each country is a true reflection of how the top politicians in each country have dealt with the virus ? Really ?
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For anyone interested in reading an unbiased, unhysterical, non-political, non-judgemental assessment of the data (obviously that doesn’t include Faithlilly) then this is an excellent article, and it’s not written by Matt Chorley either but an actual expert!
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/The-evidence-on-Covid-19-is-not-as-clear-as-we-think
Thank you....a very interesting article and much appreciated. It does not alter the fact however that many experts of equal standing disagree with him on several points, , experts you can’t simply dismiss as biased, hysterical, political or judgemental.
One point he did make forcibly was that no solid conclusions could be drawn from differing death rates in different countries.....so not a good indicator of political competency or good judge as you appear to think.
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#172.
That’s one of your posts. Next!
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Then you were right.
Well I can read you like a book #justsayin
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Do you really think how many deaths there has been in each country is a true reflection of how the top politicians in each country have dealt with the virus ? Really ?
Yes, I think it is a good indicator of how effectively governments have responded to the crisis but do tell me why you think it isn’t.
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Thank you....a very interesting article and much appreciated. It does not alter the fact however that many experts of equal standing disagree with him on several points, , experts you can’t simply dismiss as biased, hysterical, political or judgemental.
One point he did make forcibly was that no solid conclusions could be drawn from differing death rates in different countries.....so not a good indicator of political competency or good judge as you appear to think.
He may be right but at the moment it’s the best indicator we have and until there has been a worldwide effort to really drill down into the figures and understand whether or not variations are caused by the different ways in which deaths are recorded it will have to do. Either anomalous countries like Germany are dramatically under-recording deaths by Covid or countries like ours are attributing more deaths to Covid than are strictly accurate. Whichever way you look at it this disease is not as lethal as we were first led to believe and certainly the UK’s trajectory of the disease does not stand out as dramatically worse (in fact on balance it’s better than several others) which in turn suggests that our government has made no more of a shit show of this than govts in France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain and Italy.
As I’ve said all along, now is not the time to pour withering scorn, contempt and hatred upon those who are working their arses off and doing their best in unchartered territories. Of course mistakes are going to be made, these are human beings and a bit of kindness and understanding wouldn’t go amiss but it seems supplies of both are in very short demand from people like yourself who are desperate to use this crisis to push their political agenda. I find that sickening tbh. Thank God there was no internet during WWII, imagine the crowing leftie Tory Bashers thinking they were managing the war themselves from the sidelines every time there was a cock-up -would that have been helpful to Churchill, to have a bunch of know-it-all armchair generals harrumphing their disgust at every decision he took?
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Why are you so sure that you are right ? Did you see Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the medical journal The Lancet tear Robert Jenrick’s claims regarding PPE etc to pieces on Question Time ? Expert after expert have exposed the government’s handling of the crisis as nothing short of incompetent. Why do you think that you know better ?
This Richard Horton?
richard horton
@richardhorton1
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24 Jan
A call for caution please. Media are escalating anxiety by talking of a “killer virus” + “growing fears”. In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language
Was he busy begging the government to stockpile PPE and ventilators on 24th Jan? No, he was busy downplaying the threat.
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That’s one of your posts. Next!
Here you go.
‘I get the feeling that the more deaths there are in this country, the happier those seeking to make political capital out of this crisis will be. They don’t want the government to do a good job managing it, they decided on Day One that they would be rubbish and have been desperately shrieking “I told you so” on a daily basis. The time for smug recriminations is later, in the meantime we should all be on the same side, pulling together and be doing our best to minimise the blaming, the hysteria and negativity as well as the spread of the virus. Even Labour’s Top Brass recognise this (apart from Corbyn who simply couldn’t resist an “I told you so” himself).’
To me that certainly sounded to me that you think your opinion is correct.
So who do you think is seeking to make political capital ?
The scientists who have maligned the government’s handling of the crisis ?
The health care professionals who have constantly criticised the government for their lack of preparedness?
The nurses who have had to start a crowdfunding page just to fund vital PPE equipment for themselves ?
Who ?
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Yes, I think it is a good indicator of how effectively governments have responded to the crisis but do tell me why you think it isn’t.
Then the consultant in the Spectator piece you posted last night seems to disagree.
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He may be right but at the moment it’s the best indicator we have and until there has been a worldwide effort to really drill down into the figures and understand whether or not variations are caused by the different ways in which deaths are recorded it will have to do. Either anomalous countries like Germany are dramatically under-recording deaths by Covid or countries like ours are attributing more deaths to Covid than are strictly accurate. Whichever way you look at it this disease is not as lethal as we were first led to believe and certainly the UK’s trajectory of the disease does not stand out as dramatically worse (in fact on balance it’s better than several others) which in turn suggests that our government has made no more of a shit show of this than govts in France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain and Italy.
As I’ve said all along, now is not the time to pour withering scorn, contempt and hatred upon those who are working their arses off and doing their best in unchartered territories. Of course mistakes are going to be made, these are human beings and a bit of kindness and understanding wouldn’t go amiss but it seems supplies of both are in very short demand from people like yourself who are desperate to use this crisis to push their political agenda. I find that sickening tbh. Thank God there was no internet during WWII, imagine the crowing leftie Tory Bashers thinking they were managing the war themselves from the sidelines every time there was a cock-up -would that have been helpful to Churchill, to have a bunch of know-it-all armchair generals harrumphing their disgust at every decision he took?
I think now is exactly the time to to hold the government to account because next week, next month when their negligent decisions have cost the lives of untold Britons it’ll be too late.
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This Richard Horton?
richard horton
@richardhorton1
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24 Jan
A call for caution please. Media are escalating anxiety by talking of a “killer virus” + “growing fears”. In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language
Was he busy begging the government to stockpile PPE and ventilators on 24th Jan? No, he was busy downplaying the threat.
Was this when Johnson was failing to convene a Cobra meeting or was he still on his Caribbean freebie ?
https://youtu.be/fmQD8U_vCSk
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Here you go.
‘I get the feeling that the more deaths there are in this country, the happier those seeking to make political capital out of this crisis will be. They don’t want the government to do a good job managing it, they decided on Day One that they would be rubbish and have been desperately shrieking “I told you so” on a daily basis. The time for smug recriminations is later, in the meantime we should all be on the same side, pulling together and be doing our best to minimise the blaming, the hysteria and negativity as well as the spread of the virus. Even Labour’s Top Brass recognise this (apart from Corbyn who simply couldn’t resist an “I told you so” himself).’
To me that certainly sounded to me that you think your opinion is correct.
So who do you think is seeking to make political capital ?
The scientists who have maligned the government’s handling of the crisis ?
The health care professionals who have constantly criticised the government for their lack of preparedness?
The nurses who have had to start a crowdfunding page just to fund vital PPE equipment for themselves ?
Who ?
You. And all the other the know-it-all lefties on the internet. And anyone who has (to use your word - do you actually know what it means?) maligned the government. Constructive criticism from those in positions of authority within the NHS I don’t have a problem with, they obviously don’t want people to die, unlike those who seem to get a great deal of “I told you so” enjoyment from a mounting death toll.
Answer me this (you won’t, you will deflect, I predict) - which outcome do you most hope for -
That government actions successfully halt the spread of the disease and the death toll falls far short of the 20000 expected, the Tories standing in the polls remains high until the next election which they win
OR
The death toll soars past the 20,000 expected and the government’s actions are widely condemned in a public inquiry which costs them the next election.
?
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Then the consultant in the Spectator piece you posted last night seems to disagree.
What’s a better indicator then of government performance against other world governments?
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Was this when Johnson was failing to convene a Cobra meeting or was he still on his Caribbean freebie ?
https://youtu.be/fmQD8U_vCSk
Whataboutery at its finest.
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I think now is exactly the time to to hold the government to account because next week, next month when their negligent decisions have cost the lives of untold Britons it’ll be too late.
I think what really pisses off the Left is that the Tories aren’t behaving in the way they believe the Tories ought to be behaving. I think they’re annoyed that the Tories aren’t doing a Trump and dismissing the pandemic and downplaying it, that they aren’t putting big business first and saying to hell with the sick and the weak and the old, and actively encouraging the NHS to collapse under the strain so that private enterprise csn move in. This is what you would expect from the Nasty Party and you’re somewhat miffed that they haven’t been acting true to type. IMO.
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You. And all the other the know-it-all lefties on the internet. And anyone who has (to use your word - do you actually know what it means?) maligned the government. Constructive criticism from those in positions of authority within the NHS I don’t have a problem with, they obviously don’t want people to die, unlike those who seem to get a great deal of “I told you so” enjoyment from a mounting death toll.
Answer me this (you won’t, you will deflect, I predict) - which outcome do you most hope for -
That government actions successfully halt the spread of the disease and the death toll falls far short of the 20000 expected, the Tories standing in the polls remains high until the next election which they win
OR
The death toll soars past the 20,000 expected and the government’s actions are widely condemned in a public inquiry which costs them the next election.
?
You really do plumb the depths at times, don’t you.
This isn’t about political one upmanship, much as you’d like to paint it as such and ironically it appears to be you trying to make political capital from the number of deaths.
For the avoidance of doubt I want the government’s actions to save as many lives as possible. I have no interest in how this impacts on Johnson’s or his government’s careers..that’s your bag.
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What’s a better indicator then of government performance against other world governments?
No idea but the expert you have put so much faith in seems to disagree with you
Rule of thumb...if you are trying to prove a point, don’t post articles that don’t undermine that point.
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Whataboutery at its finest.
No just a straightforward question.
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You really do plumb the depths at times, don’t you.
This isn’t about political one upmanship, much as you’d like to paint it as such and ironically it appears to be you trying to make political capital from the number of deaths.
For the avoidance of doubt I want the government’s actions to save as many lives as possible. I have no interest in how this impacts on Johnson’s or his government’s careers..that’s your bag.
Actually no it’s not, I did not vote Tory last time and have never voted Tory ever in my entire life so just shows how wrong you can be, I am not the one politicising this - who started a thread entitled “Is Boris’ Lax Leadership Putting Us All in Danger?”. Oh that’s right - it was you.
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No idea but the expert you have put so much faith in seems to disagree with you
Rule of thumb...if you are trying to prove a point, don’t post articles that don’t undermine that point.
Unlike you, I am a bit more nuanced than that. So you can provide no bench marks by which to judge this government’s performance versus others worldwide? I suggest you come up with some then before continuing to rip our government to shreds on a daily basis.
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No just a straightforward question.
I think you’ll find I asked the question first and you deflected with your own question. Remember? Probably not!
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I think what really pisses off the Left is that the Tories aren’t behaving in the way they believe the Tories ought to be behaving. I think they’re annoyed that the Tories aren’t doing a Trump and dismissing the pandemic and downplaying it, that they aren’t putting big business first and saying to hell with the sick and the weak and the old, and actively encouraging the NHS to collapse under the strain so that private enterprise csn move in. This is what you would expect from the Nasty Party and you’re somewhat miffed that they haven’t been acting true to type. IMO.
I think what’s really annoying the right is that their poster boy is being scrutinised like never before and has been found wanting. I mean you must be another level of incompetent when even Jeremy Hunt, arguably one of the most unpopular and incompetent health secretaries in recent history, is criticising you.
https://inews.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-jeremy-hunt-warns-there-are-too-many-gaps-leaving-nhs-doctors-without-proper-protective-equipment-2482762
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Actually no it’s not, I did not vote Tory last time and have never voted Tory ever in my entire life so just shows how wrong you can be, I am not the one politicising this - who started a thread entitled “Is Boris’ Lax Leadership Putting Us All in Danger?”. Oh that’s right - it was you.
I didn’t say you voted Tory...just that you appear to be spearheading it’s defence...against all the available data.
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I think what’s really annoying the right is that their poster boy is being scrutinised like never before and has been found wanting. I mean you must be another level of incompetent when even Jeremy Hunt, arguably one of the most unpopular and incompetent health secretaries in recent history, is criticising you.
https://inews.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-jeremy-hunt-warns-there-are-too-many-gaps-leaving-nhs-doctors-without-proper-protective-equipment-2482762
Except that Boris’ personal approval has never been higher so that blows your theory out of the water. Oops.
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I didn’t say you voted Tory...just that you appear to be spearheading it’s defence...against all the available data.
What I am spearheading is not being a dick and using this crisis as an opportunity to stick the boot in for political capital. Some people just can’t help themselves it seems.
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Unlike you, I am a bit more nuanced than that. So you can provide no bench marks by which to judge this government’s performance versus others worldwide? I suggest you come up with some then before continuing to rip our government to shreds on a daily basis.
Nuanced ? Simplistic would be a better description.
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I think you’ll find I asked the question first and you deflected with your own question. Remember? Probably not!
Yawn.
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Except that Boris’ personal approval has never been higher so that blows your theory out of the water. Oops.
A majority of just over 1000 people have said they have faith in Johnson and his government....whereas almost all the medical experts asked to comment have expressed dismay in his sluggish handling of this crisis....who to take notice of...mmmm it’s a hard one.
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What I am spearheading is not being a dick and using this crisis as an opportunity to stick the boot in for political capital. Some people just can’t help themselves it seems.
‘What I am spearheading is not being a dick ’
Then you’re unfortunately failing miserably.
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Yawn.
You shouldn’t stay up so late. I did warn you, but did you listen?
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‘What I am spearheading is not being a dick ’
Then you’re unfortunately failing miserably.
And that is what we in the business call an ad hom. Once the argument degenerates to this level one can safely say one has one the argument. Thank you and goodnight.
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What I am spearheading is not being a dick and using this crisis as an opportunity to stick the boot in for political capital. Some people just can’t help themselves it seems.
I know b....r all about politics, but the thought of Corbyn and that loony old weapon McDonnell being in charge at the moment is utterly terrifying.
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And that is what we in the business call an ad hom. Once the argument degenerates to this level one can safely say one has one the argument. Thank you and goodnight.
You have neither one nor won the argument. The government is still incompetent and you are still paddling against a groundswell of expert opinion.
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I know b....r all about politics, but the thought of Corbyn and that loony old weapon McDonnell being in charge at the moment is utterly terrifying.
And they’re not so your point is somewhat redundant.
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And they’re not so your point is somewhat redundant.
None taken!!
?{)(**
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You have neither one nor won the argument. The government is still incompetent and you are still paddling against a groundswell of expert opinion.
"The government is incompetent" in YOUR opinion. There is no consensus "expert opinion" that the government is behaving more or less incompetently than any other government in the same boat. The proof will be in the data. Some people (yourself included) appear to actively WANT the government to fail, that is so depressing. I didn't hear you or all the other armchair experts admonishing them for not stockpiling PPE and ventilators two months ago. In fact two months ago, no one seemed that bothered and many seemed to be of the opinion that there was a huge overeaction to something which wasn't even as bad as seasonal flu. It;s all very well being wise in retrospect.
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Nuanced ? Simplistic would be a better description.
So you can provide no bench marks by which to judge this government’s performance versus others worldwide? I suggest you come up with some then before continuing to rip our government to shreds on a daily basis. I'll take it from the answer above that you cannot. Spain and Britain reported their first CV case on the same day. Spain has now had in excess of 6500 deaths to our 1000 death toll. Were that situation reversed would you consider the death toll figures more relevant I wonder....Something tells me you would!
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"The government is incompetent" in YOUR opinion. There is no consensus "expert opinion" that the government is behaving more or less incompetently than any other government in the same boat. The proof will be in the data. Some people (yourself included) appear to actively WANT the government to fail, that is so depressing. I didn't hear you or all the other armchair experts admonishing them for not stockpiling PPE and ventilators two months ago. In fact two months ago, no one seemed that bothered and many seemed to be of the opinion that there was a huge overeaction to something which wasn't even as bad as seasonal flu. It;s all very well being wise in retrospect.
How can the fault for government’s failings possibly be laid at the feet of those who are bringing the public’s attention to them ?
As a citizen of this country I expect the government to not only work in my best interests when there is a pandemic but put plans in place to protect me in the event of one...this hasn’t happened. In 2017 the government was told that in the event of a pandemic access to eye protection would be needed yet they ignored the advice, suggesting that it would be too expensive to stockpile such equipment. These are the decisions that the public were not privy to but would be appalled if they had been. Unfortunately it is only when there is a pandemic that these decisions do leak into the public domain.
You do realise don’t you that every time you fail to hold the government to account on their woeful handling of this pandemic then the more likely it will be that bad decisions at the highest levels will be made in the future and more lives lost.
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So you can provide no bench marks by which to judge this government’s performance versus others worldwide? I suggest you come up with some then before continuing to rip our government to shreds on a daily basis. I'll take it from the answer above that you cannot. Spain and Britain reported their first CV case on the same day. Spain has now had in excess of 6500 deaths to our 1000 death toll. Were that situation reversed would you consider the death toll figures more relevant I wonder....Something tells me you would!
If refer you back to your own post in which the consult said that direct comparisons could not be made between the death rates of different countries as the way the data is being collected varies.
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How can the fault for government’s failings possibly be laid at the feet of those who are bringing the public’s attention to them ?
As a citizen of this country I expect the government to not only work in my best interests when there is a pandemic but put plans in place to protect me in the event of one...this hasn’t happened. In 2017 the government was told that in the event of a pandemic access to eye protection would be needed yet they ignored the advice, suggesting that it would be too expensive to stockpile such equipment. These are the decisions that the public were not privy to but would be appalled if they had been. Unfortunately it is only when there is a pandemic that these decisions do leak into the public domain.
You do realise don’t you that every time you fail to hold the government to account on their woeful handling of this pandemic then the more likely it will be that bad decisions at the highest levels will be made in the future and more lives lost.
You don't think the Government is working in your best interests currently? Why not? Can I ask - would stockpiling eye protection gear have been the first thing a Labour Government would have actioned on winning a December election, in your view? And if the government had spent billions on ventilators and PPE ten years ago and they had sat gathering dust for years, would they have been accused of wasting public money unnecessarily I wonder? I expect so. But have it your way, I'm tired of arguing about this now. I believe the time for holding the government to account is once the crisis has passed, you believe it is right to pile on the pressure now, when they are already struggling to do their best, which is what I believe they are doing, you seem to believe they are incompetent morons, and seem to positively relish saying so at every opportunity. How helpful, how constructive, how charitable, how kind.
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Heymann noted that, for all the debate about changes of government strategy and delays in implementing serious measures, Britain has not yet seen its healthcare facilities overwhelmed.
“We have been able to deal with the cases so far, there is an alliance with the private sector making additional beds and ventilators available if they need them,” he said. “And the government has been notifying those at highest risk.
“I think they have been doing what is necessary in the UK, as are many other countries. They may have used a different mixture in the UK, but no one can say at this point what is right or wrong. In two to three weeks when they do their risk assessments, they will be looking to see if they’ve accomplished the goal of what they set out to do,” said Heymann.
Who is Heymann?
Born in America but now based in London, Heymann was known for a long time as a “disease cowboy”, saddling up for action at every sign of ebola, smallpox, monkeypox, measles, tuberculosis and now Covid-19. He lived for 13 years in Africa before moving to Geneva with the WHO. He later became professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and served for five years as chairman of Public Health England.
“one of the world’s foremost experts on infectious disease”
An expert, in other words.
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A majority of just over 1000 people have said they have faith in Johnson and his government....whereas almost all the medical experts asked to comment have expressed dismay in his sluggish handling of this crisis....who to take notice of...mmmm it’s a hard one.
Richard horton is one of the govt biggest expert critics...you may have seen him on question time this week. what you probably didnt see was a tweet he made on 24th Jan ....compared to other countries Boris seems to be doing a good job....as a corbyn supporter its not surprising that really annoys you.
richard horton
@richardhorton1
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24 Jan
A call for caution please. Media are escalating anxiety by talking of a “killer virus” + “growing fears”. In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language.
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You don't think the Government is working in your best interests currently? Why not? Can I ask - would stockpiling eye protection gear have been the first thing a Labour Government would have actioned on winning a December election, in your view? And if the government had spent billions on ventilators and PPE ten years ago and they had sat gathering dust for years, would they have been accused of wasting public money unnecessarily I wonder? I expect so. But have it your way, I'm tired of arguing about this now. I believe the time for holding the government to account is once the crisis has passed, you believe it is right to pile on the pressure now, when they are already struggling to do their best, which is what I believe they are doing, you seem to believe they are incompetent morons, and seem to positively relish saying so at every opportunity. How helpful, how constructive, how charitable, how kind.
Be kind to your fellow humans, be charitable to those in need, be constructive when the circumstances allow but never, ever be silent when your government is risking further lives by their inaction.
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Heymann noted that, for all the debate about changes of government strategy and delays in implementing serious measures, Britain has not yet seen its healthcare facilities overwhelmed.
“We have been able to deal with the cases so far, there is an alliance with the private sector making additional beds and ventilators available if they need them,” he said. “And the government has been notifying those at highest risk.
“I think they have been doing what is necessary in the UK, as are many other countries. They may have used a different mixture in the UK, but no one can say at this point what is right or wrong. In two to three weeks when they do their risk assessments, they will be looking to see if they’ve accomplished the goal of what they set out to do,” said Heymann.
Who is Heymann?
Born in America but now based in London, Heymann was known for a long time as a “disease cowboy”, saddling up for action at every sign of ebola, smallpox, monkeypox, measles, tuberculosis and now Covid-19. He lived for 13 years in Africa before moving to Geneva with the WHO. He later became professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and served for five years as chairman of Public Health England.
“one of the world’s foremost experts on infectious disease”
An expert, in other words.
The WHO are firm that what governments should be doing now is testing, testing, testing. Our government has failed to supply tests to essential healthcare workers never mind the general public. Your thoughts ?
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Richard horton is one of the govt biggest expert critics...you may have seen him on question time this week. what you probably didnt see was a tweet he made on 24th Jan ....compared to other countries Boris seems to be doing a good job....as a corbyn supporter its not surprising that really annoys you.
richard horton
@richardhorton1
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24 Jan
A call for caution please. Media are escalating anxiety by talking of a “killer virus” + “growing fears”. In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language.
Thank you Davel, VS has already posted the tweet.
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The WHO are firm that what governments should be doing now is testing, testing, testing. Our government has failed to supply tests to essential healthcare workers never mind the general public. Your thoughts ?
I believe the government is in the process of addressing that failure, which demonstrates that they are heeding WHO advice, for which I am thankful.
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I believe the government is in the process of addressing that failure, which demonstrates that they are heeding WHO advice, for which I am thankful.
Are they ? When ? Why wasn’t it done sooner ?
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Are they ? When ? Why wasn’t it done sooner ?
3.5 million tests already purchased, to be rolled out when they have been deemed completely reliable
https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/europe/covid-19-home-testing-kit-could-soon-be-available-purchase-uk
Why wasn’t it done sooner? I don’t know (I don’t know what advice the government was given on testing a few weeks ago), but something tells me you do, and probably involves words like “moronic” “incompetents” and choice epithets.
Incidentally Jenny Harries the deputy Chief Medical Officer informed us today that the NHS had ”plenty of capacity” so that’s good news isn’t it?
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3.5 million tests already purchased, to be rolled out when they have been deemed completely reliable
https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/europe/covid-19-home-testing-kit-could-soon-be-available-purchase-uk
Why wasn’t it done sooner? I don’t know (I don’t know what advice the government was given on testing a few weeks ago), but something tells me you do, and probably involves words like “moronic” “incompetents” and choice epithets.
Incidentally Jenny Harries the deputy Chief Medical Officer informed us today that the NHS had ”plenty of capacity” so that’s good news isn’t it?
That’s fantastic news. Let’s hope it’s not more false hope like the PPE that we were told two weeks ago was being supplied to healthcare workers but hasn’t yet arrived.
You don’t know what advice the government was given ? You mean they weren’t following the extremely clear advice from the WHO ? Why are many countries testing and tracking in much larger numbers than us ?
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That’s fantastic news. Let’s hope it’s not more false hope like the PPE that we were told two weeks ago was being supplied to healthcare workers but hasn’t yet arrived.
You don’t know what advice the government was given ? You mean they weren’t following the extremely clear advice from the WHO ? Why are many countries testing and tracking in much larger numbers than us ?
The government have been taking advice from their chief medical advisers haven’t they? Some countries are ahead of others on testing that’s true, were Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands among them? If not then did they ignore the clear advice from the WHO too?
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Here you go, this explains it https://www.ft.com/content/fa747fbd-c19e-4bac-9c37-d46afc9393fb
Obviously lessons need to be learned, but when advice is conflicting it puts the decision makers in an unenviable position. Mistakes will invariably be made. Let’s hope testing is ramped up in earnest now.
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The government have been taking advice from their chief medical advisers haven’t they? Some countries are ahead of others on testing that’s true, were Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands among them? If not then did they ignore the clear advice from the WHO too?
Don’t you hate whataboutery ?
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Here you go, this explains it https://www.ft.com/content/fa747fbd-c19e-4bac-9c37-d46afc9393fb
Obviously lessons need to be learned, but when advice is conflicting it puts the decision makers in an unenviable position. Mistakes will invariably be made. Let’s hope testing is ramped up in earnest now.
It does explain it and certainly makes the government look no more competent or transparent than before you posted it.
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Don’t you hate whataboutery ?
Yes and that is why in my next post I linked to a article which gave answers to your questions that I couldn’t.
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It does explain it and certainly makes the government look no more competent or transparent than before you posted it.
Point me to any government worldwide that hasn’t made mistakes in its handling of this crisis- it’s unchartered territory and only to be expected, that doesn’t mean to say I am required to pour contempt and bile on our government in the way you have, or to ramp up the hysteria by adding my own gleeful negativity to the online chatter. I guess I am just a bit more empathetic, understanding and mature than you in that I don’t expect perfection, or that every decision taken along the way will be the right one. What matters is that at the end of the day is that the vast majority of us come out of this relatively unscathed, with the virus under control, jobs and livlihoods to go back to etc. We will all have learned so much from this, including the Nasty Party, so let’s hope that the next time something like this comes round we will be far better prepared and know exactly what needs to be done.
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Yes and that is why in my next post I linked to a article which gave answers to your questions that I couldn’t.
But it’s still whataboutery which you hate.
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Point me to any government worldwide that hasn’t made mistakes in its handling of this crisis- it’s unchartered territory and only to be expected, that doesn’t mean to say I am required to pour contempt and bile on our government in the way you have, or to ramp up the hysteria by adding my own gleeful negativity to the online chatter. I guess I am just a bit more empathetic, understanding and mature than you in that I don’t expect perfection, or that every decision taken along the way will be the right one. What matters is that at the end of the day is that the vast majority of us come out of this relatively unscathed, with the virus under control, jobs and livlihoods to go back to etc. We will all have learned so much from this, including the Nasty Party, so let’s hope that the next time something like this comes round we will be far better prepared and know exactly what needs to be done.
‘Benign neglect’ I think that about sums it up.
I don’t think your attitude has anything to do with empathy, understanding or maturity just simply that this pandemic has hardly touched you yet. You have posted that you have savings to tide you over until June, when your payment from the government is due to pop on the mat. Many, many self-employed people aren’t quite as lucky as you and due to the government’s woefully slow response to self-employed people’s worries will be facing weeks and weeks of not being able to feed their families or pay their rent. The lack of equipment hasn’t touched you because your aren’t ill yet or have loved ones whose lives depend on the equipment not being provided., whether it’s ventilators or PPE.
You are Johnson’s dream constituent...he gives you gruel, tells you it’s the finest caviar and the others are too unsophisticated to know the difference and you gobble it all up.
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‘Benign neglect’ I think that about sums it up.
I don’t think your attitude has anything to do with empathy, understanding or maturity just simply that this pandemic has hardly touched you yet. You have posted that you have savings to tide you over until June, when your payment from the government is due to pop on the mat. Many, many self-employed people aren’t quite as lucky as you and due to the government’s woefully slow response to self-employed people’s worries will be facing weeks and weeks of not being able to feed their families or pay their rent. The lack of equipment hasn’t touched you because your aren’t ill yet or have loved ones whose lives depend on the equipment not being provided., whether it’s ventilators or PPE.
You are Johnson’s dream constituent...he gives you gruel, tells you it’s the finest caviar and the others are too unsophisticated to know the difference and you gobble it all up.
Your unfathomably rude aren’t you? You know nothing about my circumstances you presumptuous hussy.
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Some good news...?
“Britain’s coronavirus outbreak may be starting to slow with almost two million people infected, according to the scientist guiding the government’s response.
Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London said he was being given NHS data that showed a slowing in new hospital admissions as social distancing measures imposed in recent weeks start to have an effect”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/new-hospital-admissions-for-coronavirus-slowing-says-scientist-guiding-government-xhbxdb0qr
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I think now is exactly the time to to hold the government to account because next week, next month when their negligent decisions have cost the lives of untold Britons it’ll be too late.
stumble bumble and tumble
I mean Neil Ferguson advisor... Please keep a straight face!!!
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Your unfathomably rude aren’t you? You know nothing about my circumstances you presumptuous hussy.
Is your vocabulary really that limited that you have to resort to name calling.....and no, not rude, honest.
I see you didn’t deny anything I posted.
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Is your vocabulary really that limited that you have to resort to name calling.....and no, not rude, honest.
I see you didn’t deny anything I posted.
Your post was a personal attack and you ARE a presumptuous hussy (in truth there are more accurate words to describe you but I’m far too polite). Your post accused me of being an idiot in so many words. I strongly deny that I am an idiot. I have been hugely affected by this health crisis both personally and professionally , and to suggest otherwise is heaping further insult on insult.
Why is it that socialists are always the most hate-filled people on the internet? You’d think they’d be full of the milk of human kindness, but no! They ooze bile from every pore.
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Your post was a personal attack and you ARE a presumptuous hussy (in truth there are more accurate words to describe you but I’m far too polite). Your post accused me of being an idiot in so many words. I strongly deny that I am an idiot. I have been hugely affected by this health crisis both personally and professionally , and to suggest otherwise is heaping further insult on insult.
Why is it that socialists are always the most hate-filled people on the internet? You’d think they’d be full of the milk of human kindness, but no! They ooze bile from every pore.
Oozing bile from every pore...that’s exactly how I’d describe the above.
Where did I insult you ? You have said in previous posts that you have savings so you wouldn’t be greatly impacted financially by the lockdown. I was simply using your own words. That you haven’t been impacted by lack of equipment is, I’ll admit, an assumption as I really can’t believe anyone whose family is either a front line health care worker without PPE or has been adversely affected by lack of ventilators etc could possibly support this government’s handling of the virus.
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Oozing bile from every pore...that’s exactly how I’d describe the above.
Where did I insult you ? You have said in previous posts that you have savings so you wouldn’t be greatly impacted financially by the lockdown. I was simply using your own words. That you haven’t been impacted by lack of equipment is, I’ll admit, an assumption as I really can’t believe anyone whose family is either a front line health care worker without PPE or has been adversely affected by lack of ventilators etc could possibly support this government’s handling of the virus.
Did you not write this
“You are Johnson’s dream constituent...he gives you gruel, tells you it’s the finest caviar and the others are too unsophisticated to know the difference and you gobble it all up”.
And you don’t think that was rude, implying that I’m some unsophisticated idiot who doesn’t understand what’s going on?
I will be massively impacted financially by the lockdown. I am getting a one off payment grant of £10k, which is a lot less than I turnover in a month. How long is that money going to last me? Who knows. Having to spend my life savings to cover it is not a great position to be in especially as I only have a tiny pension to look forward to. Who knows if my business will even survive the next six months, or year. I have two elderly parents with underlying health problems who live miles from me who I cannot visit and who may possibly die without me ever seeing them alive again. I have a child stranded in a foreign country who will not be able to come home for her 21st Birthday or Easter. I myself have personal issues including health issues which all add to the strain, but I am not going to endless whinge and moan and blame the government day in, day out because I don’t see the point. I would rather have a positive outlook than endlessly harp on about the negative. To that end I took some small comfort from the fact that the daily death rate in this country has dropped 3 days running and that the number of patients hospitalised is not accelerating. Small things to hold onto which you will no doubt do your best to pour cold water on.
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Did you not write this
“You are Johnson’s dream constituent...he gives you gruel, tells you it’s the finest caviar and the others are too unsophisticated to know the difference and you gobble it all up”.
And you don’t think that was rude, implying that I’m some unsophisticated idiot who doesn’t understand what’s going on?
I will be massively impacted financially by the lockdown. I am getting a one off payment grant of £10k, which is a lot less than I turnover in a month. How long is that money going to last me? Who knows. Having to spend my life savings to cover it is not a great position to be in especially as I only have a tiny pension to look forward to. Who knows if my business will even survive the next six months, or year. I have two elderly parents with underlying health problems who live miles from me who I cannot visit and who may possibly die without me ever seeing them alive again. I have a child stranded in a foreign country who will not be able to come home for her 21st Birthday or Easter. I myself have personal issues including health issues which all add to the strain, but I am not going to endless whinge and moan and blame the government day in, day out because I don’t see the point. I would rather have a positive outlook than endlessly harp on about the negative. To that end I took some small comfort from the fact that the daily death rate in this country has dropped 3 days running and that the number of patients hospitalised is not accelerating. Small things to hold onto which you will no doubt do your best to pour cold water on.
I am greatly encouraged that the lockdown is bearing fruit.....now imagine if the government had done it weeks ago when it was obvious that this was the way things were heading. Imagine how many elderly relatives of others would have been saved.
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I am greatly encouraged that the lockdown is bearing fruit.....now imagine if the government had done it weeks ago when it was obvious that this was the way things were heading. Imagine how many elderly relatives of others would have been saved.
When was Labour insisting we have a complete lockdown?
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When was Labour insisting we have a complete lockdown?
They didn't. and anyway as has been mentioned Kinnocks and Corbyn were not compliant when it was a lock down!
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When was Labour insisting we have a complete lockdown?
Labour isn’t in government.
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Labour isn’t in government.
Neither are you, doesn’t stop you airing your views to anyone who will listen. Surely the job of an effective opposition is to constructively challenge and highlight issues of national importance at every available opportunity?
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Neither are you, doesn’t stop you airing your views to anyone who will listen. Surely the job of an effective opposition is to constructively challenge and highlight issues of national importance at every available opportunity?
Then don’t listen.
Whether Labour is an effective opposition has nothing to do with anything. Labour were not privy to the information that the government had access to. This is a mess of the government’s making.
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Then don’t listen.
Whether Labour is an effective opposition has nothing to do with anything. Labour were not privy to the information that the government had access to. This is a mess of the government’s making.
Ignorance is no defence, unless you’re the Labour Party - then it’s mandatory! According to every mouthy know-it-all on the internet, even a child of six could have seen where this was going back in December 2019 when the first case was announced in Wuhan but you think Labour’s duty was to just keep quiet? OK then. Meanwhile the government appears to have the situation under control, how upsetting for you.
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Ignorance is no defence, unless you’re the Labour Party - then it’s mandatory! According to every mouthy know-it-all on the internet, even a child of six could have seen where this was going back in December 2019 when the first case was announced in Wuhan but you think Labour’s duty was to just keep quiet? OK then. Meanwhile the government appears to have the situation under control, how upsetting for you.
Is this really getting the situation under control ?
https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/31/nurses-doctors-putting-lives-risk-treating-coronavirus-patients-without-ppe-12481536/
Three doctors already dead and one in four self-isolating. It would appear neither you nor the PM care a jot about those putting their lives on the line for us.
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Is this really getting the situation under control ?
https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/31/nurses-doctors-putting-lives-risk-treating-coronavirus-patients-without-ppe-12481536/
Three doctors already dead and one in four self-isolating. It would appear neither you nor the PM care a jot about those putting their lives on the line for us.
I have followed this debate between yourself and VS. I think mistakes will be made, and errors of judgement both in this country and elsewhere
I have no certainty that a Labour government would have been better or worse in preparing for this pandemic.
However nothing leads me to believe that the PM does not give a jot about those in the front line and that is a scurrilous accusation to make of VS.
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No. It’s help in a crisis. From our government, we may pay the money back at some point later. If it were socialism it would be someone else’s money.
Having read through some of the posts on this subject I find the socialists approach quite laughable.
We, in the UK have companies like McLaren, Williams and Mercedes Benz making ventilators. In the USA Trimp has ordered GM to make them, they didn’t offer. He basically told them they should do this.
I am an unemployed man with a mortgage. I despise your socialism because it has never worked, society does not move forward with socialism.
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The thing with Sweden is fascinating. They are adopting the strategy that Boris and Cummings first mooted weeks ago, the “herd immunity” thing (only they’re not calling it that but the principle is the same) and they have a centre left government. Their strategy so far appears to have been widely supported by the Swedes and it is the far right of the political spectrum that are calling for a more draconian clampdown. Quite the opposite here, with the loudest critics of our government’s initial less authoritarian approach coming from the far left.
There’s no way of knowing yet how it’s going to pan out for Sweden (who have the lowest hospital bed to population ratio in the EU) but if they come out of this relatively unscathed it will certainly raise questions about whether the lockdown here was strictly necessary or if the government’s initial instincts weren’t the right ones after all.
More here
https://unherd.com/2020/03/all-eyes-on-the-swedish-coronavirus-experiment/
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No. It’s help in a crisis. From our government, we may pay the money back at some point later. If it were socialism it would be someone else’s money.
Having read through some of the posts on this subject I find the socialists approach quite laughable.
We, in the UK have companies like McLaren, Williams and Mercedes Benz making ventilators. In the USA Trimp has ordered GM to make them, they didn’t offer. He basically told them they should do this.
I am an unemployed man with a mortgage. I despise your socialism because it has never worked, society does not move forward with socialism.
So whose else’s money would it be ?
Not sure what point you’re ventilator remark was supposed to be making.
Capitalism has ruled the roost for the last ten years in this country and to be fair if you are an unemployed man with a mortgage it hasn’t been great to you. Your lack of forward movement is stark never mind society’s.
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Some interesting tweets from Robert Peston tonight.
.@michaelgove said just now that the difficulty in increasing number of #COVID19 tests was due to a shortage of the relevant "chemcial reagents". Well I've just talked to the Chemical Industries Association, which represents the UK's very substantial chemicals industry. It...
has contacted its members, and they've said there is no shortage of the relevant reagents. So the Association has now been in touch with @michaelgove's office to find out what he means, because it is stumped. The Association also points out there was an industry chat with...
a business minister today, who made no attempt to find out if there was a supply problem for the vital ingredients of Covid19 testing kits. So this question of why there aren't enough tests for the virus is an even bigger mystery. Also, if it turns out there is a shortage...
these manufacturers are more than happy to increase their production. But they need to be asked, which has not happened. PS It was Labour MP @Bill_Esterson who initially spotted this gap between what Gove said and what the industry believes to be true.
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So whose else’s money would it be ?
Not sure what point you’re ventilator remark was supposed to be making.
Capitalism has ruled the roost for the last ten years in this country and to be fair if you are an unemployed man with a mortgage it hasn’t been great to you. Your lack of forward movement is stark never mind society’s.
Money? Sell more gold?
Ventilators?
We have companies including Formula1 motor racing manufacturers who will make the machines, at cost. They have offered help, they will help. In the YSA no one helps, they have been told they have to help. I didn’t mention Dyson. I know you didn’t either.
Capitalism? No, it hasn’t bern great for me. I am 59, 60 within 6 months and I know for certain that I will never be able to retire. So how would socialism be better?
The minimum wage? That is actually a maximum wage, employers only need to pay £8.50 p.a. for a basic warehouse job inspite of the fact that I can speak good English and I am able to work alone or in a team.The
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Money? Sell more gold?
Ventilators?
We have companies including Formula1 motor racing manufacturers who will make the machines, at cost. They have offered help, they will help. In the YSA no one helps, they have been told they have to help. I didn’t mention Dyson. I know you didn’t either.
Capitalism? No, it hasn’t bern great for me. I am 59, 60 within 6 months and I know for certain that I will never be able to retire. So how would socialism be better?
The minimum wage? That is actually a maximum wage, employers only need to pay £8.50 p.a. for a basic warehouse job inspite of the fact that I can speak good English and I am able to work alone or in a team.The
Sell more gold. Wouldn’t it be our gold ?
Still not getting what you’re getting at re-ventilators.
Socialism ? Well for you it certainly couldn’t be any worse.
Your last point...well that’s capitalism for you.
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I assume you remember the last time the gold was sold. Why would it be ok to just sell the gold?
The rates are low. We shouldn’t sell out.
The ventilator issue is people with millions in cash, lots of backing and brains putting themselves forward to help in a situation.They don’t have to, they can so they do. In The USA no one offered, they were ordered to help.
Capitalism working well, here at least.
The minimum wage was instigated and put into place by the (alleged) murder, war monger (*)
And cottaging expert, you know the one who said he was going to rub their right wing noses in multiculturalism.
I despise that man, he was the last word in utter reprehensibility. Charles Lynton my arse, or rather not my arse
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I assume you remember the last time the gold was sold. Why would it be ok to just sell the gold?
The rates are low. We shouldn’t sell out.
The ventilator issue is people with millions in cash, lots of backing and brains putting themselves forward to help in a situation.They don’t have to, they can so they do. In The USA no one offered, they were ordered to help.
Capitalism working well, here at least.
The minimum wage was instigated and put into place by the (alleged) murder, war monger (*)
And cottaging expert, you know the one who said he was going to rub their right wing noses in multiculturalism.
I despise that man, he was the last word in utter reprehensibility. Charles Lynton my arse, or rather not my arse
Damn that Labour government for not wanting you to work for a pittance !!
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A reader’s comment in today’s Times with which I wholeheartedly agree (as do dozens of other readers judging by the number of likes it has received:
“Time for a rant, brought on do doubt by self isolating. Apparently we should have taken draconian measures 5 weeks ago. However then there were just dozens of positive cases and very few deaths, this is not China, or Russia, or even South Korea or Singapore, countries where Draconian measures can be forced on people or the Goverments can be considered illiberal. If Boris Johnson had enforced the measures he did last Monday, 4 weeks earlier the population would have ignored them, and the main stream media would have crucified him and the Government for introducing “over the top” measures that would create Civil Unrest.
The advice of the medical and scientific community was not for such measures, and the Civil Liberties groups would be demanding in the High Court that the Legislation was illegal, and may have found the Court sympathetic.
Now let us move on to testing, Politicians have appeared to be too optimistic about the pace of testing, but they did not pick their prophecies out of thin air, they would have been given estimates they had from the Civil Service, who had received it from the health service and their purchasing staff. Ok the buck stops with the Government but they have not tried to deliberately deceive the public, probably somebody down the line made a miscalculation or was trying to cover their ass.
We are where we are the vast majority of people in all parts of society are doing their very best in a situation where there is no precedent. Undoubtedly there are people in Politics, the Media and even the NHS who are prioritising their own Agendas, but now is the time to pull together, not to look for scapegoats”.
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It would appear that the same criticisms being laid at the government’s door here, are being laid at the door of Macron and his government in France. In fact I doubt there is a country anywhere in the world where the government hasn’t come in for criticism of its handling of the crisis (except for those countries where criticism of the state is outlawed).
It’s natural to want to apportion blame but it’s also understandable when governments don’t do everything exactly right in a fast-moving crisis of such huge proportions. More understanding and cooperation and less point-scoring and conspiracy theorising is needed from everyone to help us get through this, imo.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-conspiracies-france-riven-with-fear-and-distrust-as-the-virus-death-toll-soars-mx9fswws3
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As a Conservative government when the Telegraph start asking questions you know that you are in trouble.
(https://storify.com/services/proxy/2/FprYijDqSkctmWZN9YmCLw/https/media.fyre.co/uAhQbAgASVBBmJYimL5g_1001cc-dtndt-1-020420-a001c-dt_1585773941_001.png)
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Who’d have thought that we’d have to leave it to Piers Morgan of all people that hold the government’s feet to the fire.
https://youtu.be/JLrMfhSCZio
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The testing issue has become the main weapon in the arsenal of those with a political agenda to try and bring down the government IMO. I really don’t see the point in mass testing to see if you have the virus now because you could test negative today, doesn’t mean you won’t have caught it by tomorrow. The anti-gen test is far more useful but reliable tests in large quantity simply don’t seem to exist.
Is bringing down the government, fostering unrest and rebellion at a time of such a crisis really a very good idea?
Coronavirus: Row over testing could distract from real fight, says Calderwood
Scotland's chief medical officer said mass testing only stopped the spread of coronavirus at early stages
Scotland's chief medical officer said mass testing only stopped the spread of coronavirus at early stages
JEFF J MITCHELL//PA
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Scotland’s chief medical officer has said that relentless public focus on testing people for coronavirus risks becoming a “distraction” because it will not substantially halt the spread.
Catherine Calderwood said it was “a fallacy” that mass testing with current kit would halt the epidemic. She echoed the views of Jonathan Van-Tam, the English deputy chief medical officer, who said that testing was a “side issue”.
Governments on both sides of the border have been criticised for the low level of testing on NHS staff.
There was confusion in Scotland yesterday as confirmed deaths rocketed from 76 to 126, but this was put down to late reporting due to difficulties contacting families, forcing a rethink about the way the Scottish government reports figures in future.
Dr Calderwood has urged the public to pay little heed to the political infighting over testing, saying she had been warning “for several weeks now about the distraction that the focus on testing may become”.
At a briefing in Edinburgh she said: “The testing is extremely useful, but it is only going to be positive for a short window of 48 to 72 hours while somebody has symptoms, because there need to be a certain amount of virus in that person for that to be effective.”
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From Stephen Bush political editor of the New Statesman.
The reason why tests matter so much - and why the United Kingdom's lagging testing capacity is so important - is that in the immediate short-term, the prevent hospitals becoming vectors of contagion. Without adequate testing, asymptomatic patients and hospital staff will be infecting other patients and staff - with deadly consequences for staff and patients, and with the potential to overload the NHS' capacity.
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It’s these twerps that are adding fuel to the fire and to whom little wannabe know-it-all internet experts look up to with their constant harping on:
We don’t need ‘gotcha’ journalism now
The media carrying on as normal during a health crisis is less public service, more public nuisance
BY DOUGLAS MURRAY
Robert Peston. Credit: Alex Broadway/Getty
Douglas Murray
Douglas Murray is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist based in London.
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April 3, 2020
DouglasKMurray
April 3, 2020
Filed under:
Debate Cathy NewmanCoronavirusCOVID-19JournalismMedia biasRobert Peston
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We live in the age of the omniscient anchor. Not that the news-frontmen and women are really omniscient, of course, but in Britain and (even more so) in America there is a type of presenter who is held up — and certainly held themselves up — as though the world and everything in it was really rather simple. All answers had one source — and that source is them.
Blessed with the power to dilate at length on the solutions to all problems, when they bother to ask a question you can tell by the narrowing of the eyes that they already knew the answer and are only asking the in the hope that the interrogee does not.
How blessed we were to have such beings. And how much the current crisis has exposed them.
Take Cathy Newman. During the present crisis the Channel 4 anchor has continued to try her usual journalistic schtick in a situation with no appetite for it. Seeking to remain rude as well as relevant, she tweeted following a Downing Street press conference in the middle of last month that “Today all the talk from the amigos is about ramping up testing.”
I suppose it is fine to use a derogatory and demeaning name for the Prime Minister if you really must, but why deride the country’s two leading experts on the virus in the same way?
What had these medical experts done that allowed Newman to dismiss them in such a silly and inaccurate manner? And weren’t people like Newman precisely the sort who spent recent years pretending that Michael Gove once said that this country had “had enough of experts” and that this unfinished sentence was the vital lens through which one might understand the ignorance and absurdity of the masses. I digress — as did Newman, who went on: “A few days ago it was all about limiting it to those already ill. Big change.”
Of course, what Newman was doing here is what a large number of journalists – most prominently Piers Morgan – have been trying to do since the corona pandemic began, which is to continue playing the same games that the media has become obsessed with in recent years.
Political games of their own invention. Not just ‘gotcha’ journalism, but a journalism which has invented a set of tropes to keep any story running for as long as possible. Among the most popular is the ‘U-turn’. It is impossible to chart precisely when the U-turn became such a common journalistic device, or when this morally-neutral action became a synonym for something disgraceful.
MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
No, 'prejudice' is not our greatest enemy, coronavirus is
BY DOUGLAS MURRAY
As all drivers will know, a U-turn is in fact a handy little manoeuvre. When driving down a road at the end of which you see a wall there are a couple of options before you. One might (a) continue driving towards the wall, proud that you have not altered your initial principles or compromised yourself in any way, or (b) One might perform a U-turn and continue on with the day.
So it is with governments. If, in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis the government decides — based on the latest expert advice — that it should change its thinking, then this is not necessarily some great scandal, even if some redundant parts of the media continue to shout ‘Gotcha!’ as they spot the ‘U-turn’.
Others continue to pretend that there is no situation so complex that they cannot land on the nub of the matter in super-quick time. Of all the people left exposed for having played this game none has been shown up so badly as Robert Peston.
Ordinarily Peston is to be found on ITV, presenting a show whose viewers are generally treated to some second or third-rate figure like Emily Thornberry attempting to demonstrate why they should be Prime Minister. It is unwatchable stuff, even for political obsessives.
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Broadcaster bias is destroying public trust
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Well-remunerated though the job may be, however, there is a price to pay for fronting these programmes. One is the feeling that since you are up there you must be up there for a reason, and that although you don’t always feel like you know much you must do — or you wouldn’t be up there, would you?
I know a journalist who was once introduced by accident as an ‘aviation expert’ on a programme and had that momentary flicker “Well if I’m being introduced as an aviation expert then I must in fact be an aviation expert.”
Since the beginning of this crisis Peston has been attempting, less successfully than Piers Morgan it must be said, to show himself to be the one who still knows the crucial questions to ask. No area of oversight or ignorance can ever be conceded or otherwise admitted to. Why does Britain do less testing than Germany? Why does [insert country name] have better provisions than [insert other country name]? On and on it goes, not to get to any truth but to play the old game that journalists of Peston’s generation and ilk have been playing for years.
Deprived of any story that would allow them to be Bernstein and Woodward, they had to make do instead with showing that they knew more than, say, Chris Grayling and could by constant interruption expose such a person as not being sufficiently on top of their brief.
What is so beautiful about Peston’s interview this week with Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van Tam is that even when he is shown up Peston cannot shut up. Because his primary goal is to ensure that he does not come out of it looking bad, or as though he doesn’t know what he is talking about. Each time he opens his mouth it is clear once again that he is trying to ‘gotcha’ the Deputy Chief Medical Officer based on information that he, Peston, has clearly crammed up on only minutes earlier.
Even now, after the interview has gone viral, Peston is trying to mop up on social media in a way that is positively Newman-esque — by pretending that he is a victim. “I was slightly taken aback at the ferocity of the Deputy Chief Medical Officer’s response,” he declared.
People can judge for themselves whether van Tam was ferocious or just calm and patient, but the ego will not let it go, and so he continued: “Just to be clear, I do understand the difference between an antibody and an antigen test. What I wanted to gauge was whether this rapid antibody test could help solve the problem of insufficient PCR (antigen) testing capacity. This was not an unreasonable line of inquiry, in…”
And on he went.
It is tempting to say that this is an unprecedented situation and so the media is doing the best it can — but that isn’t the case. Instead the same style of journalism has been on display and been revealed to be vapid.
After the killing of Qassem Soleimani in January there was a noisy if less virulent outbreak of the same problem. Presenters and pundits who had barely if ever heard of the Iranian general filled the airwaves with their golden insights.
SUGGESTED READING
It can't be 'big business as usual' after coronavirus
BY MARY HARRINGTON
“Was this a Franz Ferdinand moment?” was the sort of ‘clever’ question they asked repeatedly. No it clearly wasn’t, but the charade carried on regardless, with the presumption that nobody would remember next week, and besides which, something else would come along soon.
As indeed it has.
Of course there is, and must be, a place in every society for people asking awkward questions. But asking awkward, difficult questions is a different thing from asking the wrong questions, or asking questions which are ill-informed. And perhaps, during an epidemic unprecedented in our lifetimes, and in which very difficult decisions must be made based on highly complex scientific calculations, that kind of gotcha journalism is no longer a public service but a public nuisance.
Journalism is at a difficult enough juncture, and there are many people in the trade who know a great deal. But the whole profession would be enormously helped if its most prominent representatives stopped giving off the impression of thinking that the primary problem with real experts is that they don’t listen to journalists enough.
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Another of Mr Murray’s opinions.
‘Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition... From long before we were first attacked it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs … Where a mosque has become a centre of hate it should be closed and pulled down. If that means that some Muslims don't have a mosque to go to, then they'll just have to realise that they aren't owed one.[61][62][63]’
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Another of Mr Murray’s opinions.
‘Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition... From long before we were first attacked it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs … Where a mosque has become a centre of hate it should be closed and pulled down. If that means that some Muslims don't have a mosque to go to, then they'll just have to realise that they aren't owed one.[61][62][63]’
There shouldn't be any mosques in this country anyway. The Muslim religion was historically an anathema to Christians, recent events have only served to reinforce that belief despite the bleedin heart apologists.
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Douglas Murray’s views on mosques do not invalidate the views he expressed in the article I posted. He is entitled to hold a wide range of views some of which I may concur with, no problem with that at all. Let’s face it if some leftie journo had written about gotcha journalism being the downfall of Jeremy Corbyn, I’m sure that would have been met with massive agreement in some quarters.
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Douglas Murray’s views on mosques do not invalidate the views he expressed in the article I posted. He is entitled to hold a wide range of views some of which I may concur with, no problem with that at all. Let’s face it if some leftie journo had written about gotcha journalism being the downfall of Jeremy Corbyn, I’m sure that would have been met with massive agreement in some quarters.
And swap mosque for synagogue and how would you feel about him.
Btw I thought you had me on ignore.
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There shouldn't be any mosques in this country anyway. The Muslim religion was historically an anathema to Christians, recent events have only served to reinforce that belief despite the bleedin heart apologists.
Historically Christianity in Britain was factionalised with Catholicism and Protest[ censored word]m both being anathema to the other.
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Douglas Murray’s views on mosques do not invalidate the views he expressed in the article I posted. He is entitled to hold a wide range of views some of which I may concur with, no problem with that at all. Let’s face it if some leftie journo had written about gotcha journalism being the downfall of Jeremy Corbyn, I’m sure that would have been met with massive agreement in some quarters.
You do pick particularly unsavoury characters to quote.
Were Melanie Phillips and Douglas Murray to hold the same kinds of views about Jews as they do about Muslims and trans peole, they would not have shared a stage at Jewish Book Week (JBW).
Had Phillips said it was the “Jewish world” that is “given a free pass”, had Murray called “the whole [ censored word]emitism issue” a “delusion”, the pair would be public enemy numbers one and two among British Jews.
As it was, our most prestigious cultural event welcomed them with open arms. Perhaps the same logic that distinguishes brown “migrants” from white “expatriates” turns those with unsavoury views into provocateurs.
Welcoming the JBW audience on Tuesday night, Phillips acknowledged her and Murray’s reputation as enfants terribles: “The fact that both of us are on this platform,” she told the packed-out auditorium, “should warrant a trigger alert.”
Phillips had been invited to interview Murray about his latest contribution to the culture wars, The Madness of Crowds. Yet when she opened with the most basic of questions – why Murray had written the book – there was little clarity. Speaking with all the fluency of a chocolate fountain recycling brown liquid, Murray suggested that certain subjects had become “unsayable”. What those subjects were, he was unable to say
Murray was practising a skill that both he and Phillips have honed over the course of their careers: the ability to talk in a way that makes crystal clear what you think, without having to come out and say it. Murray would never openly state that he disdains trans people; instead he says that trans people too often top the news agenda and asserts that the notion that the basic facts of trans identity are “complicated”.
“We are Jewish Solidarity Action (JSA),” came a cry from the gallery. “Solidarity with trans women!” As the protesters were escorted from the auditorium, I thought perhaps ideas like Murray and Phillips’s shouldn’t be quietly listened to, but loudly protested. Perhaps the event’s quasi-intellectual framing was inviting us to seriously consider viewpoints that – in my view – should not be even momentarily entertained.
I stayed, but decided to confront the speakers after the event. Yet my impassioned spiel went out the window when I found myself drawn into a lively tete-a-tete with Phillips. “I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree!” I chirruped. Here we were, at another stall in the marketplace of ideas, and here I was, buying Phillips’s wares.
Sadly, the organisers’ response to the protest was to double down. “Jewish Book Week has always been a platform for a diversity of voices,” they tweeted last night, in response to JSA’s action. “We take pride in providing our audiences with the opportunity to hear and question different perspectives – including those they may not themselves share – on the topics that matter.”
Yet Phillips and Murray are not simply right-wing “thinkers” with whom we might disagree. They are the polite faces of a dangerous ideology
Parleying in their plush armchairs, contemplating whether trans women are women and whether racism exists, the wolfishness of these sheep was entirely apparent to me. Yet to many in my community, it is not.
Part of the reason for this, I believe, is that both Murray and Phillips’s thinking makes an exception for Jews – Phillips for obvious reasons, Murray for less obvious ones (though Phillips joked that she suspected him “a secret Jew”).
Murray – a man seemingly unbothered by, even unbelieving of the existence of, most forms of prejudice – has called [ censored word]emitism “the vilest and most deadly prejudice of all”. Why Murray is so appalled by [ censored word]emitism but not by Phillips’s alleged Islamophobia is hard to say.
Phillips, meanwhile, complained at the event that identity politics produced a binary view of power: either one is a victim or a victimiser, but never both. I put to Phillips that this sounded a hell of a lot like a certain Jewish state. In an apparent volte-face, she asserted that this was a binary conflict, with Israel the victim, Palestinians the victimisers. For her own people, Phillips seemed willing to undermine her own argument.
This selective prejudice brings to mind a certain Boris Johnson, doling out bagels to Jews and insults to Muslims. Too many Jewish people have become happy to humour those who oppress others, so long as they don’t doesn’t oppress us. Yet A politics that targets one minority targets us all. This kind of political nimbyism, then, is not just morally abhorrent – it is dangerous short-sighted.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/melanie-phillips-douglas-murray-jewish-book-week-muslims-trans-issues-a9380166.html
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There shouldn't be any mosques in this country anyway. The Muslim religion was historically an anathema to Christians, recent events have only served to reinforce that belief despite the bleedin heart apologists.
People of every faith have died trying to save others in the UK and elsewhere.
What on earth does it matter which mainstream religion, practised in a peaceful manner, anyone chooses to follow?
I find that offensive, on the behalf of so many kind and caring people, whatever their faith.
I wasn't around when this was made, but it might make people think a little:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMkNtiXxQAM
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This is the very definition of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I mean who would really want to be in this man’s shoes right now, whatever he decides the armchair experts are going to rip him a new one:
“Boris Johnson’s coronavirus adviser calls for a way out of lockdown
Britain may still need to adopt herd immunity
Britain has “painted itself into a corner” with no clear exit strategy from the coronavirus epidemic and needs to reconsider herd immunity, according to a senior government adviser.
A prolonged lockdown risks causing more suffering than the virus itself, Graham Medley, the government’s chief pandemic modeller, has warned. He said that the country needed to face the trade-off between harming the young versus the old.
Professor Medley, a member of the key scientific body that is guiding the government’s response, told The Times that Britain must consider allowing people to catch the virus in the least deadly way possible rather than letting unemployment, domestic violence and mental ill health mount indefinitely.
His modelling showed that letting people return to work or reopening schools would allow the pandemic to take off again and no way had been found of easing the lockdown while controlling the virus. Only those working outside might be safe to go back to their jobs, he found.
An antibody test, which the government is hoping will prove a “game-changer”, could help but was not working and such a method had never previously been used to manage an epidemic, he said.
His warning came after 684 more people were confirmed yesterday to have died from the virus in Britain’s biggest daily rise, taking the total to 3,605”.
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If the government’s much derided “herd immunity “ strategy was so very dangerous and wrong, it shouldn’t be too long before Sweden (still using a similar strategy) has the highest number of deaths per capita than any other country in Western Europe. At the moment it is 9th in the list.
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People of every faith have died trying to save others in the UK and elsewhere.
What on earth does it matter which mainstream religion, practised in a peaceful manner, anyone chooses to follow?
I find that offensive, on the behalf of so many kind and caring people, whatever their faith.
I wasn't around when this was made, but it might make people think a little:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMkNtiXxQAM
Wonderful sentiments which I echo absolutely.
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This is the very definition of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I mean who would really want to be in this man’s shoes right now, whatever he decides the armchair experts are going to rip him a new one:
“Boris Johnson’s coronavirus adviser calls for a way out of lockdown
Britain may still need to adopt herd immunity
Britain has “painted itself into a corner” with no clear exit strategy from the coronavirus epidemic and needs to reconsider herd immunity, according to a senior government adviser.
A prolonged lockdown risks causing more suffering than the virus itself, Graham Medley, the government’s chief pandemic modeller, has warned. He said that the country needed to face the trade-off between harming the young versus the old.
Professor Medley, a member of the key scientific body that is guiding the government’s response, told The Times that Britain must consider allowing people to catch the virus in the least deadly way possible rather than letting unemployment, domestic violence and mental ill health mount indefinitely.
His modelling showed that letting people return to work or reopening schools would allow the pandemic to take off again and no way had been found of easing the lockdown while controlling the virus. Only those working outside might be safe to go back to their jobs, he found.
An antibody test, which the government is hoping will prove a “game-changer”, could help but was not working and such a method had never previously been used to manage an epidemic, he said.
His warning came after 684 more people were confirmed yesterday to have died from the virus in Britain’s biggest daily rise, taking the total to 3,605”.
And the message ? ‘Save yourself and damn the old and vulnerable’ as it’s always been with the Tories. It’s eugenics by the back door. When a 28 year old with moderate health problems is ‘urged’ to sign a DNR you know there is something going badly wrong.
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If the government’s much derided “herd immunity “ strategy was so very dangerous and wrong, it shouldn’t be too long before Sweden (still using a similar strategy) has the highest number of deaths per capita than any other country in Western Europe. At the moment it is 9th in the list.
You are trying to defend the indefensible....and failing.
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If the government’s much derided “herd immunity “ strategy was so very dangerous and wrong, it shouldn’t be too long before Sweden (still using a similar strategy) has the highest number of deaths per capita than any other country in Western Europe. At the moment it is 9th in the list.
358 deaths as of yesterday out of a little over 6,000 cases.
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If Sweden can cope with half-way measures, great. However, that still depends on people acting responsibly (and being able to do so).
Covid-19: Still No Sign of Lockdown for Sweden
BLOG - 3 April 2020
(snip)
... Some claim that the government has chosen to induce herd immunity, alike strategies previously adopted by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Since, both countries followed in the footsteps of other European countries by introducing much stricter measures.
Some claim that the government has chosen to bet on herd immunity.
According to this theory, explained by Claude Le Pen in a post for Institut Montaigne, a sufficiently large share of the population would have to be contaminated by the virus to make the entire population immune to the pandemic – until a vaccine exists, immunity comes through the contraction of the disease. This strategy, which raises many ethical issues and concerns, is not formally embraced. Indeed, there has been no official statement from the Swedish executive, contrary to Boris Johnson’s official statement in the UK a couple of weeks ago.
For one of Sweden's most publicized epidemiologists, Anders Tegnell, there is no evidence that a strategy of herd immunity has been adopted by the government. Interviewed by the national media outlet Svenska Dagbladet, he rules out the possibility of the government adopting this strategy: according to him, the government is instead looking at ways to curb the curve as much as possible, so as to limit the number of cases reported simultaneously and thus preserve the capacity of the health system to respond to the health crisis. What we understand from this is that chaos is not yet felt and is not predicted to occur in the future. One of Sweden's assets in the face of the pandemic is a low population density, which may help limit the spread of the virus. With 25 people per square kilometre, compared to 120 in France or 206 in Italy, Sweden is one of the countries with the lowest population density in Europe. And Stockholm, by far the densest city in the country, has half as many people per square kilometre as New York does, and four times fewer than Paris.
Nonetheless, as an article on the Swedish case published in Le Monde points out, experts are far from reaching consensus. Many remind that Swedish hospitals were already under pressure before the onset of the Coronavirus, with 2.4 beds per 1,000 inhabitants and a total of 526 beds in intensive care, the lowest figure among OECD countries.
Beyond the debate among experts, political parties have responded to this decision. While media outlets are being increasingly alarmist, political parties in the opposition have not tried to take advantage of the situation.
https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/blog/covid-19-still-no-sign-lockdown-sweden
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For those who believe that the government are simply reacting to an emergency they couldn’t have foreseen.
Exercise Cygnus uncovered: the pandemic warnings buried by the government
Exercise Cygnus dramatically exposed the gaps in Britain’s pandemic response but its ‘terrifying’ findings have yet to be published
By
Paul Nuki,
GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY EDITOR, LONDON and
Bill Gardner
28 March 2020 • 9:00pm
A woman makes PPE
In the test run, there was not enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for the nation's doctors and nurses CREDIT: Paul Faith / AFP
Ministers from across government were seated, ashen faced, in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR). On a large flat screen, epidemiologists from Imperial College London were showing a slide which detailed the scale of the epidemic that was enveloping Britain.
The first cases of the virus had been confirmed in south east Asia two months previously. Britain reported its first cases, imported from returning travellers, a month later. Now there was widespread and sustained domestic transmission and the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared a global pandemic.
But it was not the pandemic itself that was causing those gathered in Whitehall to grimace but the nation’s woeful preparation. The peak of the epidemic had not yet arrived but local resilience forums, hospitals and mortuaries across the country were already being overwhelmed.
There was not enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for the nation's doctors and nurses. The NHS was about to “fall over” due to a shortage of ventilators and critical care beds. Morgues were set to overflow, and it had become terrifyingly evident that the government’s emergency messaging was not getting traction with the public.
This was a drill. Code-named Exercise Cygnus, it took place in October 2016 and involved all major government departments, the NHS and local authorities across Britain. The modelling for the outbreak was prepared by the same team that is tracking the all-too-real Covid-19 pandemic now. And as the Sunday Telegraph reveals, it showed gaping holes in Britain’s Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) plan.
Readers using our app can view this here
The only significant difference between the test drill and the pandemic we now face is that Cygnus was assumed to be the H2N2 influenza virus, while Covid-19 is a coronavirus. Both spread rapidly and kill by causing acute respiratory illness.
There is one other difference. While the real Covid-19 epidemic is being played out in public, the report detailing the findings of Exercise Cygnus have never seen the light of day. A senior former government source with direct involvement in the exercise said they were deemed “too terrifying” to be revealed. Others involved cited “national security” concerns.
“There has been a reluctance to put Cygnus out in the public domain because frankly it would terrify people,” said the former senior government source yesterday.
“It’s right to say that the NHS was stretched beyond breaking point [by Cygnus]. People might say we have blood on our hands but the fact is that it’s always easier to manage the last outbreak than the one coming down the track. Hindsight is a beautiful thing.”
Others are more critical. A senior academic directly involved in Cygnus and the current pandemic said: “These exercises are supposed to prepare government for something like this - but it appears they were aware of the problem but didn’t do much about it.
“We’ve been quite surprised at the lack of coherent planning for a pandemic on this scale. It’s basically a lack of attention to what would be needed to prevent a disease like this from overwhelming the system. All the flexibility has been pared away so it’s difficult to react quickly. Nothing is ready to go.”
Reasons for the report not being published are likely to go beyond Whitehall’s paternal view and a desire not to frighten the public. The Telegraph has talked to multiple sources with first hand knowledge of Cygnus and all say the exercise revealed significant caps in the NHS’s “surge capacity”.
These gaps, which included a shortage of ICU beds and PPE, were revealed at a time of austerity. Jeremy Hunt, the then health secretary, and Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, were cutting NHS bed numbers at the time rather than adding capacity. Dame Sally Davies, then chief medical officer, faced similar financial constraints.
There was also cynicism across Whitehall about the epidemiological modeling. The previous chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, ended his term under something of a cloud when the 2009 H1N1 (Swine Flu) pandemic proved a damp squib relative to the initial modelling.
The same view was taken of forecasting of the 2013–2016 west african Ebola outbreak.
Whatever the reasons, the final report on Exercise Cygnus was buried and its prophetic findings hidden from public view.
At meeting of the Public Health England (PHE) advisory board on 26 April 2017, Paul Cosford, the quango’s director for health protection, said a report “setting out the learning and recommendations” from Cygnus “was in the process of being finalised” but it never saw the light of day.
Tellingly perhaps, NHS England, the body which oversees the running of the NHS and was found most wanting by the report, has no mention of the exercise on its website. It’s high fidelity, government-operated search engine returns nothing for the phrase “Cygnus” despite a board paper on the exercise being unearthed by the Telegraph.
“Our preparations for pandemic influenza were exercised in October 2016 with NHS England participating in Exercise Cygnus. The exercise was set seven weeks into a severe pandemic outbreak and challenged the NHS to review its response to an overwhelmed service with reduced staff availability,” says the paper which was drafted for “clearance” by Matthew Swindells, the then national director of operations and information.
A video (below at 7 minutes 14 seconds) of the meeting shows the NHS England Board considering the paper for just a few moments, with no serious questions being raised. This is despite the document making clear, albeit in the obtuse language of Whitehall, that the NHS had been found wanting by the exercise.
Readers using our app can view this here
The NHS’s emergency plans were to be “revised to incorporate the learning from this exercise and ensure our continued preparedness for future pandemic influenza outbreaks”, said Mr Swindells’ paper. “We are also continuing the challenging work around the management of surge and escalation decision making processes”.
The NHS board was then asked to “receive assurance that NHS England and the NHS in England are prepared to respond to an emergency”, which it duly accepted without further action.
Pressure is already mounting on the NHS leadership. Yesterday the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, called on the NHS board to “resign in their entirety” once the current crisis is over. Others said this was not the time for such attacks, justified or otherwise. “It’s a bit like calling for heads to roll over D-day just as the boats are arriving on the beaches,” said one veteran NHS observer.
Nevertheless, the revelation the government and the NHS leadership knew of the gaps in Britain’s surge capacity ahead of the current outbreak will not go ignored.
It was the lack of “surge capacity” within the NHS, combined with fresh data from Italy, that the modellers at Imperial cited only last week as the reason for Britain having to pivot from a strategy of mitigation to total lockdown six days ago.
In their defence, insiders say that while the Cygnus findings have not been published they were acted on in part at least. Projected shortages of PPE and ICU beds were not filled with bulk purchase because of cash constraints and worries they would become outdated or obsolete if left in storage. Instead work was done on securing reliable supply chains - something they say we will see evidence of this coming week in terms of PPE.
“Throwing money at the problem was not necessarily the solution. The NHS eats up money. It’s a bottomless pit,” said a senior former government source. “We were in a time of austerity and it wasn’t easy.”
Readers using our app can view this here
Findings from Exercise Cygnus were cascaded down to at least some local organisations.
Croydon Council’s latest Pandemic Response Plan, dated March 2020, makes mention of Cygnus, for instance. A key lesson from the exercise, it notes, is the need for “a better understanding of the likely public reaction” to a pandemic in order to “help the development of a robust communications strategy to assist the response”.
The importance of this will not be lost on Number 10 communication chiefs who have faced criticism in recent weeks for their failure to communicate clearly and effectively with the public.
Rotherham’s Health Protection Annual Report 2016 also mentions Cygnus. Locally agreed objectives to be tested included: “assessing the co-ordination of public messages, strategic decision making, managing surges in health and social care activity and the wider consequence management (including dealing with excess deaths)”. Key “learning points” in the wake of the exercise included:
A better and wider understanding of the pressures within the social care setting and how these can be jointly managed
Ensuring the supply and proper use of PPE
Jointly reviewing, with partner agencies, the processes for managing excess deaths in a community setting
Northamptonshire Health and Wellbeing Board was also involved. On 15 March 2018 its annual report noted: “A recent national exercise (Exercise Cygnus) highlighted in particular the need for further work to be done to improve local arrangements around anti-viral distribution, community level protection measures, personal protective equipment [PPE] and mass vaccination programmes.”
The government also shared at least some of the findings of Exercise Cygnus with the Red Cross.
A report on an “NGO-Military Contact Group Conference” dated 17 July 2018, noted of Cygnus: “Lessons included the need … to drill down into the exact actions that the military, police, fire service, local authorities, and the voluntary sector could take to keep systems running and to keep as many people alive as possible.”
In a paragraph that foreshadows the army being called in last week to distribute PPE to hospitals after the NHS’s own logistics system failed, it adds: “Military actions included [the need for] command-and-control components to co-ordinate the healthcare system if the NHS senior management were unable to work.”
A former senior government minister with knowledge of Cygnus yesterday played down the significance of the exercise, saying it was designed, not to see if the NHS would be overwhelmed, but what would happen if it was.
“We knew there weren’t enough intensive care beds, and we wanted to know what would happen in a pandemic of that scale.
“There’s no health system in the world that could cope with that level of outbreak. When you have pressure of that severity it will overwhelm everything.
“There was no recommendation that we need more ventilators. We were modelling what would happen if we ran out of ventilators.
“We were trying to model a situation where the whole system was overwhelmed. We could have had another 10,000 ventilators and it wouldn’t have been nearly enough”.
Critics may counter that this was the problem. Exercise Cygnus starkly revealed what a worst case pandemic scenario would do to Britain but ministers did not respond by building capacity enough to cover it.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “The coronavirus outbreak calls for decisive action, at home and abroad, and the World Health Organisation recognises that the UK is one of the most prepared countries in the world for pandemic flu.
“As the public would expect, we regularly test our pandemic plans and the learnings from previous exercises have helped allow us to rapidly respond to COVID-19. We are committed to be as transparent as possible, and in publishing the SAGE evidence the public are aware of the science behind the government’s response.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/exercise-cygnus-uncovered-pandemic-warnings-buried-government/
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Thanks for that Faith, I'd heard about it but couldn't access the article at the time.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/extraordinary-exchange-care-minister-coronavirus/
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Just to clarify, I'm not overly impressed by any party in the UK - before I get bashed by the various factions on here.
At the same time, we're now in a global crisis, and the only way out is forward with what we've got.
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Thanks for that Faith, I'd heard about it but couldn't access the article at the time.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/extraordinary-exchange-care-minister-coronavirus/
Thanks for that Carana. What a car crash of an interview.
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Thanks for that Faith, I'd heard about it but couldn't access the article at the time.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/extraordinary-exchange-care-minister-coronavirus/
As we have good capacity within the NHS currently I’m not sure where the idea that the NHS has been overwhelmed has come from? I have yet to see terrible footage such as that coming out of Spain and Italy of victims lying in hospital corridors coughing and wheezing for example. A new hospital was built in 9 days in London with thousands of extra beds, and several more coming on line soon, when should these have been built do people think? When the first coronavirus case was announced in China back in December?
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Food for thought (sacrilege though some people will undoubtedly find it to read any criticism whatosever directed at the NHS):
The inflexibility of our lumbering NHS is why the country has had to shut down
CHARLES MOORE
Follow
Charles Moore
3 APRIL 2020 • 9:30PM
Save
2188
An illuminated sign thanking the NHS is pictured across Olympic Way the road to Wembley Stadium in London on March 26, 2020, as a sign of public admiration for the National Health Service (NHS). - Hospital bosses and doctors on Thursday warned of being swamped with a "tsunami" of COVID-19 patients in London, as Britain braced for a peak in cases and the government faced calls to urgently provide specialist kit and tests for frontline health workers. (Photo by Tolga Akmen / AFP) (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)
'NHS staff are dedicated people, but there are defects baked into our system of national bureaucratic command'
Why are we clapping the NHS? It is right and just to clap NHS workers, but that is not the same thing. Virtually everyone has reason to thank good nurses, doctors and paramedics. But if we are to praise large organisations for how effectively they have dealt with the coronavirus crisis, we should be clapping vigorously for Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and Morrisons, who have responded nimbly to sudden extra demand for one of life’s basics – food. We should give only rather tepid applause for the efforts of the NHS to look after another of life’s basics – health.
As its name suggests, the National Health Service is there to serve the health of the nation. In this crisis, the roles have reversed – it is seen as the duty of the nation to serve the NHS. “Protect the NHS. Save lives,” says the slogan, in that rather surprising order. Children are made to recite it like a prayer. How are we to do this? We must help the NHS by avoiding hospitals and surgeries, we are told. The Government’s policy of lockdown is in significant part dictated by the demands not of patients, but of the NHS, and by its lack of adaptability and readiness.
In the most immediate sense, this mantra is justified. Too many patients in surgeries and wards will spread infection. Too many Covid-19 cases will overwhelm the doctors and nurses, the ventilators and the beds. We must all do as we are told, and stay at home. But isn’t there something wrong that the problem is so extreme?
We are trained, when we notice organisational or operational failures in the NHS, to blame the Government. This is partly reasonable: the Government is ultimately answerable for its existence, and no government has ever dared grasp the nettle of reform. But it misses out something important. When dissatisfied by other organisations – the police, the BBC, utility companies, supermarkets, banks, the Church – we arraign the people who run them. With the NHS, an unwritten law forbids this. It is treated like a God, even when it fails.
Take this week’s row about testing. A significant reason for the slow development, arrival and use of the antigen tests (“Have I got it?”) and the antibody tests (“Have I had it?”) seems to be the reluctance of the health service, and of Public Health England, to look outside their own spheres for help. In a culture almost proudly hostile to the private sector and mistrushut upl of independent academic work, the NHS’s first instinct is to defend bureaucratic territory. The extraordinary scene on Thursday when almost no health workers came for specially provided drive-in tests at Chessington World of Adventures seems to have resulted from a bureaucratic muddle about who was in charge.
In his skilful performance at the daily virus press conference on Thursday, the recovering Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, obliquely expressed his frustration. He exclaimed how well “non-ventilator companies” had come up with inventive solutions to produce ventilators fast. He issued a “call out” to British life sciences, laboratories and universities to do likewise for antibody tests.
Behind that ventilator comparison lies a story. Three weeks ago, the NHS belatedly admitted within government that it had failed to get enough ventilators. The Cabinet Office stepped in to help procure. Thanks in part to the energy of the distinguished surgeon Professor Lord Kakkar, University College Hospital, Formula I and Mercedes Benz got together to produce the CPAP (Continuous Positive Airways Pressure) machines that are one up on normal oxygen masks but less invasive than the full, intubating ventilators. Next week, the repurposed Mercedes Benz F1 factory in Brixworth expects to produce 1,000 CPAPs a day.
An equivalently brilliant initiative is urgently needed for antibody tests. At present, we are largely at the mercy of China (many of whose kits don’t work) to produce them. This is the embarrassment which Mr Hancock was gingerly admitting. It is why he cannot promise that antibody tests will be part of his 100,000 tests per day by the end of April. Or take the amazing 4,000-bed capacity Nightingale field hospital at the ExCeL centre in east London, opened yesterday by the Prince of Wales. For two weeks after it was proposed, NHS top brass opposed it. When they finally admitted they needed it, the Army and the private contractors were the ones who made it happen in nine days.
These are not one-off problems. Every day, scores of people with useful offers of medical supply get in touch with the Government. It filters these and passes on the best to the NHS. Too often, the offers get fobbed off or not even answered. Ten days ago, government contacts found the only company in Britain with expertise in making reagent for antigen swab tests. The firm was put on to the NHS, but at the time of writing, the health service had still not had a conversation with it.
Such rebuffs happen on the small scale, too. Yesterday, I received an email from the family of a couple of working medics recently returned from New Zealand. Both answered the call to rejoin the NHS, but have so far had nothing but a holding message. They see media stories of staff shortages because of infection and self-isolation, but still await the call.
Last week, I wrote about the construction of “hot hubs” where GPs could safely triage Covid-19 sufferers and decide whether to send them to hospital. The Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) had ordered its small rural GP groups to set up such hubs within a fortnight without means, skill or direction. When I emailed the CCG last week to get its side of the story, it replied after my deadline, and then only to refer responsibility to a higher power.
A week later, the local GP groups have finally persuaded the CCG that a hot hub must be erected next to the local hospital (only after the hospital tried, in a classic example of the destructive rivalry between primary and secondary care, to refuse because of parking problems). Even now, however, the CCG has not worked out who will actually run the hub once built. As the local GPs’ spokesman, Dr Camilla Pashley, puts it, “The system moves at an unbelievable snail’s pace, though better than usual.” Meanwhile, Dr Pashley and her colleagues have to see Covid patients in their cars in surgery car parks.
That system is the problem. Most NHS staff are dedicated people. The defects are baked into our system of national bureaucratic command. People have noticed that Germany has been more successful in managing the virus spread through testing. This is not a coincidence. Germany does not have our lumbering central diagnostic system, because it does not have, in our sense, a national health service. It has 176 testing centres, part of localised arrangements which mix private insurance, employer involvement and government funding. There are more than three times as many beds per 1,000 patients as in Britain.
It is probably also not a coincidence that Germany has a less draconian lockdown than we do: it can focus on the Covid problem more exactly.
We are locked down by the needs of the NHS in the face of Covid. If this goes on for, say, three months, we could well run out of money to answer those needs. Work matters urgently for the health and wealth of all. As soon as possible, we must get back to it
-
Food for thought (sacrilege though some people will undoubtedly find it to read any criticism whatosever directed at the NHS):
The inflexibility of our lumbering NHS is why the country has had to shut down
CHARLES MOORE
Follow
Charles Moore
3 APRIL 2020 • 9:30PM
Save
2188
An illuminated sign thanking the NHS is pictured across Olympic Way the road to Wembley Stadium in London on March 26, 2020, as a sign of public admiration for the National Health Service (NHS). - Hospital bosses and doctors on Thursday warned of being swamped with a "tsunami" of COVID-19 patients in London, as Britain braced for a peak in cases and the government faced calls to urgently provide specialist kit and tests for frontline health workers. (Photo by Tolga Akmen / AFP) (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)
'NHS staff are dedicated people, but there are defects baked into our system of national bureaucratic command'
Why are we clapping the NHS? It is right and just to clap NHS workers, but that is not the same thing. Virtually everyone has reason to thank good nurses, doctors and paramedics. But if we are to praise large organisations for how effectively they have dealt with the coronavirus crisis, we should be clapping vigorously for Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and Morrisons, who have responded nimbly to sudden extra demand for one of life’s basics – food. We should give only rather tepid applause for the efforts of the NHS to look after another of life’s basics – health.
As its name suggests, the National Health Service is there to serve the health of the nation. In this crisis, the roles have reversed – it is seen as the duty of the nation to serve the NHS. “Protect the NHS. Save lives,” says the slogan, in that rather surprising order. Children are made to recite it like a prayer. How are we to do this? We must help the NHS by avoiding hospitals and surgeries, we are told. The Government’s policy of lockdown is in significant part dictated by the demands not of patients, but of the NHS, and by its lack of adaptability and readiness.
In the most immediate sense, this mantra is justified. Too many patients in surgeries and wards will spread infection. Too many Covid-19 cases will overwhelm the doctors and nurses, the ventilators and the beds. We must all do as we are told, and stay at home. But isn’t there something wrong that the problem is so extreme?
We are trained, when we notice organisational or operational failures in the NHS, to blame the Government. This is partly reasonable: the Government is ultimately answerable for its existence, and no government has ever dared grasp the nettle of reform. But it misses out something important. When dissatisfied by other organisations – the police, the BBC, utility companies, supermarkets, banks, the Church – we arraign the people who run them. With the NHS, an unwritten law forbids this. It is treated like a God, even when it fails.
Take this week’s row about testing. A significant reason for the slow development, arrival and use of the antigen tests (“Have I got it?”) and the antibody tests (“Have I had it?”) seems to be the reluctance of the health service, and of Public Health England, to look outside their own spheres for help. In a culture almost proudly hostile to the private sector and mistrushut upl of independent academic work, the NHS’s first instinct is to defend bureaucratic territory. The extraordinary scene on Thursday when almost no health workers came for specially provided drive-in tests at Chessington World of Adventures seems to have resulted from a bureaucratic muddle about who was in charge.
In his skilful performance at the daily virus press conference on Thursday, the recovering Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, obliquely expressed his frustration. He exclaimed how well “non-ventilator companies” had come up with inventive solutions to produce ventilators fast. He issued a “call out” to British life sciences, laboratories and universities to do likewise for antibody tests.
Behind that ventilator comparison lies a story. Three weeks ago, the NHS belatedly admitted within government that it had failed to get enough ventilators. The Cabinet Office stepped in to help procure. Thanks in part to the energy of the distinguished surgeon Professor Lord Kakkar, University College Hospital, Formula I and Mercedes Benz got together to produce the CPAP (Continuous Positive Airways Pressure) machines that are one up on normal oxygen masks but less invasive than the full, intubating ventilators. Next week, the repurposed Mercedes Benz F1 factory in Brixworth expects to produce 1,000 CPAPs a day.
An equivalently brilliant initiative is urgently needed for antibody tests. At present, we are largely at the mercy of China (many of whose kits don’t work) to produce them. This is the embarrassment which Mr Hancock was gingerly admitting. It is why he cannot promise that antibody tests will be part of his 100,000 tests per day by the end of April. Or take the amazing 4,000-bed capacity Nightingale field hospital at the ExCeL centre in east London, opened yesterday by the Prince of Wales. For two weeks after it was proposed, NHS top brass opposed it. When they finally admitted they needed it, the Army and the private contractors were the ones who made it happen in nine days.
These are not one-off problems. Every day, scores of people with useful offers of medical supply get in touch with the Government. It filters these and passes on the best to the NHS. Too often, the offers get fobbed off or not even answered. Ten days ago, government contacts found the only company in Britain with expertise in making reagent for antigen swab tests. The firm was put on to the NHS, but at the time of writing, the health service had still not had a conversation with it.
Such rebuffs happen on the small scale, too. Yesterday, I received an email from the family of a couple of working medics recently returned from New Zealand. Both answered the call to rejoin the NHS, but have so far had nothing but a holding message. They see media stories of staff shortages because of infection and self-isolation, but still await the call.
Last week, I wrote about the construction of “hot hubs” where GPs could safely triage Covid-19 sufferers and decide whether to send them to hospital. The Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) had ordered its small rural GP groups to set up such hubs within a fortnight without means, skill or direction. When I emailed the CCG last week to get its side of the story, it replied after my deadline, and then only to refer responsibility to a higher power.
A week later, the local GP groups have finally persuaded the CCG that a hot hub must be erected next to the local hospital (only after the hospital tried, in a classic example of the destructive rivalry between primary and secondary care, to refuse because of parking problems). Even now, however, the CCG has not worked out who will actually run the hub once built. As the local GPs’ spokesman, Dr Camilla Pashley, puts it, “The system moves at an unbelievable snail’s pace, though better than usual.” Meanwhile, Dr Pashley and her colleagues have to see Covid patients in their cars in surgery car parks.
That system is the problem. Most NHS staff are dedicated people. The defects are baked into our system of national bureaucratic command. People have noticed that Germany has been more successful in managing the virus spread through testing. This is not a coincidence. Germany does not have our lumbering central diagnostic system, because it does not have, in our sense, a national health service. It has 176 testing centres, part of localised arrangements which mix private insurance, employer involvement and government funding. There are more than three times as many beds per 1,000 patients as in Britain.
It is probably also not a coincidence that Germany has a less draconian lockdown than we do: it can focus on the Covid problem more exactly.
We are locked down by the needs of the NHS in the face of Covid. If this goes on for, say, three months, we could well run out of money to answer those needs. Work matters urgently for the health and wealth of all. As soon as possible, we must get back to it
Classic blame shifting from one of the government’s tame churnalists and a longterm critic of the NHS.
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A prolonged lockdown puts those in need of cancer treatments at much greater risk, and could mean more die of the disease than of Covid19.
Coronavirus lockdown will cost the lives of cancer patients’
Delays to diagnosis and treatment will see survival rates drop, an expert warns, and could kill more people than Covid-19
Experts say delays in diagnosis or surgical intervention may render some tumours inoperable
Experts say delays in diagnosis or surgical intervention may render some tumours inoperable
PETER BYRNE
The chance of surviving cancer will fall if the coronavirus outbreak continues to put pressure on the NHS over the coming months, according to a leading cancer expert.
Professor Charles Swanton, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, said some cancers will become “inoperable”, rather than survivable, if diagnosis or treatment are delayed by the pandemic.
Early stage cancer surgery, screening and diagnostic procedures such as endoscopies and bronchoscopies are being delayed by some NHS trusts in England, according to some anecdotal evidence.
“We know that if you operate in most early stage cancers, there is a high chance of a cure,” Swanton said.
“If we wait too long before we operate the disease may spread beyond the primary site rendering cures less likely. Delays to surgery are of huge concern for many cancer charities.”
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Agree with every word of this as well
Coronavirus: We are so afraid of death, no one even asks whether this ‘cure’ is actually worse
Jonathan Sumption
Sunday April 05 2020, 12.00am, The Sunday Times
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” The words are Franklin D Roosevelt’s. His challenge was recession, not disease, but his words have a wider resonance.
Fear is dangerous. It is the enemy of reason. It suppresses balance and judgment. And it is infectious. Roosevelt thought government was doing too little. But today fear is more likely to push governments into doing too much, as democratic politicians run for cover in the face of public panic. Is the coronavirus the latest and most damaging example?
Epidemics are not new. Bubonic plague, smallpox, cholera, typhoid, meningitis, Spanish flu all took a heavy toll in their time. An earlier generation would not have understood the current hysteria over Covid-19, whose symptoms are milder and whose case mortality is lower than any of these.
What has changed? For one thing, we have become much more risk-averse. We no longer accept the wheel of fortune. We take security for granted. We do not tolerate avoidable tragedies. Fear stops us thinking about the more remote costs of the measures necessary to avoid them, measures that may pitch us into even greater misfortunes of a different kind.
We have also acquired an irrational horror of death. Today death is the great obscenity, inevitable but somehow unnatural. In the midst of life, our ancestors lived with death, an ever-present fact that they understood and accommodated. They experienced the death of friends and family, young and old, generally at home. Today it is hidden away in hospitals and care homes: out of sight and out of mind, unmentionable until it strikes.
We know too little about Covid-19. We do not know its true case mortality because of the uncertainties about the total number infected. We do not know how many of those who have died would have died anyway — possibly a bit later — from other underlying conditions (“comorbidities”, in doctor-speak).
What is clear is that Covid-19 is not the Black Death. It is dangerous for those with serious existing medical conditions, especially if they are old. For others, the symptoms are mild in the overwhelming majority of cases.
The prime minister, the health secretary and the Prince of Wales — all of whom have caught it and are fine — represent the normal pattern. The much publicised but extremely rare deaths of fit young people are tragic but they are outliers.
Yet governments have adopted, with public support, the most extreme and indiscriminate measures.
We have subjected most of the population, young or old, vulnerable or fit, to house imprisonment for an indefinite period.
We have set about abolishing human sociability in ways that lead to unimaginable distress.
We have given the police powers that, even if they respect the limits, will create an authoritarian pattern of life utterly inconsistent with our traditions.
We have resorted to law, which requires exact definition, and banished common sense, which requires judgment.
These things represent an interference with our lives and our personal autonomy that is intolerable in a free society. To say that they are necessary for larger social ends, however valuable those ends may be, is to treat human beings as objects, mere instruments of policy.
And that is before we even get to the economic impact. We have put hundreds of thousands out of a job and into universal credit.
Recent research suggests that we are already pushing a fifth of small businesses into bankruptcy, many of which will have taken a lifetime of honest toil to build. The proportion is forecast to rise to a third after three months of lockdown.
Generations to come are being saddled with high levels of public and private debt. These things kill, too. If all this is the price of saving human life, we have to ask whether it is worth paying.
The truth is that in public policy there are no absolute values, not even the preservation of life. There are only pros and cons. Do we not allow cars, among the most lethal weapons ever devised, although we know for certain that every year thousands will be killed or maimed by them? We do this because we judge that it is a price worth paying to get about in speed and comfort. Every one of us who drives is a tacit party to that Faustian bargain.
A similar calculation about the coronavirus might justify a very short period of lockdown and business closures, if it helped the critical care capacity of the NHS to catch up. It may even be that tough social distancing measures would be acceptable as applied only to vulnerable categories.
But as soon as the scientists start talking about a month or even three or six months, we are entering a realm of sinister fantasy in which the cure has taken over as the biggest threat to our society. Lockdowns are at best only a way of buying time anyway. Viruses don’t just go away. Ultimately, we will emerge from this crisis when we acquire some collective (or “herd”) immunity. That is how epidemics burn themselves out.
In the absence of a vaccine, it will happen, but only when a sufficient proportion of the population is exposed to the disease.
I am not a scientist. Most of you are not scientists. But we can all read the scientific literature, which is immaculately clear but has obvious limitations. Scientists can help us assess the clinical consequences of different ways to contain the coronavirus. But they are no more qualified than the rest of us to say whether they are worth turning our world upside down and inflicting serious long-term damage. All of us have a responsibility to maintain a sense of proportion, especially when so many are losing theirs.
Lord Sumption is a former Supreme Court judge
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This exactly sums up my thoughts on the matter. Well said Matthew Syed, you have firmly and squarely hit the nail on the head:
I challenge the online ‘experts’ so critical of No 10 on coronavirus: tell us, has Sweden got it right or wrong?
Matthew Syed
Sunday April 05 2020, 12.00am, The Sunday Times
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The blame game is up and running. Hardly a person in authority has stuck their head above the parapet without receiving a chorus of vitriol. Chris Whitty, chief medical officer, trended online last week, despite suffering with symptoms of the coronavirus, his physical appearance cruelly mocked. Sir Patrick Vallance, chief scientific adviser, has also come under fire, as has Matt Hancock, health secretary, whose sacking was called for by Nigel Farage, the Brexit Party leader. #BorisOut has trended so often that it is almost pointless to document the episodes. One occasion was on the evening he tested positive for the virus.
This isn’t just about hysteria on social media, however. It is deeper, more atavistic. We know from the reports of Hernan Cortes and other explorers that civilisations from the Incas to the Aztecs conducted human sacrifices, people cut open with a knife and their beating hearts ripped out, often after disasters such as volcanic eruptions and epidemics. The more threatening the event, the higher the emotional pitch, the greater the lust for a scapegoat.
The rise of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, with their prohibitions on human sacrifice, slowly expunged such practices from the world, but I can’t help thinking that an echo of them remains in our collective psyche. Too often we engage not in a rational attempt to identify poor decision-making in pursuit of legitimate accountability but instead a lust to punish for its own sake. Some people seem to take pleasure from it.
Of course questions about shortages of tests, personal protective equipment and the like are valid and necessary. A lack of dissent is one reason disasters in totalitarian regimes, historically at least, have tended to exert a greater death toll. When Chairman Mao issued orders to kill sparrows, worried that they were eating grain, the fear of his authority delayed the feedback that the policy had wrecked the ecological balance. Locust populations, normally culled by sparrows, ballooned, intensifying a famine that would kill millions.
But I have been troubled by the tone of the criticism. Rory Stewart, London mayoral candidate, tweeted a message screaming “lunacy in the UK”. Some television presenters seem keener to provoke a car-crash interview than obtain information. Farage called for Hancock’s sacking while the latter was still in isolation. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, castigated the government for acting too late. “This is a national scandal,” he said. “We knew in the last week of January that this was coming.” But in late January he offered a very different view, tweeting that the coronavirus “has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic.”
I can’t help thinking that some scientists have learnt that in a time of hysteria you can gain a huge profile by using inflammatory language. Call it the Piers Morganisation of public discourse, a world of manufactured confidence and synthetic outrage. A world where the digital weighting placed on the extreme and dogmatic offers a distorted picture not just of reality, but of evidence itself. I would prefer experts to explain their views, along with the inherent uncertainties, so that we can properly assess them, rather than pseudo-positions tailored for maximum effect. Is such a hope forlorn on forums as glib as Twitter and much of modern TV?
We need a rational debate now about charting a wise exit from the lockdown, about how to distinguish between people who have died with, rather than from, coronavirus, and about whether the government would benefit from new expertise, not least from industry, as it confronts unprecedented administrative challenges. But this is being lost in a deluge of recrimination, amplified by wild gyrations on social media. There will be time later to learn systemic lessons — reforming quangos and the like. Making pre-emptive judgements now is a form of madness.
I can’t help recalling Peter Connelly, or “Baby P”, killed at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and his brother but whose death was blamed on Sharon Shoesmith, head of Haringey children’s services in north London, before a proper investigation had taken place. Her fight against unfair dismissal was upheld by the Court of Appeal, but this isn’t my principal point. No, the point is the way the rush to blame creates unintended consequences. Social workers left the profession en masse. In one area, the council had to spend £1.5m on agency teams because it couldn’t handle referrals. Defensiveness infiltrated the profession. Social workers became cautious about what they documented, in case it came back to destroy them. As the bureaucratic paper trails got longer, children became less safe. The number killed at the hands of their parents rose more than 25% the next year and remained higher for each of the next three years.
I worry about the contagion of fear in government. Last week this newspaper quoted a source as saying: “Everyone knows there will be an inquiry at the end of this. Now some officials are in massive arse-covering mode. They’re refusing to do stuff because they think it will blow back on them.” Civil servants were “demanding instructions in writing so that there is an audit trail”.
Some may retort: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” This reveals not only a deficit of empathy but a misunderstanding of how a blame culture poisons agile decision-making.
Think, for a moment, of the future. Sweden has charted its own course, its citizens still going to schools and offices. In months to come the country may be held up as an exemplar of wise government — and we may feel angry that our ministers trashed the economy. But how sure are you of this future today, given that Sweden’s hospitals will be overrun if the virus spreads faster than predicted; that 2,000 scientists have signed a letter calling for an urgent U-turn; and that Sweden’s economy is already suffering because of the global downturn? Can you be certain, here and now, that Sweden won’t end up in the worst of both worlds, with huge numbers of avoidable deaths combined with economic damage wreaked by overspill from elsewhere?
If you are certain, you are either a genius or a dupe. But here’s the thing: in a few months you will face the temptation to reconstruct the past to fit the future, to “remember” feeling entirely sure, one way or the other, holding up the Swedish government, or the rest of the world, as fools. This is what we might call retrospective genius, the worst and most disreputable kind.
Criticism is necessary. Questions are necessary. But let us have this debate with a recognition that this is a crisis unprecedented in peacetime, with expert opinion divided. The blame game, here and now, is nothing less than a disgrace.
A disgrace that will, I fear, cost lives
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A bit difficult for me because I haven't lived in England for a very long time and still didn't like it on the rare occasions that I have visited in the last 30 years.
I have also watched the rise of Social Media almost from the start and it is little better than Witch Hunting. There are a lot of really horrible people out there who are not only ill informed but vicious in their ignorance. It is always the fault of someone else when in fact the fault is theirs.
You can have Free Speech for me. I don't need it. I already know what is acceptable and what isn't.
I am a Monarchist, but I have to say that France beyond Paris is looking like a better place to be.
Old people are looked after and everyone is kind. Good manners prevail and no one is fighting anyone for a packet of Toilet Rolls, there are simply enough.
When I first came here The Electorate in UK still largely believed that politicians knew what they were talking about and were doing this for the good of The People. What a joke that turned out to be. Since then I have watched a succession of Prime Ministers, most of whom were incompetent and self serving, whatever Party they represented.
David Cameron was one such. He never did have The Plot to lose. But such fibs he told because he thought you were all stupid. Fortunately, you weren't.
Boris Johnson has one abiding advantage. He doesn't care for his own sake and he doesn't care if he fades into oblivion so long as he does the best that he can. And with his Majority he will almost certainly have the means.
Brexit? I think that this is the best for UK. I don't care about how it will affect me personally.
Corona Virus? Boris Johnson has got a lot more hideously self interested ignoramuses to deal with than Europe has.
I haven't been out and about for nearly four weeks now because my generation were fast told to stay at home. We do have Forms to take with us if we have to go out. Although I don't take a form with me when I feed my neighbour's Cat across the road because they are trapped in Angleterre. That might be a laugh and a half if I ever get stopped on the road. Don't ask me to say it in French. I could, but my French Spelling isn't good.
The Food Bank is still operating, but by appointment now, so as to avoid unnecessary contact. How very brave these people are. They are all knocking on a bit. They know that we need the food we get. There has never been any shame attached to Food Banks in France.
Sorry about this. I still can't get into My Blog, so you will have to put up with the occasional need.
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@Eleanor... Can no-one else reach your blog? Is it possibly for you to post a link here or not? I understand if you don't wish to.
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Apparently you can give your cat coronavirus and vice versa, however I refuse to stop stroking my pussy until BoJo tells me it’s bad for my health.
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@Eleanor... Can no-one else reach your blog? Is it possibly for you to post a link here or not? I understand if you don't wish to.
I would love to post a Link to my Blog. Presuming that this would be acceptable. All Bloggers are self opinionated and while I do this for my own pleasure, I would like to think that it gets read occasionally.
I am having Computer problems at the moment but if you Google "Elena Mitchell's Blog" you might find it and then you could go back through the years of utter rubbish that I have managed produced. It is all about Me.
Kizzy some how found my Blog quite some time ago, although I have never known how. And I do have a few odd followers on this Forum.
Kizzy and I now have another relationship beyond this Forum. Just as I had with Alice.
It's Words you see and they don't have to be Correct English. You just have to love words and the putting of them on paper.
Mine are always halfy halfy. An East End Londoner with pretensions. So sometimes my grammar isn't all that good.
You could do this. If you wanted to.
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As we have good capacity within the NHS currently I’m not sure where the idea that the NHS has been overwhelmed has come from? I have yet to see terrible footage such as that coming out of Spain and Italy of victims lying in hospital corridors coughing and wheezing for example. A new hospital was built in 9 days in London with thousands of extra beds, and several more coming on line soon, when should these have been built do people think? When the first coronavirus case was announced in China back in December?
I'm not convinced that any new UK government (from whichever party) would have taken decisive early action. Dealing with Brexit (in whichever way) was the original priority, and the Civil Service appears to have already been under stress over that.
I find it a great achievement to have converted a conference centre into a hospital in such a short time and no, there was no need for it back in December. The fact that they have been able to do so at short notice and so quickly appears as an indicator that that aspect of disaster planning had been well thought out and ready to execute.
The UK is by no means the only country in which the health services (and others) have been struggling with the aftermath of the 2008 banking crisis and subsequent austerity measures. Most countries are in a mess, for a variety of reasons.
I'd still like to know what other measures had been taken in the UK or were ready to roll after the 2016 report on the pandemic simulation in October of that year, coincidentally just a few months after the referendum.
Televised scene of BoJo and Trump (and others from various countries) continuing to shake hands at a time when the official message was to behave responsibly and observe rules of social distancing may well have conveyed conflicting messages as to the severity of the situation.
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I would love to post a Link to my Blog. Presuming that this would be acceptable. All Bloggers are self opinionated and while I do this for my own pleasure, I would like to think that it gets read occasionally.
I am having Computer problems at the moment but if you Google "Elena Mitchell's Blog" you might find it and then you could go back through the years of utter rubbish that I have managed produced. It is all about Me.
Kizzy some how found my Blog quite some time ago, although I have never known how. And I do have a few odd followers on this Forum.
Kizzy and I now have another relationship beyond this Forum. Just as I had with Alice.
It's Words you see and they don't have to be Correct English. You just have to love words and the putting of them on paper.
Mine are always halfy halfy. An East End Londoner with pretensions. So sometimes my grammar isn't all that good.
You could do this. If you wanted to.
Ok got it, thanks for the info. Easy enough to find but can't understand why you're unable to log in.
Any blog at present is better than being driven doolally by the Bamber board and the plague.
Rob has a link to a facebook page and others have done similar before, so don't see any reason why you can't promote your own underneath your avatar.
Can your son not help you with the computer problem? Is it not possible for you to log in with the Apple button here?...
https://wordpress.com/log-in?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Felenamitchell.wordpress.com%2Fwp-admin%2F (https://wordpress.com/log-in?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Felenamitchell.wordpress.com%2Fwp-admin%2F)
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Apparently you can give your cat coronavirus and vice versa, however I refuse to stop stroking my pussy until BoJo tells me it’s bad for my health.
There is a lot of mis (dis) information doing the rounds.
I don't find it impossible that a pet could presumably have traces on its fur if someone comes home without washing their hands, then strokes the pet, who then cuddles up to the next person. Probably no more of a risk than plonking your shopping on a kitchen counter and not wiping it down afterwards.
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I'm not convinced that any new UK government (from whichever party) would have taken decisive early action. Dealing with Brexit (in whichever way) was the original priority, and the Civil Service appears to have already been under stress over that.
I find it a great achievement to have converted a conference centre into a hospital in such a short time and no, there was no need for it back in December. The fact that they have been able to do so at short notice and so quickly appears as an indicator that that aspect of disaster planning had been well thought out and ready to execute.
The UK is by no means the only country in which the health services (and others) have been struggling with the aftermath of the 2008 banking crisis and subsequent austerity measures. Most countries are in a mess, for a variety of reasons.
I'd still like to know what other measures had been taken in the UK or were ready to roll after the 2016 report on the pandemic simulation in October of that year, coincidentally just a few months after the referendum.
Televised scene of BoJo and Trump (and others from various countries) continuing to shake hands at a time when the official message was to behave responsibly and observe rules of social distancing may well have conveyed conflicting messages as to the severity of the situation.
Good post. I would say from my own personal observations that two months ago no one was taking this threat particularly seriously, and I deal with the public on a daily basis. I would say that even a month ago most people were still behaving as they would usually and were cynical about and resistant to any suggestion of social distancing or lockdown.
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Ok got it, thanks for the info. Easy enough to find but can't understand why you're unable to log in.
Any blog at present is better than being driven doolally by the Bamber board and the plague.
Rob has a link to a facebook page and others have done similar before, so don't see any reason why you can't promote your own underneath your avatar.
Can your son not help you with the computer problem? Is it not possible for you to log in with the Apple button here?...
https://wordpress.com/log-in?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Felenamitchell.wordpress.com%2Fwp-admin%2F (https://wordpress.com/log-in?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Felenamitchell.wordpress.com%2Fwp-admin%2F)
Ah Ha, you have sussed that I am on an Apple. How did you do that?
My son, dear of him, thinks that his mother is half daft.
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There is a lot of mis (dis) information doing the rounds.
I don't find it impossible that a pet could presumably have traces on its fur if someone comes home without washing their hands, then strokes the pet, who then cuddles up to the next person. Probably no more of a risk than plonking your shopping on a kitchen counter and not wiping it down afterwards.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00984-8
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Ah Ha, you have sussed that I am on an Apple. How did you do that?
My son, dear of him, thinks that his mother is half daft.
You said that you were on an Apple years ago when you first joined here. Got a good memory.
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I don't know what to think about Sweden's approach. Many other countries tried recommending social distancing and other measures as a precaution well before lockdowns. The problem can be that people may not take it that seriously... which is when it can suddenly accelerate and get totally out of control.
Balancing the economy and public health is obviously a nightmare anywhere.
Their half-house approach might seem the right route for them the moment - if they're keeping on top of it. However, they don't seem to have done that many tests, either, which - without inside knowledge - seems a bit concerning.
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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00984-8
Thanks. My heart says that it is a horrible idea to deliberately infect animals and observe them dying. My head says that having done so may save countless others from being abandoned.
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People of every faith have died trying to save others in the UK and elsewhere.
What on earth does it matter which mainstream religion, practised in a peaceful manner, anyone chooses to follow?
I find that offensive, on the behalf of so many kind and caring people, whatever their faith.
I wasn't around when this was made, but it might make people think a little:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMkNtiXxQAM
You only need to look at London to see where this is going. Even the taxi drivers lock their doors when driving through Brixton and other areas swarming with illegal immigrants.
I don't know about you Carana living in the remote rural glens of Scotland but I for one don't want this for my grandchildren. I want my old England back again!
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You said that you were on an Apple years ago when you first joined here. Got a good memory.
Golly Gosh. I am really impressed.. I wouldn't own a computer if it wasn't an Apple. I am just having a bit of a problem at the moment.
I am just about to dump this one because it is pushing its luck. My last Apple lasted for nine years, but this one only for seven years.
So I probably got my money's worth.
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*%^^&c
You only need to look at London to see where this is going. Even the taxi drivers lock their doors when driving through Brixton and other areas swarming with illegal immigrants.
I don't know about you Carana living in the remote rural glens of Scotland but I for one don't want this for my grandchildren.
What, the same foreigners who gave their lives this week saving our fellow countrymen ?
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You only need to look at London to see where this is going. Even the taxi drivers lock their doors when driving through Brixton and other areas swarming with illegal immigrants.
I don't know about you Carana living in the remote rural glens of Scotland but I for one don't want this for my grandchildren. I want my old England back again!
No country wants huge numbers of "illegal" immigrants, Angelo.
What characterises your "old England"?
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You only need to look at London to see where this is going. Even the taxi drivers lock their doors when driving through Brixton and other areas swarming with illegal immigrants.
I don't know about you Carana living in the remote rural glens of Scotland but I for one don't want this for my grandchildren. I want my old England back again!
It’s gone forever, let it go.
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It’s gone forever, let it go.
Yes I agree, we should embrace multiculturalism for all the benefits it brings, such as child rape gangs, acid attacks & suicide bombers.
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No country wants huge numbers of "illegal" immigrants, Angelo.
What characterises your "old England"?
Angelo couldn't spot Old England if he tried. Once upon a time I thought he could, but even that wasn't important.
I really liked someone who appeared to be reasonable, albeit on another Forum. Angelo was actually okay in those days.
But now I have to tolerate someone who thinks that it is okay to beat a woman.?
I won't be having this again.
I will not be deleting Angelo's comments, but you all will get the rough side of my tongue if you dare.
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*%^^&c
What, the same foreigners who gave their lives this week saving our fellow countrymen ?
Are there many illegal immigrants working in the NHS?
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Yes I agree, we should embrace multiculturalism for all the benefits it brings, such as child rape gangs, acid attacks & suicide bombers.
But that’s not what I said, you stupid troll.
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Yes I agree, we should embrace multiculturalism for all the benefits it brings, such as child rape gangs, acid attacks & suicide bombers.
For once I agree @)(++(* @)(++(* @)(++(*
You forgot FGM and Sharia Law.
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Are there many illegal immigrants working in the NHS?
There are quite a few Muslims here legally and working (and dying) in our hospitals, who you don’t seem very keen on.
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Angelo couldn't spot Old England if he tried. Once upon a time I thought he could, but even that wasn't important.
I really liked someone who appeared to be reasonable, albeit on another Forum. Angelo was actually okay in those days.
But now I have to tolerate someone who thinks that it is okay to beat a woman.?
I won't be having this again.
I will not be deleting Angelo's comments, but you all will get the rough side of my tongue if you dare.
What are you on about?
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There are quite a few Muslims here legally and working (and dying) in our hospitals, who you don’t seem very keen on.
Do I have to be? A religion which treats women like slaves and underdogs?
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Do I have to be? A religion which treats women like slaves and underdogs?
You don’t have to like Islam but you shouldn’t let your dislike of a religion make you dislike Muslims generally, especially those that are here contributing positively to society. IMO.
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What are you on about?
Sadly, you will never know. I had hoped that you might. But bye the bye now. You are most often not around.
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Are there many illegal immigrants working in the NHS?
Oh so it’s just the illegal ones you don’t like ? How can you tell?
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When I was in hospital for two weeks a couple of years back, the kindest most caring nurses were two young Muslim women. The hard as nails, bossy, rough uncaring ones were all without fail indigenous British battleaxes.
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You don’t have to like Islam but you shouldn’t let your dislike of a religion make you dislike Muslims generally, especially those that are here contributing positively to society. IMO.
Some people find it difficult to separate religion with culture, There are different persuasions of Islam. Hence the slaughtering of Muslims in 'Muslim' countries!. There are religious extremists in all religions, however it isn't a Muslim problem we have it is a culture borne of a certain persuasion of islam which is causing the issues. Ther is a power struggle and those who don't see it will have their eyes open soon enough.
We do not have multiculturalism, we have little pocket of countries within a country. No go areas for whites-especially white females.
Many human right laws being broken by 'families' ruling their children as if they were 'back in their own country' selling their disabled and able bodied daughters to men they have never met to be 'married', and usually much older. Cultures which are alien to the indigenous population- and most of it forced upon us without our consent are met with anger and disbelief as the social integration is null for many. Allowing many tens of thousands of illegal immigrants to come here is a cultural annihilation know and enjoyed in the UK for many years.
Not to mention the slave trade- we all say sorry to those slaves black African descent but turn a blind eye to white girls and boys being captured and sold as sex workers here in the UK.
NHS do not really need foreign doctors and nurses- wards are closing and those who are nurses have become corporate managers- yeah I know hilarious! Nicola Sturgeon cut back on Scottish University funding for those who sought to become doctors, but is paying out 40 million for EU students to come and study here. And payong millions for foreign doctors to come and settle. People are being lied to.
The new culture to be 'welcomed' is from Africa /Nigera. Yes, they be doctors and nurses. 'cough'
NHS Bought Doctors to Scotland, they tried to blow up the busy Glasgow airport...
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Some people find it difficult to separate religion with culture, There are different persuasions of Islam. Hence the slaughtering of Muslims in 'Muslim' countries!. There are religious extremists in all religions, however it isn't a Muslim problem we have it is a culture borne of a certain persuasion of islam which is causing the issues. Ther is a power struggle and those who don't see it will have their eyes open soon enough.
We do not have multiculturalism, we have little pocket of countries within a country. No go areas for whites-especially white females.
Many human right laws being broken by 'families' ruling their children as if they were 'back in their own country' selling their disabled and able bodied daughters to men they have never met to be 'married', and usually much older. Cultures which are alien to the indigenous population- and most of it forced upon us without our consent are met with anger and disbelief as the social integration is null for many. Allowing many tens of thousands of illegal immigrants to come here is a cultural annihilation know and enjoyed in the UK for many years.
Not to mention the slave trade- we all say sorry to those slaves black African descent but turn a blind eye to white girls and boys being captured and sold as sex workers here in the UK.
NHS do not really need foreign doctors and nurses- wards are closing and those who are nurses have become corporate managers- yeah I know hilarious! Nicola Sturgeon cut back on Scottish University funding for those who sought to become doctors, but is paying out 40 million for EU students to come and study here. And payong millions for foreign doctors to come and settle. People are being lied to.
The new culture to be 'welcomed' is from Africa /Nigera. Yes, they be doctors and nurses. 'cough'
NHS Bought Doctors to Scotland, they tried to blow up the busy Glasgow airport...
Your husband is a Muslim, or former Muslim, of Afghani descent and in the medical profession I understand. Are you telling me he shouldn’t be here?
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Your husband is a Muslim, or former Muslim, of Afghani descent and in the medical profession I understand. Are you telling me he shouldn’t be here?
Is this what Miataken is saying? Personally, I wouldn't care, but I am getting very tired of her ridiculous obfuscation/.
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Is this what Miataken is saying? Personally, I wouldn't care, but I am getting very tired of her ridiculous obfuscation/.
I honestly don’t know what she is saying most of the time as it often seems quite contradictory.
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Your husband is a Muslim, or former Muslim, of Afghani descent and in the medical profession I understand. Are you telling me he shouldn’t be here?
Why would I tell you that he shouldn't be here. You inventing stuff? and Elenor just venting...
There is nothing wrong with people coming from abroad to work here, I have never argued differently!
There is a huge difference be between legal immigration which is thoroughly checked by passport and legal documentation. AND MASS illegal immigration unchecked and bringing cultural language issues. I pointed out the difference in culture within Islamic countries you can't accept it or don't understand it. Not my problem.
FYI my husband is a strong advocate for human rights for victims of torture, of which as a child he was one under the Taliban! He worked with the British and the USA- speaks 5 languages and is an asset to this country as are many of his kind. He has a western lifestyle- renounced his'faith' which he was born into- never practiced. He doesn't have anything nice to say about the Muslim community of Great Britain.
Point being- not all Muslims are the same! and all immigrants are not the same!
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Why would I tell you that he shouldn't be here. You inventing stuff? and Elenor just venting...
There is nothing wrong with people coming from abroad to work here, I have never argued differently!
There is a huge difference be between legal immigration which is thoroughly checked by passport and legal documentation. AND MASS illegal immigration unchecked and bringing cultural language issues. I pointed out the difference in culture within Islamic countries you can't accept it or don't understand it. Not my problem.
FYI my husband is a strong advocate for human rights for victims of torture, of which as a child he was one under the Taliban! He worked with the British and the USA- speaks 5 languages and is an asset to this country as are many of his kind. He has a western lifestyle- renounced his'faith' which he was born into- never practiced. He doesn't have anything nice to say about the Muslim community of Great Britain.
Point being- not all Muslims are the same! and all immigrants are not the same!
Point taken. however you did write
“NHS do not really need foreign doctors and nurses!” when clearly they do, and benefit from doing so, your husband being a case in point.
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Why would I tell you that he shouldn't be here. You inventing stuff? and Elenor just venting...
There is nothing wrong with people coming from abroad to work here, I have never argued differently!
There is a huge difference be between legal immigration which is thoroughly checked by passport and legal documentation. AND MASS illegal immigration unchecked and bringing cultural language issues. I pointed out the difference in culture within Islamic countries you can't accept it or don't understand it. Not my problem.
FYI my husband is a strong advocate for human rights for victims of torture, of which as a child he was one under the Taliban! He worked with the British and the USA- speaks 5 languages and is an asset to this country as are many of his kind. He has a western lifestyle- renounced his'faith' which he was born into- never practiced. He doesn't have anything nice to say about the Muslim community of Great Britain.
Point being- not all Muslims are the same! and all immigrants are not the same!
Absolutely and that includes illegal immigrants.
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Point taken. however you did write
“NHS do not really need foreign doctors and nurses!” when clearly they do, and benefit from doing so, your husband being a case in point.
If you don't work in the NHS you will not get my point. Whistle blowers get sacked or have to leave if they highlight instances. The public would be horrified if they knew what actually goes on. Some guess -as have been treated by dodgy doctors from abroad with dodgy papers. the GMC is a good read about doctors.
Would you be horrified if doctors here performed FGM on women born here? used abortions to limit the female sex for 'cultural reasons'?
We do not have a shortage of qualified nurses! as wards are closing those nurses are becoming corporate- managers in charge of IT budgets and the like. Nah you just don't want to hear it fair enough!
Tricky Nicky removed the opportunity for Scottish children to get funding for Medical training- the further brain drain begins again- but not to worry we can bring in people who do not understand our culture/language to do those jobs. Because - To Spite the English- she is spending 40 MILLION Pounds on foreign students to come here to studying hairdressing- beauty treatments etc.
Did some one mention food banks? sorry no cash for that sh!t.
Illegal immigrants- are just that. illegal. when caught they cry asylum and cost millions in aid. Money could be better spent! They should not be trusted because we have a system where if you really are an asylum seeker you present yourself at first port of call and you are in a process. Turning up in a boat is not asylum seeking it is freebie UK you are seeking.
My Husband does not work for the NHS.- He has volunteered to help out with this COVID19 pandemic.
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If you don't work in the NHS you will not get my point. Whistle blowers get sacked or have to leave if they highlight instances. The public would be horrified if they knew what actually goes on. Some guess -as have been treated by dodgy doctors from abroad with dodgy papers. the GMC is a good read about doctors.
Would you be horrified if doctors here performed FGM on women born here? used abortions to limit the female sex for 'cultural reasons'?
We do not have a shortage of qualified nurses! as wards are closing those nurses are becoming corporate- managers in charge of IT budgets and the like. Nah you just don't want to hear it fair enough!
Tricky Nicky removed the opportunity for Scottish children to get funding for Medical training- the further brain drain begins again- but not to worry we can bring in people who do not understand our culture/language to do those jobs. Because - To Spite the English- she is spending 40 MILLION Pounds on foreign students to come here to studying hairdressing- beauty treatments etc.
Did some one mention food banks? sorry no cash for that sh!t.
Illegal immigrants- are just that. illegal. when caught they cry asylum and cost millions in aid. Money could be better spent! They should not be trusted because we have a system where if you really are an asylum seeker you present yourself at first port of call and you are in a process. Turning up in a boat is not asylum seeking it is freebie UK you are seeking.
My Husband does not work for the NHS.- He has volunteered to help out with this COVID19 pandemic.
Nope, I don’t get your point, about that you are absolutely right.
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Nope, I don’t get your point, about that you are absolutely right.
8(0(*
Oh I know that!
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Bloody hell, Boris is in intensive care.
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Bloody hell, Boris is in intensive care.
Blimey, that's floored me. I hope he pulls through.
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Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said on Twitter: “Terribly sad news. All the country’s thoughts are with the prime minister and his family during this incredibly difficult time.”
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, tweeted: “Praying for the prime minister’s swift recovery tonight. @GSTTnhs has some of the finest medical staff in the world, and he couldn’t be in safer hands.”
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, tweeted: “My thoughts are with the PM and his family - sending him every good wish.”
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Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said on Twitter: “Terribly sad news. All the country’s thoughts are with the prime minister and his family during this incredibly difficult time.”
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, tweeted: “Praying for the prime minister’s swift recovery tonight. @GSTTnhs has some of the finest medical staff in the world, and he couldn’t be in safer hands.”
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, tweeted: “My thoughts are with the PM and his family - sending him every good wish.”
No matter what your politics at a time like this your heart goes out to those involved.
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Boris’s ill-health has certainly brought out the worst in some people. I can hardly bear to go on social media atm for fear of encountering the hateful glee some of my Tory-hating friends are posting. It sure does make you see people in a whole different light.
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Boris’s ill-health has certainly brought out the worst in some people. I can hardly bear to go on social media atm for fear of encountering the hateful glee some of my Tory-hating friends are posting. It sure does make you see people in a whole different light.
Some people can't help themselves from revelling in others' misfortune. These sad individuals need to think on that we have a long way to go before this runs its course and none of us or our loved ones are immune.
As far as his long term health is concerned I think it should be remembered by the media and those close to him that he is not Superman and his recuperation will take weeks rather than days.
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From bojo hat ers I am sure he doesn't give a fig.
From representatives in Government= shameful.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8195339/Left-wing-online-trolls-target-stricken-Boris-Johnson-saying-hope-dies.html
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From bojo hat ers I am sure he doesn't give a fig.
From representatives in Government= shameful.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8195339/Left-wing-online-trolls-target-stricken-Boris-Johnson-saying-hope-dies.html
Don’t you find it odd that the left who seem to think they are on the caring, compassionate end of thr spectrum of politics and society also seem to be so incredibly filled with hate? I find it quite puzzling tbh.
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From bojo hat ers I am sure he doesn't give a fig.
From representatives in Government= shameful.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8195339/Left-wing-online-trolls-target-stricken-Boris-Johnson-saying-hope-dies.html
There is no excuse for these horrendous comments and obviously should be condemned but where is the proof that these people were from the left. Many non-voters who have no political beliefs dislike Boris and, surprisingly, have access to Twitter.
Tweets from the left.
Jeremy Corbyn.....My thoughts are with Boris Johnson and his family tonight.
Thanks to the #NHS staff for their hard work and dedication.
Ian Lavery MP.....You couldn’t imagine how much @BorisJohnson and I are politically opposed. But hey Boris get well soon ✊️
... genuinely wish him well, despite huge political differences. This isn't the time for cheap shots.
.....Let's hope he gets better soon @jeremycorbyn thank you for your kind words and it shows the country is united in fighting the #ChineseVirus
.....Despite my reservations about Boris’ leadership, I genuinely hopes he makes a speedy recovery. Nobody deserves to go through this
.......Humanity first politics can wait.
.....Class - no matter where your politics lie, everyone should wish Boris Johnson well in his recovery
.......Well said Jeremy. My thoughts are with everyone who is suffering from Coronavirus & their family & friends who are worried about them & this includes Boris Johnson & his family, friends. Solidarity brothers & sisters.
......Jeremy I agree it's sad, sorry to hear this is happening to Boris, and he is intensive care. I'm no fan of Boris at all, but I don't like what is happening to him. I wouldn't wish this Coronavirus on anyone.
God speed. Well done to the NHS
.....All my fellow Labour members on social media tonight all saying the same thing. Wishing Mr Johnson, and all who've been stricken, a full recovery.
100%. I detest his politics but not his status as a human being. I wish him the best possible outcome for his health.
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A must watch.
https://youtu.be/rJNnZ2Ltk0o
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/08/priti-patel-accused-of-avoiding-mps-scrutiny-during-national-crisis
Priti Patel accused of avoiding MPs’ scrutiny during national crisis
Home secretary failed to reply to repeated requests to give evidence amid Covid-19 crisis
Jamie Grierson Home affairs correspondent
@JamieGrierson
Wed 8 Apr 2020 19.24 BST Last modified on Wed 8 Apr 2020 23.00 BST
Priti Patel has been accused of bullying subordinates and presiding over an ‘atmosphere of fear’ at the Home Office. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP
The home secretary, Priti Patel, has been accused by an influential group of MPs of avoiding scrutiny at a time of national emergency, a tranche of correspondence has revealed.
Yvette Cooper, the chair of the home affairs select committee, has written to Patel six times – most recently in a letter issued on Wednesday – in an attempt to fix a date for the home secretary to give evidence in public to the committee, but a date for a hearing has not been confirmed.
After repeatedly ignoring correspondence from Cooper, Patel replied to the committee chair on Tuesday telling her she was “disappointed at the increasingly adversarial tone of our exchanges” and declining an invitation to give evidence remotely on 15 April. She reluctantly agreed to appear before the MPs at the end of the month, but did not set a date.
Cooper, in her latest missive, points out that the justice secretary, work and pensions secretary, transport secretary and health secretary have given evidence to their select committees already or have agreed a date to do so.
The committee has been pressing Patel to provide evidence since the end of January, during which time the secretary of state has been accused of belittling officials and presiding over an “atmosphere of fear” at the Home Office. Sir Philip Rutnam resigned as permanent secretary at the Home Office, claiming constructive dismissal and accusing Patel of bullying her subordinates.
Cooper wrote on Wednesday: “Delaying until the end of the month would clearly be inappropriate given the urgency of the public information and answers that are needed.
The letters reveal Patel has been pressing for “private briefings” instead of appearing in public but the committee declined as it believed this was “not sufficient”.
On 7 April, Patel wrote to Cooper defending the proposal, which she argued “strikes an important balance between ensuring the department receives that vital scrutiny, while ensuring the committee can receive operationally sensitive, and sometimes classified, updates at this time of national emergency.
“I am disappointed at the increasingly adversarial tone of our exchanges and I am very sorry that you have declined my offer of regular briefings with officials and ministers at the Home Office,” Patel wrote.
Last week, Cooper wrote to Patel emphasising that the home secretary had been sent four previous requests to give evidence on 27 March, 20 March, 6 March and 29 January. “No response has yet been forthcoming,” Cooper wrote.
Before the lockdown, Cooper wrote to Patel on 20 March, stating: “In the light of the escalating coronavirus crisis, we believe it is urgent and essential that we hear from you.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The home secretary has accepted the invitation to appear in front of the home affairs select committee before the end of April.
“As expected, she is currently leading the Home Office response during this national crisis, working tirelessly to keep the British public safe.”
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There is no excuse for these horrendous comments and obviously should be condemned but where is the proof that these people were from the left. Many non-voters who have no political beliefs dislike Boris and, surprisingly, have access to Twitter.
Tweets from the left.
Jeremy Corbyn.....My thoughts are with Boris Johnson and his family tonight.
Thanks to the #NHS staff for their hard work and dedication.
Ian Lavery MP.....You couldn’t imagine how much @BorisJohnson and I are politically opposed. But hey Boris get well soon ✊️
... genuinely wish him well, despite huge political differences. This isn't the time for cheap shots.
.....Let's hope he gets better soon @jeremycorbyn thank you for your kind words and it shows the country is united in fighting the #ChineseVirus
.....Despite my reservations about Boris’ leadership, I genuinely hopes he makes a speedy recovery. Nobody deserves to go through this
.......Humanity first politics can wait.
.....Class - no matter where your politics lie, everyone should wish Boris Johnson well in his recovery
.......Well said Jeremy. My thoughts are with everyone who is suffering from Coronavirus & their family & friends who are worried about them & this includes Boris Johnson & his family, friends. Solidarity brothers & sisters.
......Jeremy I agree it's sad, sorry to hear this is happening to Boris, and he is intensive care. I'm no fan of Boris at all, but I don't like what is happening to him. I wouldn't wish this Coronavirus on anyone.
God speed. Well done to the NHS
.....All my fellow Labour members on social media tonight all saying the same thing. Wishing Mr Johnson, and all who've been stricken, a full recovery.
100%. I detest his politics but not his status as a human being. I wish him the best possible outcome for his health.
Would people from the right or middle who voted for him really want him dead? ok... so must be the left.
Anyway. her remarks were shameful and crass- However, I don't think she should lose her job because of it. She is entitled to her opinion, which I disagree with, But I do believe in freedom of speech!
The fact that she is a mayor -different story - quite right to lose that office and be removed from the party for saying out loud what many probably privately think! :)
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Would people from the right or middle who voted for him really want him dead? ok... so must be the left.
Anyway. her remarks were shameful and crass- However, I don't think she should lose her job because of it. She is entitled to her opinion, which I disagree with, But I do believe in freedom of speech!
The fact that she is a mayor -different story - quite right to lose that office and be removed from the party for saying out loud what many probably privately think! :)
I’m ‘the left’ and I don’t want him dead, so bang goes your theory.
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I’m ‘the left’ and I don’t want him dead, so bang goes your theory.
Oh Faith, it wasn't a theory... just the proof you needed that is was just those leaning the left who were giving him a hard time. no one from the right were being nasty.
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Oh Faith, it wasn't a theory... just the proof you needed that is was just those leaning the left who were giving him a hard time. no one from the right were being nasty.
Those who have no political affiliation but have been at the sharp end of Johnson and his party’s policies are also making their opinions known as are those who are on the right but have no time for Johnson.
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Isn’t the help you’re getting for your business from the government socialism in action ?
No. it is a government giving money back to those who give in. Those who contribute nothing should they really expect having more than those who give money in?
outsourcing doesn't help nor does bringing in 70 thousand people from outwith our borders. Help people with zero hours and low pay.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry I missed the opinions of those on the right who were calling him names.
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I’m pleased to say I received my government grant today, thank you Rishi.
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I’m pleased to say I received my government grant today, thank you Rishi.
Free money for those in need. We’ll make a socialist of you yet 8(0(*
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Free money for those in need. We’ll make a socialist of you yet 8(0(*
lol but it isn't 'free' the government does not have any money to give away. They take from the people via tax! low paid workers... AND if you take on another job to boost your income YOU pay more tax so not much better of really.
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lol but it isn't 'free' the government does not have any money to give away. They take from the people via tax! low paid workers... AND if you take on another job to boost your income YOU pay more tax so not much better of really.
I see Faithlilly is still banging the “we are all socialists now” drum. I will never be one, as it demonstrably does not work. Socialism taken to its nth degree would mean we would all be given an identical equal living wage for doing b....r all and society would fall apart in five minutes because if people don’t have to work they won’t and if brain surgeons get paid the same as someone who chooses not to work why would anyone bother to spend years training to be one in the first place?
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I see Faithlilly is still banging the “we are all socialists now” drum. I will never be one, as it demonstrably does not work. Socialism taken to its nth degree would mean we would all be given an identical equal living wage for doing b....r all and society would fall apart in five minutes because if people don’t have to work they won’t and if brain surgeons get paid the same as someone who chooses not to work why would anyone bother to spend years training to be one in the first place?
YES you just need to ask the Russian and the Chinese- now global capitalist economies- more billionaires. Still have poverty. Only some rose to the top of the tree and well, guess who they were?
They use low crimes to entrap citizens to do low/no pay work!
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lol but it isn't 'free' the government does not have any money to give away. They take from the people via tax! low paid workers... AND if you take on another job to boost your income YOU pay more tax so not much better of really.
Perhaps those who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own and have had to depend on the state for their income will be a tad more sympathetic to those who have had to do the same but in the long term.
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I see Faithlilly is still banging the “we are all socialists now” drum. I will never be one, as it demonstrably does not work. Socialism taken to its nth degree would mean we would all be given an identical equal living wage for doing b....r all and society would fall apart in five minutes because if people don’t have to work they won’t and if brain surgeons get paid the same as someone who chooses not to work why would anyone bother to spend years training to be one in the first place?
The Universal Basic Income, which Spain has just introduced, would mean no one would have less than a set amount to live on. It doesn’t mean that everyone would be paid the same wage.
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Perhaps those who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own and have had to depend on the state for their income will be a tad more sympathetic to those who have had to do the same but in the long term.
I do not disagree with that sentiment at all. However, the system is being abused, and those abusing it are the root cause of the less money going to those who really do need it! I know this to be true!
I see pain and suffering from all walks of life in my line of work I know who is deserving of help- I also see people who are bleeding the system- that sickens me. AND higher tax from the rich/middle/lower working class will not stop the abusers.
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I do not disagree with that sentiment at all. However, the system is being abused, and those abusing it are the root cause of the less money going to those who really do need it! I know this to be true!
I see pain and suffering from all walks of life in my line of work I know who is deserving of help- I also see people who are bleeding the system- that sickens me. AND higher tax from the rich/middle/lower working class will not stop the abusers.
Government cuts are the cause of the needy going without. Blaming those who abuse the system, a small fraction of claimants, is simply shifting the blame away from those who are truly culpable.
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Government cuts are the cause of the needy going without. Blaming those who abuse the system, a small fraction of claimants, is simply shifting the blame away from those who are truly culpable.
I disagree.
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I disagree.
That’s democracy for you 8(0(*
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That’s democracy for you 8(0(*
Sure be 8(0(*
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953 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours, the highest, grimmest total yet: the highest single day toll in Spain was 950, in Italy, 919. This is absolutely horrific, a national catastrophe, and yet most of the media still isn't asking the government tough questions. Why?
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953 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours, the highest, grimmest total yet: the highest single day toll in Spain was 950, in Italy, 919. This is absolutely horrific, a national catastrophe, and yet most of the media still isn't asking the government tough questions. Why?
What kind of tough question is Stammer not asking?
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What kind of tough question is Stammer not asking?
Starmer appears to be missing in action.
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Starmer appears to be missing in action.
Maybe at the barbers...
what tough questions with answers id JC asking.
Just so you understand, it is not the governments fault regarding the PPE. This is the sole responsibility of nhs 'Managers' of which out number nurses in some areas. They waste so much millions it is eye watering!
The managers inform admin to order from procurement.- These people are untouchable and unaccountable! and well protected by....
Socialist unions!! whood dah thunk it.
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Maybe at the barbers...
what tough questions with answers id JC asking.
Just so you understand, it is not the governments fault regarding the PPE. This is the sole responsibility of nhs 'Managers' of which out number nurses in some areas. They waste so much millions it is eye watering!
The managers inform admin to order from procurement.- These people are untouchable and unaccountable! and well protected by....
Socialist unions!! whood dah thunk it.
Why should Corbyn be asking tough questions? He’s a simple backbencher now.
‘The managers’ are ‘well protected’ by whom ?
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Maybe at the barbers...
what tough questions with answers id JC asking.
Just so you understand, it is not the governments fault regarding the PPE. This is the sole responsibility of nhs 'Managers' of which out number nurses in some areas. They waste so much millions it is eye watering!
The managers inform admin to order from procurement.- These people are untouchable and unaccountable! and well protected by....
Socialist unions!! whood dah thunk it.
Jeremy Corbyn wouldn’t know a tough question if it bit him on the arse.
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Why should Corbyn be asking tough questions? He’s a simple backbencher now.
‘The managers’ are ‘well protected’ by whom ?
Simple? JC ? ok so he isn't interested in asking tough questions on behalf of his constituents?
The union- brothers/sisters and all that back slapping.
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Jeremy Corbyn wouldn’t know a tough auestion if it bit him on the arse.
He’s returned to the back benches...let it go.
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Simple? JC ? ok so he isn't interested in asking tough questions on behalf of his constituents?
The union- brothers/sisters and all that back slapping.
He’s been MP for his constituency for over 30 years so I’d hazard a guess that his constituents are happy with their representation.
BTW did you clap for Boris the other night.....no I don’t think anyone else did either....not even in Uxbridge I’m told.
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He’s been MP for his constituency for over 30 years so I’d hazard a guess that his constituents are happy with their representation.
BTW did you clap for Boris the other night.....no I don’t think anyone else did either....not even in Uxbridge I’m told.
I never said they were not happy, but to be honest it is a safe seat. Maybe his happy constituents are not interested in these tough questions you need answers to. Some socialists they are hmph!
I don't follow the crowd,sorry.
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I never said they were not happy, but to be honest it is a safe seat. Maybe his happy constituents are not interested in these tough questions you need answers to. Some socialists they are hmph!
I don't follow the crowd,sorry.
It was you who brought up the subject of tough questions for Corbyn. Yet again I have to ask....do you actually know what socialism means ?
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It was you who brought up the subject of tough questions for Corbyn. Yet again I have to ask....do you actually know what socialism means ?
It was YOU who wanted the tough questions by the press to be answered by the government. I merely suggest JC could do it for you.. Sorry about that.
Socialism- yes society own us- the class system is still in place (but we pretend it isn't) but different people are at the top and rule over us.
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It was YOU who wanted the tough questions by the press to be answered by the government. I merely suggest JC could do it for you.. Sorry about that.
Socialism- yes society own us- the class system is still in place (but we pretend it isn't) but different people are at the top and rule over us.
Corbyn is not the government...he is not even the leader of the opposition so yet again your post is nonsensical.
Yep, as I thought, you really don’t understand socialism.
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Well said Mr Starmer.
It is quite frankly insulting to imply frontline staff are wasting PPE.
There are horrific stories of NHS staff and care workers not having the equipment they need to keep them safe.
The Government must act to ensure supplies are delivered.
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For those who are still defending the government’s response to the horrendous virus.
https://youtu.be/NQkLRuyXwOc
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For those who are still defending the government’s response to the horrendous virus.
https://youtu.be/NQkLRuyXwOc
In my opinion there should be a reckoning when we come through this and return to whatever the new normality may be and I think Keir Starmer has it all to play for as he becomes a better known face to the general public.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-labour-leadership-ratings-update-jeremy-corbyn-poll-a9460716.html
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An interesting read
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/coronavirus-in-the-uk.pdf
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In my opinion there should be a reckoning when we come through this and return to whatever the new normality may be and I think Keir Starmer has it all to play for as he becomes a better known face to the general public.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-labour-leadership-ratings-update-jeremy-corbyn-poll-a9460716.html
Agreed but it is a perilous path he treads. If he swings too far too the right he will lose the voters who supported Corbyn, too far to the left and he will lose the support of his centrist colleagues as Corbyn did. Interesting times ahead.
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An interesting read
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/coronavirus-in-the-uk.pdf
As the numbers dead rise and we start counting those who died in care homes and at home and not simply in hospital it will be interesting to see whether the public attitude will change.
I found this interesting.
People are more likely to agree than disagree that the government’s response has been confused and inconsistent (42% vs 31%) and that the government acted too slowly (62% vs 16%).
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For the second week in a row Matthew nails it
author-image
MATTHEW SYED
This is the age of ‘me, me, me’ — until we need a scapegoat, and it’s ‘them, them, them’
Matthew Syed
Sunday April 12 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
Share
Save
Suppose that in 2015 David Cameron had proposed creating surge capacity to deal with a future epidemic. Suppose he had instructed officials to draw up plans for a new diagnostic infrastructure, buying surplus protective equipment and working with other nations to improve warning systems. Suppose there had even been talk of a warehouse stocked with ventilators to help us cope if a lethal microbe struck.
Do you think Cameron would have been hailed for his far-sightedness? Or do you think that the public would have been up in arms about ventilators gathering dust when money was needed here and now; that pundits would have been bemused about the rush to deal with a mutation that hadn’t yet materialised; that social media would have been awash with condemnation of long-term planning being prioritised over more urgent demands?
It is, of course, a tricky thought experiment to perform, given that we cannot unremember the times we are living through, with their social distancing and lockdowns. But we do know that successive prime ministers didn’t react fully to warnings from scientists that pandemics represented the biggest risk to humanity. Is it not plausible that they failed to do so because they knew it would have been political Kryptonite? Even Dominic Cummings, who wrote extensively about pandemics while outside politics, lost his sense of urgency when he had to write a manifesto that people might actually vote for.
And that is why I fear we may be drawing some wrong lessons from this crisis. It’s easy to blame politicians for misjudgments and logistical difficulties since the virus emerged. But we haven’t yet acknowledged that the broader failure of planning is a reflection of the chronic short-termism of the shameless chancers they rely on to secure power. In other words, us.
We once had a concept of prudence, of saving for a rainy day: the idea that to gain something of value, we needed the patience to delay gratification. Some historians argue that these values were central to the Protestant Reformation and laid the cultural roots for the rise of Europe after a long period of decline between the fall of Rome and the sacking of Constantinople — leading, ultimately, to the Industrial Revolution.
Today we live in an era of “now, now, now”. An era of dwindling attention spans, the sugar-rush detonations of computer games, the dopamine-optimised intensity of online entertainment, the summary recriminations of social media. Gratification isn’t rapid; it’s instant. I doubt any politician could have sold a policy of long-term planning for a pandemic, despite estimates in 2014 that early investment would save hundreds of billions of pounds over the course of the next hundred years.
I mean, who wants to wait a hundred years for a payback? Who wants to wait even 10? Isn’t it easier when a disaster materialises to blame Boris Johnson or some other bogeyman rather than acknowledge our own role in it? Don’t we see the same pattern with the credit crunch, as we continue to collude in the deranged pretence that it was entirely the fault of greedy bankers and nothing at all to do with those of us who took out 120% mortgages and maxed out our credit cards?
And isn’t this part of a broader pattern in which rational long-term planning is sacrificed on the altar of “nowness”? We see it in our lamentable inability to take wise (or cost-effective) decisions on large infrastructure projects, social care and pensions, not to mention antimicrobial resistance and ecological dangers.
The scourge of “now, now, now” is mirrored by that of “me, me, me”. Amid the debate about whether the government acted too late to initiate social distancing rules, I can’t help reflecting upon reports that members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) were sceptical that the public would obey them. They didn’t think a campaign emphasising that people going out were risking not merely their own lives but those of the people round them would be sufficient to engender collective responsibility, at least not at first.
You may disagree with this judgment, but can you not at least glimpse their reasoning? I mean, how often do people go to A&E when they don’t need to, or make GP appointments they don’t keep? We know that such decisions cost lives, but it doesn’t prevent people from placing self-interest above the public good. Indeed, many continued to throw barbecues and parties in those first few weeks, only scaling back when the body count started rising and the police got heavy-handed. And then, of course, we blamed the police.
None of this is intended as an indictment of democracy, for, as Winston Churchill intimated, it is superior to the other systems that have been attempted. I have certainly been more than a little surprised by the dubious acclaim being showered on China, a nation that will emerge from this crisis as a pariah, however much protective equipment it lavishes upon the world. The Communist Party may have been able to enforce a total lockdown, but it also permitted wet markets, demonised whistleblowers when the virus emerged and then serially lied as the epidemic gained pace. Whatever the question, one-party systems are hardly the answer.
Yet if democracy remains our best hope, isn’t it even more imperative that we address its weaknesses? Don’t we need to reconceive of societies not merely as aggregations of individuals and families — to see the threads linking all of us to one another, and all of us to the future?
In 1976 the RAF pilot Douglas Bader spoke at a symposium at Southampton University. I hope you’ll forgive me for mentioning this, given the surfeit of Second World War references over recent weeks. For although he was ostensibly relating his experiences during the Battle of Britain, he used the occasion for a meditation on social solidarity. He made the point that this often strengthens at times of crisis — as we are seeing today with applause for the NHS, our appreciation of low-paid heroes and the upsurge in neighbourliness. The real test, he said, is whether it is sustained when the threat subsides.
“I remember a tobacconist’s shop outside Victoria station which had been bombed the previous afternoon, but in the morning there was a trestle table and a notice that said, ‘Business as usual’, and a grinning Cockney standing beside it. These are the people that we so seldom see, our compatriots who took it. If they had not taken it, if they had not built the aeroplanes and everything else, we could not have fought. We were the glamour boys up there and had something to fight back with — that was the difference.
“This is what mattered,” he concluded. “It was a united effort by everybody.”
@MatthewSyed
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For the second week in a row Matthew nails it
author-image
MATTHEW SYED
This is the age of ‘me, me, me’ — until we need a scapegoat, and it’s ‘them, them, them’
Matthew Syed
Sunday April 12 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
Share
Save
Suppose that in 2015 David Cameron had proposed creating surge capacity to deal with a future epidemic. Suppose he had instructed officials to draw up plans for a new diagnostic infrastructure, buying surplus protective equipment and working with other nations to improve warning systems. Suppose there had even been talk of a warehouse stocked with ventilators to help us cope if a lethal microbe struck.
Do you think Cameron would have been hailed for his far-sightedness? Or do you think that the public would have been up in arms about ventilators gathering dust when money was needed here and now; that pundits would have been bemused about the rush to deal with a mutation that hadn’t yet materialised; that social media would have been awash with condemnation of long-term planning being prioritised over more urgent demands?
It is, of course, a tricky thought experiment to perform, given that we cannot unremember the times we are living through, with their social distancing and lockdowns. But we do know that successive prime ministers didn’t react fully to warnings from scientists that pandemics represented the biggest risk to humanity. Is it not plausible that they failed to do so because they knew it would have been political Kryptonite? Even Dominic Cummings, who wrote extensively about pandemics while outside politics, lost his sense of urgency when he had to write a manifesto that people might actually vote for.
And that is why I fear we may be drawing some wrong lessons from this crisis. It’s easy to blame politicians for misjudgments and logistical difficulties since the virus emerged. But we haven’t yet acknowledged that the broader failure of planning is a reflection of the chronic short-termism of the shameless chancers they rely on to secure power. In other words, us.
We once had a concept of prudence, of saving for a rainy day: the idea that to gain something of value, we needed the patience to delay gratification. Some historians argue that these values were central to the Protestant Reformation and laid the cultural roots for the rise of Europe after a long period of decline between the fall of Rome and the sacking of Constantinople — leading, ultimately, to the Industrial Revolution.
Today we live in an era of “now, now, now”. An era of dwindling attention spans, the sugar-rush detonations of computer games, the dopamine-optimised intensity of online entertainment, the summary recriminations of social media. Gratification isn’t rapid; it’s instant. I doubt any politician could have sold a policy of long-term planning for a pandemic, despite estimates in 2014 that early investment would save hundreds of billions of pounds over the course of the next hundred years.
I mean, who wants to wait a hundred years for a payback? Who wants to wait even 10? Isn’t it easier when a disaster materialises to blame Boris Johnson or some other bogeyman rather than acknowledge our own role in it? Don’t we see the same pattern with the credit crunch, as we continue to collude in the deranged pretence that it was entirely the fault of greedy bankers and nothing at all to do with those of us who took out 120% mortgages and maxed out our credit cards?
And isn’t this part of a broader pattern in which rational long-term planning is sacrificed on the altar of “nowness”? We see it in our lamentable inability to take wise (or cost-effective) decisions on large infrastructure projects, social care and pensions, not to mention antimicrobial resistance and ecological dangers.
The scourge of “now, now, now” is mirrored by that of “me, me, me”. Amid the debate about whether the government acted too late to initiate social distancing rules, I can’t help reflecting upon reports that members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) were sceptical that the public would obey them. They didn’t think a campaign emphasising that people going out were risking not merely their own lives but those of the people round them would be sufficient to engender collective responsibility, at least not at first.
You may disagree with this judgment, but can you not at least glimpse their reasoning? I mean, how often do people go to A&E when they don’t need to, or make GP appointments they don’t keep? We know that such decisions cost lives, but it doesn’t prevent people from placing self-interest above the public good. Indeed, many continued to throw barbecues and parties in those first few weeks, only scaling back when the body count started rising and the police got heavy-handed. And then, of course, we blamed the police.
None of this is intended as an indictment of democracy, for, as Winston Churchill intimated, it is superior to the other systems that have been attempted. I have certainly been more than a little surprised by the dubious acclaim being showered on China, a nation that will emerge from this crisis as a pariah, however much protective equipment it lavishes upon the world. The Communist Party may have been able to enforce a total lockdown, but it also permitted wet markets, demonised whistleblowers when the virus emerged and then serially lied as the epidemic gained pace. Whatever the question, one-party systems are hardly the answer.
Yet if democracy remains our best hope, isn’t it even more imperative that we address its weaknesses? Don’t we need to reconceive of societies not merely as aggregations of individuals and families — to see the threads linking all of us to one another, and all of us to the future?
In 1976 the RAF pilot Douglas Bader spoke at a symposium at Southampton University. I hope you’ll forgive me for mentioning this, given the surfeit of Second World War references over recent weeks. For although he was ostensibly relating his experiences during the Battle of Britain, he used the occasion for a meditation on social solidarity. He made the point that this often strengthens at times of crisis — as we are seeing today with applause for the NHS, our appreciation of low-paid heroes and the upsurge in neighbourliness. The real test, he said, is whether it is sustained when the threat subsides.
“I remember a tobacconist’s shop outside Victoria station which had been bombed the previous afternoon, but in the morning there was a trestle table and a notice that said, ‘Business as usual’, and a grinning Cockney standing beside it. These are the people that we so seldom see, our compatriots who took it. If they had not taken it, if they had not built the aeroplanes and everything else, we could not have fought. We were the glamour boys up there and had something to fight back with — that was the difference.
“This is what mattered,” he concluded. “It was a united effort by everybody.”
@MatthewSyed
Priceless....over 10,000 people have died in hospital....not counting those who were at home or in a care home when they died...and it’s all our fault for expecting the government to plan for this sort of pandemic.
Maybe Mr Syed can explain why the government carry out exercises like Operation Cygnus when they are not going to act on it’s findings ?
I don’t know who’s worse....the churnalist for writing this nonsense or you for using it to justify your increasingly discredited stance.
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Poor Boris still looks pretty ill in his Easter meesage today. They are people on my timeline (all Corbyn fans) who are convinced he faked his illness. I really think not, judging from this
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/12/boris-johnson-leaves-hospital-as-he-continues-recovery-from-coronavirus
I have to admit this actually brought a little tear to my eye and I never in a million years would have thought I could ever have been moved by anything Boris had to say!
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Poor Boris still looks pretty ill in his Easter meesage today. They are people on my timeline (all Corbyn fans) who are convinced he faked his illness. I really think not, judging from this
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/12/boris-johnson-leaves-hospital-as-he-continues-recovery-from-coronavirus
I have to admit this actually brought a little tear to my eye and I never in a million years would have thought I could ever have been moved by anything Boris had to say!
What fakery.....not Boris silly, you.
You know what brought a tear to my eye ? The deaths of those 10,000 people who didn’t get to leave the hospital and will be denied a proper funeral.
Ironic isn’t it that after Brexit nurses like Luis from Porto won’t be able to work here.
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This morning - the government’s health secretary said that 19 NHS Staff had died from Coronavirus. I don’t know what he hopes to gain from this fib but it is wrong and inaccurate. Out of respect for their sacrifice we should at least remember their name and the number who gave their lives. 31 NHS staff have so far died of Coronavirus. I list their names below. RIP.
Abdul Chowdhury
Fayaz Ayache
Labeja Acellam
Alfa Saadu
Habib Zaidi
Amged El-Hawrani
Adil El Tayar
Jitendra Rathod
Anton Sebastianpillai
Mo Sami Shousha
Syed Haider
Alice Kit Tak Ong
Emilia Perugia
Daniel Souelto
Carol Jamabo
John Alagos
Liz Glanister
Glen Corbin
Thomas Harvey
Amor Gatinao
Lynsay Coventry
Cathy Sweeney
Janice Graham
Edmund Adedeji
Barbara Moore
Pooja Sharma
Bex Mack
Amreema Nasreen
Amiee O’Rourke
Remember.Their.Names.
#Superheros #NotJustANumber #NhsStaffCovidDeaths
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What fakery.....not Boris silly, you.
You know what brought a tear to my eye ? The deaths of those 10,000 people who didn’t get to leave the hospital and will be denied a proper funeral.
Ironic isn’t it that after Brexit nurses like Luis from Porto won’t be able to work here.
Luis will still be able to work here after brexit... It's the big issue sellers who wont
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Luis will still be able to work here after brexit... It's the big issue sellers who wont
Possibly Luis will but others like him won’t, they won’t earn enough.
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Luis will still be able to work here after brexit... It's the big issue sellers who wont
I see Faithlilly is still desperately trying to goad and insult me despite me having her on ignore. How sad. Of course Luis will still be able to work here, since when did Brexit mean all EU nationals would be kicked out? The drivel some people spout. I expect most Big Issue sellers will still be here in ten years time too.
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I see Faithlilly is still desperately trying to goad and insult me despite me having her on ignore. How sad. Of course Luis will still be able to work here, since when did Brexit mean all EU nationals would be kicked out? The drivel some people spout. I expect most Big Issue sellers will still be here in ten years time too.
I thought it was extremely interesting that the Portuguese President felt he had to personally thank nurse Luis Pitarma from Porto for looking after Boris Johnson instead of admitting shame that a Portuguese national would have to go abroad to get work.
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It’s really quite eye-opening just how many of the doctors and nurses that have been mentioned a propos of this latest crisis have been immigrants and I hope and believe it will make the people of the UK value our immigrant population alot more than perhaps we have done in the past.
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I see Faithlilly is still desperately trying to goad and insult me despite me having her on ignore. How sad. Of course Luis will still be able to work here, since when did Brexit mean all EU nationals would be kicked out? The drivel some people spout. I expect most Big Issue sellers will still be here in ten years time too.
‘Nurses like Luis’. Please read what I write, not what you’d liked me to have written so you can have a fly dig.
Did you wait all day for Davel to post ?
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I thought it was extremely interesting that the Portuguese President felt he had to personally thank nurse Luis Pitarma from Porto for looking after Boris Johnson instead of admitting shame that a Portuguese national would have to go abroad to get work.
I’ve seen some nonsense in my time on these boards but that just about takes the biscotti.
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It’s really quite eye-opening just how many of the doctors and nurses that have been mentioned a propos of this latest crisis have been immigrants and I hope and believe it will make the people of the UK value our immigrant population alot more than perhaps we have done in the past.
Given that it is only being reported in Londonistan it's hardly surprising. Hopefully we can train a lot more of our own doctors and nurses in this new beginning and limit the number of foreigners allowed in to a bare minimum.
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I’ve seen some nonsense in my time on these boards but that just about takes the biscotti.
Nice avatar but don't you mean LOSER instead of LEGEND? (&^&
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Given that it is only being reported in Londonistan it's hardly surprising. Hopefully we can train a lot more of our own doctors and nurses in this new beginning and limit the number of foreigners allowed in to a bare minimum.
It costs over £200,000 for a 5 year degree course at medical school and that fee is taxpayer funded. There are hundreds fewer medical school places available to UK students each year than there are job vacancies. The student drop-out rate is an increasing cause for concern. (https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/1613792/nhs-fears-as-increasing-number-of-medical-students-dropping-out/)
Other than employing qualified foreigners to fill the shortfall, what can economically be done to keep the NHS functioning at somewhere near a safe level?
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It costs over £200,000 for a 5 year degree course at medical school and that fee is taxpayer funded. There are hundreds fewer medical school places available to UK students each year than there are job vacancies. The student drop-out rate is an increasing cause for concern. (https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/1613792/nhs-fears-as-increasing-number-of-medical-students-dropping-out/)
Other than employing qualified foreigners to fill the shortfall, what can economically be done to keep the NHS functioning at somewhere near a safe level?
I think for starters they need to pay nurses and carers a proper wage. There has to be a valid reason why our medical students are quitting courses while many poorly trained doctors and nurses from abroad are being recruited wholesale to take their places.
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I think for starters they need to pay nurses and carers a proper wage. There has to be a valid reason why our medical students are quitting courses while many poorly trained doctors and nurses from abroad are being recruited wholesale to take their places.
I think they need to pay nurses to actually nurse rather than use them for pen-pushing and file carrying.
Nurses' salaries are on a par with teachers, firefighters & policemen and somewhat higher than the lower ranks of HM Forces. How can an increase in nurses' pay be justified without increasing the salaries of those whose own lives are potentially at risk daily rather than just during this pandemic?
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I think they need to pay nurses to actually nurse rather than use them for pen-pushing and file carrying.
Nurses' salaries are on a par with teachers, firefighters & policemen and somewhat higher than the lower ranks of HM Forces. How can an increase in nurses' pay be justified without increasing the salaries of those whose own lives are potentially at risk daily rather than just during this pandemic?
Increase pay across the whole public sector.
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Nice avatar but don't you mean LOSER instead of LEGEND? (&^&
Very quick Angelo....give yourself a biscuit.
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Increase pay across the whole public sector.
And who's going to pay for that?
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And who's going to pay for that?
We all are....don’t you think they are worth it ? A few pounds on our income tax....I certainly would pay it. After the monumental effort made by all our public services in this time of crisis it’s the least they deserve.
I notice it’s always the left willing to put their hands in their pockets.
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We all are....don’t you think they are worth it ? A few pounds on our income tax....I certainly would pay it. After the monumental effort made by all our public services in this time of crisis it’s the least they deserve.
I notice it’s always the left willing to put their hands in their pockets.
We're all going to have to pay more taxes when this pandemic is over, without even considering pay rises for those making a monumental effort right now and the inevitable loss of thousands of jobs. Perhaps a one-off bonus would be a fairer option than crippling the taxpayers who already fund too many gold-plated public service wages & pensions.
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Given that it is only being reported in Londonistan it's hardly surprising. Hopefully we can train a lot more of our own doctors and nurses in this new beginning and limit the number of foreigners allowed in to a bare minimum.
Until then thank god for “foreigners” (and it’s not just London where they prop up the NHS, I know this from personal experience).
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Until then thank god for “foreigners” (and it’s not just London where they prop up the NHS, I know this from personal experience).
Always remembering that it was foreigners, namely the Chinese and those they infected, who brought this plague upon our lands mostly thanks to Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport.
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Always remembering that it was foreigners, namely the Chinese and those they infected, who brought this plague upon our lands mostly thanks to Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport.
Some of us like to travel to other countries.....perhaps you would prefer if the whole world was locked down for good
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Until then thank god for “foreigners” (and it’s not just London where they prop up the NHS, I know this from personal experience).
Not only the NHS but social care and so many other sectors.
Those who believe that ending freedom of movement will encourage more British citizens to train in these sectors need to give their heads a wobble.
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Not only the NHS but social care and so many other sectors.
Those who believe that ending freedom of movement will encourage more British citizens to train in these sectors need to give their heads a wobble.
we dont need free movement to recruit the workers we need. Free movement gives us people we need and people we dont need....the better way is to be able to choose
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we dont need free movement to recruit the workers we need. Free movement gives us people we need and people we dont need....the better way is to be able to choose
So how do you suggest we do that ? An Australian points based system...which doesn’t even work in Australia?
https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/australia’s-migration-system-wouldn’t-work-here-and-doesn’t-work-there
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So how do you suggest we do that ? An Australian points based system...which doesn’t even work in Australia?
https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/australia’s-migration-system-wouldn’t-work-here-and-doesn’t-work-there
Your link is to a TUC blog... Perhaps a bit biased against the govt.. LOL
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Your link is to a TUC blog... Perhaps a bit biased against the govt.. LOL
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/australian-immigration-points-system-brexit-uk
From the article.
‘Despite this positioning as a panacea to free movement, a number of commentators have pointed out that far from cutting migration, in Australia a points-based system has been a tool of immigration growth.’
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https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/australian-immigration-points-system-brexit-uk
From the article.
‘Despite this positioning as a panacea to free movement, a number of commentators have pointed out that far from cutting migration, in Australia a points-based system has been a tool of immigration growth.’
nothing wrong with immigration growth for australia as a long as its the right immigrants
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nothing wrong with immigration growth for australia as a long as its the right immigrants
Pardon ?
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Always remembering that it was foreigners, namely the Chinese and those they infected, who brought this plague upon our lands mostly thanks to Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport.
I thought the virus was brought to “these lands” by an English bloke from Brighton after a skiing trip.
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Pardon ?
It's in English you should be able to understand it
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I thought the virus was brought to “these lands” by an English bloke from Brighton after a skiing trip.
Yes I think that's terminal 3...angelos got it wrong again
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It's in English you should be able to understand it
I understand the English simply not your reasoning.
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I understand the English simply not your reasoning.
Australia wanted immigrants... They wanted the population to grow... But they wanted the right type of immigrants. As I understand they want UK qualified doctors.... Not just any doctor. My sons just come back... He was a doctor in Adelaide
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Australia wanted immigrants... They wanted the population to grow... But they wanted the right type of immigrants. As I understand they want UK qualified doctors.... Not just any doctor. My sons just come back... He was a doctor in Adelaide
I’m sorry but are you saying that the number of immigrants rising year on year is not down to the points system failing but to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of skilled workers beating a path to Australia’s door ? That hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers have been replaced, no outstripped, by skilled workers, skilled workers that have never seemed that interested in immigrating before ? A rather singular phenomenon I’m sure you’d agree.
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Yep, me too Robert (seems I’m not the only freak):
Yes, my eyes prickled as Boris spoke — I know where he’s coming from
Robert Crampton
Tuesday April 14 2020, 12.01am, The Times
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I was struck by the emotional force — all the stronger for those emotions being suppressed, if only barely — of the prime minister’s message of gratitude to the health workers who saved his life last week. “Our NHS is the beating heart of this country,” said Boris Johnson. “It is the best of this country . . . it is powered by love.”
I don’t mind admitting that at those words I felt a distinct prickle in what Johnson in his previous incarnation as Bertie Wooster would no doubt have called “the old waterworks”. Waterworks as in tear duct, not urinary tract. Why so lachrymose? Because I agree with him. And because he obviously meant it.
Boris, child of privilege as he is, has made a career out of not bothering to hide — indeed flaunting — that privilege. At the same time, it’s often said of him that he is desperate to be liked. Deep down, our revivified prime minister has possibly gone through life suspecting that so-called ordinary people hate his guts.
Play Video
Boris Johnson thanks healthcare workers for saving his life
Then fate conveys him into a hospital, a London hospital moreover, the cradle of leftish immigrant Remainer sentiment, and not only do the staff there not hate him, they treat him with the loving care they would give to any patient, thereby saving his life. A man who (I’m guessing here) believed that the concept of shared humanity was so much waffle enters, in extremis, the warm embrace of the NHS and discovers that very concept made flesh.
Often that warm embrace is literal. Leaving aside various accidents and emergencies, I remember in particular a visit I paid not long ago to the Homerton in Hackney, east London, for a check-up, a straightforward gastroscopy. Except when a procedure involves a tube being inserted down your oesophagus, perilously close to your windpipe, nothing is straightforward. It’s uncomfortable bordering on painful. Invasive. Frightening. Frightening, mostly. Frightening enough to reduce a man to a whimpering wreck, a wreck who finds himself suddenly and desperately in need of the comforting presence of a nurse to stroke his hair, clutch him to her bosom and tell him it’s all going to be all right.
My gratitude to this woman, whom I hadn’t met five minutes earlier and would not recognise if I met again, is eternal. Seriously. And there wasn’t even anything wrong with me! That’s the way it is with those who step up and step in when you are weak and vulnerable. And health workers do that day after day, year after year. Ten minutes after I’d departed, that nurse would have been helping the next poor wimp get through the same ordeal.
From a broken wrist playing rugby aged 13 in 1977, through various illnesses and mishaps (mostly self-inflicted) up to a mysterious tropical ailment that confined me to Hull Royal Infirmary a few Christmasses ago, I’ve needed to be treated in hospital overnight seven or eight times. Through those episodes, and through the birth of my children to the death of my parents, I must have met hundreds of medics. I haven’t got a bad word to say about any of them. Quite the opposite. I know — we all know — exactly where the prime minister is coming from.
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What was that about the government’s ideological pursuit of Brexit meaning we’d be at the back of the queue in the face for a vaccine?
GlaxoSmithKline in deal with rival Sanofi to make coronavirus vaccine on huge scale
Emma Walmsley, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, said the tie-up was unprecedented
Emma Walmsley, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, said the tie-up was unprecedented
DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
One of Britain’s biggest drug companies is teaming up with a French rival to develop a coronavirus vaccine and manufacture hundreds of millions of doses.
GlaxoSmithKline is to work with Sanofi on a treatment that they hope to test on humans during the second half of this year. They want to make a vaccine available a year later if the project succeeds and regulators grant approval.
Emma Walmsley, chief executive of GSK, the biggest vaccine maker, said the tie-up was unprecedented. She added: “We’re committed to making any vaccine that’s developed through the collaboration affordable to the public.”
GSK is listed in the FTSE 100 share index of Britain’s biggest companies and generated sales of almost £33.8 billion last year, £7.2 billion of which came from its vaccines division. It is one of four companies that dominate the vaccines industry, the others being Sanofi, which is based in Paris, and the American rivals Pfizer and Merck.
The tie-up is significant because it raises the prospect that a Covid-19 treatment could be manufactured quickly on the large scale required to tackle the pandemic. It normally takes at least a decade to develop a vaccine from scratch but drug companies and research institutes are scrambling to find one much more quickly.
Sanofi will bring to the partnership a Covid-19 antigen — a molecule that helps the body to produce antibodies — that it is developing. GSK will contribute its adjuvant technology, which boosts an antigen’s potency. This makes smaller doses more effective and may mean that more of the vaccine can be manufactured.
Ms Walmsley, 50, said: “We believe that if we’re successful we’ll be able to make hundreds of millions of doses annually by the end of next year.” The tie-up brings to seven the number of Covid-19 collaborations that GSK has with other groups, including universities and smaller companies.
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The British company does not intend to profit from any of these initiatives during the pandemic and will reinvest any money it makes into research and pandemic preparedness, Ms Walmsley said. It also plans to donate adjuvant to the world’s poorest countries.
AstraZeneca said that it was rushing a drug used to tackle blood cancer into clinical trials to investigate its effectiveness for treating “cytokine storm”. This develops in Covid-19 patients when the body’s immune system overreacts. If successful, Astra believes the treatment could mean fewer patients with life-threatening symptoms needing to go on to ventilators.
The World Health Organisation said there were 70 Covid-19 vaccines in development. They include a team led by Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford University, who told The Times last week that she was “80 per cent confident” that their treatment would work, possibly by September.
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I’m sorry but are you saying that the number of immigrants rising year on year is not down to the points system failing but to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of skilled workers beating a path to Australia’s door ? That hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers have been replaced, no outstripped, by skilled workers, skilled workers that have never seemed that interested in immigrating before ? A rather singular phenomenon I’m sure you’d agree.
Australia wanted immigration and the points system worked in filtering the immigrants. If they wish to stop immigration they can...its their choice. The Uk didnt have a choice ..it was an open door. With Brexit they will have that choice
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Australia wanted immigration and the points system worked in filtering the immigrants. If they wish to stop immigration they can...its their choice. The Uk didnt have a choice ..it was an open door. With Brexit they will have that choice
But after filtering, by the system we are going to adopt, the number is still going up in Australia. Are you truly trying to tell me that those added numbers are all skilled workers ? Really ?
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It’s a topsy, turvy world when Piers Morgan is the nation’s moral compass.
https://youtu.be/DZTq2DHKMHo
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But after filtering, by the system we are going to adopt, the number is still going up in Australia. Are you truly trying to tell me that those added numbers are all skilled workers ? Really ?
What im telling you is that Australia has a degree of control wheras UK has had free movemnet and no control. The australian system might not be perfect but its heaps better taht free movement. what i know from my sons experience is that the visa system is certainly very strict for doctors. He had to get multiple references and copies of assessmnets from several years ago. the Uk have allowed in doctors that havent even been qualified.
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What im telling you is that Australia has a degree of control wheras UK has had free movemnet and no control. The australian system might not be perfect but its heaps better taht free movement. what i know from my sons experience is that the visa system is certainly very strict for doctors. He had to get multiple references and copies of assessmnets from several years ago. the Uk have allowed in doctors that havent even been qualified.
But the point is immigration in Australia is still going up despite the points system.
Further the screening process in Australia doesn’t seem to be that strict
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/10/british-doctor-shocked-fraudster-worked-australian-hospitals/
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But the point is immigration in Australia is still going up despite the points system.
Further the screening process in Australia doesn’t seem to be that strict
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/10/british-doctor-shocked-fraudster-worked-australian-hospitals/
The point is it's their country and their laws... They can stop immigration completely if they wish... The UK couldn't as part if the EU. I suppose it doesn't matter how strict the screening process is if someone is determined to beat it.
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The point is it's their country and their laws... They can stop immigration completely if they wish... The UK couldn't as part if the EU. I suppose it doesn't matter how strict the screening process is if someone is determined to beat it.
No, the point is that an Australian points system, which we are about to adopt, does not work and the rise in immigration in Australia has shown that.
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No, the point is that an Australian points system, which we are about to adopt, does not work and the rise in immigration in Australia has shown that.
i think your post is absolute codswallop based on your devotion to Corbyn;s Labour that was soundly rejected by the UK electorate. You really are letting it cloud your judgemnt. As I've said and you cannot counter....Australia has the ability to adjust its system...the Uk didnt as aprt of the EU. Thank god they can now.
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i think your post is absolute codswallop based on your devotion to Corbyn;s Labour that was soundly rejected by the UK electorate. You really are letting it cloud your judgemnt. As I've said and you cannot counter....Australia has the ability to adjust its system...the Uk didnt as aprt of the EU. Thank god they can now.
What the Labour Party doesn’t seem to have understood is that FOM is a massive vote loser so they’re going to have to come up with a workable solution to the issue of immigration that the people of this country will accept as workable and fair. If it’s not a points based system what is it?
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What the Labour Party doesn’t seem to have understood is that FOM is a massive vote loser so they’re going to have to come up with a workable solution to the issue of immigration that the people of this country will accept as workable and fair. If it’s not a points based system what is it?
A points based system will limit immigration... It just depends how will it's employed... FOM was, a massive vote loser and it's not good fir the UK. Brexit gives us more control over immigration .
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What im telling you is that Australia has a degree of control wheras UK has had free movemnet and no control. The australian system might not be perfect but its heaps better taht free movement. what i know from my sons experience is that the visa system is certainly very strict for doctors. He had to get multiple references and copies of assessmnets from several years ago. the Uk have allowed in doctors that havent even been qualified.
And there you have it in a nut shell!
The amount of 'doctors' from Pakistan who were brought over in the 80's to help with minorities being made to feel comfortable in their culture bubble was a huge flop! The language issues and religious demands and cultural accommodation was hated by many- of who were immigrants themselves!
The race card was lifted at every turn. when young girls born here were having FGM performed on them by 'GP's who 'understood' their culture. It took 4 years to get one doctor out of the country! He brought with him his wife, her mother who took ill and couldn't be deported, his sister who got married to a severely mentally and physically handicapped man and got to stay here... just one story there are many!
So has anyone done the maths? why we need these foreign doctors? My sister and her husband left the NHS and moved over to Australia. I know another 15 great people who have left the UK NHS for the same reasons.
Nicola sturgeon closed the budget for training home grown doctors- she also slashed the IT budget for training our young. We NEED to import. outsourcing is what it is all about.
Let's do the maths.
30 people in a village need a clinic with 2 staff. the village increases to 60, then 600.
As the country was invaded by FOM and 'asylum seekers' and illegal immigrants- so the need to increase the infrastructure and staffing levels to accommodate the increase.
so less people =less burden on the NHS= less staff.
We don't need charlatans from around the world coming in and making things worse so we can be polite and pretend we don't notice things incase we 'offend'.
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And there you have it in a nut shell!
The amount of 'doctors' from Pakistan who were brought over in the 80's to help with minorities being made to feel comfortable in their culture bubble was a huge flop! The language issues and religious demands and cultural accommodation was hated by many- of who were immigrants themselves!
The race card was lifted at every turn. when young girls born here were having FGM performed on them by 'GP's who 'understood' their culture. It took 4 years to get one doctor out of the country! He brought with him his wife, her mother who took ill and couldn't be deported, his sister who got married to a severely mentally and physically handicapped man and got to stay here... just one story there are many!
So has anyone done the maths? why we need these foreign doctors? My sister and her husband left the NHS and moved over to Australia. I know another 15 great people who have left the UK NHS for the same reasons.
Nicola sturgeon closed the budget for training home grown doctors- she also slashed the IT budget for training our young. We NEED to import. outsourcing is what it is all about.
Let's do the maths.
30 people in a village need a clinic with 2 staff. the village increases to 60, then 600.
As the country was invaded by FOM and 'asylum seekers' and illegal immigrants- so the need to increase the infrastructure and staffing levels to accommodate the increase.
so less people =less burden on the NHS= less staff.
We don't need charlatans from around the world coming in and making things worse so we can be polite and pretend we don't notice things incase we 'offend'.
Do you have any official figures underpinning the claims above or is everything you ever write anecdotal?
In a month when we saw many, many immigrant doctors, nurses and care workers lose their lives while caring for people of a different colour and culture....British citizens....I find your views especially abhorrent.
Unfortunately the same people who stay silent while you post your xenophobic rubbish will be clapping those same immigrants tomorrow night.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/06/coronavirus-crisis-nhs-not-drained-migrants-sustained-died-frontline?CMP=share_btn_tw
Amged el-Hawrani thought he just had the flu. He thought maybe he was just a bit run down or hadn’t been sleeping enough. By the time he was admitted to hospital with breathing difficulties and put on a ventilator, it was already too late. Three weeks later, he died of Covid-19. He was 55 years old.
The NHS ear, nose and throat (ENT) consultant never knew he had the virus. He was sedated long before the test came back positive, after twice coming back negative. The diagnosis until the final test result was a stubborn bilateral pneumonia. A physician to the end, his last words before being sedated were “why are they taking so long, they need to intubate me”.
As an ENT surgery consultant he was especially vulnerable to catching Covid-19, and was likely exposed to patients whose complaints were coronavirus-related: loss of taste and smell, breathing issues and persistent coughs. “He wasn’t even aware he needed protective gear,” his brother Amal told me, “he was just doing his job.”
El-Hawrani was one of six boys whose Sudanese parents settled in the UK in 1975. Their late father, a consultant radiologist, moved to the UK to gain access to the latest equipment and research in his speciality, and passed on his passion for medicine to his eldest sons. “He had no hobbies, he was always studying, always reading, he loved it,” Amal recalls.
The love for the vocation extended outside of the family, as the El-Hawrani home became a hub for other Sudanese doctors in training. Those who needed advice and guidance on their professional journey, or just needed a place to stay as they did so, found refuge in the El-Hawrani home, rent free. The commitment to family and medicine was passed down. “Most of my dad’s time was dedicated towards his family,” said El-Hawrani’s son, Ashraf, “the rest was dedicated towards his profession.”
Today, the close-knit family, and the wider medical community of friends around it, cannot even seek some small comfort in mourning together. Alongside the shock of El-Hawrani’s death now lies the dread of the disease infecting his mother, who is in her late 70s. Her sons have isolated themselves from her and each other, and turned away mourners.
El-Hawrani was the second frontline doctor to die of the virus. The first was also of Sudanese origin; Dr Adil El Tayar, an organ transplant specialist who volunteered in an A&E department in the Midlands to help fight the virus. Two of the four children he left behind are also NHS doctors.
Following their deaths, the contributions of El-Hawrani and El Tayar and their families to our healthcare system have been held up as exemplars. Yes, they were gifted and selfless, but they were not exceptions. They were part of a community of NHS doctors all over the UK, who are foreign born, or born to immigrants.
In the 1970s and 80s, El-Hawrani and his siblings grew up in a country matter-of-factly hostile to people of colour. His younger brother Amal recalls being told by other children that he couldn’t play with them because he was brown. Thirty years later, the UK is more diverse, but the antipathy towards immigrants has crept upwards, voiced by politicians instead of schoolchildren. The narrative they set for the country in general, and the NHS in particular, is that they are being drained by immigrants who put nothing in and take everything out. This was always a lie, but it has never been a more discreditable one than now.
Alongside El-Hawrani and El Tayar in the honour roll now sit Dr Alfa Saadu, who was also volunteering, this time in Hertfordshire, one of the counties worst hit by the virus; general practitioner Dr Habib Zaidi; and Areema Nasreen, an acute medical unit nurse. The numbers do, and have always told the truth: 44% of medical staff are BAME. For nurses and midwives, it is one in every five, and in some areas such as London, it is four in 10.
Not that the government has made it easy for non-EU migrant doctors to work in the UK. They have to navigate a complex maze of Home Office requirements to renew expensive work visas which are often tied to jobs which are themselves dependent on budgetary constraints. A single fallen domino in this chain ejects a sorely needed doctor from the country.
In its newfound affection for the NHS and such doctors, the government has now shown hitherto unattainable bureaucratic agility, and decided that all nurses, doctors, paramedics and healthcare professionals will have their visas automatically renewed for a year free of charge.
Many of these migrant doctors will be paying a hefty annual NHS surcharge for the privilege of using an NHS they staff, in addition to paying tax and national insurance contributions. This surcharge is set to rise from £400 to £624 a year this October. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, who in November declared that the NHS surcharge was going to be extended because “it’s the National Health Service not the International Health Service”, on Thursday saluted those NHS staffers who perished as “people who came to this country to make a difference”.
These are likely to be temporary face- and life-saving platitudes and measures. When it’s back to business as usual, when the NHS is used as a political pawn, and blame for its underfunding is placed at the feet of migrants, remember Amged El-Hawrani and all the others who fell on its frontline to save lives. Remember their names, their faces, their stories and the families they left behind. And remember that the NHS is not drained by migrants, but sustained by them.
Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist
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https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-government-close-to-lies-over-coronavirus-deaths-warns-expert-11972083
Must be a leftie.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/15/uk-government-coronavirus-science-who-advice?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1586952138
Obviously a leftie too.
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And finally those voices trying to defend the government’s handling of this crisis have fallen silent
https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/04/eleven-days-may-have-tragically-cost-uk-fight-against-coronavirus
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Despite the media’s best efforts to paint the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis as completely incompetent it seems the message hasn’t quite sunk in with the Great British Public yet
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/04/17/support-government-holding-despite-increasing-crit
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And finally those voices trying to defend the government’s handling of this crisis have fallen silent
https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/04/eleven-days-may-have-tragically-cost-uk-fight-against-coronavirus
What makes you think we should take any notice of this article. Who wrote it and what scientific /medical knowledge does he have. I know the answer...do you.
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Despite the media’s best efforts to paint the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis as completely incompetent it seems the message hasn’t quite sunk in with the Great British Public yet
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/04/17/support-government-holding-despite-increasing-crit
It will as it did with America and Trump.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/10/trump-poll-numbers-dip-handling-coronavirus
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=OMwXlOQLu44
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https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/18/boris-johnson-skipped-five-cobra-meetings-coronavirus-crisis-loomed-12576899/
Boris Johnson has been accused of ‘sleepwalking’ into the coronavirus crisis as it is revealed he missed five emergency Cobra meetings in the run up to the UK’s outbreak. The missed meetings happened in January and February, when parts of country also experienced the worst flooding on record. The national crisis committee was first gathered to discuss coronavirus on January 24, by which time the disease had spread to six countries. That day, the Lancet medical journal warned the novel disease could be more lethal than the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed over 50 million people.
Government’s emergency shipment of PPE ‘will be used up by NHS in three days’ Not only did Boris Johnson skip that meeting, but did Matt Hancock inform reporters that the risk to the UK was ‘low’. Boris Johnson hosted a Chinese New Year reception at 10 Downing Street on January 24, the same day he skipped an emergency cobra meeting
And, although the PM didn’t have time to discuss the crisis, he did have time to attend a Lunar new year celebration in the afternoon, The Sunday Times reports. The other meetings were skipped so Mr Johnson could prioritise the EU withdrawal agreement and reshuffling his cabinet.
As the virus gradually crept towards Europe, he missed further cobra meetings to spend two weeks with his pregnant fiancée, Carrie Symonds, at a country retreat in Chevening. It was not until March 2nd – five weeks after the first Cobra committee was called – that the PM decided to attend. Boris Johnson, has been struck down with coronavorus himself, did not attend the first five emergency committee meetings to address the crisis (Picture: Getty) The PM is recovering from the virus at country residence Chequers. By then, coronavirus had infected all but one country in Western Europe. Health Secretary Matt Hancock had admitted a UK endemic was ‘inevitable’ and ministers were scrambling to put together emergency measures – the so-called battle plan- while instructing the public to stay safe by washing their hands.
Boris Johnson has been recovering in country residence Chequers after his battle with coronavirus, which saw him briefly admitted to intensive care. But once source said he was an absent leader long before falling sick. The senior adviser told the Times: ‘There’s no way you’re at war if your PM isn’t there, ‘And what you learn about Boris was he didn’t chair any meetings. He liked his country breaks. He didn’t work weekends. ‘It was like working for an old-fashioned chief executive in a local authority 20 years ago. There was a real sense that he didn’t do urgent crisis planning. It was exactly like people feared he would be.’
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https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/18/boris-johnson-skipped-five-cobra-meetings-coronavirus-crisis-loomed-12576899/
Boris Johnson has been accused of ‘sleepwalking’ into the coronavirus crisis as it is revealed he missed five emergency Cobra meetings in the run up to the UK’s outbreak. The missed meetings happened in January and February, when parts of country also experienced the worst flooding on record. The national crisis committee was first gathered to discuss coronavirus on January 24, by which time the disease had spread to six countries. That day, the Lancet medical journal warned the novel disease could be more lethal than the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed over 50 million people.
Government’s emergency shipment of PPE ‘will be used up by NHS in three days’ Not only did Boris Johnson skip that meeting, but did Matt Hancock inform reporters that the risk to the UK was ‘low’. Boris Johnson hosted a Chinese New Year reception at 10 Downing Street on January 24, the same day he skipped an emergency cobra meeting
And, although the PM didn’t have time to discuss the crisis, he did have time to attend a Lunar new year celebration in the afternoon, The Sunday Times reports. The other meetings were skipped so Mr Johnson could prioritise the EU withdrawal agreement and reshuffling his cabinet.
As the virus gradually crept towards Europe, he missed further cobra meetings to spend two weeks with his pregnant fiancée, Carrie Symonds, at a country retreat in Chevening. It was not until March 2nd – five weeks after the first Cobra committee was called – that the PM decided to attend. Boris Johnson, has been struck down with coronavorus himself, did not attend the first five emergency committee meetings to address the crisis (Picture: Getty) The PM is recovering from the virus at country residence Chequers. By then, coronavirus had infected all but one country in Western Europe. Health Secretary Matt Hancock had admitted a UK endemic was ‘inevitable’ and ministers were scrambling to put together emergency measures – the so-called battle plan- while instructing the public to stay safe by washing their hands.
Boris Johnson has been recovering in country residence Chequers after his battle with coronavirus, which saw him briefly admitted to intensive care. But once source said he was an absent leader long before falling sick. The senior adviser told the Times: ‘There’s no way you’re at war if your PM isn’t there, ‘And what you learn about Boris was he didn’t chair any meetings. He liked his country breaks. He didn’t work weekends. ‘It was like working for an old-fashioned chief executive in a local authority 20 years ago. There was a real sense that he didn’t do urgent crisis planning. It was exactly like people feared he would be.’
The Lancet medical journal warned that the virus could be worse than the Spanish flu that killed 50 million.
Over egging the virus there. The total death rate is disappointingly minuscule compared to the Spanish flu.
Certainly not worth bankrupting small businesses over imo.
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The Lancet medical journal warned that the virus could be worse than the Spanish flu that killed 50 million.
Over egging the virus there. The total death rate is disappointingly minuscule compared to the Spanish flu.
Certainly not worth bankrupting small businesses over imo.
That is because measures were put in place....albeit not quick enough in this country.
What do you think the figures would be if many, many countries hadn’t locked down their citizens?
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So, to all the Boris-bashing know-it-alls - what course of action should he be taking now (apart from tendering his immediate resignation and ritually disembowelling himself on the doorsetep of No. 10? ). It will interesting to see you advise him now, so we can look back in a few months to compare your advice to what he actually did do, with regard to ending or extending the lockdown.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/20/boris-johnson-sunday-times-prime-minister-coronavirus#comment-139936024
The Sunday Times revelations confirm all our worst fears: the prime minister’s handling of coronavirus has been shockingly complacent
Coronavirus – latest updates
See all our coronavirus coverage
Mon 20 Apr 2020 14.50 BST Last modified on Mon 20 Apr 2020 16.48 BST
‘No one forget his cheery 3 March boast that he was still shaking hands with virus-sufferers. Nor that he was at Twickenham for a rugby match on 7 March.’ Photograph: Javier García/BPI/REX/Shutterstock
Everything unravels with almost indecent speed. After a brush with death, the prime minister is still recovering at Chequers when one of his many supportive newspapers drops a grenade straight down his Elizabethan chimney. No period of grace and convalescence: the Sunday Times didn’t even wait for him to stumble back to Downing Street before firing off its devastating attack on his cavalier incompetence over the coronavirus outbreak.
What makes the insiders’ account so devastating is that it chimes with everything everyone already knows about Boris Johnson’s character. An unnamed “senior adviser” to Downing Street “broke ranks” to say: “What you learn about Boris was he didn’t chair any meetings. He liked his country breaks. He didn’t work weekends. It was like working for an old-fashioned chief executive in a local authority 20 years ago. There was a real sense that he didn’t do urgent crisis planning. It was exactly like people feared he would be.”
Exaggerated or not, hearing that the prime minister took two weeks’ holiday at Chevening as the virus began to spread in the UK will stick in the public memory. Nor will anyone forget his cheery 3 March boast that he was still shaking hands with virus-sufferers. Nor that he was at Twickenham for a crowded rugby match on 7 March. But above all, he missed not one but all of the first five Cobra meetings on the gathering crisis. Gordon Brown chaired every single Cobra meeting on foot and mouth – when only the health of animals was at stake. Johnson is charged with wasting 38 days before taking serious action against an epidemic approaching in plain sight. In his mind, China was far away. And even when Italy suffered the full horror – despite being better prepared, with more beds and more intensive care units – well, that was just Italy.
No one elected Boris Johnson to cope with a plague. The small group of ageing activists in the Tory party selected him for his Brexitry – and they liked the cut of his cheery jib. He was fun, upbeat, popular and, above all, he had swung the Brexit vote to victory. Michael Gove reported on Sunday that the prime minister is “in cheerful spirits”, but that’s bafflingly inappropriate. Cheerful? About what? Good croquet on the blossom-strewn Chequers lawns? There are scores of dead doctors and nurses among some 20,000 dead citizens, and rising. Here is the wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time – the polar opposite of Winston Churchill’s arrival in power.
What makes Johnson supremely unsuited to this particular darkest hour is his natural antipathy towards the state. In a speech mainly on Brexit in Greenwich on 3 February, he attacked Wuhan-style lockdowns: “We are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation.” He went on: “Humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange.” He was that government, along with Donald Trump. “Herd immunity” was Johnson’s policy until it became politically unsustainable. Thereafter, incompetence.
The Financial Times’ analysis of bungled ventilator procurement is a sobering read: it says the government called in non-specialists to make up the shortfall in units and ended up with products unfit for Covid-19 patients. And the Guardian revealed that, under austerity, there was a deliberate 40% cut in emergency personal protective equipment stockpiled for an epidemic.
Labour’s shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, is calling for publication of the findings of a three-day epidemic simulation in 2016, Exercise Cygnus, which uncovered a critical shortage of intensive care beds, morgue capacity and PPE. The government is refusing freedom of information requests, so that may have to wait for the inevitable public inquiry. As will final details of the failure to test, trace, isolate and treat every single case, which the World Health Organization now says should be a pre-condition before countries loosen their lockdowns. None of these things are in place in the UK, nowhere near.
Yesterday the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers finally lost patience with government dishonesty over wishful targets and plans: just tell us plain facts, they demanded.
No government could be fully ready for this: future lessons will be learned from South Korea and others. But this we know: our government is singularly unsuited to the task and unfit for purpose. In his absence, Johnson’s lack of seriousness is reflected in his abysmal choice of cabinet, selected for all the wrong reasons. Dominic Raab, Priti Patel, Elizabeth Truss and the rest were chosen for Brexitry and hatred of the state. Read Britannia Unchained, the compilation of their collected thinking, to see into their souls. There’s no evidence their worldview has changed.
Dominic Cummings was brought in by Johnson to swing a wrecking ball at Whitehall, local councils, the BBC and anything that smelled of good government. No surprise that those who don’t believe in the state have made the worst possible fist of running it in a crisis. Brexit embodied their mindset: break away, break things and disrupt. When the prime minister returns, his single most reassuring act would be to prolong immediately the Brexit transition: yet last week No 10 said it would reject an extension, even if the EU offered it. If Johnson blunders on as the economy collapses, then we shall truly know we are in the hands of fanatics.
Ultimately, a public inquiry will examine the state of the country when the virus struck. How 10 years of austerity crippled every service designed to protect and defend. How the Andrew Lansley reforms blew the NHS into fragments; social care was stripped bare; and local government, responsible for public health, was shredded. Even the army was hobbled.
The prime minister can wax sentimental about the NHS, but it’s only one artery of public service that is the lifeblood of good government. As parliament returns, it’s time for MPs to challenge the failures of these renegades.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist.
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(https://storify.com/services/proxy/2/j49FmHU_QKg-JfkDSamrFQ/https/media.fyre.co/a1dDWiOGRoeDowvAruiG_telegraph-front-210420_1587415633_001.png)
And there’s more.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exclusive-nhs-using-flawed-covid-19-test-missing-25-of-positives/
NHS laboratories are using a flawed test for coronavirus, according to a leaked Public Health England document seen by openDemocracy. Experts warn that the test fails to detect up to 25% of positive COVID-19 results.
Although the current test is known to be inconsistent, NHS labs are nonetheless being advised to continue using it, while an urgent “migration” or shift to a commercially available test takes place.
The leaked document from the National Infection Service (NIS) will put intense pressure on Health Secretary Matt Hancock to explain why the NHS has been using knowingly flawed tests for many weeks, as national death rates have spiralled.
Hancock – who promised 100,000 tests a week by the end of April – recently said that “no test is better than a bad test”. Yet the documents reveal that senior government advisers have known for some weeks that the UK’s critical coronavirus test was not entirely reliable.
Among the leading scientists who have seen the NIS document, the reaction has been one of outrage. One said: “There should be mass resignations, both at the top of PHE and in the government. We should expect better.”
Jon Ashworth, Labour's Shadow Health Secretary, said: “Ministers boasted we were world leading in developing this test back in January. If there have been concerns about its accuracy, senior figures have a duty to be clear and transparent with the public. Given the Secretary of State has promised 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month we now need total clarity on what these tests are and who will be processing them."
Throughout the pandemic, the government has regularly stated that at “all times” medical and scientific advice has been followed, and that the “right thing has been done at the right time.”
A testing ‘catastrophe’
Despite two months of reviewing the key test used in the UK to detect the virus – officially known as the ‘PHE SARS-CoV-2RdRp assay’ – no minister, leading scientific or medical adviser has publicly acknowledged that the test is not fully reliable.
Although a numerical evaluation of the test’s reliability is not included in the NIS document, openDemocracy has learned from a leading pathologist with knowledge of the NIS’s ongoing review that the test misses 25 percent of positive cases.
That, according to one leading epidemiologist, is a “catastrophe”. It means that those given a virus-free status in error since testing first began two months ago would not have known they were infected.
As such, they would have continued spreading the disease among their close family and – if they continued going to work or not practising social distancing – among the wider community.
They would have continued spreading the disease
The UK is currently projected to have one of the worst infection and death rates of any country in Europe.
The NIS document seen by openDemocracy is authorised by Dr Susan Hopkins, Professor Maria Zambon and Professor Andrew Mumford: all senior research directors who report to the chief executive of Public Health England, Duncan Selbie, and ultimately to Matt Hancock as Health Secretary.
UK ‘bottom of the queue’ for reliable tests
Evidence of “quality assurance difficulties” for key reagents – essentially the test’s chemical makeup – is quoted in the document as one of the contributing factors for the test’s unreliable performance.
The document says that Public Health England (PHE) has reviewed its own COVID-19 test and has agreed “immediate actions” to mitigate or rectify the problems. Among the advice given to laboratories using the PHE test is to be careful before “calling” a result negative, to "retest ambiguous samples", and to move towards using commercial tests.
Private-sector tests are sold by major pharmaceutical firms such as Hoffmann-La Roche, Abbott Laboratories and others. Commercial laboratories and academic institutions, such as the Crick Institute in London, largely use commercially available tests and not the PHE test.
However due to the worldwide demand for COVID-19 testing, these commercially available tests are now in short supply. If all NHS labs were to suddenly be mandated to switch to commercial products, one leading professor said: “We would find ourselves simply at the bottom of a very large queue for these critical materials.”
The three advisers who authorised the document make it clear that use of the flawed PHE test cannot continue.
But, given the lack of an immediate alternative, they advise NHS labs in the meantime to take care in interpreting the results.
A “shortage of swabs” and the specialist fluid used to “transport” the swabs to laboratories are also identified in the documents as causing variations in the performance of the Public Health England SARS test in NHS laboratories.
The importance of accuracy in test results was emphasised late last month by Professor Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical officer. At a time when questions about the reliability of the PHE test would have been surfacing internally, Professor Whitty discussed the use of tests that might detect the presence of antibodies in those who had recovered from the virus.
He said tests needed to be “incredibly accurate,” adding: “If they are not accurate, we will not release any of them.”
Last month Health Secretary Matt Hancock authorised the purchase of £20m antibody tests from China. The tests were later found to be unreliable and effectively junked. It is understood the Chinese tests were 60 percent reliable.
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Which scientific expert knows best and which one should the government be guided by?
“The pandemic has peaked and draconian measures are now unnecessary, a leading scientist claimed yesterday.
Carl Heneghan, director of the centre for evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, said that the impact of the lockdown was “going to outweigh the damaging effect of coronavirus”.
His assessment adds to pressure on the government to set out how it will ease the lockdown after the coronavirus death toll fell to its lowest level for a fortnight”.
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Isn’t it time those who know how to manage this virus better than the government and who have been critical of its handling so far stepped up to the mark and nailed their colours to the mast regarding whether or not to extend the lockdown further and for how long? What would Keir do?
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“People who do not have to make huge knife edges decisions but come out with simplistic assertions are less than helpful. The truth is there is no right decision and whatever decision that is made will have a downside. Economic consequences or more deaths ....not a simplistic choice for anyone.
We should let those charged with making such decisions on our behalf make them without putting even more pressure on them.
It is always easy to come to decisions when you don’t actually have to make them.”
Exactly Stephen Williamson commenting in today’s Times.
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Oh no....caught out again !!!
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-uk-only-formally-asked-turkey-for-ppe-shipment-after-it-said-it-was-already-on-its-way-11976238
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Oh no....caught out again !!!
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-uk-only-formally-asked-turkey-for-ppe-shipment-after-it-said-it-was-already-on-its-way-11976238
I think if Boris researched Co-vid and personally manged to develop a vaccine in two weeks taht saved millions of lives you would probably say....Why couldnt he have done this in January
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I think if Boris researched Co-vid and personally manged to develop a vaccine in two weeks taht saved millions of lives you would probably say....Why couldnt he have done this in January
But he hasn’t, has he ?
Do you think it’s just coincidence that Britain is on track to have the highest death toll in Europe or the incompetence of this government?
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But he hasn’t, has he ?
Do you think it’s just coincidence that Britain is on track to have the highest death toll in Europe or the incompetence of this government?
I think to understand why you would need to look at all the evidence....a proper scientific appraisal.. Not just rely on newspaper reports by journalists with no scientific background
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But he hasn’t, has he ?
Do you think it’s just coincidence that Britain is on track to have the highest death toll in Europe or the incompetence of this government?
I read about a month ago that the mean age for covid hospital admission in Germany was 44....Italy 63...UK 64..
Do you think that has any significance... I think it might
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But he hasn’t, has he ?
Do you think it’s just coincidence that Britain is on track to have the highest death toll in Europe or the incompetence of this government?
Looking at the figures it looks like spain is on track to ahve the highest death rate....but its early days yet
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I think to understand why you would need to look at all the evidence....a proper scientific appraisal.. Not just rely on newspaper reports by journalists with no scientific background
Like this you mean from Professor John Ashton CBE.
https://youtu.be/PuoAst1CZDo
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Like this you mean from Professor John Ashton CBE.
https://youtu.be/PuoAst1CZDo
another attack on the govt by a raving left wing corbyn supporter...what a disgusting act to use this crisis as a political point scorer
two years ago the Professor described himself as a:
“broad left , radical,non trot , baby boomer , green, gender inclusive , feminist labour .Party member for 53 years”
Ashton seems very angry with the Government for a whole host of reasons beyond Coronavirus, not least of all Brexit:
The day after the result of the referendum was announced, Ashton tweeted “What an embarrassing dirty little country we live in.”
He claimed that “after Brexit, the U.K. could disintegrate”.
Ashton is also a long-standing supporter of Labour’s radical four-day week policy, which would cripple the NHS.
Ashton is so partisan to his core that he even called his son “Fabian Che”, or Che for short, after the Fabian Society and Che Guevara. A little more context from the programme last night would have been illuminating…
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I read about a month ago that the mean age for covid hospital admission in Germany was 44....Italy 63...UK 64..
Do you think that has any significance... I think it might
I don’t think it’s quite that simple.
https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-why-is-germanys-fatality-rate-so-low-135496
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another attack on the govt by a raving left wing corbyn supporter...what a disgusting act to use this crisis as a political point scorer
two years ago the Professor described himself as a:
“broad left , radical,non trot , baby boomer , green, gender inclusive , feminist labour .Party member for 53 years”
Ashton seems very angry with the Government for a whole host of reasons beyond Coronavirus, not least of all Brexit:
The day after the result of the referendum was announced, Ashton tweeted “What an embarrassing dirty little country we live in.”
He claimed that “after Brexit, the U.K. could disintegrate”.
Ashton is also a long-standing supporter of Labour’s radical four-day week policy, which would cripple the NHS.
Ashton is so partisan to his core that he even called his son “Fabian Che”, or Che for short, after the Fabian Society and Che Guevara. A little more context from the programme last night would have been illuminating…
So does a professor need to be a right winger before his opinion is given the weight it deserves ?
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So does a professor need to be a right winger before his opinion is given the weight it deserves ?
No, but we should see it in the context of a man who will attack the govt on just about everything because of his political views. He says the UK will disintegrate after brexit...which is rubbish...so perhaps his opinion here is too.
what is needed is a response by the scientists he is critcising to give a balanced view.
i dont know what evidence he has taht the UK is on track to have the highest death rate when spain is clearly ahead...
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another attack on the govt by a raving left wing corbyn supporter...what a disgusting act to use this crisis as a political point scorer
two years ago the Professor described himself as a:
“broad left , radical,non trot , baby boomer , green, gender inclusive , feminist labour .Party member for 53 years”
Ashton seems very angry with the Government for a whole host of reasons beyond Coronavirus, not least of all Brexit:
The day after the result of the referendum was announced, Ashton tweeted “What an embarrassing dirty little country we live in.”
He claimed that “after Brexit, the U.K. could disintegrate”.
Ashton is also a long-standing supporter of Labour’s radical four-day week policy, which would cripple the NHS.
Ashton is so partisan to his core that he even called his son “Fabian Che”, or Che for short, after the Fabian Society and Che Guevara. A little more context from the programme last night would have been illuminating…
Has the professor given any advice on whether thr lockdown should continue or be eased off yet? Or will he wait a few weeks and with t(e benefit of hindsight criticise the government for not doing what he would have recommended had he spoken up weeks previously.
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Looking at the figures it looks like spain is on track to ahve the highest death rate....but its early days yet
Spain’s deaths per million of population is far higher than the UK’s.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
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No, but we should see it in the context of a man who will attack the govt on just about everything because of his political views. He says the UK will disintegrate after brexit...which is rubbish...so perhaps his opinion here is too.
what is needed is a response by the scientists he is critcising to give a balanced view.
i dont know what evidence he has taht the UK is on track to have the highest death rate when spain is clearly ahead...
Firstly Professor Ashton is a CBE and a professional scientist. That he would jeopardise his reputation simply to, incorrectly, criticise the government is a ridiculous suggestion in the extreme and, quite possibly, libellous.
Secondly we are in the transition period of Brexit and it has yet to be seen whether the U.K. will be destroyed when it eventually goes it alone.
Thirdly the death rate we are seeing in the UK does not include deaths in care homes, hospices and at home. The ONS has said that those figures could be as high as 7,500, taking us well beyond Spain’s toll.
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Firstly Professor Ashton is a CBE and a professional scientist. That he would jeopardise his reputation simply to, incorrectly, criticise the government is a ridiculous suggestion in the extreme and, quite possibly, libellous.
Secondly we are in the transition period of Brexit and it has yet to be seen whether the U.K. will be destroyed when it eventually goes it alone.
Thirdly the death rate we are seeing in the UK does not include deaths in care homes, hospices and at home. The ONS has said that those figures could be as high as 7,500, taking us well beyond Spain’s toll.
I think he's already damaged his reputation as has Richard, Horton... Another govt critic who is a corbyn supporter. He's been caught out by the tweet he made on 23 Jan... Something I'd already pointed out.
It's not really possible to simply compare countries figures as they are collected in different ways... It's wrong to start drawing conclusions at such an early stage and I think like you... These two are just bad loser Tory [ censored word ]s
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Another great article from Danny Finkelstein in today’s Times
PS: it’s quite depressing.
author-image
Truth about the virus is better for us than hope
new
We naturally cling to the idea of light at the end of the tunnel but in fact there are no easy ways ways out of lockdown
Daniel Finkelstein
Tuesday April 21 2020, 5.00pm, The Times
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You recall what Churchill said after El Alamein? “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Well, where we are now is not the end of the beginning. It’s just the beginning.
Yesterday, like every day for the last fortnight or so, there were calls for the government to show “the light at the end of the tunnel”. But what if we aren’t far enough through the tunnel to see any light? The government can’t tweet light into existence. It can’t announce light. “And Boris Johnson said let there be light” won’t work.
The most popular phrase at the moment is “we need an exit strategy”. It’s one of those political statements that always gets people nodding, whatever the crisis. No one ever goes on Newsnight during a war and says: “I’ll tell you what we don’t need, Emily. We really don’t want to be bothering with one of those exit strategies.”
Yet perhaps you have noticed that people only start calling for exit strategies when they realise that it is impossible to create one, or at least one that doesn’t involve horrible choices and huge gambles. Which is pretty much the situation we are in now.
And it’s not that unusual.
A commonplace when discussing military intervention is for people to say that we mustn’t go in until we know how to get out. Yet the truth is that you almost never know what your exit is going to be when you enter. You do what you have to do at the beginning, and then cope with the consequences. America didn’t appreciate, when it was pulled in to the European conflict after Pearl Harbor, that it would still have troops in a superpower stand-off in Berlin fifty years later.
So we went into lockdown to tackle Covid-19 because, at the time, we felt we had to. It didn’t mean we knew how to get out. It didn’t mean there was a way out. Indeed, there is every sign that the government realised this problem from the beginning and that’s why it hesitated.
One of the ironies of this crisis is that the pat historical judgment about governments making big decisions without an exit strategy may be reversed and ministers could end up being criticised for worrying too long about an exit strategy instead of locking down earlier.
At the beginning of the pandemic, this country faced an awful choice. If there wasn’t a vaccine and it wasn’t possible to track and isolate every person who got it (and to do that forever), then most of us would eventually get it until we reached the point there weren’t enough people left to spread it to.
In the absence of more effective treatment, ministers concluded (rightly, in my view) that the surge in the number of deaths — perhaps as many as 260,000 — would be intolerable. So they decided on a policy of strict social distancing. Until …well, until what?
Because, in truth, the choice we face now is no different to the one we faced at the beginning of the lockdown. The more we relax restrictions, the more people will mix. The more people mix, the more people will get it. And the more people get it, the more people will die.
We can hardly say to people, “you won’t die if you get it now because we’ve passed the peak so it’s too late for you to start dying”. Or “your mixing isn’t lethal now because we’ve already had a lockdown”. Viruses don’t work like that. It will carry on until it’s been stopped by a vaccine or ameliorated by treatment or until it has been caught by all the people who are going to catch it and killed all the people it’s going to kill.
And this is true for every country, whatever stage of the contagion they are in. It’s one of the reasons why it’s pointless to start making judgments about how well or how badly Britain has done compared to other countries. We don’t know because we are all only at the beginning. We will only know when it’s over.
So what everyone euphemistically calls an open debate about an exit strategy is really just the same discussion we’ve been having since March. How long can we socially, economically and politically sustain a lockdown before we decide that the cure is worse than the disease?
Right now, we are at the Steve Jobs stage. The leading authority on strategy, Richard Rumelt, interviewed the Apple founder in 1998 after Jobs had returned to his troubled company and cut back all of its peripheral activities. He’d staunched the bleeding and stablised the company but it was still vulnerable and tiny. What was he going to do now, asked Rumelt. Jobs smiled and replied: “I am going to wait for the next big thing”.
We can still wait for the next big thing and hope. Maybe a vaccine will come quicker than we expect. Maybe some of the treatment trials will be more successful than we think. But this period of waiting and hoping can’t last long. We are going to run out of money to support the economy, apart from anything else. The chances of the scientific cavalry riding to the rescue just in time are relatively small.
What we face is less the need to find an “exit strategy” than the need to make a vast, difficult moral choice. It’s possible that the proposed new app and the sort of contact tracing and testing that Jeremy Hunt proposed in The Times yesterday might enable us to achieve some sort of control. And shielding the vulnerable might help. We must do absolutely everything we can. But if we relax, some people, and maybe many people, will die as a result. And we can’t be confident about how many.
We may decide that this is unacceptable or that we won’t be able to revive the economy anyway in such circumstances. But if so, we would be saying that we have to keep restrictions almost indefinitely.
This is a decision we all need to make together, and one we all have to live with. The prime minister should not only share all he knows with the leader of the opposition, he should directly involve Sir Keir Starmer and his shadow cabinet in the decisions, seeking their assent. And he should level with the British people about the nature of the choice we face.
People need hope, but they need the truth more
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Spain’s death toll figures
https://www.ft.com/content/71e991a1-53ff-49f5-85b4-b111de7ddf6e
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When are we going to have the carping about the “unnecessary” Nightingale hospitals that were built in just days and which are full of costly equipment but completely devoid of patients?
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I think he's already damaged his reputation as has Richard, Horton... Another govt critic who is a corbyn supporter. He's been caught out by the tweet he made on 23 Jan... Something I'd already pointed out.
It's not really possible to simply compare countries figures as they are collected in different ways... It's wrong to start drawing conclusions at such an early stage and I think like you... These two are just bad loser Tory [ censored word ]
No these are men who are respected by their peers and have headed world renowned organisations. One ill-advised tweet doesn’t change that.
And if it’s not really possible to compare countries why mention Spain and Germany ?
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Spain’s deaths per million of population is far higher than the UK’s.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
I had thought that as well. However, worldometers - at least until very recently - only recorded deaths notified and posted by https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk
An example:
Department of Health and Social Care
@DHSCgovuk
·
2h
As of 9am 21 April, 535,342 tests have concluded, with 18,206 tests on 20 April.
397,670 people have been tested of which 129,044 tested positive.
As of 5pm on 20 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 17,337 have sadly died.
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That didn't take into account deaths in care homes or even private residences. Numbers from some other countries do, including "suspected" ones.
Seems like comparing apples, oranges and cubes of cheese for the moment.
I find it really confusing.
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I had thought that as well. However, worldometers - at least until very recently - only recorded deaths notified and posted by https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk
An example:
Department of Health and Social Care
@DHSCgovuk
·
2h
As of 9am 21 April, 535,342 tests have concluded, with 18,206 tests on 20 April.
397,670 people have been tested of which 129,044 tested positive.
As of 5pm on 20 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 17,337 have sadly died.
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That didn't take into account deaths in care homes or even private residences. Numbers from some other countries do, including "suspected" ones.
Seems like comparing apples, oranges and cubes of cheese for the moment.
I find it really confusing.
No, I think the deaths recorded by country on this website are all limited to deaths recorded in hospitals.
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No these are men who are respected by their peers and have headed world renowned organisations. One ill-advised tweet doesn’t change that.
And if it’s not really possible to compare countries why mention Spain and Germany ?
Because you and your experts are comparing. Where is your evidence that these men are now respected by their peers...it reminds of the fact it takes 10 years to build a reputaion and 5 minites to lose it
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No these are men who are respected by their peers and have headed world renowned organisations. One ill-advised tweet doesn’t change that.
And if it’s not really possible to compare countries why mention Spain and Germany ?
Professor John Ashton CBE....could you explain who respects this man apart from you. In 2014 he was forced to step down after calling someone ..."c**t", and another an "onanist...on twitter...he doesnt seem to have been heard of since 2014 until now.
that really puts his comments into perspective
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Professor John Ashton CBE....could you explain who respects this man apart from you. In 2014 he was forced to step down after calling someone ..."c**t", and another an "onanist...on twitter...he doesnt seem to have been heard of since 2014 until now.
that really puts his comments into perspective
You do know that the Faculty for Public Health welcomed Ashton back as president in September 2014, don’t you and he carried on in the role until 2016 ?
A little more information on this exceptional man.
http://www.festivalofpublichealth.co.uk/keynotespeakers/pastkeynotespeakers/professorjohnashtoncbe/
Professor John Ashton CBE
President of the Faculty of Public Health
Professor John Ashton CBE, formerly North West Regional Director of Public Health and Regional Medical Officer from 1993 – 2006 and Director of Public Health and County medical Officer for Cumbria from 2006- 2013 has been elected President of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians from 2013 – 2016 was born in Liverpool in 1947.
He was educated at Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Medical School and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He specialised in psychiatry, general practice, family planning and reproductive medicine before entering Public Health in 1976.
John worked in Newcastle and Northumberland, Hampshire and London before returning to Liverpool and the North West in 1983. For two years he was a councillor on Hampshire County Council.
John Ashton is well known for his work on Planned Parenthood and healthy cities and for his personal advocacy for Public Health. He was a member of the British delegation to Macedonia during the Kosovo emergency and played a prominent role in resolving the fuel dispute. He has been prominent in the fight for justice for the 96 victims of the Hillsborough football disaster.
John holds chairs in the Liverpool medical School, Liverpool John Moore’s University, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Manchester Medical School, the Valencia Institute of Public Health in Spain, the Universities of Central Lancashire, Lancaster and Cumbria.
He is the author of many scientific papers: articles and chapters in books and of several books including “The New Public Health” which has been the standard textbook on Public Health.
And it would appear Jeremy Hunt agreed with Ashton’s observations on QT which of course were spot on.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8108091/Public-health-expert-Professor-John-Ashton-claims-UK-government-lost-control-coronavirus.html
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Because you and your experts are comparing. Where is your evidence that these men are now respected by their peers...it reminds of the fact it takes 10 years to build a reputaion and 5 minites to lose it
‘Me and my experts’ were comparing ? Then why join in if there’s no comparison to be made ?
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‘Me and my experts’ were comparing ? Then why join in if there’s no comparison to be made ?
What I see is poeple with a chip on their shoulder who are angry that Corbyn and the Labour party were trounced at the election. One of the reasons Boris won was the sheer incompetence of Corbyn and his supporters. Starmer looks better... I hope I'm right
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No, I think the deaths recorded by country on this website are all limited to deaths recorded in hospitals.
If you mean on worldometers, not necessarily.
France 21 April: 2667 new cases and 531 new deaths
If you go to the source document, of the cumulative total of 20,796 deaths, only 12,900 died in hospital.
https://www.gouvernement.fr/info-coronavirus/carte-et-donnees
The FT removed non-hospital deaths for France due to the apples and oranges issue. Their graph now states 12,900 for France as those were the hospital ones.
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
Belgium appears to have a very high death rate, but that seems to include all settings and even suspected cases.
https://www.info-coronavirus.be/en/news/collection-data/
I'm looking at Spain and Italy, but I'm not sure that I've found all the relevant pages.
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If you mean on worldometers, not necessarily.
France 21 April: 2667 new cases and 531 new deaths
If you go to the source document, of the cumulative total of 20,796 deaths, only 12,900 died in hospital.
https://www.gouvernement.fr/info-coronavirus/carte-et-donnees
The FT removed non-hospital deaths for France due to the apples and oranges issue. Their graph now states 12,900 for France as those were the hospital ones.
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
Belgium appears to have a very high death rate, but that seems to include all settings and even suspected cases.
https://www.info-coronavirus.be/en/news/collection-data/
I'm looking at Spain and Italy, but I'm not sure that I've found all the relevant pages.
So the claim that teh Uk is on track to have the most deaths does not seem to be supported by the evidence...what does that say for the corbyn supporter who made it
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What I see is poeple with a chip on their shoulder who are angry that Corbyn and the Labour party were trounced at the election. One of the reasons Boris won was the sheer incompetence of Corbyn and his supporters. Starmer looks better... I hope I'm right
Not sure why you keep bringing Corbyn into the discussion...I suspect he’s your Amaral of politics....like you though I hope Starmer has more success getting into government than Corbyn...the last thing we need is another incompetent Tory government.
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So the claim that teh Uk is on track to have the most deaths does not seem to be supported by the evidence...what does that say for the corbyn supporter who made it
It says you really need to read more widely. The Financial Times today.
https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d05-43bc-ba03-e239799fa6ab
UK coronavirus deaths more than double official figure according to FT study | Free to read
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It says you really need to read more widely. The Financial Times today.
https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d05-43bc-ba03-e239799fa6ab
UK coronavirus deaths more than double official figure according to FT study | Free to read
I dont need to read anything i already know. I was aware some time ago the daily figures related to hospital deaths. as Carana pointed out other countries figures may well be similarly counted. Just another stick with which to beat a govt you hate....if it wasnt this it would be something else
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If this is correct, there may have been around 41,000 COVID-related deaths in the UK so far.
https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d05-43bc-ba03-e239799fa6ab
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del
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If you mean on worldometers, not necessarily.
France 21 April: 2667 new cases and 531 new deaths
If you go to the source document, of the cumulative total of 20,796 deaths, only 12,900 died in hospital.
https://www.gouvernement.fr/info-coronavirus/carte-et-donnees
The FT removed non-hospital deaths for France due to the apples and oranges issue. Their graph now states 12,900 for France as those were the hospital ones.
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
Belgium appears to have a very high death rate, but that seems to include all settings and even suspected cases.
https://www.info-coronavirus.be/en/news/collection-data/
I'm looking at Spain and Italy, but I'm not sure that I've found all the relevant pages.
Every day at the trlevised briefing there is a graph which shows deaths from covid in hospitals (they are always careful to stress that point), which has Britain behind Spain, Italy, America and I think France or the Netherlands.
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It may just be a blog entry by some random woman but I think she speaks for alot of people (most people I talk to anyway)
“Journalism is missing the mood the country
Twitter is an interesting metaphor for infectious diseases. I write something. It might be seen be some of my followers, but it has to compete with what everyone else is writing so it might be ignored. If someone retweets, it might be seen by any of their followers, but just occasionally a tweet captures the mood and suddenly it spreads and spreads way beyond what I might have expected when I wrote it.
Recently I wrote:
Journalism is missing the mood the country. We don't want blame, we don't want argument as if this were a General Election, we want a contribution to the national effort to get us out of this crisis. We want hope optimism and faith in our country. We need less negativity.
This tweet has been liked and retweeted more than any other tweet I have written. Some people objected. It became clear from reading their responses that this was usually because they were hostile to the Government either because they voted for someone else at the last election or because they voted Remain in 2016. They too were missing the mood of the country.
What strikes me most from my online interactions is that ordinary Brits have gone beyond politics. We understand that we are not fighting a General Election. We are fighting the worst pandemic in the past one hundred years.
Morale does matter. So does national unity and a sense of common purpose. When Boris was sick, and Dominic Raab said he was a fighter, some journalists didn’t get it. They objected that it implied that those who died were weak. It didn’t. Raab was simply expressing hope. He was being positive. If Captain Tom got sick, we would all call him a fighter. We would do so no matter the outcome.
A person or a people who believe they will win in the end is much more likely to do so. This is why morale matters so much to armies. It has on numerous occasions seen a smaller force beat a larger force. Morale can cause miracles not merely in battle but in illness. Being brave, optimistic and full of faith does not guarantee that you get better, but it helps. Thinking your case is hopeless and you are bound to die sometimes guarantees that you do. This is what the country gets that journalists don’t.
I have been impressed by a few journalists in the past weeks, but not many. I think the BBC Horizon team have done an outstanding job in helping us understand the nature of the illness we face. Some economic journalists have done a good job in explaining the economic consequences of the worldwide lockdown. One or two political journalists have given us some help in understanding Government thinking. But journalists for the most part have disgraced themselves.
There are people I usually enjoy reading who frequently make interesting points about society and politics who are simply showing their lack of knowledge today. Too many journalists who think there is only one story to write about skim a few medical journals and then think they are qualified to tell the rest of us what should be done. They go from one extreme to other and pretend to have a knowledge that they don’t.
Twenty-four-hour news programmes are full of relentless negativity. They pick up on one issue such as ventilators go with that for a few days and then obsess about Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Next we get comparisons between countries. This country has more deaths than that country as if it is some sort of Olympic medal table. Why can’t you get PPE? Because everyone else in the world wants it too. But shouldn’t you have prepared? Would you like to apologise for your failure?
The worst of all is the daily press briefings. We listen to some of the best minds in the country explaining to us what is being done and why only to have a series of ignorant childish questions from journalists trying to score political points and trip up a minister. No wonder most of us switch off when we get to that point.
There has never previously in the whole world been such a lockdown. The only insight from the Sunday Times was that hindsight is a wonderful thing.
The first thing you learn in history is that people make mistakes. Faced with unprecedented situations they make lots of mistakes. When I first started reading about Covid 19 back in January I read everything I could find on the subject because I was planning to make a trip to Central Asia. I told myself I’d be OK and booked my flight. I was lucky that it was cancelled, or I might be stuck there yet. I would have made a terrible mistake otherwise.
I didn’t read a single journalist in January or February who predicted that Britain would be locked down in March. I read lots of journalists who said that Covid 19 would be no worse than seasonal flu and we had nothing to worry about. I didn’t read a single journalist who in mid-January accurately predicted how the virus would spread worldwide nor one who said that we should lockdown immediately.
If we had had the modern journalist profession in 1940, we would have lost the war. They would have complained about the Governments disastrous mistakes at Narvik. It should have known that the Maginot line wouldn’t work. Journalists would have demanded that Churchill should have been immediately sacked for the defeat at Dunkirk. They would have described our situation as hopeless and would have ridiculed our ability to fight them on the beaches and would have said it was mere arrogance to suppose that our pathetic little country could have a finest hour. After all the Germans do everything so much more efficiently than we do. They would have listed all the mistakes our country had made and called it insight. The British people however would not have listened to them then, just as we don’t read them now. Newspapers are going out of business. They deserve to”.
Effie Deans https://www.effiedeans.com/2020/04/journalism-is-missing-mood-country.html?fbclid=IwAR2MbPkv48UOnWr_dbXppgDtADBL8gWmRVmrQT_GWN6XuNn_qO7QaOoI4Co&m=1
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If this is correct, there may have been around 41,000 COVID-related deaths in the UK so far.
https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d05-43bc-ba03-e239799fa6ab
Thank you Carana. I have posted the same information above. I understand that people don’t want to accept such a horrendous death toll but in denying the extent to which this terrible virus has decimated our communities who are we benefitting ? Certainly not the dead and their poor families.
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Thank you Carana. I have posted the same information above. I understand that people don’t want to accept such a horrendous death toll but in denying the extent to which this terrible virus has decimated our communities who are we benefitting ? Certainly not the dead and their poor families.
I actually thought it would be higher and I dont see anyone denying anything. The problem we have is that if the lock down rules are eased the death toll may well soar....thats what concerns me.
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I actually thought it would be higher and I dont see anyone denying anything. The problem we have is that if the lock down rules are eased the death toll may well soar....thats what concerns me.
I don’t see anyone denying anything either. That was just an emotive, cheap shot for which the author of the comment is famed.
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Thank you Carana. I have posted the same information above. I understand that people don’t want to accept such a horrendous death toll but in denying the extent to which this terrible virus has decimated our communities who are we benefitting ? Certainly not the dead and their poor families.
Sorry, I hadn't realised that you'd posted the same article.
I don't think there's a deliberate attempt to hide the figures. More a complex reporting system that makes it difficult to work out.
I can understand that governments (not just in the UK) have been reluctant to invest massively in expensive ventilators, and like a few other countries that I can think of, IMO the UK seems to have hoped it would just somehow stay away. By the time they woke up, they were way behind the curve in both testing and PPE.
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Sorry, I hadn't realised that you'd posted the same article.
I don't think there's a deliberate attempt to hide the figures. More a complex reporting system that makes it difficult to work out.
I can understand that governments (not just in the UK) have been reluctant to invest massively in expensive ventilators, and like a few other countries that I can think of, IMO the UK seems to have hoped it would just somehow stay away. By the time they woke up, they were way behind the curve in both testing and PPE.
Boris doesnt know what PPE to order.....did the hospital managers tell him what they wanted...if so when...and what did they ask for
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Sorry, I hadn't realised that you'd posted the same article.
I don't think there's a deliberate attempt to hide the figures. More a complex reporting system that makes it difficult to work out.
I can understand that governments (not just in the UK) have been reluctant to invest massively in expensive ventilators, and like a few other countries that I can think of, IMO the UK seems to have hoped it would just somehow stay away. By the time they woke up, they were way behind the curve in both testing and PPE.
Firstly I’d agree with your first point if the FT hadn’t been able to access the figures available and draw conclusions from them. The government has access to the same figures.
Your second point I’d also agree with if the government hadn’t carried out Operation Cygnus in 2016 and been warned that the NHS would struggle to cope in a pandemic such as coronavirus.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/exercise-cygnus-uncovered-pandemic-warnings-buried-government/
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Boris doesnt know what PPE to order.....did the hospital managers tell him what they wanted...if so when...and what did they ask for
Course doh !! He was in hospital....how could he order the PPE !
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Firstly I’d agree with your first point if the FT hadn’t been able to access the figures available and draw conclusions from them. The government has access to the same figures.
Your second point I’d also agree with if the government hadn’t carried out Operation Cygnus in 2016 and been warned that the NHS would struggle to cope in a pandemic such as coronavirus.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/exercise-cygnus-uncovered-pandemic-warnings-buried-government/
You need to read the article. Its NHS England who the finger is pointed at...the managers. We than had the avuan flu and ebola scares...both of which came to nothing.
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You need to read the article. Its NHS England who the finger is pointed at...the managers. We than had the avuan flu and ebola scares...both of which came to nothing.
Whilst undoubtedly there have been government failings the same can certainly also be said for the NHS and PHE but will you ever hear a word of criticism levelled at either of these organisations from those with a political agenda? Will you b....ry!
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You need to read the article. Its NHS England who the finger is pointed at...the managers. We than had the avuan flu and ebola scares...both of which came to nothing.
I think it’s you who needs to read the article more closely.
‘ Others are more critical. A senior academic directly involved in Cygnus and the current pandemic said: “These exercises are supposed to prepare government for something like this - but it appears they were aware of the problem but didn’t do much about it.
“We’ve been quite surprised at the lack of coherent planning for a pandemic on this scale. It’s basically a lack of attention to what would be needed to prevent a disease like this from overwhelming the system. All the flexibility has been pared away so it’s difficult to react quickly. Nothing is ready to go.”
Reasons for the report not being published are likely to go beyond Whitehall’s paternal view and a desire not to frighten the public. The Telegraph has talked to multiple sources with first hand knowledge of Cygnus and all say the exercise revealed significant caps in the NHS’s “surge capacity”.
These gaps, which included a shortage of ICU beds and PPE, were revealed at a time of austerity. Jeremy Hunt, the then health secretary, and Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, were cutting NHS bed numbers at the time rather than adding capacity. Dame Sally Davies, then chief medical officer, faced similar financial constraints.’
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I think it’s you who needs to read the article more closely.
‘ Others are more critical. A senior academic directly involved in Cygnus and the current pandemic said: “These exercises are supposed to prepare government for something like this - but it appears they were aware of the problem but didn’t do much about it.
“We’ve been quite surprised at the lack of coherent planning for a pandemic on this scale. It’s basically a lack of attention to what would be needed to prevent a disease like this from overwhelming the system. All the flexibility has been pared away so it’s difficult to react quickly. Nothing is ready to go.”
Reasons for the report not being published are likely to go beyond Whitehall’s paternal view and a desire not to frighten the public. The Telegraph has talked to multiple sources with first hand knowledge of Cygnus and all say the exercise revealed significant caps in the NHS’s “surge capacity”.
These gaps, which included a shortage of ICU beds and PPE, were revealed at a time of austerity. Jeremy Hunt, the then health secretary, and Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, were cutting NHS bed numbers at the time rather than adding capacity. Dame Sally Davies, then chief medical officer, faced similar financial constraints.’
But there's no shortage of ICU beds are their. Did anyone realise that our, standard type of PPE wouldnt be enough.
I doubt they even thought about FFP3 masks and full face visors. I managed to get hold of a few masks from B and Q in february. They haven't been used in clinical practice before in my experience....we had plenty of the normal ones but this was not a normal flu virus.
I still say it's NHS England who are at fault... They are the ones who advise the govt
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But there's no shortage of ICU beds are their. Did anyone realise that our, standard type of PPE wouldnt be enough.
I doubt they even thought about FFP3 masks and full face visors. I managed to get hold of a few masks from B and Q in february. They haven't been used in clinical practice before in my experience....we had plenty of the normal ones but this was not a normal flu virus.
I still say it's NHS England who are at fault... They are the ones who advise the govt
Then you can keep on saying it....it won’t, however, be true.
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Then you can keep on saying it....it won’t, however, be true.
I think it's Richard Horton who has called on the NHS England board to resign... I think it is true
Cited by 6
28 Mar 2020 · Richard Horton. Richard ... “ When this is all over, the NHS England board should resign in their entirety.”
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https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/fury-from-dominic-raab-forced-top-civil-servant-to-drop-explosive-claim-that-snubbing-eu-procurement-scheme-on-coronavirus-ppe-was-a-political-decision/ar-BB131ApS?ocid=st
From the article.
Missed opportunities to get more PPE
January 31: On the day of Brexit, a UK official attends UK meeting on the emerging virus. Four countries raise the potential need for more PPE - UK is not among them.
February 4: UK attends meeting of EU and World Health Organisation (WHO) officials in Luxembourg.
February 24: European Commission updates officials on PPE procurement and asks countries to outline their 'exact needs'. The UK was invited but did not attend.
February 28: The EU makes its first join procurement of £1.2million of gloves and gowns. The UK is not involved.
March 12: The procurement fails because of a shortage of suppliers and is relaunched on March 15, still without UK involvement.
March 17: Two more rounds of procurement for masks, goggles and ventilators go forward without the UK
March 19. The UK joins the procurement steering committee but does not join a tender sent out to firms the same day for lab supplies.
March 23: Health Secretary Matt Hancock admits there have been 'challenges' with PPE supply but was taking the issue 'very seriously'.
March 24: No 10 confirms it has not joined EU procurement effort in favour of its own plan. It later claims it did not join because it missed an email invitation.
March 25: British officials do not attend a meeting at which countries were invited to outline their requirements for future purchases by the next day.
March 26: The Government says it has 8,175 ventilators, but asks UK firms to build 30,000 more within weeks.
March 29: Two surgeons become the first UK medics to die from coronavirus, putting a spotlight on PPE supplies for the NHS.
April 10: Mr Hancock appears to suggest NHS medics are being wasteful of masks and gowns, urging them to 'treat PPE as the precious resource it is'.
April 11: Mr Hancock confirms that 19 medics have died from coronavirus, after initially saying it would be 'inappropriate' to reveal the death toll.
April 13: Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab acknowledged that PPE shortages were and issue and admitted supplies were running low because of 'a competitive market out there'.
____________________________
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https://novaramedia.com/2020/04/22/dont-applaud-us-protect-us-chantforppe/
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https://novaramedia.com/2020/04/22/dont-applaud-us-protect-us-chantforppe/
When did the govt become responsible for ordering medical supplies... Surely that's NHS managers jobs... NHS England..
I doubt any doctors or nurses would dare criticise them so they have to criticise the govt
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When did the govt become responsible for ordering medical supplies... Surely that's NHS managers jobs... NHS England..
I doubt any doctors or nurses would dare criticise them so they have to criticise the govt
That must be it.
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That must be it.
Im fairly sure it is. Im involved with a lot of poeple who work in the NHS...their gripe is not with the govt but with NHS management...criticising the management can result in serious consequences
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Im fairly sure it is. Im involved with a lot of poeple who work in the NHS...their gripe is not with the govt but with NHS management...criticising the management can result in serious consequences
So best make your name public by criticising the government...that will really enhance your career prospects.
Or could it be that they are simply directing blame where it is due ?
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/two-thirds-of-public-think-uk-coronavirus-response-too-slow-poll
From the article.
The public feel significant uncertainty about the government’s strategy to tackle the coronavirus and are sceptical about the coherence and speed of its response, a new survey has found.
Over two-thirds of the public think the government acted too slowly to control the spread of coronavirus, according to the survey carried out last week by Ipsos Mori on behalf of the Policy Institute at King’s College London. The survey also found that more than 40% of respondents believe the government’s response to the crisis has been confused and inconsistent, with only 30% disagreeing and supporting the government.
Just one in four of the 2,250 respondents said they trust the information provided by the government ‘a great deal’, with only one in five saying they strongly agree that the official advice has been effective.
Nearly one-in-six (16%) workers taking part in the survey also said that they had either lost their job, or were “certain” or “very likely” to lose it as a result of disruption caused by the virus.
Another 14% of respondents said they were “fairly likely” to lose their jobs: bringing the total of possible job losses to 30%.
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Weird isn’t it, how appallingly the government are doing, how no one trusts them, how they are responsible for thousands of deaths and yet this...
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/04/20/voting-intention-con-53-lab-32-16-17-apr
I guess if Labour hadn’t been so utterly rubbish for the last few years things might have been different.
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The government’s embarrassment over its handling of Covid-19 is clear from the desperation of its so-called rebuttal of the Sunday Times Insight report about failures of leadership as the virus approached. The key claim of this prolix defence was that “it is ridiculous to suggest that coronavirus only reached the UK because the health secretary and not the prime minister chaired a Cobra meeting”. The report suggested nothing of the sort; it stated that Boris Johnson found better things to do than attend the first five meetings about the pandemic, and appeared only once it had reached the UK. One of the oldest refuges of the political scoundrel is to try to neutralise your opponent by attacking him for something he hasn’t done, and hope people are too stupid to notice. Sadly for the government, they aren’t.
Johnson, still absent recuperating from illness, had Michael Gove harrumph on his behalf at the “grotesque” suggestion that the Prime Minister is unequal to his job. “I think,” said Gove, like a less articulate version of the late Lord Hailsham rebuking an interviewer for insolence, “that anyone who considered what happened to the Prime Minister not long ago – nobody can say the Prime Minister isn’t throwing heart and soul into fighting this virus.” Johnson may now be “throwing heart and soul” into tackling the crisis – or at least once he has recovered – but Gove, too, was attacking Johnson’s accusers for claims they had not made. It wasn’t about Johnson’s conduct now; it was about how he behaved when the crisis was still mounting, and when he might have taken its containment rather more seriously.
To have snaffled two weeks’ holiday during what has been branded “38 days of inaction” was by any measure shocking. According to briefings, his absence was to deal with issues in his baroque private life, which some Tories used to find amusing but which are not so funny now. A former senior cabinet minister, who supported Johnson’s leadership campaign, admitted his conduct had been inadequate. “We have to have a full public inquiry after this. And it is going to be damaging.” The Sunday Times quoted a Downing Street adviser on Johnson’s limitations in office: “He didn’t chair any meetings… He didn’t work weekends… It was exactly like people feared he would be.” But when those who knew him – including in these pages – said it would be like this, his backers said Johnson would surround himself with ministers who would do aspects of the job for him (as if that were satisfactory). Instead, he has Dominic Cummings.
“His cabinet is full of yes-men. There is no room for anyone with a mind of their own,” the former minister told me. Whatever mistakes were made early on, “the biggest mistake of all has been leaving Dominic Raab in charge but without any authority. Gove has been on manoeuvres, conspiring with Cummings to ensure Raab can’t assert himself.”
To some Tory MPs, the sheer inexperience of the cabinet has been glaringly obvious, and a further embarrassment. Performances at the daily press conferences or during TV interviews have often been excruciating, and Tories are starting to worry about the government’s ability to command public confidence. Matt Hancock, the Health Minister, has seemed at times a man on the edge of self-control, such as in his ill-considered threat to restrict further the public’s right to leave home should a minority insist on sunbathing or sitting on benches. His suggestion that social care workers receive a badge for their contribution brought the response that they would prefer protective equipment. His petulant performance in some interviews has been cringe-making. “Hancock is shitting himself,” another Tory told me. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Another said that Hancock “was brilliant at doing what he’s told, but can’t take a decision”.
Nobody believes any government would have found it easy to deal with the pandemic; but plenty of governments have confronted grave crises and coped better than this one. Robert Jenrick, the Communities Minister, is another prime example of allowing inexperience and entitlement to trump reality and sap public confidence. Having already humiliated himself by breaking lockdown rules and driving to his taxpayer-subsidised country house – something for which a man of honour, once rumbled, would have resigned – he then promised next-day delivery of much-needed protective equipment, which did not arrive because it reportedly had not even been ordered.
On 19 April the government appointed Lord Deighton, CEO of the London 2012 Olympics, to be the “Lord Beaverbrook” of this crisis, and ensure supplies of protective equipment. It was, however, as if Churchill had appointed Beaverbrook as Minister of Supply in 1943, not 1941. A prime minister who had attended those Cobra meetings might have addressed the supply problem before NHS staff started to die of Covid-19.
What has happened is shocking and depressing proof of Johnson’s inability to take a serious job seriously. The lack of professionalism that characterised his career in journalism and his conduct as mayor of London and at the Foreign Office is now lethally evident. Johnson, Hancock and other ministers found wanting by this crisis can protest, rightly, that it is out of the ordinary. But Johnson, in missing those five meetings, proved he was not even trying to take control. “What really worries me,” the former Tory minister observed, “is that the economic problems piling up because of this require really serious people to deal with them and lead us out of them. And this cabinet has very few really serious people.” That economic maelstrom will be the context of the inevitable public inquiry. If it is conducted with the necessary thoroughness, the Conservative Party will have to brace itself for a maelstrom of its own.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/04/senior-tory-backbenchers-are-increasingly-alarmed-their-own-government-s
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/revealed-dominic-cummings-on-secret-scientific-advisory-group-for-covid-19
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Belgium has a population of 11 million, they have conducted more than 16 thousand tests per million of population yet have a deaths per million figure of 597 and are easing lockdown already. The UK’s testing figure per million is around 9.5k per million on a population of 60 million, and our deaths per million are around half of Belgium’s and we are still on lockdown. So Belgium = way more testing and way more deaths per million than the UK.
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The more we learn the worse it gets.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-government-warned-pandemic-action-plan-cabinet-office-a9483291.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1587755694
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The more we learn the worse it gets.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-government-warned-pandemic-action-plan-cabinet-office-a9483291.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1587755694
If I recall, we were all far too busy with Brexit to worry about some vague notion of a worldwide pandemic...funny old world.
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If I recall, we were all far too busy with Brexit to worry about some vague notion of a worldwide pandemic...funny old world.
Undoubtedly the government was all giddy with the excitement of Brexit Day and wasn’t really focussing on the important stuff as much as it should have. Now we have the combined horrors of a worldwide recession AND the effects of a probable no-deal Brexit to look forward to, I for one can hardly wait... :-(
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Undoubtedly the government was all giddy with the excitement of Brexit Day and wasn’t really focussing on the important stuff as much as it should have. Now we have the combined horrors of a worldwide recession AND the effects of a probable no-deal Brexit to look forward to, I for one can hardly wait... :-(
Never a dull day eh VS?
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The more we learn the worse it gets.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-government-warned-pandemic-action-plan-cabinet-office-a9483291.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1587755694
Thanks. I was wondering about when the UK knew, as US media reported on alleged intelligence informing them of an illness going around in China that was affecting social and work life back in November.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/08/politics/intel-agencies-covid-november/index.html
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Undoubtedly the government was all giddy with the excitement of Brexit Day and wasn’t really focussing on the important stuff as much as it should have. Now we have the combined horrors of a worldwide recession AND the effects of a probable no-deal Brexit to look forward to, I for one can hardly wait... :-(
Looking on the bright side, the UK might have got used to supply chain disruptions and cut-throat competition by Jan 1.
And, possibly, Dettol Don helping to run the NHS.
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Looking on the bright side, the UK might have got used to supply chain disruptions and cut-throat competition by Jan 1.
And, possibly, Dettol Don helping to run the NHS.
Don’t even joke about that Carana.
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Seriously, who - except the hedge fund Brexiteers - will benefit from NOT requesting an extension in the midst of this pandemic chaos? The deadline to ask for one is the end of June.
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Don’t even joke about that Carana.
Sorry. I was just letting off a bit of steam.
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Seriously, who - except the hedge fund Brexiteers - will benefit from NOT requesting an extension in the midst of this pandemic chaos? The deadline to ask for one is the end of June.
Not sure how even the hedge fund Brexiteers will benefit by it now. We’re all f..ked including them.
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Not sure how even the hedge fund Brexiteers will benefit by it now. We’re all f..ked including them.
Oh, I wouldn't be so sure. Shorting the £, airlines... just about everything except bog basics. Literally and metaphorically.
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I've also noticed something else that I find intriguing.
- There's little that I've ever agree with Piers Morgan about.
- Nor... HERE'S.... Nigel (as the old US shows used to introduce their star guests).
I'm wary. Not of the fact that I agree with them on these points, but because their narratives have suddenly changed so much.
If one tactic doesn't work, try another, even if it's 120 degrees away from your last passionate outcry.
Get people back on board, then slowly change direction to the original destination. Whatever that is.
ETA: Both are known Trump fans, and, IMO, he's a puppet who hasn't quite worked to script...
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just appeared on my FB timeline..
Message from a Northern Hospital Nurse
'I am sick of the left wing media trying to make out the government have done a bad job. We have never run short of PPE and we have just closed 2 Covid wards ...not needed.
Personally I think the Government and NHS have coped well with the backing of the public edited 24.4.2020
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just appeared on my FB timeline..
Message from a Northern Hospital Nurse
'I am sick of the left wing media trying to make out the government have done a bad job. We have never run short of PPE and we have just closed 2 Covid wards ...not needed.
Personally I think the Government and NHS have coped well with the backing of the public edited 24.4.2020
And ?
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And ?
I think its puts into perspective all the criticism youve posted re boris...lots of left wing bias. You may have noticed the positive article today praising his handling of the situation. Whereas corbyn....who you praise..disobeyed the official expert scientific advice by going to the commons when he didnt need to and taking his wife...who didnt need to go. I wont bother describing his brothers actions...a pair of idiots who have your support .
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I think its puts into perspective all the criticism youve posted re boris...lots of left wing bias. You may have noticed the positive article today praising his handling of the situation. Whereas corbyn....who you praise..disobeyed the official advice by going to the commons when he didnt need to and taking his wife...who didnt need to go. I wont bother describing his brothers actions...a pair of idiots who have your support .
Puts into perspective? In what world ? Literally thousands of doctors, nurses, carers etc etc have spoken out about the lack of PPE. Can I ask why one alleged nurse from an anonymous hospital has convinced you otherwise?
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Puts into perspective? In what world ? Literally thousands of doctors, nurses, carers etc etc have spoken out about the lack of PPE. Can I ask why one alleged nurse from an anonymous hospital has convinced you otherwise?
I read an article where the army who was distributing the PPE said NHS Engalnd had got it wrong and that some hospitals didnt have enough and some had too much. We may well overall have a lack of the necessary ppe but i dont see that as a fault of Boris. I think youll find theres a worldwide shortage...is it all Boris' fault.
remeber what richard Horton, one of the govt biggest left wing critics was saying about corona virus....he was aying afuss about nothing more or less
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just appeared on my FB timeline..
Message from a Northern Hospital Nurse
'I am sick of the left wing media trying to make out the government have done a bad job. We have never run short of PPE and we have just closed 2 Covid wards ...not needed.
Personally I think the Government and NHS have coped well with the backing of the public edited 24.4.2020
BURN THE WITCH!!!
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I read an article where the army who was distributing the PPE said NHS Engalnd had got it wrong and that some hospitals didnt have enough and some had too much. We may well overall have a lack of the necessary ppe but i dont see that as a fault of Boris. I think youll find theres a worldwide shortage...is it all Boris' fault.
remeber what richard Horton, one of the govt biggest left wing critics was saying about corona virus....he was aying afuss about nothing more or less
No it’s not ALL Boris’s fault. It’s also the fault of the previous Tory government who didn’t implement the recommendations highlighted in a Operation Cygnus.
As to Richard Horton, I think over 20,000 deaths have proved him wrong.
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/26/doctor-sue-results-operation-cygnus?CMP=share_btn_fb
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No it’s not ALL Boris’s fault. It’s also the fault of the previous Tory government who didn’t implement the recommendations highlighted in a Operation Cygnus.
As to Richard Horton, I think over 20,000 deaths have proved him wrong.
Then there's the WHO who said in Jan. China had found no evidence of person to person transmission
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Then there's the WHO who said in Jan. China had found no evidence of person to person transmission
Wuhan was locked down on the 23 of January so by then they certainly knew that the virus was able to be passed from person to person...a fact that this government would also have been aware of at least from then.
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I blame Jeremy Corbyn for not raising this at PM's Questions in January. He obviously knew just like the rest of us how this was all going to turn out and yet he said nothing. Why not?
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Wuhan was locked down on the 23 of January so by then they certainly knew that the virus was able to be passed from person to person...a fact that this government would also have been aware of at least from then.
The world over has found one of the most important thing is social distancing and staying home...yet the man you admire so much ignored that advice...thank god he ddint win the election...there'd be 50.000 dead
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I find it repulsive that some are trying to play party politics and point score when the people of this country are experiencing something for the first time which is affecting EVERYONE!
There should be an accountable government,but we have to look at these 'experts' and BI shysters who are self serving ,positioning themselves for top jobs -big bucks! They make up stories for headlines.
I have lived in China for weeks at a time few years back. I have been to the wet markets, they are not pleasant,however they have been on the go for many ,many years so it seems strange that only one man ate a bat and got the virus?
The most believable account would be the lab in Wuhan which was cultivating the virus for perhaps medicinal purposes- had an accidental of leak of some kind.
The masks as some of these so called scientist demand all people should wear one at all times, is NOT a deterrent. It only prevents the spread by coughing/spitting on someones bare skin. Hygiene is the key -as is social distancing.
PPE- This was not the governments fault at all- they only go by what they are told. I had a post removed for mentioning this. But many managers who got the jobs because of who they know and not what they know were caught short!
Therefore, some hospitals had provisions and some didn't. Some hospitals were running short due to their location and size. The large cities naturally had more deaths due to demand. The ARMY was correct the procurement is a fiasco in the NHS ask those who KNOW.
The managers control the budgets and here in Scotland managers can demand high tec-high price Laptops and Iphones in some quarters of the corporate sector and the clinical sector are left dumbfounded when told 'sorry no can do' - no money!
The truth does hurt- those who tell it know this.
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In light of this
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/lifting-lockdown-could-cost-100000-lives-by-end-of-year-says-leading-epidemiologist-neil-ferguson-tv72gjld9
Let’s get consensus from all the government’s critics on here that the lockdown should continue indefinitely, because according to this expert if it doesn’t the government will be responsible for killing an extra 100,000 people
So tell us what you think Boris should do tomorrow when he comes back to work. Remember, you’ll be slagging him off for his decision in a few days time, so tell us where you stand now.
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The world over has found one of the most important thing is social distancing and staying home...yet the man you admire so much ignored that advice...thank god he ddint win the election...there'd be 50.000 dead
As did Boris it would seem.
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https://youtu.be/nX4ER79VgHA
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Still no one prepared to put their money where their mouth is and tell us all now what Boris should be doing with regard easing or maintaining the lockdown. Why is that? Are you waiting to see what he does first, and then criticise with the benefit of hindsight? Surely not!
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“Sensible people, however, understand that we have been struck by a thunderbolt for which it is absurd to blame Matt Hancock or for that matter President Xi of China, although his government’s opacity undoubtedly made things worse. Both our government and people now face months of cruel, imperfect choices. In contradiction of the national mood of the moment, neither the disease nor the lockdown represents our worst ordeal. That will commence only when we are stricken, as we shall all be, by their appalling financial and social fallout” - Max Hastings (an eminently sensible chap) writing in today’s Times.
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Still no one prepared to put their money where their mouth is and tell us all now what Boris should be doing with regard easing or maintaining the lockdown. Why is that? Are you waiting to see what he does first, and then criticise with the benefit of hindsight? Surely not!
I'm still trying to glean what other countries are doing or planning to do, but their choices might not be ideal either, and the situations in the various countries aren't identical.
For the moment, BoJo seems to be taking it more seriously than he did a couple of months ago. But then anyone seems serious compared to Dettol Don.
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I'm still trying to glean what other countries are doing or planning to do, but their choices might not be ideal either, and the situations in the various countries aren't identical.
For the moment, BoJo seems to be taking it more seriously than he did a couple of months ago. But then anyone seems serious compared to Dettol Don.
You’re in the very fortunate position of not having to make any Solomonesque decisions and unlike you Johnson doesn’t have the option of waiting to see what other countries do, because if he does do that he will be lambasted for dithering. But I’ve no doubt that whatever decisions he does make in the next few days, they will be the wrong ones as far as his strident critics are concerned. It’s just somewhat telling that they are keeping their powder dry until he’s made them.
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“A YouGov poll for Sky News last week put the proportion of people who trust print journalists on matters coronavirus-related at 17 per cent, way down below any politician. Interestingly, the only politician the public does seem to trust on coronavirus is Boris Johnson (51 per cent), which I suppose makes for a splendid illustration of the political benefits of staying in bed for a fortnight, not saying anything” - from today’s Times column by Hugo Rifkind. LOL.
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You’re in the very fortunate position of not having to make any Solomonesque decisions and unlike you Johnson doesn’t have the option of waiting to see what other countries do, because if he does do that he will be lambasted for dithering. But I’ve no doubt that whatever decisions he does make in the next few days, they will be the wrong ones as far as his strident critics are concerned. It’s just somewhat telling that they are keeping their powder dry until he’s made them.
Hopefully, the crisis teams in various countries haven't been acting in isolation, but have been sharing lessons learned from mistakes and sharing at least the work-arounds they've found.
(For example, I've seen numerous medical staff on Twitter networking, both nationally and internationally, to share ad hoc solutions to various issues and inviting other medics to provide input to whatever current problems they were facing.)
I do think the UK was so focused on Brexit that it was napping at the helm (and that would probably have been the case whoever won the election).
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I'll post documents I've found on the "Tips and Info" thread, now that the discussion appears to have moved beyond where it was when I last looked.
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Hopefully, the crisis teams in various countries haven't been acting in isolation, but have been sharing lessons learned from mistakes and sharing at least the work-arounds they've found.
(For example, I've seen numerous medical staff on Twitter networking, both nationally and internationally, to share ad hoc solutions to various issues and inviting other medics to provide input to whatever current problems they were facing.)
I do think the UK was so focused on Brexit that it was napping at the helm (and that would probably have been the case whoever won the election).
I have to disagree. If Labour had won a second referendum could have been put on hold with no harm done. Johnson looks at the moment, however, as if he’s still eager to push through what looks likely to be a no deal Brexit with all the damage to the economy that was always going to flow from that. Couple that with the dire effects coronavirus is already having on the economy and it seems we as a nation are going to suffer some really hard times, financially, going forward.
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I have to disagree. If Labour had won a second referendum could have been put on hold with no harm done. Johnson looks at the moment, however, as if he’s still eager to push through what looks likely to be a no deal Brexit with all the damage to the economy that was always going to flow from that. Couple that with the dire effects coronavirus is already having on the economy and it seems we as a nation are going to suffer some really hard times, financially, going forward.
A no deal Brexit was always a strong possibility because the EU are opposed to Brexit and wont agree to a reasoanble deal. the real hardships going forward will be as a result of Corona virus which will not just affect the UK but the whole of the world.
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A no deal Brexit was always a strong possibility because the EU are opposed to Brexit and wont agree to a reasoanble deal. the real hardships going forward will be as a result of Corona virus which will not just affect the UK but the whole of the world.
It may have been a strong possibility, though not for the reasons put forward, but now it appears to be almost certain with the impact on the economy that economists have warned us about.
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-would-no-deal-brexit-look
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It may have been a strong possibility, though not for the reasons put forward, but now it appears to be almost certain with the impact on the economy that economists have warned us about.
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-would-no-deal-brexit-look
You should have realise by now taht many experts have many different views.
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Right, I'm more interested in the pandemic right now.
For me, the whole Brexit saga is a slow-motion train-wreck. And now, with the Covid asteroid hitting earth on top of it...
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Right, I'm more interested in the pandemic right now.
For me, the whole Brexit saga is a slow-motion train-wreck. And now, with the Covid asteroid hitting earth on top of it...
you do know about the actual asteroid that is on its way don’t you?
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A no deal Brexit was always a strong possibility because the EU are opposed to Brexit and wont agree to a reasoanble deal. the real hardships going forward will be as a result of Corona virus which will not just affect the UK but the whole of the world.
The coronavirus effect will perfectly disguise any negative effect on the economy caused by a no-deal Brexit IMO. Us Remainers have been denied any opportunity to be proved correct about that prediction which is a bit annoying.
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you do know about the actual asteroid that is on its way don’t you?
"CNN An asteroid estimated to be 1.2 miles wide will fly by Earth early Wednesday morning, but it's not expected to collide with our planet."
Well, that's reassuring.
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Did anyone see the Panorama programme yesterday? Your thoughts ?
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/revealed-the-inside-story-of-uk-covid-19-coronavirus-crisis?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_News_Feed
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"CNN An asteroid estimated to be 1.2 miles wide will fly by Earth early Wednesday morning, but it's not expected to collide with our planet."
Well, that's reassuring.
Never mind the asteroids - I want to know what the billionaires know that we don't. Why isn't the government providing us all with nuclear bunkers?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2020/03/27/billionaire-bunker-owners-are-preparing-for-the-ultimate-underground-escape/#1852b5484e12
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/revealed-the-inside-story-of-uk-covid-19-coronavirus-crisis?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_News_Feed
I was going to post that. Interesting.
I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I posted the elusive SAGE documents (or whatever portion is publicly accessible) on the "Tips and Info" thread.
Bringing it here for discussion.
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response
One of the two models used was the Hannay Fry BBC4 pandemic transmission simulation experiment. Well worth a watch. I hadn't heard of it, but it was broadcast as a documentary in 2018 to commemorate the "Spanish flu" one.
https://youtu.be/RmGiDUczhqQ
There's also a podcast interview with here here, now that reality is upon us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkqtcm3w7Vw
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Justice
These socialist governments put the UK’s coronavirus response to shame
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead
Yesterday
Are left-wing governments better at handling the Covid-19 crisis?
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Being able to count the number of new Covid-19 cases on one hand seems like a faraway dream for countries like the UK.
For New Zealanders though, it is a reality. While it is a much smaller country than the UK the news was still staggering: on the 27th of April, the country reported just five new Covid-19 cases, and said was ‘currently eliminated’ from its shores. It has justifiably elevated New Zealand to a status of global adoration and envy.
Announcing that New Zealand had “won the battle” against widespread community transmission, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the nation would continue to hunt down the last few cases.
Since she came into power in October 2017, NZ Labour’s Jacinda Ardern has advocated putting the wellbeing of citizens before traditional bottom-line measures like productivity and growth.
Referring to capitalism as a “blatant failure”, Ardern said measures used to gauge economic success “have to change” to take into account “people’s ability to actually have a meaningful life.”
The desire to put people before the economy has been evident in Ardern’s response to the pandemic. Their lockdown measures were introduced early in a bid to keep cases low.
And with fewer than 1,500 cases recorded and just 19 deaths, according to figures from the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, New Zealand’s strict preventative measures appear to have been a success.
Disease elimination
A major driver in New Zealand’s success was its decision to pursue an elimination strategy rather than the mitigation approach.
In the mitigation approach, stricter interventions were introduced as the pandemic worsened to “flatten the curve.” But in the NZ ‘disease elimination’ approach, strict measures were implemented early on to thwart disease transmission.
Those measures continued for a month and, by doing so, essentially extinguished many chains of Covid-19 transmission.
This elimination strategy contrasts to the UK’s less decisive response, with the government’s delay in enforcing lockdown slammed as having cost lives. In contrast, the UK’s dithering start has led to a more chaos and deaths.
The preparedness of health systems around the world has been another defining component of the effectiveness of Covid-19 responses. Britain’s health service, which has been drastically underfunded in ten years of crippling Tory-imposed austerity, has been described as being “unprepared for a pandemic” with an insufficient number of beds, equipment and staff being linked to the country’s high number of Covid-19 death rates.
New Zealand’s well-funded healthcare system stands in marked contrast. In 2018, Ardern’s government announced a ‘people’s budget’ which saw billions more dollars put into health and education. The ‘people’s budget’ was focused on rebuilding vital public services, particularly the health care sector.
Portugal’s socialist government Covid-19 response success
Another relative pandemic ‘success’ story has been Portugal. Despite having third highest population in Europe of 80+ year-olds, Portugal has witnessed the lowest pandemic mortality in Europe.
Like New Zealand, Portugal has had a firmly progressive agenda since its left-wing government came into power in 2015. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, Portugal has reversed austerity policies while overseeing economic growth.
Since 2015, Portugal has boldly cast austerity aside and has subsequently enjoyed a major economic revival. Similar to New Zealand, the nation’s anti-austerity approach has come at the benefit of the nation’s health service. An international survey into European national health systems conducted in 2017, found that Portugal’s National Health Service ranked higher than many other European nations, including the UK.
Jose Hernandez, assistant professor of sociology and a specialist in social health policies at the University of Cordoba in southern Spain, notes how, with a well performing health service, Portugal was better prepared for a pandemic than many of its European counterparts.
“Portugal’s greater recent investment in public health and a much more centralised health service have all helped, while greater levels of mass tourism in Spain and the high degree of mobility that goes with it could have encouraged the spread of coronavirus,” Hernandez commented.
As well as prioritising funding its healthcare system that would have helped the country be more prepared for a health crisis, like New Zealand, Portugal’s comparative coronavirus response success is pinned on its rapid lockdown response.
Unlike Britain, whose Tory government effectively squandered its “head start” over other European nations, Portugal acted quickly in enforcing restrictions on movement, putting the welfare of its people before economic agendas.
Free of the chains of austerity, and with an clear commitment to prioritise people over the markets, New Zealand and Portugal show what a socialist-inspired Covid response looks like.
https://leftfootforward.org/2020/04/how-these-socialist-governments-put-the-uks-coronavirus-response-to-shame/
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I was going to post that. Interesting.
I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I posted the elusive SAGE documents (or whatever portion is publicly accessible) on the "Tips and Info" thread.
Bringing it here for discussion.
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response
One of the two models used was the Hannay Fry BBC4 pandemic transmission simulation experiment. Well worth a watch. I hadn't heard of it, but it was broadcast as a documentary in 2018 to commemorate the "Spanish flu" one.
https://youtu.be/RmGiDUczhqQ
There's also a podcast interview with here here, now that reality is upon us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkqtcm3w7Vw
Thanks Carana. Lots of information there.
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In the SAGE paper from 11 Feb, large gatherings weren't deemed to be much of a risk.
My jaw dropped when I read it, but in fact the "Patient 31" bombshell in South Korea was only discovered over 18-20 Feb.
So fair enough, they didn't know that much about the virus at the time (although they should have had a good idea how quickly it could be transmitted after the Hannah Fry documentary last year - and it's in their dossier).
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/873748/12-spi-m-o-consensus-view-on-public-gatherings.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_South_Korea#20_January_%E2%80%93_17_February
Then, I get to this:
12 March.
The main input from the nudge team re banning large public gatherings was that media coverage of them being banned elswhere but not in the UK might result in criticism of the government for not undertaking potentially effective measures.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/874289/13-spi-b-insights-on-public-gatherings-1.pdf
Now... where did I put my jaw?
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Justice
These socialist governments put the UK’s coronavirus response to shame
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead
Yesterday
Are left-wing governments better at handling the Covid-19 crisis?
Share
Tweet
Being able to count the number of new Covid-19 cases on one hand seems like a faraway dream for countries like the UK.
For New Zealanders though, it is a reality. While it is a much smaller country than the UK the news was still staggering: on the 27th of April, the country reported just five new Covid-19 cases, and said was ‘currently eliminated’ from its shores. It has justifiably elevated New Zealand to a status of global adoration and envy.
Announcing that New Zealand had “won the battle” against widespread community transmission, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the nation would continue to hunt down the last few cases.
Since she came into power in October 2017, NZ Labour’s Jacinda Ardern has advocated putting the wellbeing of citizens before traditional bottom-line measures like productivity and growth.
Referring to capitalism as a “blatant failure”, Ardern said measures used to gauge economic success “have to change” to take into account “people’s ability to actually have a meaningful life.”
The desire to put people before the economy has been evident in Ardern’s response to the pandemic. Their lockdown measures were introduced early in a bid to keep cases low.
And with fewer than 1,500 cases recorded and just 19 deaths, according to figures from the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, New Zealand’s strict preventative measures appear to have been a success.
Disease elimination
A major driver in New Zealand’s success was its decision to pursue an elimination strategy rather than the mitigation approach.
In the mitigation approach, stricter interventions were introduced as the pandemic worsened to “flatten the curve.” But in the NZ ‘disease elimination’ approach, strict measures were implemented early on to thwart disease transmission.
Those measures continued for a month and, by doing so, essentially extinguished many chains of Covid-19 transmission.
This elimination strategy contrasts to the UK’s less decisive response, with the government’s delay in enforcing lockdown slammed as having cost lives. In contrast, the UK’s dithering start has led to a more chaos and deaths.
The preparedness of health systems around the world has been another defining component of the effectiveness of Covid-19 responses. Britain’s health service, which has been drastically underfunded in ten years of crippling Tory-imposed austerity, has been described as being “unprepared for a pandemic” with an insufficient number of beds, equipment and staff being linked to the country’s high number of Covid-19 death rates.
New Zealand’s well-funded healthcare system stands in marked contrast. In 2018, Ardern’s government announced a ‘people’s budget’ which saw billions more dollars put into health and education. The ‘people’s budget’ was focused on rebuilding vital public services, particularly the health care sector.
Portugal’s socialist government Covid-19 response success
Another relative pandemic ‘success’ story has been Portugal. Despite having third highest population in Europe of 80+ year-olds, Portugal has witnessed the lowest pandemic mortality in Europe.
Like New Zealand, Portugal has had a firmly progressive agenda since its left-wing government came into power in 2015. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, Portugal has reversed austerity policies while overseeing economic growth.
Since 2015, Portugal has boldly cast austerity aside and has subsequently enjoyed a major economic revival. Similar to New Zealand, the nation’s anti-austerity approach has come at the benefit of the nation’s health service. An international survey into European national health systems conducted in 2017, found that Portugal’s National Health Service ranked higher than many other European nations, including the UK.
Jose Hernandez, assistant professor of sociology and a specialist in social health policies at the University of Cordoba in southern Spain, notes how, with a well performing health service, Portugal was better prepared for a pandemic than many of its European counterparts.
“Portugal’s greater recent investment in public health and a much more centralised health service have all helped, while greater levels of mass tourism in Spain and the high degree of mobility that goes with it could have encouraged the spread of coronavirus,” Hernandez commented.
As well as prioritising funding its healthcare system that would have helped the country be more prepared for a health crisis, like New Zealand, Portugal’s comparative coronavirus response success is pinned on its rapid lockdown response.
Unlike Britain, whose Tory government effectively squandered its “head start” over other European nations, Portugal acted quickly in enforcing restrictions on movement, putting the welfare of its people before economic agendas.
Free of the chains of austerity, and with an clear commitment to prioritise people over the markets, New Zealand and Portugal show what a socialist-inspired Covid response looks like.
https://leftfootforward.org/2020/04/how-these-socialist-governments-put-the-uks-coronavirus-response-to-shame/
strange isnt it that the only person on the forum who claims to have a confirmed case is Rob from New Zealand
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strange isnt it that the only person on the forum who claims to have a confirmed case is Rob from New Zealand
Poor Rob, methinks he might have been a bit too enthusiastic about squirting H202 thinking it would help. Or else he already had it.
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strange isnt it that the only person on the forum who claims to have a confirmed case is Rob from New Zealand
Hmm, it is strange. It’s also worth noting that NZ’s population density per sq km is 18 while England’s is 259, but I’m sure it’s only because of their nice “socialist” lady PM that they were all spared the covid nightmare.
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strange isnt it that the only person on the forum who claims to have a confirmed case is Rob from New Zealand
I have two friends, both care workers, who have had it. One is still ill after a month. I also have a friend whose grandfather had it, thankfully he recovered.
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Gosh, New Zealand isn’t absolutely perfect
“Others, while supportive of the restrictions, have criticised New Zealand’s general health preparedness, highlighting the country’s extremely low intensive care capacity. The number of ICU beds per 100,000 people was 5.14 in New Zealand, compared to 8.92 in Australia and 12.5 in Italy.
The low ICU capacity perhaps bolstered the government’s case for swift action, lest the nation’s hospitals be overrun.
Yet because of this, New Zealand’s entire public health system has come under fire. The system is highly devolved, with power largely ceded to 20 elected District Health Boards.
As the crisis wore on, these health districts - and the government - copped flak for not knowing how many ventilators they had and mismanaging the distribution of crucial PPE to frontline health workers, among other problems.
The problem became so acute, the Auditor-General was hauled in to investigate.
And that was before the largely invisible Health Minister David Clark was demoted by Ardern after admitting he took his family to the beach during the lockdown.
Then on Monday the government quietly released a report slamming its early contact tracing efforts. The report found a system so threadbare that it became overloaded by fewer than 100 daily cases in the early days of the pandemic. "The timeliness of the process was poor," the report said, detailing a two-day average lag between a positive COVID-19 test and contacts being told to self-isolate.
Politically, none of this is helped by the fact that Australia seems to have tackled COVID-19 just as well as New Zealand without closing down every Bunnings, McDonald’s drive-through and takeaway coffee cart in the country.
Even at the slightly more relaxed level three lockdown - which will start on Tuesday - hairdressers will still be closed as will normal shopping. Businesses can open, but transactions must be contactless, this means online ordering and pick up or deliveries. The cash will be a lifeline for some small businesses, but for many it will be too little, too late.”
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i saw areport today which unfortunately i disnt save.....it claims that the results from autopsies in italy show that the appraoch by the medical profession is wrong. Respirators are not the answer...anti imflamatories are. The rate amongst those suffering rheumatoid arthritis is low because tehya re already taking anti imflamatories. The damage in the lungs is caused by blood clotting so anti imflamatories and blood thinnners are the way forward.
if its true then we cant blame Boris if the whole medical profession has it wrong
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I don't care what party she's from, I just think she's handled it well. The fact that it was spreading through Asia might have been a red flag before it was elsewhere. The fact that it has a low population density has no doubt helped as well.
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I don't care what party she's from, I just think she's handled it well. The fact that it was spreading through Asia might have been a red flag before it was elsewhere. The fact that it has a low population density has no doubt helped as well.
She has handled it well but NZ is a very different country from the UK in very many ways, and what worked for them may not have worked so well for us. Is South Korea a socialist country? I don’t think so, and they seem to have coped quite well too. Trying to score cheap political points out of this crisis continues to make me heave.
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i saw areport today which unfortunately i disnt save.....it claims that the results from autopsies in italy show that the appraoch by the medical profession is wrong. Respirators are not the answer...anti imflamatories are. The rate amongst those suffering rheumatoid arthritis is low because tehya re already taking anti imflamatories. The damage in the lungs is caused by blood clotting so anti imflamatories and blood thinnners are the way forward.
if its true then we cant blame Boris if the whole medical profession has it wrong
I remember Fauci (possibly someone else?) addressing the issue recently as well. I can't remember all of it - but there were cases where people seemed to be on the mend then deteriorated within hours and died. Thrombi and cardiac arrests come to mind.
In the UK, doctors networking found that if patients had to be intubated, there was a substantially better outcome if they were placed on their stomachs. I'm not sure if it was only ventilated patients who ended up with thrombi, though. I zap around too much.
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Welll, I'm an Obama kind of girl. He's a Democrat, but I find he was fairly centrist.
He got both Obamacare through AND pulled the US out of the recession.
AND he warned about the need to prepare for a pandemic years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBVAnaHxHbM
I find Merkel and Trudeau have been sensible as well, over the years.
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Brietta will appreciate this one. 8(0(*
What Do Countries With The Best Coronavirus Responses Have In Common?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/#5e6713be3dec
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In politics, centrism is a political outlook or specific position that involves acceptance or support of a balance of a degree of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy, while opposing political changes which would result in a significant shift of society strongly to either the left or the right.[1]
Wiki.
I don't have a problem with that definition.
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“The government should not be frightened to admit it has made mistakes and tried things that may not have worked. When a scientific experiment fails, its findings can still be useful and lead to better, successful experiments. We do not yet know why Britain appears to be having a worse pandemic than other countries. To what extent does having the most densely populated city in Europe, and a hub of international travel to boot, make us more vulnerable? How important, relatively speaking, will it turn out to be that we place so many of our old people in care homes? Maybe it was wrong to abandon testing and tracing in March but, as we did not have the capacity to continue, it sounds like a strictly theoretical objection. Did we lock down too late and is that the biggest error? Perhaps. I don’t know. Neither do you.”
Philip Collins, today’s Times
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That resonates with me, VS.
Paradoxically, perhaps, I feel more reassured by someone / or a body (a name that springs to mind is Andrew Cuomo) - who states the reality of the situation and the projected solution, than others who are so defensive or spin-oriented that I no longer have a clue what the reality actually is.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm alone in thinking that...
No, I'm rereading that...
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IMO, a government has a fine line to tread in terms of what, when and how it informs the public of an impending serious situation.
No government would want the public to panic, particularly when it's still trying to get to grips with what's actually happening or likely to happen.
But, that's a far step away from reasuring everyone that everything's under control, when you'd have to have an IQ of a shoe size to realise that it isn't.
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Can we believe anything they say ?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-testing-figures-uk-target-criticism-hancock-a9495621.html
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IMO, a government has a fine line to tread in terms of what, when and how it informs the public of an impending serious situation.
No government would want the public to panic, particularly when it's still trying to get to grips with what's actually happening or likely to happen.
But, that's a far step away from reasuring everyone that everything's under control, when you'd have to have an IQ of a shoe size to realise that it isn't.
Of course everything isnt under control...who is suggesting it is. There are just too many unknowns at the moment.
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That resonates with me, VS.
Paradoxically, perhaps, I feel more reassured by someone / or a body (a name that springs to mind is Andrew Cuomo) - who states the reality of the situation and the projected solution, than others who are so defensive or spin-oriented that I no longer have a clue what the reality actually is.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm alone in thinking that...
No, I'm rereading that...
it seems to me that Cuomo uis saying similar things to the UK govt. we cant simply lift restricyions without more knowledge. As i understand there is now a more reliable test that the govt will use on a random sample to check the level of Immunity in the general population......thats whats needed.
I listened to another "expert" who says new Zealand may have got it wrong and have simply delayed deaths. That combined with NZ having a problem getting poeple to accept a measles vaccine which means they no longer have herd immunity to it may just be shoring up problems for the future...the fact is ...no one knows
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Can we believe anything they say ?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-testing-figures-uk-target-criticism-hancock-a9495621.html
its called "spin"...and politically is was invented by Blair's labour govt
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its called "spin"...and politically is was invented by Blair's labour govt
Of course it’s spin but should a government really be focusing on misleading the people at this time and if they’re ‘spinning’ this it makes you wonder what else they’re lying about ?
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Of course it’s spin but should a government really be focusing on misleading the people at this time and if they’re ‘spinning’ this it makes you wonder what else they’re lying about ?
Best to assume all politicians and all govts partake in spin... Just need to be able to sort the wheat from the chafe
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Best to assume all politicians and all govts partake in spin... Just need to be able to sort the wheat from the chafe
You have to question the need for it at this time.
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You have to question the need for it at this time.
Not really... The media are just as guilty... It's just part of life now
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And still none of Boris’s critics are prepared to state now what they think he should be doing wrt the lockdown, but are conveniently waiting for him to announce his plans before commencing their carping, then ramping up their blaming and complaining when deaths continue to occur.
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Not really... The media are just as guilty... It's just part of life now
But surely the government should be held to a better standard than the media ? Are we really in a position with this government that we have to disregard everything they say because we don’t know if it’s true ?
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But surely the government should be held to a better standard than the media ? Are we really in a position with this government that we have to disregard everything they say because we don’t know if it’s true ?
You have a preoccupation with this govt.... It's every govt.... Including Blair Labour govt. He took the UK to war on a lie.
You seem to be obsessed
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You have a preoccupation with this govt.... It's every govt.... Including Blair Labour govt. He took the UK to war on a lie.
You seem to be obsessed
Of course a Labour Government under Corbyn would have been utterly devoid of spin and completely transparent. LOL.
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Faith must have been devastated when Corbyn and his Raving Loony Party were thrashed in the election.. But every cloud has a silver lining.. She can now spend her time criticising Boris which is a much easier job she would have had defending Jeremy had the uk electorate been as gullible as Corbyn thought they would be
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You have a preoccupation with this govt.... It's every govt.... Including Blair Labour govt. He took the UK to war on a lie.
You seem to be obsessed
Of course I’m preoccupied with this government....who else should we blame for the woeful response to the pandemic?
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Of course I’m preoccupied with this government....who else should we blame for the woeful response to the pandemic?
The response isn't woeful... You are putting your spin on it LOL
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Faith must have been devastated when Corbyn and his Raving Loony Party were thrashed in the election.. But every cloud has a silver lining.. She can now spend her time criticising Boris which is a much easier job she would have had defending Jeremy had the uk electorate been as gullible as Corbyn thought they would be
You are right, I was disappointed we lost but time moves on and we now have more pressing worries than the result of the election. Every uturn the government has made in this pandemic has been as a direct result of pressure from both the public and the media.....and that’s where the effort needs to be applied now....not on mourning past defeats.
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The response isn't woeful... You are putting your spin on it LOL
The response has been shambolic at best and has directly killed thousands more people than needed to have died. The Financial Times has gathered the data regarding deaths from the Office of National Statistics and the true figure of deaths is nearer 40,000 than the figure we are being told....that will make us only second to America in the amount of deaths recorded. That’s horrendous.
You may not mind being lied to by this government. I, and many, many millions more, do.
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The response has been shambolic at best and has directly killed thousands more people than needed to have died. The Financial Times has gathered the data regarding deaths from the Office of National Statistics and the true figure of deaths is nearer 40,000 than the figure we are being told....that will make us only second to America in the amount of deaths recorded. That’s horrendous.
You may not mind being lied to by this government. I, and many, many millions more, do.
None of the figures you are quoting are particularly reliable as countries record figure by different criteria.. The best indication is the death rate above the norm... Spain by far the worst on this score... Spin by everyone... Apart from me of course
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Initial thoughts...
IMO, public, societal and economic health shouldn't be either/or but should go hand-in-hand. The problem is finding the right balance.
IMO, the government should definitely request a Brexit extension - there's no way it can cope with both right now. The civil service was run ragged even before Covid.
Mistakes must be taken on board. Every country has made some, and its worth learning from and sharing what they were so that others are more alert (a bit like sharing info on scams so a red flag goes up).
Any easing involves weighing multiple risk factors and how that can be managed. There's sheer maths, logistics, behaviour and no doubt others.
I can't see a feasible easing without getting PPE, testing (+ contact tracing + isolation) in place. And hammering the message of social distancing and hygiene.
Then geographical / sectors need to be looked at.
I saw one country's site (can't remember which now) that was keeping tabs on the R0 in each area. Easing could start in those with the lowest Ro counts (providing testing is sufficient to verify it). That may mean measures to strongly discourage / stop people from travelling outside a specified area for a while.
Places where a lot of people work will probably need help for spatial planning and rigorous hygiene.
Staggering shifts (and therefore easing public transport cramming) might help some.
Not much can happen without a plan for public transport and schools.
The tourism /public entertainment / non-local travel sectors may have to wait.
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Interesting...
https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2020-05-01/poll-shows-more-welsh-public-confidence-in-johnson-than-drakeford-over-covid-19/
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None of the figures you are quoting are particularly reliable as countries record figure by different criteria.. The best indication is the death rate above the norm... Spain by far the worst on this score... Spin by everyone... Apart from me of course
The chief medical officer said 20,000 would be a good result yet we are looking down the wrong end of 40,000 people dead. How can that not be described as horrendous?
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More bad news for the government.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/public-approval-for-government-handling-of-covid-19-falls-to-lowest-level-in-7-weeks/02/05/
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But surely the government should be held to a better standard than the media ? Are we really in a position with this government that we have to disregard everything they say because we don’t know if it’s true ?
I'm not sure the media is capable anymore,its reckoned in some circles that the government massaged the testing figures to unsurprisingly reach 100,000 by the end of April,was there a media storm? more like a wimper. A decent opposition which in reality is kind of paralysed through parliament not fully sitting is unable to properly hold the government to account.
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The chief medical officer said 20,000 would be a good result yet we are looking down the wrong end of 40,000 people dead. How can that not be described as horrendous?
20,000 is horrendous
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20,000 is horrendous
Absolutely and it needn’t have got to even that if a lockdown had been rolled out earlier.
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I find it fair to say that the UK was caught napping at the helm (as were the governments of many countries), and I'm not sure that a different government would have been much more awake as all eyes were on dealing with Brexit. Different people at the helm of whichever party might have made a difference, but that's subjective.
On the bright(er) side, the UK does seem to be ramping up testing, even though it still needs to hit the turbocharge.
Widely available PPE and personal / collective responsibility for social distancing and hygiene will be key to any successful easing.
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The most popular comment under one of the articles in today’s ST:
“My! My! My! Has the Grauniad/Observer barred all comments from its' columns this fine Sunday morning? All their disaffected, sclerotic, whinging moaners, still upset at December's election result, appear to have gravitated here to pour scorn on the PM.
Dominic is simply pointing out the blindingly obvious. For all of Fleet Street's attempts to rubbish Boris. the public quite like him. They certainly greatly prefer him to the alternatives on offer, both back in December and now in May.
As always, the child-like news media now attempts to portray Covid-19 like some football or cricket match and then to lay blame for the numbers on some poor individual, or small group of politicians.
This is simplistic nonsense. It portrays a world, supposedly of either dead Right, or dead Wrong answers to enormously complex problems, when any thoughtful, unbiased person, particularly those who've been exposed to some elements of a scientific education, knows that the choices are fiendishly difficult.
Rather like caring for an aged, ill and/or demented parent - There are often no right answers. Merely, less-wrong ones, in my experience.
It is interesting to note that the countries who seem to be faring best are in South-East Asia, where South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, all had the benefit of two dry-runs, in the past 20 years, with SARS & MERS. They got the enviable chance of experimenting with much smaller outbreaks, and so discovered what worked best and worst. The First-World hasn't been so lucky.
It also appears clear that while the everyday workers in the NHS are brilliant, their senior management leaves something to be desired, and may even be sometimes woefully inadequate. Is this, perhaps, another case of "Lions led by Donkeys" repeating itself a century later?
Meantime, the women surveyed appear to be giving the PM the benefit of the doubt. He appears to be doing his best. Whether that proves enough won't be known for at least two years. When the scientists have dissected all the numbers to make allowances for age, obesity, population density and whatever else varies between countries. Plus the current great unknowns; why are men dying at twice the rate of women and similar fatality differences between BAME and white populations? Then we may be in some position to make facile judgements on the politicians. But for the moment, the public is mostly observing a tactfully respectful silence. Oh, that the media would follow their example”.
Well said that man.
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Another thorny subject is likely to be public acceptance of app-based contact tracing. A lot of people are likely to be wary of it, not least following Leave.Eu's dodgy campaign with Cambridge Analytica.
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Absolutely and it needn’t have got to even that if a lockdown had been rolled out earlier.
I think its far too early to make any judgements...
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Another thorny subject is likely to be public acceptance of app-based contact tracing. A lot of people are likely to be wary of it, not least following Leave.Eu's dodgy campaign with Cambridge Analytica.
I will download it for the good it will do. I have no qualms.
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I think its far too early to make any judgements...
No I think that’s agreed by all objective scientific opinion at this point.
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Another thorny subject is likely to be public acceptance of app-based contact tracing. A lot of people are likely to be wary of it, not least following Leave.Eu's dodgy campaign with Cambridge Analytica.
Why is it that everything this government does raises more questions than it answers ?
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Another thorny subject is likely to be public acceptance of app-based contact tracing. A lot of people are likely to be wary of it, not least following Leave.Eu's dodgy campaign with Cambridge Analytica.
Yes and no from a personal point,like a lot of people I have a smart phone,turn it on and my position can be triangulated,so if there's a big brother watching they roughly know where I'm at, so the medical app is not much of a privation.
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Why is it that everything this government does raises more questions than it answers ?
Any government, faith.
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No I think that’s agreed by all objective scientific opinion at this point.
Opinion is by definition subjective...have another go
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Any government, faith.
Absolutely but especially this government.
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Opinion is by definition subjective...have another go
There is weight in consensus.
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Why is it that everything this government does raises more questions than it answers ?
To be fair, I think people would be critical of any government's actions (of whichever party) at this time. I'm seeing similar criticisms in quite a few countries.
Do I think they were asleep at the helm? Yes. Do I think that a different recently-elected party would have done better? No idea.
I have problems with the SAGE group's reports, particularly re mass gatherings.
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I don't mind downloading an app and using it, provided that I'm reassured that:
- it can only be used for the intended purpose,
- data won't be sold on,
- "left on a train seat",
- the means (bluetooth, I presume) can't be used by hackers to get access to other information that may or may not be on my phone.
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UK to trial new tracing programme
The UK will trial a new coronavirus tracing programme next week on the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England, cabinet minister Michael Gove has announced as the government looks to minimise the risk of a second wave of infection.
Suffering one of the worst death tolls in Europe from Covid-19, Britain is confident that the peak of the virus has passed and is now looking at how to restart its shuttered economy and ease social restrictions on citizens, according to the Press Association.
“This week we will be piloting new test, track and trace procedures on the Isle of Wight with a view to having that in place more widely later this month,” Gove said.
Gove said the system being trialled next week would include asking citizens on the island to download a smartphone app as well as traditional ways of tracing those who have come into contact with a patient who has tested positive.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/may/03/coronavirus-live-news-european-leaders-join-forces-to-find-vaccine-as-france-proposes-14-day-quarantine-on-entry?page=with:block-5eaefab08f0806a4798126a2#block-5eaefab08f0806a4798126a2
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To be fair, I think people would be critical of any government's actions (of whichever party) at this time. I'm seeing similar criticisms in quite a few countries.
Do I think they were asleep at the helm? Yes. Do I think that a different recently-elected party would have done better? No idea.
I have problems with the SAGE group's reports, particularly re mass gatherings.
We need to see the rate of deaths in the next wave before reaching any conclusions. It may well be those countries that shut down early have more deaths when the relax measures. Sweeden has a much higher death raete tahn its neigbours but may profit from the herd immunity built.
It may well be that the Uk has a higher number of BAME residents due to its colonial past...there are lots of factors which as yet makes comparison difficult
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To be fair, I think people would be critical of any government's actions (of whichever party) at this time. I'm seeing similar criticisms in quite a few countries.
Do I think they were asleep at the helm? Yes. Do I think that a different recently-elected party would have done better? No idea.
I have problems with the SAGE group's reports, particularly re mass gatherings.
Yes I think people would be critical, as the number of deaths went up it was almost inevitable, but to have so much criticism from the scientific community must be almost unique.
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Dr Fauci on easing lockdown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rEVU3h4TSA
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-sage-dominic-cummings-david-king-a9496546.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1588517897
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-sage-dominic-cummings-david-king-a9496546.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1588517897
Sir David revealed his plans for a shadow committee in The Sunday Times, adding: “I am not at all critical of the scientists who are putting advice before the Government
I would think there are good reasons why the minutes are not made public
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Sir David revealed his plans for a shadow committee in The Sunday Times, adding: “I am not at all critical of the scientists who are putting advice before the Government
I would think there are good reasons why the minutes are not made public
I think that’s called diplomacy.
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I think that’s called diplomacy.
I think you dont understand...how can he be critical of them if he doesnt know what they are saying
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I think you dont understand...how can he be critical of them if he doesnt know what they are saying
I do understand and you have no idea how much information he and his fellow scientists have.
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I do understand and you have no idea how much information he and his fellow scientists have.
I watched a few chunks of their presentaion which wasnt particularly impressive....they couldnt seem to get the microphone sto work properly...hopefully they will sort it out necxt time.
david king who is leading this was the scientist who advised the Labour Govt that diesel cars were safer and to reduce the duty on ndeisel to persuade motorists to change. This caused abut 10,000 deaths accross europe per year . deisel cars are now being phased out.....so thats his track record.
Then we have the fact hes assembled a group with a predominately left wing bias....no tory supporters...plenty of labour supporters...all remainers...whilst claiming that advice should be non political...its more than a bit of a joke
GUY ADAMS: Ex-science tsar Sir David King has built a Left-wing cabal to dispense virus health advice (but says ministers' experts are too political to be trusted!)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8286797/GUY-ADAMS-Ex-science-tsar-Sir-David-King-told-switch-diesel.html
The committee does not, on the face of things, appear to contain a single member who was among the 43.6 per cent who voted for Mr Johnson in December. Neither does it seem to contain anyone who was in the 52 per cent of voters who chose to leave the EU in 2016.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-coronavirus-death-toll-highest-europe-cases-covid-19-italy-spain-a9499181.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1588669521
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-coronavirus-death-toll-highest-europe-cases-covid-19-italy-spain-a9499181.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1588669521
those figures are not reliable as each contry may well record figures differently. What cannot be dispute is the increase in the historical average death rate for each country...and cities...
uk and wales 52%.....spain 72%...italy 90%....
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
There are concerns, however, that reported Covid-19 deaths are not capturing the true impact of coronavirus on mortality around the world. The FT has gathered and analysed data on excess mortality — the numbers of deaths over and above the historical average — across the globe, and has found that death tolls in some countries are more than 50 per cent higher than usual. In many countries, these excess deaths exceed reported numbers of Covid-19 deaths by large margins.
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those figures are not reliable as each contry may well record figures differently. What cannot be dispute is the increase in the historical average death rate for each country...and cities...
uk and wales 52%.....spain 72%...italy 90%....
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
There are concerns, however, that reported Covid-19 deaths are not capturing the true impact of coronavirus on mortality around the world. The FT has gathered and analysed data on excess mortality — the numbers of deaths over and above the historical average — across the globe, and has found that death tolls in some countries are more than 50 per cent higher than usual. In many countries, these excess deaths exceed reported numbers of Covid-19 deaths by large margins.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/05/why-no-10s-covid-19-death-toll-slides-dont-tell-the-whole-story
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Just brilliant.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/07/with-the-pm-in-hiding-raab-takes-cover-behind-the-science
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Seems obvious to me. IMO, if the pandemic hadn't happened, the default position would have been to blame the EU, which may still be added to the pot.
The question still remains, though, what exactly is the plan to get the UK out of this dual mess?
Phil Hogan:
“I think that the United Kingdom politicians and government have certainly decided that COVID is going to be blamed for all the fallout from Brexit and my perception of it is they don’t want to drag the negotiations out into 2021 because they can effectively blame COVID for everything.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-eu/no-sign-britain-wants-eu-trade-talks-to-succeed-eu-trade-chief-idUKKBN22J27E
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those figures are not reliable as each contry may well record figures differently. What cannot be dispute is the increase in the historical average death rate for each country...and cities...
uk and wales 52%.....spain 72%...italy 90%....
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
There are concerns, however, that reported Covid-19 deaths are not capturing the true impact of coronavirus on mortality around the world. The FT has gathered and analysed data on excess mortality — the numbers of deaths over and above the historical average — across the globe, and has found that death tolls in some countries are more than 50 per cent higher than usual. In many countries, these excess deaths exceed reported numbers of Covid-19 deaths by large margins.
Yes, I agree that the different ways that countries have been determing and recording deaths isn't helpful. And I agree that the excess death rates are a reasonable proxy.
However, according to the excess death rates in countries tracked so far by the FT, the UK now has the highest rate (62%).
https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441
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Yes, I agree that the different ways that countries have been determing and recording deaths isn't helpful. And I agree that the excess death rates are a reasonable proxy.
However, according to the excess death rates in countries tracked so far by the FT, the UK now has the highest rate (62%).
https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441
There was a very revealing comment on, I think , Question Time made by a contributor. They said that the government was happy to compare the U.K. to Italy, Spain etc re-deaths when the date rates in those countries were way above the figures here but now our death tolls are outstripping theirs we are told we are not comparing like for like.
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There was a very revealing comment on, I think , Question Time made by a contributor. They said that the government was happy to compare the U.K. to Italy, Spain etc re-deaths when the date rates in those countries were way above the figures here but now our death tolls are outstripping theirs we are told we are not comparing like for like.
Yes, here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLKPeau-sz0
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Yes, here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLKPeau-sz0
That’s the one. Thanks Carana.
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I'd heard about this Channel 4 documentary, but only watched it today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piie71tf_bU
The UK is by no means the only country with PPE shortages, but it was supposed to be near the top of the preparedness index. It did indeed have a large stock of PPE and other equipment... but a vast percentage was out of date.
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You know you’re in trouble when even your slogan doesn’t garner support. From Sky.
Boris Johnson has revealed the first details of the government's revised coronavirus rules - as the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland united in opposition to the prime minister's new slogan.
The longstanding official guidance to "stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives" has been amended to "stay alert, control the virus, save lives".
The UK government's guidance is now:
Stay at home as much as possible
Work at home if you can
Limit contact with other people
Keep your distance if you go out (2m apart where possible)
Wash your hands regularly
If you or anyone in your household has symptoms, you all need to self-isolate
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https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/10/cabinet-raging-boris-johnson-records-major-speech-without-ministers-12681645/
Looks like Hancock is going to be thrown under a bus to save Johnson. My, my these Tories are ruthless.
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https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/10/cabinet-raging-boris-johnson-records-major-speech-without-ministers-12681645/
Looks like Hancock is going to be thrown under a bus to save Johnson. My, my these Tories are ruthless.
they would have had to throw too many under a bus to save Corbyn and his labour party...lol
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they would have had to throw too many under a bus to save Corbyn and his labour party...lol
You do know Labour has a new leader.....don’t you ?
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I fear we shall be hearing alot of my new least favourite expressinon “roadmap” in the next half hour.
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You do know Labour has a new leader.....don’t you ?
a quick rinse doesnt remove the stench....its still corbyns Marxist party....it will probably never recover because to win an election it would have to throw corbyn and his supporters under a bus and embrace Blairism
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a quick rinse doesnt remove the stench....its still corbyns Marxist party....it will probably never recover because to win an election it would have to throw corbyn and his supporters under a bus and embrace Blairism
I think Starmer has done quite a good job with the Shake n’ Vac so far. Most of the Corbyn fans I know really hate him, so that can only be a good sign.
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a quick rinse doesnt remove the stench....its still corbyns Marxist party....it will probably never recover because to win an election it would have to throw corbyn and his supporters under a bus and embrace Blairism
It’s true, we’re not as ruthless as the Tories.
My political view at the moment is pragmatic. While Corbyn was my leader of choice Starmer has my support . I quite enjoyed him pick apart Johnson during PMQs and am looking forward to more of the same.
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It’s true, we’re not as ruthless as the Tories.
My political view at the moment is pragmatic. While Corbyn was my leader of choice Starmer has my support . I quite enjoyed him pick apart Johnson during PMQs and am looking forward to more of the same.
Thats about all you have got to look forward to... I doubt you will see another labour govt... Boris is avery easy target at the moment..due to his total inexperience dealing with a situation that no leader has any expereince in dealing with
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Something or nothing from Boris,more important imo is what Rishi Sunak will have to say about furlough,Boris wants people back to work,firms wont do that until the furlough end's,end of May anyone?
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It needs to be recognised that Germany is not the benchmark,their rate of R is above 1 again.
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Thats about all you have got to look forward to... I doubt you will see another labour govt... Boris is avery easy target at the moment..due to his total inexperience dealing with a situation that no leader has any expereince in dealing with
Boris is a dead man walking. When even your former employer, the Telegraph, is welcoming editorials from your political nemesis then you know you’re in trouble.
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Boris is a dead man walking. When even your former employer, the Telegraph, is welcoming editorials from your political nemesis then you know you’re in trouble.
In your very limited..biased opinion. you need to accept reality ..imo
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Boris is a dead man walking. When even your former employer, the Telegraph, is welcoming editorials from your political nemesis then you know you’re in trouble.
A one trick pony?Brexit was his baby,we'll see.
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In your very limited..biased opinion. you need to accept reality ..imo
Let’s just wait and see.
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A one trick pony?Brexit was his baby,we'll see.
and he still has massive support as to how he is handling brexit...no surrender....and i understand the significance of that Churchilian statement
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and he still has massive support as to how he is handling brexit...no surrender....and i understand the significance of that Churchilian statement
History might well repeat itself if the economy tanks as expected.
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Let’s just wait and see.
Boris has 5 years ....more chance of seeing the McCanns vindicated in the ECHR than Boris losing power
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Will Sturgeon close the border,Boris wants movement,she wants people to stay at home.
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‘It could have been a catastrophe’......isn’t upwards of 32,000 deaths enough for Johnson ?
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a quick rinse doesnt remove the stench....its still corbyns Marxist party....it will probably never recover because to win an election it would have to throw corbyn and his supporters under a bus and embrace Blairism
I think you are wrong, Davel.
I have watched open mouthed as one cabinet minister after another displays what I consider to be the shallowness of their experience in the offices they hold; and have quite frankly been appalled at the amount of influence and actual power political advisers in the Prime Minister's office have been allowed to assume.
Many things are going to change as a result of Covid-19 and I expect the Labour Party will be in the vanguard of that change.
I think the expected forthcoming recession will be unkind to the prospect of a second term for Boris and the time between now and the next General Election will give the Labour Party time to regroup from the sickening defeat of the last.
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I think Starmer has done quite a good job with the Shake n’ Vac so far. Most of the Corbyn fans I know really hate him, so that can only be a good sign.
I know a lot of Labour Party members who have a real and lasting fondness for Corbyn but that hasn't meant that they are ignoring the lesson given to them by the electorate.
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I think you are wrong, Davel.
I have watched open mouthed as one cabinet minister after another displays what I consider to be the shallowness of their experience in the offices they hold; and have quite frankly been appalled at the amount of influence and actual power political advisers in the Prime Minister's office have been allowed to assume.
Many things are going to change as a result of Covid-19 and I expect the Labour Party will be in the vanguard of that change.
I think the expected forthcoming recession will be unkind to the prospect of a second term for Boris and the time between now and the next General Election will give the Labour Party time to regroup from the sickening defeat of the last.
The only way the Labour Party can become electable is to embrace Conservative values as Blair did.. I don't see that happening. Boris has got a large majority and 5 years to show what he can do
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I know a lot of Labour Party members who have a real and lasting fondness for Corbyn but that hasn't meant that they are ignoring the lesson given to them by the electorate.
The election was a perfect storm of Brexit, press antipathy and a PLP working against their own party. Hopefully things will be a little easier for Starmer.
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The only way the Labour Party can become electable is to embrace Conservative values as Blair did.. I don't see that happening. Boris has got a large majority and 5 years to show what he can do
What he seems to be best at is soundbites and hiding....a lot.
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I feel like I'm the only centrist (with a 10% tolerance level, either side).
How do you feel Obama led the US?
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The election was a perfect storm of Brexit, press antipathy and a PLP working against their own party. Hopefully things will be a little easier for Starmer.
I think labour's problem was more their stance on what was perceived as unlimited immigration... Of which brexit addresed
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I think labour's problem was more their stance on what was perceived as unlimited immigration... Of which brexit addresed
Not true..though it does seem to be your preoccupation.
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I feel like I'm the only centrist (with a 10% tolerance level, either side).
How do you feel Obama led the US?
I’m totally a centrist.
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Last week “What’s the Exit Strategy?”, “We demand an Exit Strategy!”., “When will the Lockdown be lifted?” “Why won’t the government tell us what the plan is?” “Nicola has a plan!” “Boris has got to come up with something, we can’t be in lockdown forever!”
This week “What a rubbish plan!” “The government is forcing all the working classes to get on buses tomorrow morning!”
“Nicola’s plan is to stay at home!” “We like Nicola’s plan better!” “The Tories only care about money and making sure all the old people die!”
The response to Boris’s announcement has been unbelievably childish on social media this evening. People appear to be intent on deliberately misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the PM said.
I mean what were people really expecting as far as the next steps out of this crisis are concerned? I did ask people on here in advance what they felt Boris should do next wrt the lockdown and no one said a word. Thoughts now anyone?
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For those who seek more clarity regarding Johnson’s speech.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/10/smart-suit-brushed-hair-it-was-just-the-speech-that-was-a-total-mess#img-1
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What a dishonest disgrace of a PM Johnson has turned out to be.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/12/boris-johnson-accused-misleading-mps-coronavirus-stay-alert-slogan
https://www.cityam.com/boris-johnson-accused-of-lying-to-the-house-of-commons/
hat a dishonest disgrace of a PM Johnson has turned out to be.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/12/boris-johnson-accused-misleading-mps-coronavirus-stay-alert-slogan
https://www.cityam.com/boris-johnson-accused-of-lying-to-the-house-of-commons/
I am enjoying Starmer’s evisceration of Johnson during PMQ’s.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/13/boris-johnson-resorts-to-bluster-under-keir-starmer-cross-examination
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https://youtu.be/EpGwvjiNd1o
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Comment in the Guardian.
‘ I'm a conservative.
And during a pandemic which will be on the scale of Spanish 'flu of 1918/19, I not only need the government to enforce a proper lock-down, I expect them to.
It is not a party-political issue to describe our governments response as lack-lustre, when their inaction has caused more deaths than the Blitz in 1940/41.
As things stand at the moment, going into lock-down just one week earlier than we did would mean we'd only have had a quarter of the deaths we've in fact had. As of today that is the difference between about 48,000 and 12,000, or 36,000. By some estimates the casualties during the Blitz were around 32,000.
I'd like to suggest a campaign slogan for the next election:
Boris Johnson: the man who killed more civilians in the UK than Hermann Goring.’
If you didn’t laugh you’d cry.
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I whole heartedly disagree with enforcing an endless lock down & collapsing the economy in the process, just because a few people died of a slightly bad cold.
I continue to see support for a never ending lock down on social media, with parents saying they wont send their children to school until there are no more cases or a vaccine. As I understand it, the child mortality rate for this little flu is almost nonexistent. I hope the government heavily fine parents who refuse to send their little shits back into education.
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The teaching unions are putting their own interests above those of the interests of the nation’s children which isn’t surprising as, being lefties, nothing matters more to them than their own political point-scoring. IMO.
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The teaching unions are putting their own interests above those of the interests of the nation’s children which isn’t surprising as, being lefties, nothing matters more to them than their own political point-scoring. IMO.
I have to agree VS. The R number is beginning to rise in England again, do these people never learn?
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I whole heartedly disagree with enforcing an endless lock down & collapsing the economy in the process, just because a few people died of a slightly bad cold.
I continue to see support for a never ending lock down on social media, with parents saying they wont send their children to school until there are no more cases or a vaccine. As I understand it, the child mortality rate for this little flu is almost nonexistent. I hope the government heavily fine parents who refuse to send their little shits back into education.
And I hope that no staff members of any school die having been infected by an asymptomatic child.
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I have to agree VS. The R number is beginning to rise in England again, do these people never learn?
If the R number is rising surely it’s prudent to listen to the British Medical Association, as well as the teachers union, and not open schools prematurely.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/15/bma-backs-teaching-unions-in-opposing-reopening-of-schools
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Comment in the Guardian.
‘ I'm a conservative.
And during a pandemic which will be on the scale of Spanish 'flu of 1918/19, I not only need the government to enforce a proper lock-down, I expect them to.
It is not a party-political issue to describe our governments response as lack-lustre, when their inaction has caused more deaths than the Blitz in 1940/41.
As things stand at the moment, going into lock-down just one week earlier than we did would mean we'd only have had a quarter of the deaths we've in fact had. As of today that is the difference between about 48,000 and 12,000, or 36,000. By some estimates the casualties during the Blitz were around 32,000.
I'd like to suggest a campaign slogan for the next election:
Boris Johnson: the man who killed more civilians in the UK than Hermann Goring.’
If you didn’t laugh you’d cry.
what makes you think this is a conservative voter ...the fact that they said so. Boris johnson hasnt killed anyone....more evil labour propaganda. Thers a good article in the Mail today re how well..or badly...the labour govt in wales are handling the crisis...you should read it
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what makes you think this is a conservative voter ...the fact that they said so. Boris johnson hasnt killed anyone....more evil labour propaganda. Thers a good article in the Mail today re how well..or badly...the labour govt in wales are handling the crisis...you should read it
I’m sorry but why do you think the Labour handling of the virus is Wales absolves the Westminster government of their horrendous handling of this crisis ? If Labour has handled it badly in Wales then they of course deserve to be criticised too. Why do you think the Mail ( read Conservative outriders ) published this article ? We have the highest death rate in Europe, second in the world...in fact the situation is so bad that the government has withdrawn the countries comparison chart simply to cover its embarrassment.
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what makes you think this is a conservative voter ...the fact that they said so. Boris johnson hasnt killed anyone....more evil labour propaganda. Thers a good article in the Mail today re how well..or badly...the labour govt in wales are handling the crisis...you should read it
These Guardian Readers sure love to compare anyone and everyone with Nazis - just what is their obsession with them? It's like an illness! Everyone that doesn't sing from their very own songbook is a Nazi according to them. Pathetic and childish and deeply offensive.
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https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/analysis-discovery/2020/04/25/coronavirus-has-already-killed-more-british-people-than-the-blitz/
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I’m sorry but why do you think the Labour handling of the virus is Wales absolves the Westminster government of their horrendous handling of this crisis ? If Labour has handled it badly in Wales then they of course deserve to be criticised too. Why do you think the Mail ( read Conservative outriders ) published this article ? We have the highest death rate in Europe, second in the world...in fact the situation is so bad that the government has withdrawn the countries comparison chart simply to cover its embarrassment.
Do Spain... France.. Italy include deaths in care homes in their figures... I don't think they do so comparison isn't as simple as you think.
I don't see that Boris has handled this difficult situation badly. It's an unknown and poorly understood situation.
In my Borough there are 320,000 people... Yesterday one death. How long can we keep lock down going with the damage its doing to jobs.. lives and children's education.
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https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/analysis-discovery/2020/04/25/coronavirus-has-already-killed-more-british-people-than-the-blitz/
what a stupid comparison
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what a stupid comparison
At least it's not as many deaths as under Stalin's rule of terror in the Soviet Union!
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Do Spain... France.. Italy include deaths in care homes in their figures... I don't think they do so comparison isn't as simple as you think.
I don't see that Boris has handled this difficult situation badly. It's an unknown and poorly understood situation.
In my Borough there are 320,000 people... Yesterday one death. How long can we keep lock down going with the damage its doing to jobs.. lives and children's education.
If the comparison with other countries is valid why withdraw the comparison chart ? As to Italy, France and Spain including deaths in care homes you say yourself that you don’t know if they do.
As to Johnson, he has dishonesty lead this country into a death toll which is second only to a country whose leader encourages its citizens to inject bleach.
The British Medical Association supports the continuing closure of schools. Why do you think that you know better than the BMA ?
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https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/analysis-discovery/2020/04/25/coronavirus-has-already-killed-more-british-people-than-the-blitz/
what a stupid comparison....not quite as stupid as another article on the same site..
On VE Day Jeremy Corbyn shows us why he’s the best prime minister we never had
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If the comparison with other countries is valid why withdraw the comparison chart ? As to Italy, France and Spain including deaths in care homes you say yourself that you don’t know if they do.
As to Johnson, he has dishonesty lead this country into a death toll which is second only to a country whose leader encourages its citizens to inject bleach.
The British Medical Association supports the continuing closure of schools. Why do you think that you know better than the BMA ?
the comparison isnt valid...il have alook at exactly what the BMA says...ive read the headline too
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what a stupid comparison
I think it is a good illustration of the scale of the deaths in this country.
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If the comparison with other countries is valid why withdraw the comparison chart ? As to Italy, France and Spain including deaths in care homes you say yourself that you don’t know if they do.
As to Johnson, he has dishonesty lead this country into a death toll which is second only to a country whose leader encourages its citizens to inject bleach.
The British Medical Association supports the continuing closure of schools. Why do you think that you know better than the BMA ?
Could you provide a cite for the BMA supports continuing closure of schools...first thing ive found is this..
The British Medical Association said teachers and heads were "absolutely right" to urge caution and prioritise testing to avoid a second spike.
That isnt what youve claimed...id like to see exactly what they said...the whole statement
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the comparison isnt valid...il have alook at exactly what the BMA says...ive read the headline too
You say that the comparison isn’t valid yet have offered no evidence to validate that opinion. Do you have evidence that France, Spain or Italy don’t include Care home deaths in their figures...or are you simply hoping they don’t ?
As to what the BMA says let me save you looking.
https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/government-s-road-map-out-of-lockdown-is-too-fast-too-confusing-and-too-risky-says-bma
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/15/bma-backs-teaching-unions-in-opposing-reopening-of-schools
‘ But the BMA – the UK’s largest doctors’ union – said in a letter to the National Education Union on Friday that the number of coronavirus infections remained too high to allow them to run safely. Teaching unions had been “absolutely right” to urge caution and prioritise testing before reopening schools on 1 June.
“We cannot risk a second spike or take actions which would increase the spread of this virus, particularly as we see sustained rates of infection across the UK,” the BMA council’s chair, Chaand Nagpaul, said in the letter to his NEU counterpart, Kevin Courtney.
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You say that the comparison isn’t valid yet have offered no evidence to validate that opinion. Do you have evidence that France, Spain or Italy don’t include Care home deaths in their figures...or are you simply hoping they don’t ?
As to what the BMA says let me save you looking.
https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/government-s-road-map-out-of-lockdown-is-too-fast-too-confusing-and-too-risky-says-bma
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/15/bma-backs-teaching-unions-in-opposing-reopening-of-schools
‘ But the BMA – the UK’s largest doctors’ union – said in a letter to the National Education Union on Friday that the number of coronavirus infections remained too high to allow them to run safely. Teaching unions had been “absolutely right” to urge caution and prioritise testing before reopening schools on 1 June.
“We cannot risk a second spike or take actions which would increase the spread of this virus, particularly as we see sustained rates of infection across the UK,” the BMA council’s chair, Chaand Nagpaul, said in the letter to his NEU counterpart, Kevin Courtney.
And you ave offered no evidence that these countries do include care home deaths. we dont know how other countries collate figures and until we do the figures are not confirmed.
as for the BMA ....
BMA Council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul, a GP in North London, has backed teachers who say it is 'too soon' to start re-opening schools in England from 1 June.
so is this the opionion of the whole of the BMA or just DR Nagpul...a GP.
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And you ave offered no evidence that these countries do include care home deaths. we dont know how other countries collate figures and until we do the figures are not confirmed.
as for the BMA ....
BMA Council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul, a GP in North London, has backed teachers who say it is 'too soon' to start re-opening schools in England from 1 June.
so is this the opionion of the whole of the BMA or just DR Nagpul...a GP.
Behave Davel.
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A poll based on 14000 Times Readers has 59% of respondents in favour of schools re-opening in June, as am I. I'm very pleased that my son goes to an academy school and that he will be going back in June to resume his A Level studies, albeit in a different manner than that which he would have done so ordinarily as all necessary steps will be taken to ensure social distancing is adhered to. What is the alternative? Wait for a vaccine and put off his A-Levels until he is 20?
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Behave Davel.
So what do we do with schools. Do we wait another month...two months...three months...six months. What will have changed. I dont claim to know the amswer...maybe no one knows the answer. At some stage we will have to ease the lockdown and see what happens.
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So what do we do with schools. Do we wait another month...two months...three months...six months. What will have changed. I dont claim to know the amswer...maybe no one knows the answer. At some stage we will have to ease the lockdown and see what happens.
As I predicted weeks ago, the Left have waited for Boris's decision on the next steps regarding easing the lockdown before deciding to support the exact opposite. They refused to say what they believed should be the next course of action in advance of his announcement. Cowards.
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an interesting tweet to Dr Nagpul.....
Labour Party supporting Doctor from a Labour Union biased BMA on the BBC attacking the Gov.
Will the BBC ever see how they trash their own credibility.
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https://www.gmb.org.uk/news/school-staff-worried-reopening-risk-childrens-health
14,000 polled.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/fearful-britons-oppose-lifting-lockdown-schools-pubs-restaurants-opinium-poll
1 in 5 Britons believe schools should be reopened.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/poll-you-want-schools-reopen-4136552
72% of those questioned against schools reopening.
https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/poll/news/30582/poll-do-you-think-schools-should-reopen-in-june.html
65% against reopening.
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So what do we do with schools. Do we wait another month...two months...three months...six months. What will have changed. I dont claim to know the amswer...maybe no one knows the answer. At some stage we will have to ease the lockdown and see what happens.
Yes we wait.
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Yes we wait.
wait for what
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wait for what
It seems some people would rather more of us died from the effects of an interminable lockdown than from the effects of the virus itself.
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an interesting tweet to Dr Nagpul.....
Labour Party supporting Doctor from a Labour Union biased BMA on the BBC attacking the Gov.
Will the BBC ever see how they trash their own credibility.
Of course he's a Labour supporter - most vocal GPs who feel their opinions need to be heard by the world at large are on the left, in my opinion.
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It seems some people would rather more of us died from the effects of an interminable lockdown than from the effects of the virus itself.
I think the lockdown will save lives...maybe mine. Id be quite happy to stay in lockdown for the next 12 months...but its not sustainable for many reasons. The problem Boris has is that he will be the one to take the balme...whatever happens. the blame coming from the left...still bitter at being soundly rejected at the last election.
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wait for what
Until we are not using our children as guinea pigs.
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From today’s Times:
For John Jerrim, professor of education and social statistics at the UCL Institute of Education, parents need to view their decision as a trade-off. “I think people are massively overestimating the risk of catching the disease and that if you do, something really bad is happening. People aren’t grasping the fact that as of May 1, one in 400 were estimated to have coronavirus and by the start of June that rate will be even lower. Kids have missed one half-term and if they don’t go back they are going to be missing a whole term. By October, November time a second peak could hit and then you will lose a really big chunk of school.
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“This is a more ideal window than later in the year because you can hold lessons outdoors in the summer and what’s the alternative? That everyone comes back into school in September? It seems better to work out, in June, what can be done, and treat it as a pilot for returning with social distancing, which may still have to happen.”
Missing chunks of education will penalise disadvantaged children the most.
“There is going to be a widening of educational inequality and economic inequality over the next few years,” Lee Elliot Major, former director of Sutton Trust and now professor of social mobility at Exeter University, said. “Those in middle-class professions still working are accruing wealth. They are forced into saving and will have more disposable income to think about private education where they haven’t before.
“But there has also been an emergence of a community spirit in this crisis and so people might want to support the local state school.”
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I think the lockdown will save lives...maybe mine. Id be quite happy to stay in lockdown for the next 12 months...but its not sustainable for many reasons. The problem Boris has is that he will be the one to take the balme...whatever happens. the blame coming from the left...still bitter at being soundly rejected at the last election.
Many believe that the lockdown will end up costing more lives than it saves, for a number of reasons including depression, putting off seeking medical attention for other reasons, poverty, etc.
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I think the lockdown will save lives...maybe mine. Id be quite happy to stay in lockdown for the next 12 months...but its not sustainable for many reasons. The problem Boris has is that he will be the one to take the balme...whatever happens. the blame coming from the left...still bitter at being soundly rejected at the last election.
Left-wing doctors, left wing media, Labour bitterness....none of which has had the slightest effect on this government’s woeful handling of this pandemic.
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Until we are not using our children as guinea pigs.
it wont be my children it will be me who is in danger. How long can we wait until we know it will be safe to go back...
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Left-wing doctors, left wing media, Labour bitterness....none of which has had the slightest effect on this government’s woeful handling of this pandemic.
you are quoting left wing opinion...not fact but you are so blind you cannot see
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you are quoting left wing opinion...not fact but you are so blind you cannot see
It is you who is trying to pass of opinion as fact. Let’s take your claim that Italy, Spain and France don’t count care home deaths in their figures. Where is your evidence for that ?
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It is you who is trying to pass of opinion as fact. Let’s take your claim that Italy, Spain and France don’t count care home deaths in their figures. Where is your evidence for that ?
I never made that claim... Again.. Try sticking to the facts...
The post is there... Read it again
I was stating opinion as opinion
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I never made that claim... Again.. Try sticking to the facts...
The post is there... Read it again
I was stating opinion as opinion
So it’s not true, merely your opinion. Thank you for clearing that up.
So you have no reason to believe that France, Italy and Spain aren’t counting care home deaths, is that correct ?
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it wont be my children it will be me who is in danger. How long can we wait until we know it will be safe to go back...
Until Britain becomes a third world country, it's fine if we all starve to death or lose our cars, homes & businesses, just so long as not one more person dies from that nasty virus.
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Many believe that the lockdown will end up costing more lives than it saves, for a number of reasons including depression, putting off seeking medical attention for other reasons, poverty, etc.
I read that during the Cameron austerity years, over 9 years of austerity, the government saved just 30 billion.
The government has spent 125 billion or more in the past 3 months, & with plans to continue furlough payments until October the cost is going to continue to rise.
Maybe Captain Tom could do 300 billion laps of his garden to help raise funds for the government.
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So it’s not true, merely your opinion. Thank you for clearing that up.
So you have no reason to believe that France, Italy and Spain aren’t counting care home deaths, is that correct ?
No wrong again. It may well be true... I seem to remember hearing it... I certainly didn't make it up. What we have established is that you are mistaken
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From the spectator...
UK death in March.
According to the Guardian, ‘The change comes after weeks of criticism of the way that the UK had been reporting its coronavirus death toll, which made effective comparisons with other European countries impossible.’ While the Mirror stated that the ‘UK now has second highest coronavirus death toll in Europe’.
But journalists’ failure to read the instructions means the statistical comparisons they make are erroneous. The UK’s daily statistics now include ‘deaths in hospitals, care homes and the wider community’, but neither Spanish nor French statistics include deaths in ‘the wider community’ – deaths that largely take place in the home.
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Until Britain becomes a third world country, it's fine if we all starve to death or lose our cars, homes & businesses, just so long as not one more person dies from that nasty virus.
Just think if Johnson had locked down the country as early as other countries and the virus hadn’t been allowed to spread in the community. Imagine how different things could have been.
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No wrong again. It may well be true... I seem to remember hearing it... I certainly didn't make it up. What we have established is that you are mistaken
No, what we have established is that, yet again, you are presenting your own opinion as fact with not a modicum of evidence other than ‘ I heard it somewhere’. I heard it somewhere that Johnson wasn’t really ill, nonsense of course but anyone with any sense will do their own research and base their opinion on that evidence not on ‘hearing it somewhere’.
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From the spectator...
UK death in March.
According to the Guardian, ‘The change comes after weeks of criticism of the way that the UK had been reporting its coronavirus death toll, which made effective comparisons with other European countries impossible.’ While the Mirror stated that the ‘UK now has second highest coronavirus death toll in Europe’.
But journalists’ failure to read the instructions means the statistical comparisons they make are erroneous. The UK’s daily statistics now include ‘deaths in hospitals, care homes and the wider community’, but neither Spanish nor French statistics include deaths in ‘the wider community’ – deaths that largely take place in the home.
The evidence for this.....?
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Just think if Johnson had locked down the country as early as other countries and the virus hadn’t been allowed to spread in the community. Imagine how different things could have been.
The problem imo was caused by international travel, if he'd have shut the ports & airports when the virus first emerged it would have struggled to get here in the first place. As I understand it, international travel has still been permissible during the lockdown, & just the other week a boat load of refugees (illegal economic migrants) washed up on the shores in my town, where they were welcomed in to get a free council house & benefits.
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The evidence for this.....?
From the same article...
It is also far more accurate to record deaths per capita, as is done by Johns Hopkins University whose statistics today, per 100,000 population, put Belgium at the top (66) of the international table followed by Spain (53), Italy (46), the UK (40), and France (36) – with the United States much further down (19). But remember that few, if any, of these countries except the UK include in their total deaths the category of ‘the wider community’.
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I read that during the Cameron austerity years, over 9 years of austerity, the government saved just 30 billion.
The government has spent 125 billion or more in the past 3 months, & with plans to continue furlough payments until October the cost is going to continue to rise.
Maybe Captain Tom could do 300 billion laps of his garden to help raise funds for the government.
Or maybe you could do a sponsored absence from the internet for the rest of you life? I’d sponsor that.
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From the same article...
It is also far more accurate to record deaths per capita, as is done by Johns Hopkins University whose statistics today, per 100,000 population, put Belgium at the top (66) of the international table followed by Spain (53), Italy (46), the UK (40), and France (36) – with the United States much further down (19). But remember that few, if any, of these countries except the UK include in their total deaths the category of ‘the wider community’.
Could you please post the whole article?
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The problem imo was caused by international travel, if he'd have shut the ports & airports when the virus first emerged it would have struggled to get here in the first place. As I understand it, international travel has still been permissible during the lockdown, & just the other week a boat load of refugees (illegal economic migrants) washed up on the shores in my town, where they were welcomed in to get a free council house & benefits.
Are you a Dovorian?
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Are you a Dovorian?
No, a few more miles away along the coast.
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No, a few more miles away along the coast.
Oh, my neck of the woods then. Would you mind getting in some groceries for my parents? They’re in their 80s and haven’t left the house in weeks, and would really appreciate it. I know you’re keen to do a good turn for others, you strike me as the caring type.
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Could you please post the whole article?
Nothing would change your mind
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Nothing would change your mind
This article Davel?
John Keiger
It’s a mistake to compare our Covid death toll with Spain and France
1 May 2020, 1:17pm
It’s a mistake to compare our Covid death toll with Spain and FranceIt’s a mistake to compare our Covid death toll with Spain and France
(Photo: Getty)
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Covid statistics are like complex machinery; if you don’t read the instructions you won’t operate them properly. Which is why the claim by some media outlets that the UK now has the second highest number of Covid deaths in Europe, should be handled with caution.
It is true that on Wednesday the official UK Covid-19 death toll increased by 4,419 to 26,097 after the government included deaths outside hospitals for the first time. The figures were revised respectively by Public Health England since the first UK death in March.
According to the Guardian, ‘The change comes after weeks of criticism of the way that the UK had been reporting its coronavirus death toll, which made effective comparisons with other European countries impossible.’ While the Mirror stated that the ‘UK now has second highest coronavirus death toll in Europe’.
But journalists’ failure to read the instructions means the statistical comparisons they make are erroneous. The UK’s daily statistics now include ‘deaths in hospitals, care homes and the wider community’, but neither Spanish nor French statistics include deaths in ‘the wider community’ – deaths that largely take place in the home.
As there is no international standardised method for attributing and recording deaths, we are not comparing like with like when we look at coronavirus deaths, and consequently effective comparisons with other European countries remain impossible.
Take the French statistics. When the French director general of health, Professor Salomon, first began giving his daily press conferences on Covid statistics in March, France’s total deaths only included ‘deaths in hospitals’, as I explained in The Spectator. Media pressure forced this to change and from early April his reports began to include deaths in France’s 10,000 care homes. But they still do not include deaths in the ‘wider community’. Professor Salomon explained that this was too difficult to collect in a timely manner, because each death certificate with a cause of death must be signed by a doctor, and then transmitted to the local town hall, who must then pass it to the statistical agency (INSEE).
Nevertheless, on 26 April the French union of General Practitioners produced a tally of how many Covid deaths had occurred ‘in the wider community’ since the epidemic began, based on a survey of its members. It estimated that 9,000 had died since the beginning of the epidemic. If the French were to fully report their total deaths they would have to include this third category, which would put their current tally way above the United Kingdom's. As the French daily La Croix noted, the large number of French deaths at home is ‘a time-bomb’ waiting to explode.
It is also far more accurate to record deaths per capita, as is done by Johns Hopkins University whose statistics today, per 100,000 population, put Belgium at the top (66) of the international table followed by Spain (53), Italy (46), the UK (40), and France (36) – with the United States much further down (19). But remember that few, if any, of these countries except the UK include in their total deaths the category of ‘the wider community’.
So when the media presents coronavirus death tolls, and especially when it makes international comparisons, it’s vital that you read the small print.
WRITTEN BY
John Keiger
John Keiger is a professor of French history and former Research Director of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge
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Nothing would change your mind
This article is over two weeks old. There has been nearly 10,000 more deaths in the U.K.
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This article is over two weeks old. There has been nearly 10,000 more deaths in the U.K.
Maybe more...
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Maybe more...
Yes, and I don’t see why the number of deaths since the article was written would have any bearing on the argument being put forward by the article’s author.
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Maybe more...
I think the pulling of the international coronavirus comparison chart at the press briefing is telling.
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PETER HITCHENS: Furlough billions? Just a giant payday loan in YOUR name.
https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2020/05/peter-hitchens-furlough-billions-just-a-giant-payday-loan-in-your-name.html?fbclid=IwAR0nOz7mzNC3Sj3cUvss8kOCgs2ihsxnjUXYeENS1UuU6q3MZ3yIWyyO2YQ
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Finding it hard to disagree with this, from today’s ST
author-image
Set us free from lockdown, ministers, and stop covering your backs
Jonathan Sumption
Sunday May 17 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
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The lesson of Covid-19 is brutally simple and applies generally to public regulation. Free people make mistakes and willingly take risks. If we hold politicians responsible for everything that goes wrong, they will take away our liberty so that nothing can go wrong. They will do this not for our protection against risk, but for their own protection against criticism.
The lockdown was originally justified as a temporary measure to spread coronavirus infections over a longer period. This was to allow time for the NHS’s critical care capacity to catch up. Hence the slogan “Protect the NHS”.
It was never much of a rationale. The NHS is there to protect us, not the other way round. How could its unpreparedness possibly justify depriving the entire UK population of its liberty, pushing us into the worst recession since the early 18th century, destroying millions of jobs and hundreds of thousands of businesses, piling up public and private debt on a crippling scale and undermining the education of our children?
Since the prime minister’s broadcast last Sunday, the lockdown has found a new rationale. The government has dropped “Protect the NHS” from its slogan. The reason is plain from the paper it published the following day. The NHS is not at risk.
This is partly because the government has done an outstanding job in increasing intensive care capacity, and partly because the threat to the NHS was always overstated. The critical care capacity of the NHS has nearly doubled since January, even without the 4,000 or more additional beds in seven temporary Nightingale hospitals. Around the top of the spike in infections, on April 10, 41% of NHS general acute beds were empty. Only 51% of acute beds were occupied by a Covid-19 patient. The current figure is 20%. The Nightingale hospitals stand empty. These are government figures.
Today, the lockdown is only about shielding us from the risk of infection. This raises serious questions about our relationship with the state. It is our business, not the state’s, to say what risks we will take with our own health. We are not fools or children needing to be told by ministers what is good for us, and forced by police officers to do it. We should not need to consult ministers, as the first member of the public to phone in to the daily press conference did, about whether she was allowed to hug her grandchildren.
The usual answer is that by going out and about we may infect other people. But that no longer works as an excuse for coercion. Those who do not want to run the risk of being infected can isolate themselves voluntarily. They will be no worse off than they are under the current compulsory regime. The rest of us can then get on with our lives.
The continuance of the lockdown is particularly odd given that in its latest paper the government accepts that, whatever we do, Covid-19 is likely to be with us long term. So unless it plans to keep the lockdown in place for ever, all that it achieves is to put off the moment when we have to face the risk anyway.
The prime minister told the House of Commons on Monday that his new so-called plan was workable because the British would use their common sense. In that case, why not allow them to do so by leaving the decisions to them?
Instead, we are resorting to law, which, because it requires exact definition, will always cover very many things that are perfectly harmless. Thus it was OK to go for a walk in the park but not to sunbathe. It is OK to drive to the Lake District but not to visit your second home. It is OK to meet one person but not two, and OK to do it in the front garden but not in the back. This kind of thing is arbitrary and absurd. It discredits the law as well as those who make it.
So how has the government ended up in this unsustainable position?
The answer is that, having originally embarked on a sensible policy that would have avoided a lockdown, it did a 180-degree turn on the afternoon of March 23, without thinking of the wider implications. It was in a blind panic provoked by Professor Neil Ferguson’s “reasonable worst case” of 510,000 deaths. Quite apart from the fact that a worst case is by definition an unlikely one, few scientists now support this figure. But it has had disastrous consequences. It pushed the government into making a decision that mocks our humanity and treats us all as mere tools of government policy.
The government terrified people into submission by giving the impression that Covid-19 was dangerous for everyone. It is not. It attacks people with serious vulnerabilities. By most estimates, between 0.5% and 0.75% of infected persons die. Of those, 87% are over 65 and at least 90% have multiple causes only one of which is Covid-19, according to the Office for National Statistics. The death rate for those under 50 is tiny. For the overwhelming majority, the symptoms are mild. Yet Matt Hancock solemnly intoned that “if you go out, people will die”, in what was surely the high point of governmental hype.
The prime minister’s broadcast was supposed to be his Churchillian moment. Instead, we beheld a man imprisoned by his own rhetoric and the logic of his past mistakes.
The lockdown is now all about protecting politicians’ backs. They are not wicked men, just timid ones, terrified of being blamed for deaths on their watch. But it is a wicked thing that they are doing.
Lord Sumption is a former Supreme Court judge and last year’s BBC Reith lecturer
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And the most popular comment to the above article:
Lord Sumption is absolutely correct in pointing out that, in a liberal society, people should be free to assess their own risks, and make decisions accordingly.
Yet one of the most poisonous aspects about having a National Health Service, collectively paid for by the taxpayer, is that it makes every man a stakeholder in the health of everyone else. Hospital beds are limited, numbers of doctors and nurses are low, and finances are perpetually strained. This gives people the language and moral standing to denounce those whose decisions, in their view, will take up hospital resources and therefore their money. It is exactly because of this that we have to place "protect the NHS" before "save lives" in the government slogan.
By making one's health a public commodity, it empowers the government to make coercive decisions about our bodies, consumptions and choices. Whatever one's views on alcohol and obesity, is it the business of a government to impose strenuous taxes on sugary drinks, or to introduce minimum alcohol pricing? You might agree with these; indeed, they may be rather benign.
Yet the Coronavirus has shown how this healthcare arrangement can bring forth authoritarian streaks in our country. "Those who flout lockdown rules should not receive any treatment!", "your selfish decisions are taking away hospital beds from those who need them!", "you better clap for 'our' wonderful NHS!".
The NHS is the golden calf which, as long as it remains politically inviolable in the way it currently is, will give hysterical people the ammunition to tell people what to do with their lives. It will take a brave politician, but the NHS must be wholly reformed so that it protects our health, not we who protect its.
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https://www.opinium.co.uk/public-opinion-on-coronavirus-13th-may/
Public opinion on coronavirus
13th May
Government response to Coronavirus
The last week has seen a significant drop in public confidence in, and approval of, the Government’s handling of the coronavirus situation.Approval of the handling of the crisis has also decreased from 48% to 39%, while disapproval has climbed from 36% to 42%. This is the first time these approval ratings are in negative territory.
Meanwhile two-fifths (39%) now state they are not confident in the Government’s abilities, rising from 31% last week.
Confusion over Covid advice
Half (53%) of the English public do not feel that the new Government slogan of ‘Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives’ is clear, and less than a third (31%) of the British public were able to correctly identify where the UK is on the COVID Alert System scale that the Government introduced [number 4 on the scale].
Public feels uncomfortable using public transport
Once lockdown is lifted, it will likely take some time for the public to feel comfortable travelling by public transport again. Only one in seven would feel comfortable travelling by train/Overground or bus (15% and 16% respectively). This drops to 12% who would feel comfortable immediately travelling by metro/underground and 11% for travelling by plane.
More than one in four would not feel comfortable using any of these forms of public transport again until a vaccine is available.
Keir Starmer is gradually winning over the undecided
Now for the first time, the proportion approving of the Labour leader’s performance outnumbers those who have yet to make up their minds and the ratio of approvers to disapprovers has remained broadly constant. Although Opinium only started tracking approval ratings in 2012, this is a more positive picture than either of Starmer’s predecessors was able to point to.
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I had a frightfully interesting conversation with my youngest son this morning. "You might die of Flu, Mother."
"Not if I don't catch it." said I. And he is going to get it before I do.
Boris? You couldn't make it up. He had it and survived. That was a good one.
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Behave Davel.
looks like I was right again....Dr Nagpaul was not speaking for the BMA as a whole and whilst he is a GP a Consultant Paediatric Immunologist has criticised his statement accusing him of misinterpreting the evidence.
Dr Munro accused Dr Nagpaul of making 'clear errors' in warning of the risks
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looks like I was right again....Dr Nagpaul was not speaking for the BMA as a whole and whilst he is a GP a Consultant Paediatric Immunologist has criticised his statement accusing him of misinterpreting the evidence.
Dr Munro accused Dr Nagpaul of making 'clear errors' in warning of the risks
Could we see the quote in context please ?
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looks like I was right again....Dr Nagpaul was not speaking for the BMA as a whole and whilst he is a GP a Consultant Paediatric Immunologist has criticised his statement accusing him of misinterpreting the evidence.
Dr Munro accused Dr Nagpaul of making 'clear errors' in warning of the risks
Yep, he’s made a fool of himself - all politically motivated of course, it’s really quite sickening.
CORONAVIRUS
BMA ‘got science wrong’ in urging schools to stay closed
new
Schools should begin to reopen to general pupils from June 1, the government has said
Schools should begin to reopen to general pupils from June 1, the government has said
TIME GOODE/PA WIRE
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The largest doctors’ union has been criticised for saying that it is too early to consider opening schools, with other experts accusing it of making errors in its representation of scientific studies from other countries.
The British Medical Association wrote an open letter on Friday to the National Education Union, which represents teachers, supporting its opposition to government plans to reopen schools on June 1.
Chaand Nagpaul, BMA chairman, wrote that the little evidence so far on the potential dangers posed by reopening schools was conflicting and that the teaching unions had been “absolutely right” to urge caution.
“Until we have got case numbers much lower, we should not consider reopening schools,” he said.
Other experts took issue with the comments. “The BMA have caused headlines by focusing on the wrong part of the debate and by doing so have not presented a balanced representation of their members’ views,” Saul Faust, professor of paediatric immunology and infectious diseases at Southampton University and University Hospital Southampton, said.
He added: “Society has to reopen, children need to return to school as there are negatives for many of having to stay at home and we need to be able to study transmission dynamics in all ages to help us learn how to manage this virus.
“Slowly opening schools in a controlled way will be of low risk to children’s health and less risk to teachers than the risk to many other workers when on public transport.”
In his letter Dr Nagpaul cited a study from New South Wales in Australia, which suggested that very little transmission of the virus was associated with schools. However, he argued that the picture was confused by a separate study from Berlin, which looked at the amount of virus carried by infected children.
He wrote that the German study showed that children were “just as likely to be infected as adults and may be just as infectious”.
Alasdair Munro, clinical research fellow in paediatric infectious diseases at University Hospital, said that the letter contained “clear errors in interpretation of the evidence of transmission in children”.
He added: “The German study examining viral loads did not find children were ‘just as likely to be infected as adults’. It made no comment on this at all, but did find substantially lower numbers of children positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the cohort.
“In addition, the study did not demonstrate children are ‘just as infectious’ as adults. The study made no firm conclusions, but did find viral load increased with age . . . Whilst not the sole indicator of how infectious an individual is, this certainly does not indicate children are as infectious as adults.”
Catherine Carroll-Meehan, head of the school of education and sociology at the University of Portsmouth, said: “Given that we are in warmer months, a compromise might be to have children return to education and use outdoor learning spaces, parks, playgrounds in addition to the classroom. The Danish have recently opened schools and applied social distancing effectively.
“The key to this is knowing who has the virus, who is symptomatic and asymptomatic, testing for antibodies and reassuring the public about safety.”
A spokeswoman for the BMA said: “We are not commenting any further on this today
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8315411/Department-Educations-chief-scientific-adviser-casts-doubt-June-1-date-schools-reopening.html
From the comments.
‘School staff having access to testing if they're showing symptoms??? If you're showing symptoms it's probably too late & you could potentially die. As a teacher I have been in school every day since lockdown, not bothered about Easter or bank holidays & haven't whinged which will surprise the anti teacher brigade; so long as we are doing what we can to help other key workers & are insuring the vulnerable children are safe. I also fall into the high risk category for personal health reasons but put this aside & have been sensible whilst in school. But reopening with insufficient room to split children into groups of 15 & insufficient number of staff to manage each group & insufficient resources as they can't share etc is total & utter madness. Therefore for the first time in 33 years of teaching I will be following union advice & will have no part in reopening.‘
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It really seems that the further to the left you are, the more you want this country to stay in lockdown forever. It’s weird how the left so embrace having their freedoms removed by the state. Perhaps it is this childish need to have the Nanny State look after you and tell you what you can and can’t do, thus removing the need to stand on your own two feet, or make your own decisions or take any risks.
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Thank God not all teachers are selfish and politically motivated and some at least have their pupils best interests at heart:
“In a letter to The Times, 22 of the biggest and best-known academy trusts across England said that the quality of the debate had been unhelpful and was not reflective of the sector.
They said: “Since the lockdown, schools have exercised outstanding civic leadership. We have remained open for key workers’ children; kept vulnerable children safe; delivered food parcels; taught online lessons; and kept in contact with pupils. But for any child, prolonged absence from school is concerning. For disadvantaged pupils, it is calamitous. If we do not take action and reopen schools soon, the impact of lost learning could be irreparable.”
They added: “Rigorous risk assessment at school level is a precursor to any reopening. We ask for improved dialogue and for all parties to work together from now.”
The signatories include the chief executives of Star Academies, Academies Enterprise Trust, David Ross Education Trust, Ormiston Academies Trust, Outwood Grange Academies Trust and Cabot Learning Federation”.
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Thank God not all teachers are selfish and politically motivated and some at least have their pupils best interests at heart:
“In a letter to The Times, 22 of the biggest and best-known academy trusts across England said that the quality of the debate had been unhelpful and was not reflective of the sector.
They said: “Since the lockdown, schools have exercised outstanding civic leadership. We have remained open for key workers’ children; kept vulnerable children safe; delivered food parcels; taught online lessons; and kept in contact with pupils. But for any child, prolonged absence from school is concerning. For disadvantaged pupils, it is calamitous. If we do not take action and reopen schools soon, the impact of lost learning could be irreparable.”
They added: “Rigorous risk assessment at school level is a precursor to any reopening. We ask for improved dialogue and for all parties to work together from now.”
The signatories include the chief executives of Star Academies, Academies Enterprise Trust, David Ross Education Trust, Ormiston Academies Trust, Outwood Grange Academies Trust and Cabot Learning Federation”.
It seems to me that for some scoring points against the present govt is more important than children's welfare. I've got 3 teenage children and I feel their education and future is
being jeopardised.
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Reading your comments (on both sides) reaffirms my belief in centrist politics... 8(0(*
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8315411/Department-Educations-chief-scientific-adviser-casts-doubt-June-1-date-schools-reopening.html
From the comments.
‘School staff having access to testing if they're showing symptoms??? If you're showing symptoms it's probably too late & you could potentially die. As a teacher I have been in school every day since lockdown, not bothered about Easter or bank holidays & haven't whinged which will surprise the anti teacher brigade; so long as we are doing what we can to help other key workers & are insuring the vulnerable children are safe. I also fall into the high risk category for personal health reasons but put this aside & have been sensible whilst in school. But reopening with insufficient room to split children into groups of 15 & insufficient number of staff to manage each group & insufficient resources as they can't share etc is total & utter madness. Therefore for the first time in 33 years of teaching I will be following union advice & will have no part in reopening.‘
If this teacher falls into the high risk catagory I feel sure she wont be expected to return to work...shes poorly informed if she doesnt realise this.
Every shopworker..policeman .carer..healthworker is taking a risk by working. If you are not high risk then dont expect these people to work if you are not prepared to.
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Reading your comments (on both sides) reaffirms my belief in centrist politics... 8(0(*
i think many peopel believe in centrists politics but there wasnt a centrist party to vote for and teh conservatives were probably teh closest to it.
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i think many peopel believe in centrists politics but there wasnt a centrist party to vote for and teh conservatives were probably teh closest to it.
This government is one of the most rightwing, even for a Conservative government, in recent years.
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This government is one of the most rightwing, even for a Conservative government, in recent years.
i dont see that but certainly Corbyn was about as left as UK politics has ever been and thats why he was so soundly rejected
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It would appear that many Academies are eager to go back. I wonder why ?
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jun/12/academy-schools-cash-cow-business
Profit before people every time.
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i dont see that but certainly Corbyn was about as left as UK politics has ever been and thats why he was so soundly rejected
In 2017 Corbyn was within 2500 votes of forming a government. The difference between 2017 and 2019, Brexit.
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If this teacher falls into the high risk catagory I feel sure she wont be expected to return to work...shes poorly informed if she doesnt realise this.
Every shopworker..policeman .carer..healthworker is taking a risk by working. If you are not high risk then dont expect these people to work if you are not prepared to.
If the government could just ramp up TTI/Q (testing, tracing and isolating / quarantining) and have clear guidelines for social distancing and hygiene for the "new normal" in group settings (work, transport, schools, places of worship or other mass gatherings and even samll social gatherings...), the economy could gradually back on track much faster, IMO.
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In 2017 Corbyn was within 2500 votes of forming a government. The difference between 2017 and 2019, Brexit.
i think 2017 was a wake up call to the Uk public....and by 2019 voters understood more what acrackpot Corbyn was
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If the government could just ramp up TTI/Q (testing, tracing and isolating / quarantining) and have clear guidelines for social distancing and hygiene for the "new normal" in group settings (work, transport, schools, places of worship or other mass gatherings and even samll social gatherings...), the economy could gradually back on track much faster, IMO.
It would appear that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. According to the Guardian, just hours after Gove gave assurances that contact tracers were in place to deal with TTI, the tracers have been told that recruitment is on hold while the government considers another tracing app.
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i think 2017 was a wake up call to the Uk public....and by 2019 voters understood more what acrackpot Corbyn was
By 2017 Corbyn had been leader of the Labour Party for 2 years and had suffered every piece of propaganda that the rightwing press, and the PLP, had to throw at him.....indeed on the day before the election the Mail carried a 13 page hatchet job on Corbyn yet the people still voted for him in their millions.
If Corbyn had backed Brexit he would have been home and dry. Ironically it was figures such as Starmer and Thornberry that pushed for a second referendum.
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i think many peopel believe in centrists politics but there wasnt a centrist party to vote for and teh conservatives were probably teh closest to it.
I expect that this will offend all of you of whichever persuasion (soz).
I have family and friends who were originally in favour of the "Rule Britannia" brexitmania rhetoric, nearly all of whom would have later voted differently if the likely alternative hadn't been... Corbyn.
IMO, there should have been clear and factual information on the short- and long-term implications of Brexit (cf Ireland), as opposed to unfounded political slogans (seemingly developed by powerful lobbies) stirring up irrational fears and a false sense of exceptionalism.
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By 2017 Corbyn had been leader of the Labour Party for 2 years and had suffered every piece of propaganda that the rightwing press, and the PLP, had to throw at him.....indeed on the day before the election the Mail carried a 13 page hatchet job on Corbyn yet the people still voted for him in their millions.
If Corbyn had backed Brexit he would have been home and dry. Ironically it was figures such as Starmer and Thornberry that pushed for a second referendum.
IMO, on the Labour side, Starmer might have been more pragmatic than ideological (as opposed to Corbyn), and on the Conservative side, perhaps Anny Soubry might have been more credible than Bojo.
Unfortunately, the LibDems were a disorganised mishmash of stray waifs.
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It would appear that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. According to the Guardian, just hours after Gove gave assurances that contact tracers were in place to deal with TTI, the tracers have been told that recruitment is on hold while the government considers another tracing app.
I saw that. I'm trying to work out what the issues are. Data protection is an issue, but so is functionality. Bluetooth switches off, normally.
A different issue is that the Civil Service is somehow going to have to also recruit and train ~50k people to deal with customs compliance due to what is looking increasingly like a no-deal or bare-bones Brexit...
The UK only has 6 weeks left to request an extension. IMO, even the Raving Loony Party would have asked for one.
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IMO, on the Labour side, Starmer might have been more pragmatic than ideological (as opposed to Corbyn), and on the Conservative side, perhaps Anny Soubry might have been more credible than Bojo.
Unfortunately, the LibDems were a disorganised mishmash of stray waifs.
Corbyn was being anything but ideological. He is a lifelong eurosceptic but he was the leader of a democratic party and the policy was not his alone to construct,
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I expect that this will offend all of you of whichever persuasion (soz).
I have family and friends who were originally in favour of the "Rule Britannia" brexitmania rhetoric, nearly all of whom would have later voted differently if the likely alternative hadn't been... Corbyn.
IMO, there should have been clear and factual information on the short- and long-term implications of Brexit (cf Ireland), as opposed to unfounded political slogans (seemingly developed by powerful lobbies) stirring up irrational fears and a false sense of exceptionalism.
You giving your opinion doesn't offend me. I happen to think Brexit was necessary and we will long term be far better off for it. Just a shame we joined in the first place
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I saw that. I'm trying to work out what the issues are. Data protection is an issue, but so is functionality. Bluetooth switches off, normally.
A different issue is that the Civil Service is somehow going to have to also recruit and train ~50k people to deal with customs compliance due to what is looking increasingly like a no-deal or bare-bones Brexit...
The UK only has 6 weeks left to request an extension. IMO, even the Raving Loony Party would have asked for one.
The UK and the EU will never agree a deal.... No deal is the only solution
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I saw that. I'm trying to work out what the issues are. Data protection is an issue, but so is functionality. Bluetooth switches off, normally.
A different issue is that the Civil Service is somehow going to have to also recruit and train ~50k people to deal with customs compliance due to what is looking increasingly like a no-deal or bare-bones Brexit...
The UK only has 6 weeks left to request an extension. IMO, even the Raving Loony Party would have asked for one.
I read last week that the government was trying to recruit unpaid volunteers to do some of the tracking work. While volunteering is to be commended, training individuals with no previous experience of the procedures involved must be fraught with problems, especially in the timescale we need.
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i think 2017 was a wake up call to the Uk public....and by 2019 voters understood more what acrackpot Corbyn was
IMO, Corbyn lives in an ideological time warp that wouldn't work in the 21st century.
At the other extreme, there are powerful right-wing lobbies which only defend their own interests.
The 21st century needs to be better than this. For the sake of our elderly and vulnerable, ourselves, and for our kids.
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The UK and the EU will never agree a deal.... No deal is the only solution
The solution to... what?
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The solution to... what?
The only way we can leave
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You giving your opinion doesn't offend me. I happen to think Brexit was necessary and we will long term be far better off for it. Just a shame we joined in the first place
Why was it a bad idea to join? And what are the advantages of leaving?
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The only way we can leave
??
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IMO, Corbyn lives in an ideological time warp that wouldn't work in the 21st century.
At the other extreme, there are powerful right-wing lobbies which only defend their own interests.
The 21st century needs to be better than this. For the sake of our elderly and vulnerable, ourselves, and for our kids.
I’m afraid if this country continues to vote for rightwing, market driven Conservative governments while dismissing as ideologically redundant a party who believe in a fairer society lead by the needs of the electorate rather than the markets then there is little chance of the 21st century we both hope for.
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Whichever side you're on on the Brexit issue, it's far more than trade agreements over accepting steroid beef and chlorinated chicken.
What about Europol, including swift access to DNA results?
Manufacturing, with in-time supply chains dependent on agreements?
Common medical research?
Qualifications no longer considered equivalent?
What about the Ireland situation?
There are around 700+ issues to deal with, not just trade.
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I’m afraid if this country continues to vote for rightwing, market driven Conservative governments while dismissing as ideologically redundant a party who believe in a fairer society lead by the needs of the electorate rather than the markets then there is little chance of the 21st century we both hope for.
IMO, Obama (no Bernie Saunders) found the right balance: he managed to get the country out of the economic mess he inherited while also pushing for reform for the vulnerable.
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IMO, Obama (no Bernie Saunders) found the right balance: he managed to get the country out of the economic mess he inherited while also pushing for reform for the vulnerable.
Even under Obama there was a huge amount of inequality across America.
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Why was it a bad idea to join? And what are the advantages of leaving?
Very very briefly... But of utmost importance... Cameron went to the EU to negotiate some concessions... He was badly related and sent on his way...
When the UK joined the EU no one knew what a monster it would turn into
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Whichever side you're on on the Brexit issue, it's far more than trade agreements over accepting steroid beef and chlorinated chicken.
What about Europol, including swift access to DNA results?
Manufacturing, with in-time supply chains dependent on agreements?
Common medical research?
Qualifications no longer considered equivalent?
What about the Ireland situation?
There are around 700+ issues to deal with, not just trade.
And what progress on these 700 issues has been made in the previous YEARS... why should we expect progress now
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Very very briefly... But of utmost importance... Cameron went to the EU to negotiate some concessions... He was badly related and sent on his way...
When the UK joined the EU no one knew what a monster it would turn into
Cameron was bounced into a referendum by the Eurosceptics in his party. It would have mad3 no difference what theEU had offered.
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And what progress on these 700 issues has been made in the previous YEARS... why should we expect progress now
Which of the 700+ agreements and which EU "laws" (which the UK was largely involved in shaping) would you disagree with?
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Cameron was bounced into a referendum by the Eurosceptics in his party. It would have mad3 no difference what theEU had offered.
That seems to be a key issue. IMO, Cameron is probably a nice enough chap, but naive. He wanted to get the far right out of his hair once and for all (which I find understandable) - but his idea of how to do that backfired. Bigly.
If Corbyn had been in power, IMO, he'd have been concentrating on following his ideological mindset, renationalising industries and all the rest of it, but I'm not convinced that he could have steered the UK out of the 2008 crisis.
IMO, it's a fine-balancing act, based on advancing both the economy and an affordable social security system for those in need.
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Which of the 700+ agreements and which EU "laws" (which the UK was largely involved in shaping) would you disagree with?
The first thing I would disagree with is the EUs wish to continue to plunder UK fish stocks by maintaining their access to UK waters
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Cameron was bounced into a referendum by the Eurosceptics in his party. It would have mad3 no difference what theEU had offered.
Cameron was bounced into a referendum because of the way he was treated by the EU when he asked for concessions important to the UK
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I know people on here are divided concerning which party they would have wished to win the election. That's democracy, in theory.
Emotive slogans (on either side) are just that, encouraging knee-jerk reactions. Encouraging people to reflect on facts and clear implications of what was at stake would have been far more democratic.
However, from my perspective on the current crises, the real issues are a) what went wrong? b) how to move forward?
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Cameron was bounced into a referendum by the Eurosceptics in his party. It would have mad3 no difference what theEU had offered.
And the people voted... Power to the people
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Cameron was bounced into a referendum because of the way he was treated by the EU when he asked for concessions important to the UK
Could you provide some links to reliable sites as to which those were and, if ever, any action taken to respond / or refuse his suggestions?
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The first thing I would disagree with is the EUs wish to continue to plunder UK fish stocks by maintaining their access to UK waters
"Plunder"?
Did you ever read the fishing thread on here?
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And the people voted... Power to the people
Based on what? £350m per week to the NHS?
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Could you provide some links to reliable sites as to which those were and, if ever, any action taken to respond / or refuse his suggestions?
There was avery good documentary which followed Cameron to the EU. it featured actual filming of the trip. Cameron was made to wait till midnight on some occasions to speak. It showed him being treated pretty disgracefully.
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Based on what? £350m per week to the NHS?
I think i know what the main issue was and so do you....
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"Plunder"?
Did you ever read the fishing thread on here?
no but perhaps Ill have a look. do you see the thread here as the definitive authority
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There was avery good documentary which followed Cameron to the EU. it featured actual filming of the trip. Cameron was made to wait till midnight on some occasions to speak. It showed him being treated pretty disgracefully.
A responsible statesman rises above pretty slights.
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Just when you think that this government can’t sink any lower.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/williamson-free-school-meals-coronavirus-childrens-commissioner_uk_5e8703d1c5b63e06281c4142?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cDovL20uZmFjZWJvb2suY29t&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAE3tKagbstwRY7oAFGcqe5E_kdvfkJwRSkXJyMClMjPhqYK0ia58S_kekuSl5uwE6kxhsdI2zAdXQp12TMVrOgwenpmMP047ilaR8ke4FzshLG5buw8OiNb3F0q7-j8gURvR7CK6Bp7hbv9DEp0yUOXCHZahyW6BbhGniCAzgExd
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I don't want to live in a society in which people can't have access to health care beyond their means, any more than I would want to have to finance "parents" who claim to have uncontrollable "broody" instincts without having a clue as to how they'll actually support them beyond lucrative tax-payer subsidies.
Some are truly worthy of assistance, but others try to cheat the system. Yet others seek offshore tax havens.
There has to be a middle road in this.
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I think i know what the main issue was and so do you....
I don't, could you remind me?
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I don't, could you remind me?
Free movement and access to the benefit system.
Nothing wrong with immigration.... But not free movement
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Why was it a bad idea to join? And what are the advantages of leaving?
It’s a redundant discussion now, we’re leaving (probably without a trade deal) and we have to make the best of it somehow. No use crying over spilt milk imo.
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It’s a redundant discussion now, we’re leaving (probably without a trade deal) and we have to make the best of it somehow. No use crying over spilt milk imo.
No, but there is Brexit plus Covid to deal with. Wouldn't it make more sense to request an extension to Brexit in order to deal with Covid first?
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Free movement and access to the benefit system.
Nothing wrong with immigration.... But not free movement
Sorry, Davel, I'm not following.
Are you saying that UK nationals shouldn't be allowed to move to anywhere else in Europe and benefit from the reciprocal agreements in place?
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No, but there is Brexit plus Covid to deal with. Wouldn't it make more sense to request an extension to Brexit in order to deal with Covid first?
Absolutely Carana but I fear covid19 will be used as the ideal scapegoat when the economy tanks after a no deal Brexit.
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No, but there is Brexit plus Covid to deal with. Wouldn't it make more sense to request an extension to Brexit in order to deal with Covid first?
From a Brexiteers point of view - no. Covid provides the perfect cover for it when it all goes tits up. And if you’re going to have the worst recession ever, may as well really make a proper job of it.
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Sorry, Davel, I'm not following.
Are you saying that UK nationals shouldn't be allowed to move to anywhere else in Europe and benefit from the reciprocal agreements in place?
You can go live anywhere in the world you like but you will have to jump through alot more hoops now if you want to live and work in Europe.
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Sorry, Davel, I'm not following.
Are you saying that UK nationals shouldn't be allowed to move to anywhere else in Europe and benefit from the reciprocal agreements in place?
I don't think you are being serious. As part of the EU there was total free movement without control...thats what I feel many UK citizens objected to. Post brexit it will be up to individual countries to decide who they want.
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Absolutely Carana but I fear covid19 will be used as the ideal scapegoat when the economy tanks after a no deal Brexit.
That seems fairly obvious to me as well. The "don't look here, look over there" approach to politics.
In the meantime, a no-deal Brexit seems to be passing unnoticed. The sorry fact is that Brexit isn't just about trade, it's about all the reciprocal arrangements, with a vast UK presence, that just won't exist any more.
I don't claim that the EU is perfect - far from it - but that it would have been easier to reform from the inside than be left isolated and at the mercy of others.
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That seems fairly obvious to me as well. The "don't look here, look over there" approach to politics.
In the meantime, a no-deal Brexit seems to be passing unnoticed. The sorry fact is that Brexit isn't just about trade, it's about all the reciprocal arrangements, with a vast UK presence, that just won't exist any more.
I don't claim that the EU is perfect - far from it - but that it would have been easier to reform from the inside than be left isolated and at the mercy of others.
Thats your opinion...we will just have to see. My opinion is that when Cameron tried to reform he was given short shrift. Will the Uk be better out of the EU....probably not short term...but i think long term it will be. We will just have to wait and see.
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I don't think you are being serious. As part of the EU there was total free movement without control...thats what I feel many UK citizens objected to. Post brexit it will be up to individual countries to decide who they want.
No controls about what?
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Thats your opinion...we will just have to see. My opinion is that when Cameron tried to reform he was given short shrift. Will the Uk be better out of the EU....probably not short term...but i think long term it will be. We will just have to wait and see.
Perhaps Cameron just wasn’t very good at negotiating.
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No controls about what?
what do you think free movement means...what do you think controlled immigration means...
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You can go live anywhere in the world you like but you will have to jump through alot more hoops now if you want to live and work in Europe.
Unless you black yourself up & wash up on their shores in a dinghy.
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what do you think free movement means...what do you think controlled immigration means...
Between EU citizens?
There are EU guidelines (as I've already posted).
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what do you think free movement means...what do you think controlled immigration means...
a. Rights and obligations:
For stays of under three months: the only requirement for Union citizens is that they possess a valid identity document or passport. The host Member State may require the persons concerned to register their presence in the country.
For stays of over three months: EU citizens and their family members — if not working — must have sufficient resources and sickness insurance to ensure that they do not become a burden on the social services of the host Member State during their stay. Union citizens do not need residence permits, although Member States may require them to register with the authorities. Family members of Union citizens who are not nationals of a Member State must apply for a residence permit, valid for the duration of their stay or a five-year period.
Right of permanent residence: Union citizens acquire this right after a five-year period of uninterrupted legal residence, provided that an expulsion decision has not been enforced against them. This right is no longer subject to any conditions. The same rule applies to family members who are not nationals of a Member State and who have lived with a Union citizen for five years. The right of permanent residence is lost only in the event of more than two successive years’ absence from the host Member State.
Restrictions on the right of entry and the right of residence: Union citizens or members of their family may be expelled from the host Member State on grounds of public policy, public security or public health. Guarantees are provided to ensure that such decisions are not taken on economic grounds, comply with the proportionality principle and are based on personal conduct, among others.
Finally, the directive enables Member States to adopt the necessary measures to refuse, terminate or withdraw any right conferred in the event of abuse of rights or fraud, such as marriages of convenience.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-movement-of-persons
What is the problem?
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What about Europol? Common databases? Science research? Erasmus? Galileo? Common health and safety standards? The N. Ireland mess? Paperwork that small businesses can't afford to take on? Supply chains?
And all this in the middle of a pandemic without an extension????
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/19/uk-government-pandemic
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Our PM appears to have gone missing in action. #wheresboris
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Astonishing that despite the absolute deluge of scorn and criticism heaped on the Tories in the last few months they are still polling much better than Labour, though Boris’s personal approval rating has dropped significantly. He will of course be at PMQ’s today
“The Conservatives remain well in front, with 48 per cent of those surveyed by YouGov saying they would vote for the governing party if there were an election tomorrow and just 33 per cent choosing Labour”.
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https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-lockdown-should-not-be-eased-until-track-and-trace-is-a-success-say-government-advisers-11991336
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I'm not quite sure what he means by "world-beating"...
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Boris Johnson rejects calls to exempt foreign health workers from NHS surcharge
Workers from outside the European Economic Area have to pay a fee to use the NHS, a charge criticised as "unfair and unjust".
(...)
"The prime minister has rejected calls to scrap the health surcharge for overseas NHS and social care workers.
Workers coming to the UK from outside the European Economic Area have to pay a fee to use the health service."
(...)
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer raised the issue at Prime Minister's Questions, saying: "Every Thursday we go out and clap for our carers. Many of them are risking their lives for the sake of all of us.
"Does the prime minister think it's right that care workers coming from abroad and working on our frontline should have to pay a surcharge of hundreds - sometimes thousands of pounds - to use the NHS themselves?"
The Speaker takes exception to the health secretary interrupting Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer during PMQs in the Commons.
Boris Johnson replied: "I've thought a great deal about this and I do accept and understand the difficulties faced by our amazing NHS staff and, like him, I've been a personal beneficiary of carers who have come from abroad and, frankly, saved my life."
He added: "On the other hand we must look at the realities - this is a great national service, it's a national institution, it needs funding and those contributions actually help us to raise about £900m, and it's very difficult in the current circumstances to find alternative sources.
https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-rejects-calls-to-exempt-foreign-health-workers-from-nhs-surcharge-11991688
But, but, what about the £350m a week on the side of his bus that Brexit is supposed to provide to the NHS?
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Boris Johnson rejects calls to exempt foreign health workers from NHS surcharge
Workers from outside the European Economic Area have to pay a fee to use the NHS, a charge criticised as "unfair and unjust".
(...)
"The prime minister has rejected calls to scrap the health surcharge for overseas NHS and social care workers.
Workers coming to the UK from outside the European Economic Area have to pay a fee to use the health service."
(...)
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer raised the issue at Prime Minister's Questions, saying: "Every Thursday we go out and clap for our carers. Many of them are risking their lives for the sake of all of us.
"Does the prime minister think it's right that care workers coming from abroad and working on our frontline should have to pay a surcharge of hundreds - sometimes thousands of pounds - to use the NHS themselves?"
The Speaker takes exception to the health secretary interrupting Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer during PMQs in the Commons.
Boris Johnson replied: "I've thought a great deal about this and I do accept and understand the difficulties faced by our amazing NHS staff and, like him, I've been a personal beneficiary of carers who have come from abroad and, frankly, saved my life."
He added: "On the other hand we must look at the realities - this is a great national service, it's a national institution, it needs funding and those contributions actually help us to raise about £900m, and it's very difficult in the current circumstances to find alternative sources.
https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-rejects-calls-to-exempt-foreign-health-workers-from-nhs-surcharge-11991688
But, but, what about the £350m a week on the side of his bus that Brexit is supposed to provide to the NHS?
The following is taken from Wikipedia... It seems to show you are wrong re the effect of the NHS slogan..
Issues identified as important by voters who said they were likely to vote leave were headed by the number of immigrants coming into Britain (49%), Britain's ability to make its own laws (30%), the impact on Britain's economy (25%), the cost of EU immigration on Britain's welfare system (16%), impact on public services/housing (11%), the number of refugees coming to Britain to claim asylum (10%), Britain's ability to trade with countries in the European Union (9%), cost of EU membership fees (9%), regulations by the European Union on British businesses (8%), the impact on British jobs (7%), and Britain's status in the world (7%).[1]
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According to Cummings, Vote Leave wouldn't have won without it:
"Pundits and MPs kept saying ‘why isn’t Leave arguing about the economy and living standards’. They did not realise that for millions of people, £350m/NHS was about the economy and living standards – that's why it was so effective. It was clearly the most effective argument not only with the crucial swing fifth but with almost every demographic. Even with UKIP voters it was level-pegging with immigration. Would we have won without immigration? No. Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests No."
"If Boris, Gove, and Gisela had not supported us and picked up the baseball bat marked 'Turkey/NHS/£350 million' with five weeks to go, then 650,000 votes might have been lost."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_vote_in_favour_of_Brexit
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I'm with Keir on this one.
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1263075226566475776
Unless I'm missing something, every time I think about this, I find it more and more shameful. I hope I'm not the only one.
People turn out to clap for frontline health workers, but non-EEA care workers (often of BAME origin with a higher risk of dying from it) don't even get a waiver on the surcharge of £400 (rising to £624) to the NHS, whether they use it or not?
They already pay taxes and NI contributions, so why do they have to pay twice?
And, if what Peston said is accurate, what Boris said was misleading.
Robert Peston
@Peston
Paul Johnson of @TheIFS, who knows a thing or two about the public finances, says exempting migrant health and care workers from the NHS surcharge would cost around £90m, a tenth of the £900m @BorisJohnson
said it would cost in reply to @Keir_Starmer
today
6:33 PM · May 20, 2020·Twitter Web App
I'd add all essential workers for that matter: porters, cleaners, public transport workers, chemist employees, cashiers...
Unless there's some sensible explanation, I find it a slap in the face to those who are risking their lives on low wages.
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I'm with Keir on this one.
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1263075226566475776
Unless I'm missing something, every time I think about this, I find it more and more shameful. I hope I'm not the only one.
People turn out to clap for frontline health workers, but non-EEA care workers (often of BAME origin with a higher risk of dying from it) don't even get a waiver on the surcharge of £400 (rising to £624) to the NHS, whether they use it or not?
They already pay taxes and NI contributions, so why do they have to pay twice?
And, if what Peston said is accurate, what Boris said was misleading.
Robert Peston
@Peston
Paul Johnson of @TheIFS, who knows a thing or two about the public finances, says exempting migrant health and care workers from the NHS surcharge would cost around £90m, a tenth of the £900m @BorisJohnson
said it would cost in reply to @Keir_Starmer
today
6:33 PM · May 20, 2020·Twitter Web App
I'd add all essential workers for that matter: porters, cleaners, public transport workers, chemist employees, cashiers...
Unless there's some sensible explanation, I find it a slap in the face to those who are risking their lives on low wages.
is this a one off charge that they may have paid a couple of years ago......i think any future charges should be scrappped..and is this to apply solely to healthcare workers
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is this a one off charge that they may have paid a couple of years ago......i think any future charges should be scrappped..and is this to apply solely to healthcare workers
Why solely to healthcare workers ? What about the essential shop workers, bus drivers etc etc.....in fact why not scrap it altogether?
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Why solely to healthcare workers ? What about the essential shop workers, bus drivers etc etc.....in fact why not scrap it altogether?
why not just give everyone a million pounds...cheer everyone up. Do these people have to pay for visa too...scrap that as well.
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why not just give everyone a million pounds...cheer everyone up. Do these people have to pay for visa too...scrap that as well.
They pay their taxes so should be entitled to the benefits that brings.
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They pay their taxes so should be entitled to the benefits that brings.
in your opinion
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is this a one off charge that they may have paid a couple of years ago......i think any future charges should be scrappped..and is this to apply solely to healthcare workers
I've found this:
You pay National Insurance contributions to qualify for certain benefits and the State Pension.
You pay mandatory National Insurance if you’re 16 or over and are either:
an employee earning above £183 a week
self-employed and making a profit of £6,475 or more a year
You may be able to pay voluntary contributions to avoid gaps in your NI contributions.
You need a National Insurance number before you can start paying National Insurance contributions.
If you earn between £120 and £183 a week, your contributions are treated as having been paid to protect your National Insurance record.
https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-guides/migrants/national-insurance-migrants/what-if-i-come-country-no-social-security
and
Check an employee’s right to work in the UK
You must check a person has the legal right to work in the UK before they start working for you.
Paying tax and National Insurance contributions
You must operate PAYE tax and National Insurance contributions for employees coming to work in the UK from abroad, whether they’re working for you on a temporary or permanent basis.
If the employee is still employed by an overseas business and you do not actually pay them, you’re still treated as their employer and are responsible for recording and reporting their earnings and PAYE deductions to HMRC. These are called ‘seconded employees’.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/new-employee-coming-to-work-from-abroad#paying-tax-and-national-insurance-contributions
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in your opinion
Then if your opinion differs, why ? Why do you think that if people pay their taxes in this country they are not entitled to the benefits that brings ?
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I've found this:
You pay National Insurance contributions to qualify for certain benefits and the State Pension.
You pay mandatory National Insurance if you’re 16 or over and are either:
an employee earning above £183 a week
self-employed and making a profit of £6,475 or more a year
You may be able to pay voluntary contributions to avoid gaps in your NI contributions.
You need a National Insurance number before you can start paying National Insurance contributions.
If you earn between £120 and £183 a week, your contributions are treated as having been paid to protect your National Insurance record.
https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-guides/migrants/national-insurance-migrants/what-if-i-come-country-no-social-security
and
Check an employee’s right to work in the UK
You must check a person has the legal right to work in the UK before they start working for you.
Paying tax and National Insurance contributions
You must operate PAYE tax and National Insurance contributions for employees coming to work in the UK from abroad, whether they’re working for you on a temporary or permanent basis.
If the employee is still employed by an overseas business and you do not actually pay them, you’re still treated as their employer and are responsible for recording and reporting their earnings and PAYE deductions to HMRC. These are called ‘seconded employees’.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/new-employee-coming-to-work-from-abroad#paying-tax-and-national-insurance-contributions
Exactly. With the payment of taxes comes certain benefits, one of those is healthcare free at the point of need.
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Exactly. With the payment of taxes comes certain benefits, one of those is healthcare free at the point of need.
That isn't how it works at the moment... I doubt there's any country in the world where it works like that. Start work and immediately be entitled to full free health care. I'm sure this is the sort of idea that stopped people voting for Corbyn
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That isn't how it works at the moment... I doubt there's any country in the world where it works like that. Start work and immediately be entitled to full free health care. I'm sure this is the sort of idea that stopped people voting for Corbyn
https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=858&langId=en
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That isn't how it works at the moment... I doubt there's any country in the world where it works like that. Start work and immediately be entitled to full free health care. I'm sure this is the sort of idea that stopped people voting for Corbyn
Not to worry, the schemes been scrapped anyway due to criticism.....Corbyn being one of the fiercest critics.
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https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=858&langId=en
As I understand the health surcharge doesn't apply to EU citizens
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Not to worry, the schemes been scrapped anyway due to criticism.....Corbyn being one of the fiercest critics.
I don't think the scheme has been scrapped at all.. It may have been relaxed for health workers... I'm not sure if those who have already paid get a refund.... Going back how long
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Just checked... Doesn't apply to EU citizens... Or didn't..
Applies to those intending to work... Study... Or join family in the uk.. But not on a permanent basis.. So not for those who've applied for settlement
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I could understand the general system if non-EEA workers only paid tax & NI after a year of work, but is that the case or are they docked monthly?
Even if that's the case, in a time of crisis, surely those on the frontline deserve a bit more than just a clap?
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Just checked... Doesn't apply to EU citizens... Or didn't..
Applies to those intending to work... Study... Or join family in the uk.. But not on a permanent basis.. So not for those who've applied for settlement
But the issue is about non-EEA citizens.
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He's changed his mind.
Boris Johnson U-turns as he scraps NHS fee for foreign health workers after being 'personal beneficiary of carers from abroad'
The change will apply to all NHS workers, including porters, cleaners, independent health workers and social care staff.
Thursday 21 May 2020 18:05, UK
https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-u-turn-as-he-scraps-nhs-fee-for-foreign-health-workers-after-being-personal-beneficiary-of-carers-from-abroad-11992317
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I don't think the scheme has been scrapped at all.. It may have been relaxed for health workers... I'm not sure if those who have already paid get a refund.... Going back how long
It’s still a u-turn.....the second in two days.
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I'm not quite sure what "as soon as possible" means in reality... I hope he's not waiting for that elusive £350m a week.
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Serco is one of the companies contracted to carry out the coronavirus contract tracing.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8343613/Serco-Private-contractor-leading-UKs-coronavirus-contact-tracing-programme-beset-controversy.html
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Thanks, Faith.
I'm also intrigued by Palantir and how involved it may be. The rest of the article is behind a paywall.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/inside-story-cia-backed-palantir-embedded-nhs-socialite-running/
I'd never have heard of it until I starting reading about the web of connections between the Brexit campaign and the US elections... Peter Thiel, Cambridge Analytica, Bannon, Banks, Farage, the Mercers...
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I'm also noticing attacks on the BoJo government by the Mail and the Telegraph, which I find a bit.... odd.
Fair and due criticism, where warranted, is fine by me, but, IMO, they're both right-wing tabloids.
I wonder what Farage is up to these days, beyond breaking the lockdown for a photo op of a migrant refugee boat?
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I am sick to death of reading & hearing on the news that "Corona virus has cost business X amount".
The virus it's self has done no such thing, it's the governments handling of the virus, closing down the economy for the past 3 months, that has cost businesses & wrecked the economy.
Now they want to quarantine international travellers for 14 days, long after the horse has bolted, effectively killing off the travel industry.
It's pathetic, the level of panic, chaos & economic damage this government have caused by their actions.
I went out for a drive the other day & almost nowhere was open, people were having to queue around a car park standing metres apart, some complete with their face masks, just for the privilege of entering Tesco.
There was a KFC open nearby where a long queue of cars were idling for presumably hours at a time, just to be served some greasy chicken via a window.
I then drove to a local beauty spot where every man & his dog seemed to have congregated, since there is b....r all else to do, the car park was full, the bins overflowing & the public toilets were closed.
When restaurants & pubs finally open they will no doubt have to adhere to the ridiculous social distancing measures, meaning hand sanitiser at every table, no cash payments, patrons having to stand metres apart, limits on how many people can enter the establishment at any one time, which will probably mean long queues outside, provided people aren't too scared to leave their houses in the first place.
Then there's the problem with schools, parents are too afraid to send their crotch goblins back until there's a vaccine. So there's several million people who can't return to work because they have to stay home & care for the little shits.
Gymnasiums ,how on earth will you be able to work out? You'll have to sanitise every piece of equipment you touch. Doing drop sets of free weights would take about 5 hours.
Swimming pools, why the hell are they closed anyway?
I'm pretty sure the virus doesn't survive inside a giant bath of chlorine.
Anyway, rant almost over, we'll be experiencing the ramifications of this governments botched handling of the virus for years to come.
I maintain that what the government should have done was impose no restrictions on the public & business & just let nature run it's course for the unlucky ones.
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I am sick to death of reading & hearing on the news that "Corona virus has cost business X amount".
The virus it's self has done no such thing, it's the governments handling of the virus, closing down the economy for the past 3 months, that has cost businesses & wrecked the economy.
Now they want to quarantine international travellers for 14 days, long after the horse has bolted, effectively killing off the travel industry.
It's pathetic, the level of panic, chaos & economic damage this government have caused by their actions.
I went out for a drive the other day & almost nowhere was open, people were having to queue around a car park standing metres apart, some complete with their face masks, just for the privilege of entering Tesco.
There was a KFC open nearby where a long queue of cars were idling for presumably hours at a time, just to be served some greasy chicken via a window.
I then drove to a local beauty spot where every man & his dog seemed to have congregated, since there is b....r all else to do, the car park was full, the bins overflowing & the public toilets were closed.
When restaurants & pubs finally open they will no doubt have to adhere to the ridiculous social distancing measures, meaning hand sanitiser at every table, no cash payments, patrons having to stand metres apart, limits on how many people can enter the establishment at any one time, which will probably mean long queues outside, provided people aren't too scared to leave their houses in the first place.
Then there's the problem with schools, parents are too afraid to send their crotch goblins back until there's a vaccine. So there's several million people who can't return to work because they have to stay home & care for the little shits.
Gymnasiums ,how on earth will you be able to work out? You'll have to sanitise every piece of equipment you touch. Doing drop sets of free weights would take about 5 hours.
Swimming pools, why the hell are they closed anyway?
I'm pretty sure the virus doesn't survive inside a giant bath of chlorine.
Anyway, rant almost over, we'll be experiencing the ramifications of this governments botched handling of the virus for years to come.
I maintain that what the government should have done was impose no restrictions on the public & business & just let nature run it's course for the unlucky ones.
We had our share.
https://www.northdevongazette.co.uk/news/crowds-flock-to-north-devon-s-beaches-despite-coronavirus-1-6662470
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If Boris doesn’t sack that little weasel Cummings today then that’s it for me, I shall start slagging off the government good and proper just like everyone else is.
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If Boris doesn’t sack that little weasel Cummings today then that’s it for me, I shall start slagging off the government good and proper just like everyone else is.
A gift for Starmer imo,Cummings that is.
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A gift for Starmer imo,Cummings that is.
What an absolute arrogant idiot not to realise or not to care that such actions would come back to bite him and his employer big time.
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A gift for Starmer imo,Cummings that is.
Funny how over 36,000 deaths wasn’t reason enough for criticism.
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If Boris doesn’t sack that little weasel Cummings today then that’s it for me, I shall start slagging off the government good and proper just like everyone else is.
Someone’s tweeted
So #Cummings seems to have the same level of respect for the welfare of his parents as Jeremy Bamber
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Someone’s tweeted
So #Cummings seems to have the same level of respect for the welfare of his parents as Jeremy Bamber
Slightly overstating the case methinks, undoubted weasel though he is.
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Funny how over 36,000 deaths wasn’t reason enough for criticism.
Political capital out of deaths is not on the agenda,the hindsight experts will have there say.
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I’m not entirely certain but I think that Faithlilly’s comment was directed at me. I have refused to engage in the ceaseless blame game that many have indulged in online (and it would seem, been enjoying immensely) because whilst I can see that the government has made mistakes, that has only been apparent really with the benefit of hindsight and I do believe that on the whole their intentions have been good and that in the midst of a crisis there is little to be gained by heaping additional pressure on the shoulders of those making life and death decisions. The DC thing is different in that it is a flagrant breach of the rules that we have all been forced to live by and there is a very clear course of action that the PM now needs to take if he stands any chance whatsoever of keeping people onside and adhering to his further orders regarding what we can and cannot do. To lend his wholehearted support to this arrogant rule breaker is a very big and obvious mistake that requires no hindsight to understand and that makes me think that Boris and his henchmen are really not very bright if they can’t see the glaringly obvious.
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Political capital out of deaths is not on the agenda,the hindsight experts will have there say.
I’d describe it as shutting the door after the horse has bolted.
At every stage of this pandemic Johnson and his crew of motley morons have been bounced into every correct decision they’ve made. Criticism is effective.
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I’d describe it as shutting the door after the horse has bolted.
At every stage of this pandemic Johnson and his crew of motley morons have been bounced into every correct decision they’ve made. Criticism is effective.
Theres no one out there who would have stood up to the oche on Jan 1st and said in 3 months time we'll be in the mire,easy after the event.
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Theres no one out there who would have stood up to the oche on Jan 1st and said in 3 months time we'll be in the mire,easy after the event.
Maybe not on the 1st of January but certainly much sooner than Johnson did.
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Maybe not on the 1st of January but certainly much sooner than Johnson did.
See what I mean,easy after the event.Now Cummings is a different matter,its out there now,bit of stirring going on though,strangely Labour don't seem to be very vocal.
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See what I mean,easy after the event.Now Cummings is a different matter,its out there now,bit of stirring going on though,strangely Labour don't seem to be very vocal.
Why do you think it is that other countries reacted earlier ? That when the WHO said test, test, test we stopped ? We were told at the time that testing was no longer useful.....two months down the line it was capacity that was the problem. It’s the dishonesty that gets me.
As to Cummings, Labour made a statement but this is not about Labour...it’s about Cummings, Johnson and his band of toadies and their lack of integrity.
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Why do you think it is that other countries reacted earlier ? That when the WHO said test, test, test we stopped ? We were told at the time that testing was no longer useful.....two months down the line it was capacity that was the problem. It’s the dishonesty that gets me.
As to Cummings, Labour made a statement but this is not about Labour...it’s about Cummings, Johnson and his band of toadies and their lack of integrity.
I have tended not to listen to the daily updates after awhile it was just noise imo,less chance of being disappointed.
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I have tended not to listen to the daily updates after awhile it was just noise imo,less chance of being disappointed.
That’s what I find really depressing. When we look to our government for guidance and reassurance, as we should, all we get is disappointment.
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“Johnson getting rid of Cummings would be like Emu sacking Rod Hull”. LOL
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Amazing isn’t it? Pursuing almost exactly the same policies, the wee Scottish lassie is being praised to the hilt, while the bumbling Boris buffoon is constantly berated.
author-image
CORONAVIRUS
Coronavirus in Scotland: Sturgeon made the same mistakes as Johnson, but she talks a better game
Alex Massie
Sunday May 24 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
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On February 26, 70 delegates from around the world gathered at the Hilton Edinburgh Carlton hotel on North Bridge for a conference organised by the American sportswear giant Nike.
One of the attendees was carrying the coronavirus and, it later became clear, infected at least 25 other people, including eight from Scotland. This “super-spreader” is believed to have introduced Covid-19 to Scotland about three days before the country’s first official case, in Tayside, was confirmed on March 1.
Despite this, the Scottish government did not inform the public about the Nike conference outbreak, and while some contact-tracing was carried out, employees of other companies, including Lloyds bank, who were using the hotel at the same time as the Nike delegates, were not contacted. Nor were tour guides who showed conference attendees around the Scottish capital’s Old Town.
It was not until March 11 that the first “community” transmission of the virus, unrelated to previous contacts or foreign travel, was confirmed, but the failure to properly investigate — or publicise — the Nike outbreak means that the virus could have been spreading in Scotland earlier than previously thought.
Nicola Sturgeon’s administration has been accused of “covering up” the conference outbreak and the failure to properly track all potential contacts has become a contentious issue north of the border. At the very least, a lack of candour has been evident.
Despite this, Sturgeon continues to draw praise for her handling of the emergency. One opinion poll suggested that nearly 70% of Scottish voters, including many Conservative and Labour supporters, approved of the first minister’s performance. That is as much a measure of Sturgeon’s communications skill as it is a reflection of the Scottish government’s actual performance.
The first minister has talked a good game and communication, now more than ever, is a vital part of the modern politician’s toolkit. On that front, Sturgeon has outperformed her Westminster rivals and counterparts. In Scotland there has never been any doubt that Sturgeon is running the show. In London — even after Boris Johnson’s return from illness — it has not always been obvious that the prime minister has got a grip on matters.
Despite that, should you care to scrutinise the record in greater detail, the picture of the Scottish government’s performance begins to take on a cloudy quality. Like governments everywhere, it has been forced to cope with a crisis it had not anticipated and, consequently, has been required to improvise a response.
The first minister has a fine knack of accepting in general that mistakes are unavoidable in dealing with an emergency of this sort, but a still finer ability to slip away from admitting any specific blunders. If we knew then what we know now, some of the decisions taken then might have been different. But of course such hindsight was not available at the time.
It seems clear that one of those mistakes was the decision to empty hospitals in March. Anticipating a surge in demand for hospital beds, the authorities transferred more than 900 patients into care homes without knowing if they were carrying the virus. Mandatory testing for those leaving hospital was not introduced until April 21. Part of the price of protecting the NHS was paid by care homes. Even on the metrics most favourable to the government, Scottish care homes have seen death rates as high as elsewhere in the UK and if the overall Scottish casualty rate remains lower, that is likely to reflect the fact that Scotland had fewer cases, proportionately, when lockdown was introduced.
At other times, far from leading the UK government, the Scottish government has been following it. While there are some differences between the Scottish and English schedules for leaving lockdown — notably a more generous allowance for socialising and a more cautious plan for schools reopening after the summer holidays — the broader picture is much the same.
Perhaps this should not be a surprise, since Johnson’s proposals are themselves largely similar to plans produced in other European countries. As Ruth Davidson, the former leader of the Scottish Tories, quipped on Friday, there have been times when watching the Scottish government has been like watching television on a +1 channel.
Add to this the problems, now reduced in scope but still not eliminated, with personal protective equipment provision and with testing, and a fair verdict might be that the Scottish government has done its best without doing as well as it could have. Testing capacity has been increased, though not yet to the 15,500 daily level the government believes is necessary for a test, trace and isolate policy. Each day, however, thousands of tests that could be done go wasted. Although the government has promised to hire 2,000 contact tracers by the end of the month, as of Friday only around 1,300 had been hired or were in the process of being hired.
Still, many Scots believe Sturgeon’s government has performed much better than Johnson’s. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish National Party MP for East Lothian, contrasted Sturgeon’s “virtually flawless” performance with what he deemed the UK government’s “utterly hapless” record. Last week #ThankYouNicola spent a day trending at the top of the Twitter charts as thousands of Scots showered praise on Sturgeon. “You are the most outstanding leader any country could wish for. In the face of adversity you have stayed strong for the people of Scotland,” a typical message read.
And yet, looked at in the round, the Scotland has pursued largely the same policies as has England, and those policies have been afflicted by many of the same problems. For all that there has been a “four-nations” approach to Covid-19, the virus itself is a one-nation problem that recognises no internal frontiers.
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https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/civil-service-official-twitter-account-22079152?utm_campaign=mirror_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com
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For those who were worrying that Labour hadn’t commented.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52792200
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https://news.sky.com/story/scientific-experts-advising-government-criticise-boris-johnson-after-he-backed-dominic-cummings-11994132
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That’s what I find really depressing. When we look to our government for guidance and reassurance, as we should, all we get is disappointment.
Always be pessimistic,that way you'll never be disappointed. (&^&
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For those who were worrying that Labour hadn’t commented.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52792200
You could argue Johnson has never been so vulnerable politically,can Labour take advantage?
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Johnson has repeatedly been exposed as a liar and a cheat. At his press briefing yesterday, he displayed his utter contempt for the British public. He's totally misjudged this particular episode and will ultimately have to sack Cummings. The general public will most likely, quickly forget this episode and we'll blunder along, on our merry way to armageddon.
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Johnson has repeatedly been exposed as a liar and a cheat. At his press briefing yesterday, he displayed his utter contempt for the British public. He's totally misjudged this particular episode and will ultimately have to sack Cummings. The general public will most likely, quickly forget this episode and we'll blunder along, on our merry way to armageddon.
I doubt he will sack Cummings, but Cummings might be persuaded to resign (whilst secretly carrying on in much the same role as before).
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You could argue Johnson has never been so vulnerable politically,can Labour take advantage?
I think Labour are being careful not to appear opportunistic and to give the rightwing press the chance to frame their reaction as partisan.
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Been watching the interrogation of Dominic Cummings & I'm actually starting to feel sorry for him.
Such a massive media witch hunt, the media stalking him & camping outside his & his families houses.
Nobody got infected or died because of his actions, personally I couldn't give a toss if he had flown to the f..king moon & back.
The media have f..k all else to report right now so they are tearing this man to shreds & trying to bully him out of his job.
Disgusting behaviour by the MSM, just stirring shit up & making a mountain out of a mole hill.
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Been watching the interrogation of Dominic Cummings & I'm actually starting to feel sorry for him.
Such a massive media witch hunt, the media stalking him & camping outside his & his families houses.
Nobody got infected or died because of his actions, personally I couldn't give a toss if he had flown to the f....ing moon & back.
The media have f..k all else to report right now so they are tearing this man to shreds & trying to bully him out of his job.
Disgusting behaviour by the MSM, just stirring shit up & making a mountain out of a mole hill.
I felt a bit sorry for him too, but he’s still an arrogant tw.. who should have known how the shit would hit the fan when this got out. He should have done the right thing when the story broke, apologised and resigned, whether or not he felt he was in the right. He has done the government and the public health message a ton of harm.
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Here are the UK media breaking the social distance rules to report on someone who broke the lock down rules.
Hypocrites.
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Here are the UK media breaking the social distance rules to report on someone who broke the lock down rules.
Hypocrites.
How many pictures does it take.
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Watching Cummings in the rose garden all I could of was Uriah Heep...‘I’m ever so ‘umble’
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Here are the UK media breaking the social distance rules to report on someone who broke the lock down rules.
Hypocrites.
Going to like your post.
Just so you know and are forewarned.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-uk-government-boris-johnson-dominic-cummings-hancock-a9537231.html
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It is all a howl a minute from this side of The Channel. And I can't say I care all that much anymore.
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It is all a howl a minute from this side of The Channel. And I can't say I care all that much anymore.
I see Macron is just about as popular as Boris (ie not very). Something to do with burning millions of pieces of PPE to free up warehouse space before the pandemic kicked off?
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I see Macron is just about as popular as Boris (ie not very). Something to do with burning millions of pieces of PPE to free up warehouse space before the pandemic kicked off?
They were Out of Date you know. And no warning of The Virus at the time.
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The French chose Macron over Marine Le Pen, more fool them.
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They were Out of Date you know. And no warning of The Virus at the time.
How does PPE go out of date? It’s not like you eat it. Plus, presumably it was being stockpiled just in case there was a pandemic, not because one had happened. The threat level surely would have been the same at the time they burnt it all so shouldn’t it have been replaced with in date PPE?
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The French chose Macron over Marine Le Pen, more fool them.
Despite his apparent crapness, only 20% of French think the old racist boot would have done a better job than Macron.
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So is this the reason Labour have not been too vociferous over Cummings.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1289335/UK-coronavirus-latest-updates-Rosie-Duffield-resigns-Labour-Party-whip
Humiliation for Labour as whip resigns from frontbench role after breaching lockdown
ROSIE DUFFIELD has resigned as a Labour whip and apologised after it was revealed she broke lockdown restrictions.
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So is this the reason Labour have not been too vociferous over Cummings.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1289335/UK-coronavirus-latest-updates-Rosie-Duffield-resigns-Labour-Party-whip
Humiliation for Labour as whip resigns from frontbench role after breaching lockdown
ROSIE DUFFIELD has resigned as a Labour whip and apologised after it was revealed she broke lockdown restrictions.
Why ? She was found out and resigned.....as anyone with a shred of integrity would.
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How does PPE go out of date? It’s not like you eat it. Plus, presumably it was being stockpiled just in case there was a pandemic, not because one had happened. The threat level surely would have been the same at the time they burnt it all so shouldn’t it have been replaced with in date PPE?
I'd also read that out-of-date PPE had gone off to be burned, but I'm not sure what PPE that referred to, nor to what extent it may be accurate.
Numerous countries appear to have got caught behind the ball by the lack of PPE and / or other basic supplies, e.g., syringes.
On FFP2 masks, which I assume are similar to the N95 ones, the elastic and nose-bridge bit can deteriorate over time.
During crisis situations where there is a shortage of N95 respirators, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended strategies for optimizing their use in healthcare settings.[4] N95 respirators can be used beyond their manufacturer-designated shelf life, although components such as the straps and nose bridge material may degrade, making it particularly important that the wearer perform the expected seal check.[4][23]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N95_mask
The 3M site also states required storage conditions, which some countries may not have adhered to (temperature, humidity, etc.)
On the French situation in particular, it seems that the government authority still had an emergency stock of "surgical" masks, but no FFP2 ones. (A previous government's reforms had left the responsibility of procurement of FFP2 up to public and private employers.)
https://www.lci.fr/sante/coronavirus-epidemie-covid-19-pourquoi-la-france-est-en-penurie-de-masques-ffp2-2148489.html
A common misconception in several first-world countries, from what I can gather, is that the local industry had the capacity to manufacture them - which most (all?) do. Fine. But where I find them to have been incredibly dim is that they were still reliant on imports of raw materials / components and of extra PPE/ supplies from, erm, China.
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No human is perfect, otherwise they wouldn't be human. However, IMO, for anyone in a position of power / authority, personal responsibility comes with the job.
"Do as I say, not as I do" is no doubt a bewildering observation for many kids across the world since time immemorial. In times of crisis, IMO, adults become kids again, seeking responsible and accountable guidance from those who are supposed to set an example.
Once that trust is gone... it's very hard to get back.
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So is this the reason Labour have not been too vociferous over Cummings.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1289335/UK-coronavirus-latest-updates-Rosie-Duffield-resigns-Labour-Party-whip
Humiliation for Labour as whip resigns from frontbench role after breaching lockdown
ROSIE DUFFIELD has resigned as a Labour whip and apologised after it was revealed she broke lockdown restrictions.
Strange Stephen Kinnock didn’t feel moved to resign after he broke social distancing rules.
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1287524/Lisa-Nandy-news-GMB-Twitter-reaction-Good-Morning-Britain-Labour-Kinnock-lockdown-latest
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No human is perfect, otherwise they wouldn't be human. However, IMO, for anyone in a position of power / authority, personal responsibility comes with the job.
"Do as I say, not as I do" is no doubt a bewildering observation for many kids across the world since time immemorial. In times of crisis, IMO, adults become kids again, seeking responsible and accountable guidance from those who are supposed to set an example.
Once that trust is gone... it's very hard to get back.
Rule of thumb should be if you are an MP and are caught breaking the lockdown rules you should resign....no matter what party, and if you don’t possess the integrity to resign then you should be sacked.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/boris-johnson-dominic-cummings-resign-lockdown-public-liaison-committee-coronavirus-a9535676.html
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Credit where it’s due: the government’s extraordinary and admirable commitment to rough sleepers, well done. 8@??)(
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/6-000-new-supported-homes-as-part-of-landmark-commitment-to-end-rough-sleeping
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Credit where it’s due: the government’s extraordinary and admirable commitment to rough sleepers, well done. 8@??)(
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/6-000-new-supported-homes-as-part-of-landmark-commitment-to-end-rough-sleeping
It's just a shame they were handing out free homes & benefits to illegal economic migrants, before they got round to looking after our own.
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It makes you wonder why the initiative hasn’t happened before if the money has always been there.
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Rule of thumb should be if you are an MP and are caught breaking the lockdown rules you should resign....no matter what party, and if you don’t possess the integrity to resign then you should be sacked.
Ive seeen photographs of corbyn ignoring social distancing...thats breaking lockdown rules...should he be sacked?
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Ive seeen photographs of corbyn ignoring social distancing...thats breaking lockdown rules...should he be sacked?
Please post any photos of Corbyn standing within two metres of individuals from outside his household ?
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I have to say I’m astounted!
“The Tories have slightly widened the gap in their lead over Labour since the beginning of last week, however, suggesting the party has partially recovered from a fall in support during the row over Dominic Cummings’s trip to the northeast during the lockdown.
Support for the Tories is at 45 per cent, up one point from the beginning of last week, while Labour is at 35 per cent, down three points, according to a YouGov poll for The Times conducted last Friday and Saturday.
The Conservatives have a ten-point lead over Labour, up from a six-point lead early last week, but it is still some way off the 15-point gap Boris Johnson’s party had over the opposition before the controversy involving Mr Cummings erupted two weeks ago”.
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Please post any photos of Corbyn standing within two metres of individuals from outside his household ?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8363289/Jeremy-Corbyn-pictured-flouting-social-distancing-rules.html
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8363289/Jeremy-Corbyn-pictured-flouting-social-distancing-rules.html
I think you’ll find that the photo is several years old. Is that really the best you can do ?
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I think you’ll find that the photo is several years old. Is that really the best you can do ?
could yo u provide some evidence its several years old...wearing the same t shirt he wore on his birthday
A photo posted on 26 May from Mr Corbyn’s son’s company’s Twitter account also seems to show him wearing the same outfit.
We have asked Jeremy Corbyn’s office for comment.
One commenter has posted a screenshot from Google of the picture of Mr Corbyn accompanying a Daily Mail article from 2016. But on closer inspection, this article has nothing to do with Mr Corbyn, and is actually about a wildlife photographer called Iain Scott, and was published in November 2016.
Doing a reverse image search on the photograph of Mr Corbyn is likely to have surfaced this article from 2016 as the 2020 image of Mr Corbyn may have appeared in the sidebar of the 2016 article’s page (where the most recent articles are advertised).
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https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2020/05/silence-chief-scientists-worrying-and-deeply-political?fbclid=IwAR3GNhluG-3uiTzxLF004kXkdDRxMoKuTVE-7PxK9Aq1B_615I0ya6s6lvs
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could yo u provide some evidence its several years old...wearing the same t shirt he wore on his birthday
I know because I know the gentleman involved...he is beyond angry that the photograph has been used in this way. The media didn’t even approach him for a comment.
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I know because I know the gentleman involved...he is beyond angry that the photograph has been used in this way. The media didn’t even approach him for a comment.
LOL...Angry that corbyn has been caught out....i know him too
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LOL...Angry that corbyn has been caught out....i know him too
And this exonerates Cummings how ?
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And this exonerates Cummings how ?
it doesn't...they both should be put up against a wall and shot
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it doesn't...they both should be put up against a wall and shot
Absolutely...it doesn’t.
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Ive seeen photographs of corbyn ignoring social distancing...thats breaking lockdown rules...should he be sacked?
At least his mad old brother will be proud of him for this.
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It brings me nothing but joy that Corbyn, even when no longer leader, still manages to generate such angst in his detractors.
Much like Amaral.
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could yo u provide some evidence its several years old...wearing the same t shirt he wore on his birthday
A photo posted on 26 May from Mr Corbyn’s son’s company’s Twitter account also seems to show him wearing the same outfit.
We have asked Jeremy Corbyn’s office for comment.
One commenter has posted a screenshot from Google of the picture of Mr Corbyn accompanying a Daily Mail article from 2016. But on closer inspection, this article has nothing to do with Mr Corbyn, and is actually about a wildlife photographer called Iain Scott, and was published in November 2016.
Doing a reverse image search on the photograph of Mr Corbyn is likely to have surfaced this article from 2016 as the 2020 image of Mr Corbyn may have appeared in the sidebar of the 2016 article’s page (where the most recent articles are advertised).
You’ve got to love the double standards. Baying for Tory blood whilst conveniently ignoring all the Labour rule-breaking. These people are SUCH hypocrites!
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I know because I know the gentleman involved...he is beyond angry that the photograph has been used in this way. The media didn’t even approach him for a comment.
The T-Shirt Corbyn was pictured wearing was part of an Autumn 2019 collection...
https://www.alibongo.co.uk/product/thtc--missing-peace-redux-t-shirt-white-hemp-53831/
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The T-Shirt Corbyn was pictured wearing was part of an Autumn 2019 collection...
https://www.alibongo.co.uk/product/thtc--missing-peace-redux-t-shirt-white-hemp-53831/
The original tshirt was cotton..part of an earlier season
https://shop.thtc.co.uk/products/missing-peace-redux-org-cotton
The fall 2019 was hemp.
https://shop.thtc.co.uk/products/missing-peace-redux-the-tribes-hemp
The organic cotton in green can be seen here.
https://www.alibongo.co.uk/product/thtc--missing-peace-redux-t-shirt-51938/
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The original tshirt was cotton..part of an earlier season
https://shop.thtc.co.uk/products/missing-peace-redux-org-cotton
The fall 2019 was hemp.
https://shop.thtc.co.uk/products/missing-peace-redux-the-tribes-hemp
2 comments on your first link both within last 12 months. Can you find it on sale "years before" 2019?
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2 comments on your first link both within last 12 months. Can you find it on sale "years before" 2019?
Look at the link just added to my previous post. Both the organic cotton green and white missing peace t-shirts are not part of the fall 2019 collection or the link would say so.
Hopefully that’ll be an end to the subject.
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Look at the comment just added to my previous post.
Which comment? Corbyn's shirt was white, not green. Where is the product availability date on the green shirt link?
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No reviews for any of those t-shirts before May 2019 as far as I can see...
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Which comment? Corbyn's shirt was white, not green. Where is the product availability date on the green shirt link?
You don’t give up do you misty ?
Corbyn’s t-shirt is organic white cotton...as is the green, obviously part of the same collection. From your own link we are told that the white hemp tshirt is from the 2019 fall collection. There is no such description for the green....obviously that is from another collection. The hemp is new, the cotton is not....how much plainer can I put it ?
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Let this be an end to it
https://fullfact.org/online/corbyn-picture-canal-birthday/
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lol
https://en-gb.facebook.com/TheNarrowboatCafe/
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lol
https://en-gb.facebook.com/TheNarrowboatCafe/
Well found!
As an aside, THTC produce Corbyn T-shirts for Momentum https://shop.thtc.co.uk/collections/thtc-x-corbyn
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Anyone who thinks driving your young son in a car carrying 2 possibly Covid positive adults for 4 hours from a place with a high incidence of coronavirus to a part of the country with a low incidence, exposing your elderly parents, sister and nieces to the virus, exposing paramedics to the virus and possibly seeding it in a hospital where your wife visits with your son, breaking all guidelines by walking about Barnard Castle town centre then both parents lying about the journey in separate articles in the Spectator really does need to adjust their moral compass.
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Well found!
As an aside, THTC produce Corbyn T-shirts for Momentum https://shop.thtc.co.uk/collections/thtc-x-corbyn
I notice in the photos Corbyn is practicing social distancing.
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I notice in the photos Corbyn is practicing social distancing.
He was posing for the photos at the cafe. The photo of him not social distancing was opportunistic.
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Anyone who thinks driving your young son in a car carrying 2 possibly Covid positive adults for 4 hours from a place with a high incidence of coronavirus to a part of the country with a low incidence, exposing your elderly parents, sister and nieces to the virus, exposing paramedics to the virus and possibly seeding it in a hospital where your wife visits with your son, breaking all guidelines by walking about Barnard Castle town centre then both parents lying about the journey in separate articles in the Spectator really does need to adjust their moral compass.
Then the unnecessary return journey.
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He was posing for the photos at the cafe. The photo of him not social distancing was opportunistic.
So the Daily Mail reported the truth, while Corbyn supporters desperately tried to defend their hero by peddling fake news. If what he did was so innocuous why the need to invent stories about knowing the guy in the photo and claiming it was taken years ago? Why the desperate need to try and prove the T-shirt was available years ago? No one here has attempted to defend Dominic Cummings behaviour by making stuff up. Clearly Cummings was the greater sinner but does that make Corbyn a saint? I suppose to some lovesick fools it does.
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Then the unnecessary return journey.
The return journey was necessary otherwise he’d never have gone home again! Not defending the weasel’s actions by the way, just pointing this out.
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He was posing for the photos at the cafe. The photo of him not social distancing was opportunistic.
Eh ???
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Hilarious how those most vocal opponents of whataboutery are the first to resort to it.
The gentleman in the photograph has told his friends that the photograph was not taken recently....I have no reason to disbelieve him.
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Hilarious how those most vocal opponents of whataboutery are the first to resort to it.
The gentleman in the photograph has told his friends that the photograph was not taken recently....I have no reason to disbelieve him.
The fact that another photo on FB shows corbyn wearing not only the same T shirt but the same distinctive orange gloves gives very good reason to disbelieve both of you...if he has said what you say he has he is obviously lying
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And meanwhile while we were all distracted by the Daily Mai’s ‘scoop’ this was happening.
https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-has-highest-coronavirus-death-rate-in-the-world-2020-5?r=US&IR=T
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The fact that another photo on FB shows corbyn wearing not only the same T shirt but the same distinctive orange gloves gives very good reason to disbelieve both of you...if he has said what you say he has he is obviously lying
Unbelievable that Corbyn’s Super Fan is still trying to pass this off as Fake News in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Once caught out in a lie the best, most gracious course of action is to hold your hands up and admit it. It’s what DomCum should have done and it’s what FaiLil should now do instead of perpetuating the myth. And the chances of that happening in either case are precisely....nil.
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Sounds interesting.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-uk-boris-johnson-herd-immunity-dispatches-channel-4-italy-president-a9544916.html
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For those who thought that the teacher’s union was simply being obtuse and that it was perfectly safe to send their children back to school.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/02/fresh-fears-primary-schools-staff-test-positive-covid-19-derby-wider-reopening-england-coronavirus?CMP=share_btn_fb
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World beating ?
https://www.channel4.com/news/revealed-covid-test-and-trace-data-in-england-leaked-to-channel-4-news
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https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/06/boris-johnson-s-reckless-rush-ease-lockdown-threatens-deadly-second-wave
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/27/privatisation-uk-disatrous-coronavirus-response-ppe-care-homes-corporate-power-public-policy
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Once it was up and running, what was concretely wrong with the emergency hybrid Parliamentary voting system?
Why did the Tory party apparently issue a three-line whip?
How many MPs (of any party) are effectively excluded from physically attending?
Is it a coincidence that this is happening with just 3.5 weeks to go before a vote (if any) to request a Brexit extension?
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/27/privatisation-uk-disatrous-coronavirus-response-ppe-care-homes-corporate-power-public-policy
"Why has “this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection”, as Shakespeare described our islands, succumbed to a greater extent than any other European nation to a foreseeable and containable pandemic?"
So sad.
Maybe the ERG, Tufton St and other key Brexiteers, and overseas financiers could provide a few answers...?
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Interesting tweet from Arron Banks...
Arron Banks
@Arron_banks
Health mania , a bit like financial mania is irrational but the bubble bursts eventually & we can then survey the damage ..
https://twitter.com/Arron_banks/status/1267553763218333697
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Once it was up and running, what was concretely wrong with the emergency hybrid Parliamentary voting system?
Why did the Tory party apparently issue a three-line whip?
How many MPs (of any party) are effectively excluded from physically attending?
Is it a coincidence that this is happening with just 3.5 weeks to go before a vote (if any) to request a Brexit extension?
Nothing is a coincidence with these charlatans.
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Arron Banks Retweeted
Nigel Farage
@Nigel_Farage
·
Jun 1
Former Australian PM Tony Abbott: “To stop people from setting out for Britain in unseaworthy boats, you have to ensure that they never arrive”.
Channel crossings will continue as long as illegal migrants are allowed to stay in Britain
The business model for people smugglers depends on countries' unwillingness to turn would-be migrants away
telegraph.co.uk
Am I alone in finding the phrasing sinister? :(
Why "never arrive" as opposed to "never leave (from point of departure)"?
Prior to the referendum, the UK and the French were working together.
How will that work, post Brexit?
Joint action between the UK and France on migrant pressure
The Home Secretary met French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to reaffirm their joint commitment to tackle illegal migration.
Published 29 July 2015
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-action-between-the-uk-and-france-on-migrant-pressure
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No fan of Jeremy Hunt, in general. However, I have found his recent comments to be sensible on the Covid-19 issue.
Perhaps some people come to their senses once out of government?
Arron Banks appear to agree that he's out to "destabilise" the government... Odd that.
Arron Banks Retweeted
𝕍𝕠𝕚𝕔𝕖𝕆𝕗𝕋𝕙𝕖𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕘𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕟
Flag of United Kingdom
Flag of Zimbabwe
@GiftCee
Jeremy Hunt accused of plotting against Prime Minister after criticising delays on strategy, shame I thought it was just sour grapes.
But the man was plotting to destabilise the country.
Remainers back with their cowardice and unscrupulous methods.
Jeremy Hunt accused of plotting against Prime Minister
Jeremy Hunt (pictured) grilled the Prime Minister during a televised parliamentary hearing on why it had taken until April to introduce a 100,000-a-day tests target.
dailymail.co.uk
11:09 PM · May 31, 2020
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/27/privatisation-uk-disatrous-coronavirus-response-ppe-care-homes-corporate-power-public-policy
"Why has “this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection”, as Shakespeare described our islands, succumbed to a greater extent than any other European nation to a foreseeable and containable pandemic?"
Fair question.
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"Why has “this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection”, as Shakespeare described our islands, succumbed to a greater extent than any other European nation to a foreseeable and containable pandemic?"
Fair question.
I think the answer is obvious.
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"Why has “this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection”, as Shakespeare described our islands, succumbed to a greater extent than any other European nation to a foreseeable and containable pandemic?"
Fair question.
When Shakespeare wrote that we weren't part of a globalised economy with millions of people coming and going freely from our shores every month. Also - is Britain a country that is identical in every other way to every other country in Europe in terms of population, ethnic diversity, age, obesity, population density, etc? If it is then it's a fair comparison to make, if it's not then what?
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When Shakespeare wrote that we weren't part of a globalised economy with millions of people coming and going freely from our shores every month. Also - is Britain a country that is identical in every other way to every other country in Europe in terms of population, ethnic diversity, age, obesity, population density, etc? If it is then it's a fair comparison to make, if it's not then what?
For me the main point was: "This fortress built by Nature for herself against infection". Islands or pensinsular countries tend to have a greater ability to control who comes in and out (due to limited means of access) than continental ones.
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I have sympathy with the people of Hong Kong, but how do the Brexiters who were primarily worried about the effects of continued immigration feel about this?
Boris Johnson has pledged to allow nearly three million Hong Kong citizens the right to live and work indefinitely in the UK, with a route to full citizenship, if China imposes a controversial new national security law on the city.
The prime minister described the potential move as "one of the biggest changes in our visa system in history".
Previously, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had only said the offer would be available to the 350,000 current holders of a British National Overseas passport in Hong Kong and their dependants.
However, Mr Johnson has said he would extend the same offer to a further 2.5 million people in Hong Kong who do not hold a BNO passport but are eligible for one.
https://news.sky.com/story/hong-kong-three-million-people-could-come-to-live-in-the-uk-if-china-imposes-new-law-11999525
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For me the main point was: "This fortress built by Nature for herself against infection". Islands or pensinsular countries tend to have a greater ability to control who comes in and out (due to limited means of access) than continental ones.
And my point was that being part of a global economy and a major hub for travel and commerce the fortress of which Shakespeare wrote no longer really applies. Apparently Priti Patel wanted to close our borders months ago and was veto'ed by the swinging dicks on the cabinet. Much reviled as she is, perhaps Priti (being the more sensible female of the species) had a point?
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And my point was that being part of a global economy and a major hub for travel and commerce the fortress of which Shakespeare wrote no longer really applies. Apparently Priti Patel wanted to close our borders months ago and was veto'ed by the swinging dicks on the cabinet. Much reviled as she is, perhaps Priti (being the more sensible female of the species) had a point?
Most of the now-industrialised world no longer lives in Shakespearian times. ;)
In Priti Pavel's favour, I suppose, is this from 25 March:
Priti Patel seeks block on passengers from coronavirus hotspots to help prevent spread of disease
The Home Secretary wants to bar passengers from countries like Iran and US where coronavirus has taken hold in a bid to prevent spread
By Charles Hymas, Home Affairs Editor 25 March 2020 • 9:30pm
Priti Patel wants to close UK borders to prevent thousands of passengers from coronavirus hotspot countries coming to Britain.
She believes visitors from nations such as Iran, the US and China should not be continuing to fly into the UK when the Government has put the country in lockdown to halt the spread of the virus.
She is seeking cross-Government support for the move that would stop the daily flights from Tehran, New York and Los Angeles - all suffering serious coronavirus outbreaks - as well as Beijing.
Britain’s open borders to the flights contrasts with the EU’s decision last week to ban virtually all travellers from outside the bloc for 30 days.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/25/priti-patel-seeks-block-passengers-coronavirus-hotspots-help/
Did she speak up earlier than this? Most of Europe had already locked down.
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"Why has “this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection”, as Shakespeare described our islands, succumbed to a greater extent than any other European nation to a foreseeable and containable pandemic?"
Fair question.
Too many Immigrants perhaps. I don't know. Someone must have come in with it. It didn't generate by itself.
Someone arrived in UK with The Virus. I don't know where they caught it.
In the end it is not very important.
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Business News
June 2, 2020 / 6:38 PM / Updated a day ago
Britain, EU clash over financial market access: diplomats
Gabriela Baczynska, Huw Jones
BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - Britain wants binding commitments from the European Union on financial market access to avoid the country’s finance industry suddenly being cut off from the bloc, a request Brussels has rejected, EU officials and diplomats said.
Britain left the EU in January and a transition period ends in December, when future access for banks, insurers and asset managers will be based on “equivalence,” a limited form of access used by the United States, Japan and Singapore.
Brussels grants market access to any “third country” if it deems its rules are equivalent or as robust as those in the EU.
But Britain wants special treatment to ensure its finance industry has more predictable access to the EU, which is Britain’s biggest financial services export market, worth about 26 billion pounds ($32.58 billion) annually.
“The UK is seeking co-management of financial equivalence decisions,” an EU diplomat said on Tuesday.
“They want an in-built consultation process so that unilateral revoking of any licences would not be as easy as it is for third countries currently,” the person said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-finance-idUSKBN2392ET
Hmmm.
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Too many Immigrants perhaps. I don't know. Someone must have come in with it. It didn't generate by itself.
Someone arrived in UK with The Virus. I don't know where they caught it.
In the end it is not very important.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom#Late_2019:_suspected_cases
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom#Late_2019:_suspected_cases
So any old person. Although why the World and his Wife was gallivanting in the middle of Winter is beyond me. Probably sour grapes.
But there you go. I am entirely fed up with people spreading this shite.
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So any old person. Although why the World and his Wife was gallivanting in the middle of Winter is beyond me. Probably sour grapes.
But there you go. I am entirely fed up with people spreading this shite.
Some would have had family or friends in China or vice versa (Western and Chinese New Year). Others travel for work, including those who get stuck next to others in stopovers.
Lots of people got the virus during early spring breaks in Europe. Some of the early holiday-makers couldn't have known, others just ignored lockdown rules (e.g on the Costa Brava).
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So any old person. Although why the World and his Wife was gallivanting in the middle of Winter is beyond me. Probably sour grapes.
But there you go. I am entirely fed up with people spreading this shite.
Should be ok now where you are, Eleanor. Just stay a cautious 1-2m away, with hand gel and a disposable mask at the ready.
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Should be ok now where you are, Eleanor. Just stay a cautious 1-2m away, with hand gel and a disposable mask at the ready.
Don't you even dare to tell me. Or do you think that I am stupid?
I think that you are probably a really nice woman, but you know nothing of France. Which is probably to your pity.
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Don't you even dare to tell me. Or do you think that I am stupid?
I think that you are probably a really nice woman, but you know nothing of France. Which is probably to your pity.
But this individual does, a comment in the Guardian :
‘Kier Starmer has yet to grill Boris on the international comparisons. He hinted at it in another verbal roughing-up a few weeks back when the UK had only just hit the number one spot in Europe on the grim tally of deaths. I live in France, identical population to the UK, pretty much same GDP. At the start of the lockdowns France had higher infection rates and more deaths. Today the UK has 100,000 more infections and 10,000 more deaths than France. I have grown up kids in the UK who report on the discipline around lockdown and the measures taken in supermarkets, the one place we all have to go. The day following Macron’s address to the nation here every supermarket had perspex barriers up at the checkouts and the staff had PPE..it was impressive but France had scenario planned this. Even so Macron has apologised to the nation to say we were not prepared enough. And Boris said today he and his government have done a good job!!!...Why are there not people on the streets over there demanding Johnson and his cabal step down. The UK looks a disaster area..And as for requiring 14 day quarantine for anyone coming in, what a joke!..The horse bolted months ago and has been prancing around the field for weeks..the idea that countries of LOWER infection rates are a risk to the UK..risible. I think we will live it a bit before we go visit the kids.’
Do you want a lodger Eleanor?
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https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-politics-polls/uk-support-for-johnsons-conservatives-falls-as-covid-deaths-rise-idUKKBN23D0UX
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https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-lockdown-government-death-toll-boris-johnson-a9551516.html
I think the answer to the OP is a definite YES.
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It isn't just 'brexiteers' who are concerned about this particular move. Apart from the infrastructure /housing/education/health etc not being in good shape to cope with such an influx, it could be used by the Chinese to dump their hooligans/violent criminals, as Cuba did in the early 80's according to my uncle who lived in Florida when that was being done.
I am of the opinion that Hong Kong belongs to China, it is no where near the UK. We should just butt out! The good and the great all ran over there when they were handed the Olympic games, so no point in playing the we really care about your treatment!
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https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/new-zealand-totally-free-coronavirus-22154463#ICID=Android_TMNewsApp_AppShare
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-chief-nurse-dominic-cummings-ruth-may-daily-briefing-downing-street-a9562741.html
Sounds more like North Korea every day.
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As a Tory PM when the Teleraph and the Mail has the knives out for you then you’re really in trouble.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/13/boris-johnson-scrapped-cabinet-pandemic-committee-six-months/?utm_content=telegraph&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1592035247
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As a Tory PM when the Teleraph and the Mail has the knives out for you then you’re really in trouble.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/13/boris-johnson-scrapped-cabinet-pandemic-committee-six-months/?utm_content=telegraph&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1592035247
Trump also disbanded the US government's pandemic team....
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-trump-fired-pandemic-team/partly-false-claim-trump-fired-pandemic-response-team-in-2018-idUSKBN21C32M
On the other hand, I don't think I'd have felt particularly reassured by a committee involving Gove and Hancock.
To be fair, it was apparently disbanded under May, not BoJo.
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Trump also disbanded the US government's pandemic team....
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-trump-fired-pandemic-team/partly-false-claim-trump-fired-pandemic-response-team-in-2018-idUSKBN21C32M
On the other hand, I don't think I'd have felt particularly reassured by a committee involving Gove and Hancock.
To be fair, it was apparently disbanded under May, not BoJo.
It was suspended by May, abolished by Johnson.
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It was suspended by May, abolished by Johnson.
Yes, ok. I read it too quickly.
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https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/matt-hancock-caught-out-ignoring-22209146
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https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/matt-hancock-caught-out-ignoring-22209146
Unlike the BLM gangs peaceful marches. they all never broke any rules at all. ^*&&
Oh is this just a tory finger pointing thread?
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Unlike the BLM gangs peaceful marches. they all never broke any rules at all. ^*&&
Oh is this just a tory finger pointing thread?
I must have missed that. Can you point out where any BLM protestor has gone on television to tell us to stand 2 metres apart to save lives ? Hancock the hypocrite most certainly did.
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Many BLM protesters have shown nothing but contempt for social distancing measures, but the same hypocrites would be only too delighted to point the finger at Matt Hancock for breaking social distancing measures. It seems if you're a Tory you should be publicly shamed for it but if you're a black protester you should be venerated for it. Lovely double standards.
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I must have missed that. Can you point out where any BLM protestor has gone on television to tell us to stand 2 metres apart to save lives ? Hancock the hypocrite most certainly did.
Hancock the hypocrite as you call him (laughing at BLM not being hypocrites), was/is going on scientific advice by 'experts' So not really his hot potato is it?
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Hancock the hypocrite as you call him (laughing at BLM not being hypocrites), was/is going on scientific advice by 'experts' So not really his hot potato is it?
So what expert told him to stand with his arm around his colleague instead of 2ms apart ?
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We really are becoming a laughing stock.
https://leftfootforward.org/2020/06/german-ministers-troll-johnson-over-false-contact-tracing-claim/
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Sir Mark Sedwill: UK's top civil servant to stand down as cabinet secretary and national security adviser
The UK's top civil servant and national security adviser to Boris Johnson is stepping down, the government has announced.
https://news.sky.com/story/sir-mark-sedwill-uks-top-civil-servant-to-stand-down-as-cabinet-secretary-and-national-security-adviser-12016983
In view of both Covid-19 and Brexit, is this really the best timing for a major overhaul of the civil service?
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Sir Mark Sedwill: UK's top civil servant to stand down as cabinet secretary and national security adviser
The UK's top civil servant and national security adviser to Boris Johnson is stepping down, the government has announced.
https://news.sky.com/story/sir-mark-sedwill-uks-top-civil-servant-to-stand-down-as-cabinet-secretary-and-national-security-adviser-12016983
In view of both Covid-19 and Brexit, is this really the best timing for a major overhaul of the civil service?
Guess it depends whether Johnson thinks he's been badly advised, all that fuss and bother about Cummings came to nowt though.
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Sir Mark Sedwill: UK's top civil servant to stand down as cabinet secretary and national security adviser
The UK's top civil servant and national security adviser to Boris Johnson is stepping down, the government has announced.
https://news.sky.com/story/sir-mark-sedwill-uks-top-civil-servant-to-stand-down-as-cabinet-secretary-and-national-security-adviser-12016983
In view of both Covid-19 and Brexit, is this really the best timing for a major overhaul of the civil service?
Another Cummings casualty?
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Guess it depends whether Johnson thinks he's been badly advised, all that fuss and bother about Cummings came to nowt though.
The civil service need a cull as far as I am concerned. It is filled with people who have been promoted beyond their capabilities. All about self promotion, huge egos...
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Theresa May makes rare intervention to slam Boris Johnson's security adviser hire
The former prime minister unleashes criticism on her successor's pick of David Frost - a political appointment.
Aubrey Allegretti, political reporter
Wednesday 1 July 2020 06:20, UK
Theresa May
May and Gove's frosty exchange
Theresa May has attacked Boris Johnson's choice to be his new national security adviser, saying he has "no proven expertise" in the area.
The former prime minister unleashed unusually strong criticism on her successor after Downing Street announced the PM would bring in his chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, to take on the role of national security adviser.
Theresa May makes rare intervention to slam Boris Johnson's security adviser hire
The former prime minister unleashes criticism on her successor's pick of David Frost - a political appointment.
Aubrey Allegretti, political reporter
Aubrey Allegretti
Political reporter @breeallegretti
Wednesday 1 July 2020 06:20, UK
Boris JohnsonMichael GoveTheresa May
Theresa May
May and Gove's frosty exchange
Theresa May has attacked Boris Johnson's choice to be his new national security adviser, saying he has "no proven expertise" in the area.
The former prime minister unleashed unusually strong criticism on her successor after Downing Street announced the PM would bring in his chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, to take on the role of national security adviser.
Mr Frost will replace Sir Mark Sedwill, who is being let go from his senior roles as national security adviser and cabinet secretary from September.
The unusual move by Mr Johnson saw a politically-neutral civil servant replaced with a political adviser.
Mrs May did not hold back her criticism of the major Whitehall shakeup in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
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"I served on the National Security Council for nine years - six years as home secretary, and three as prime minister," she told MPs.
"During that time I listened to the expert independent advice from national security advisers."
Addressing Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, she continued: "On Saturday, my right honourable friend said, 'We must be able to promote those with proven expertise'.
"Why then is the new national security adviser a political appointee with no proven expertise in national security?"
Mr Gove responded by paying tribute to Sir Mark's unusually short service at the top of the civil service.
He explained: "We have had previous national security advisers - all of them excellent, not all of them necessarily people who were steeped in the security world, some of them who were distinguished diplomats in their own right.
"Sir David - sorry David Frost - is a distinguished diplomat in his own right and it's entirely appropriate that the prime minister of the day should choose an adviser appropriate to the needs of the hour."
Lord Ricketts, the UK's first national security adviser, has also been less than positive about the appointment.
He said the role requires someone with "deep knowledge" but instead that Mr Johnson's priority is "not to expertise and experience, but to political loyalty among his closest advisers".
Mr Frost has had a rocketing ride through the civil service, having run the Scotch Whisky Association for two years until joining then-foreign secretary Mr Johnson as a special adviser from 2016 to 2018.
He was previously the UK's ambassador to Denmark and held diplomatic posts in Brussels with the European Union and in New York with the United Nations.
https://news.sky.com/story/theresa-may-makes-rare-intervention-to-slam-boris-johnsons-security-adviser-hire-12018181
Sounding more Trumpian by the day.
Has anyone come across the Russia report yet?
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A timely piece.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/25/boris-johnson-britain-pub-dead-government-coronavirus
The Luftwaffe did not chalk up such a gruesome death toll. During the blitz, 43,000 civilians died, an average of 175 each day, a national trauma that is seared in Britain’s collective memory. In the past 100 days, the number of reported excess deaths linked to Covid-19 – which England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, declares “the key metric” – has reached 65,700, a daily mortality rate far deadlier than the Nazi onslaught on British towns and cities between September 1940 and May 1941.
Inevitable is a word that can be used to describe the tragic fact that families were always going to “lose loved ones before their time”, as the prime minister put it 11 days before he belatedly ordered a national lockdown. It is not a word that can be used to describe one in every 1,000 members of the British public being killed by the virus in a three-month period, or what was at one point the second-worst death rate on earth. Scandalous? Yes. Criminal? Certainly. But inevitable? No.
If Boris Johnson has a trump card, a USP in politics, it is can-do, sunny optimism, an ability to dismiss and marginalise his critics as “doomsters” and “gloomsters”. It is our “patriotic duty” to visit the nation’s reopened pubs in a week and a half, he chirrups; “our long national hibernation” is coming to an end. His media outriders, too, hope that a cacophony of clinking beer glasses and flapping union jacks will drown out the dissenters. “SUMMER’S BACK ON!” bellows the Daily Mail as Britain’s national shutters come up. The Daily Express lauds the Dear Leader: “CHEERS BORIS! HERE’S TO A BRIGHTER BRITAIN.” “Our plan is working,” triumphantly declares the health secretary, Matt Hancock, as another 171 deaths are announced. With grinning declarations of victory, our rulers hope, we will all cheerfully shuffle into socially distanced pubs, sink our first freshly poured pints in over a hundred days, and let tens of thousands of fellow citizens who died needless deaths rest in peace.
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If Johnson and his allies get away with this national calamity, then the questions hovering over our democracy are troubling and grave. What does a government have to do to suffer adverse political consequences, if not violating its “first duty”, as Johnson once put it, “to protect the public in the most basic way” on an unprecedented scale in modern times? The reasons for this are tragically simple. Britain was an international outlier in its approach to the pandemic, and now stands in the top three (after Brazil and the US) for its death toll. If lockdown had been introduced even a week earlier, declared Prof Neil Ferguson, our pre-eminent epidemiologist, our death toll could have been halved. The delay was undoubtedly an “economy first” approach: how utterly self-destructive on its own terms, then, as allowing a graver pandemic inevitably led to a more protracted lockdown, leaving Britain possibly facing the worst economic hit of any developed nation.
Patients were released from hospitals into care homes without being tested for coronavirus, allowing the most vulnerable population in Britain to be seeded with a deadly pandemic. The consequences? Around one in 14 care home residents have died from this illness in around three and a half months: that statistic alone should haunt every government minister. The severity of our three combined national emergencies – public health, economic and social – was entirely self-inflicted by our own government.
The British public are neither stupid nor oblivious to the catastrophe: their rating of the government’s handling of the crisis is among the worst on earth. World-beating, indeed. But the scale of the criticisms does not match the scale of the disaster. While some journalists have fearlessly challenged the government’s failures – including at Newsnight and, two words I never imagined I would type, ITV’s Piers Morgan – the Pravda-like qualities of much of the rightwing press has undoubtedly helped insulate Johnson’s administration.
There is another failing too. Several broadcast journalists express their fear that their industry has failed the public badly in the pandemic. “The media has badly messed up holding the government to account,” one broadcast journalist tells me, “because the priority has been to amplify ‘stay home and protect the NHS’ rather than scrutinising official failings.” It should have been science journalists challenging the government at the now abandoned daily press conferences – which became shams long ago – rather than political reporters. Politics is too often treated as a soap opera, a Westminster drama of who is up and who is down, and this crisis has been no exception.
The focus on the “pre-existing health conditions” of many who have died is another factor, too: many have interpreted this as meaning at “death’s door”, as the sad passing of those on the brink of dying anyway, unaware that millions of their fellow citizens qualify for this description. In the US, for example, it’s estimated that up to half the non-elderly population have pre-existing health conditions. According to a study in April, those dying from coronavirus are losing an average of 13 years of their lives. Coronavirus did not gently push the already flailing into their graves; it ruthlessly killed those who still had long to live.
Perhaps the government believes a summer of sunshine and beer will make us all forget: that a nation released from house arrest will embrace relief at a new present over a reckoning with the past. Johnson’s trademark combination of bluster and cheer will certainly aim to nurture this collective amnesia. But we should know this: if a government can get away with the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands of its own citizens, it can get away with anything and everything.
• Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
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BoJo's dad on nipping off to Greece...
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-53292142/coronavirus-uk-pm-s-father-says-he-hopes-for-air-bridge-with-greece
One can't be held accountable for the actions of family members, but I'd have thought that they'd realise that they are likely to be held to a greater level of scrutiny and accountability, particularly in the face of a plea for using common sense and personal responsibility.
PS: Before anyone has a go at me, I find Corbyn's brother totally bonkers.
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BoJo's dad on nipping off to Greece...
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-53292142/coronavirus-uk-pm-s-father-says-he-hopes-for-air-bridge-with-greece
One can't be held accountable for the actions of family members, but I'd have thought that they'd realise that they are likely to be held to a greater level of scrutiny and accountability, particularly in the face of a plea for using common sense and personal responsibility.
PS: Before anyone has a go at me, I find Corbyn's brother totally bonkers.
Bojos dad like many business people are still flying - his dad owns a cottage which he rents out and was getting it prepared.
But what a huge silence befell the lefites- to the thousands who went on the rampage in London to 'protest' about defunding the police,ending capitalism- what will the bliars and welsh royalty Champaign socialist crew k and hidden millions end up I wonder!
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BoJo's dad on nipping off to Greece...
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-53292142/coronavirus-uk-pm-s-father-says-he-hopes-for-air-bridge-with-greece
One can't be held accountable for the actions of family members, but I'd have thought that they'd realise that they are likely to be held to a greater level of scrutiny and accountability, particularly in the face of a plea for using common sense and personal responsibility.
PS: Before anyone has a go at me, I find Corbyn's brother totally bonkers.
BoJo’s family all seem to go out of their way to undermine him at every opportunity.
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BoJo's dad on nipping off to Greece...
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-53292142/coronavirus-uk-pm-s-father-says-he-hopes-for-air-bridge-with-greece
One can't be held accountable for the actions of family members, but I'd have thought that they'd realise that they are likely to be held to a greater level of scrutiny and accountability, particularly in the face of a plea for using common sense and personal responsibility.
PS: Before anyone has a go at me, I find Corbyn's brother totally bonkers.
I agree the way Corbyn’s brother has acted in relation to Covid is bonkers.....and Stephen Kinnock et al.
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***RANT ALERT***
I am an NHS GP, and when a local school rang me as duty doctor for my 10,000 patients on Monday 24 February, to complain of a number of cases of a febrile illness, having returned 48 hours earlier from a half term ski trip to the Italian Alps - I suspected what we have come to know as Covid-19.
I declined them face to face appointments as we had no PPE, save for gloves. When central supplies did come, around a month later, they were expired “07/2016” and rebadged with a cheap sticker. And even then, all we got were some plastic pinnies and simple fluid repellent masks to last us about a week (when the WHO was advising FFP3 masks, visors, cuff covers and gowns). Batches of the rebadged masks were revealed last week to not be safe and practices advised to destroy them. But we had all used them up months ago. How many of us became unwell, and unwittingly passed on the virus to others? How many potentially died from that catastrophic failure to plan for the inevitable?
Even when, 20 years ago, as an undergraduate at UCL medical school, I had been taught by Prof Jim Ryan (Emeritus professor of conflict recovery). In a prescient day’s teaching in UCH ED, he had made us all wear PPE, and talked us through what we would need to do as frontline clinicians in a civilian emergency or global pandemic. He said these eventualities were as certain as cancer, heart attacks and strokes. Three years later he led the response at UCH during the 7/7 terrorist attacks and has been prominent throughout the WHO’s guidance on Covid-19. This should not have been a surprise. We had warning. We were lucky.
I’ve had the privilege to be in a leadership role for my profession for almost twenty years. I sat on the BMA’s UK GP committee during the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic, and heard first hand then, how the medical profession liaised with public health, government and local authorities. How each winter we would plan for potential surges in excess mortality. Put aside stores of PPE and keep logistical plans on the shelf ready to be used out of the blue.
2020 has been starkly different to 2009. Years of austerity has cut any capacity there might have been in the NHS to rock bottom, systems are in deficit to the tunes of millions. As a GP, commissioners would like me and my colleagues to prescribe and investigate less, refer fewer, but see more patients and diagnose more cancer. Not an easy maths puzzle to solve.
Local authorities are in a parlous state, and we see that no more than in the multimorbid sequelae of those in poverty.
And what to bring on the UK after years of cuts to the public sector? The largest single episode of deliberate self harm that is Brexit.
Brexit prioritised politics over preparation. Those pandemic logistical action plans gathered dust. PPE allocations were swept aside as the country got itself in ever more debt, as a luxury we probably won’t need, so we probably shouldn’t bother with.
Public health has been decimated as a medical specialty over the past decade. Public Health England itself is a strange body that seemingly issues guidance but doesn’t have the mandate to ensure NHS England commissions it. And NHS England doesn’t have the funds to commission it. So it doesn’t. And public health is left in limbo - the hot potato thrown between EDs and general practice, when it belongs to neither, and neither are funded to provide it.
So when I declined to bring in the febrile ski trip that February morning, I called a panicked PHE for advice. We knew this was coming. We should have had ready stocks of PPE. We should have had notifiable illness algorithms to follow. We had neither.
In the absence of a reliable IgM diagnostic test we should have put in place a simple contract tracing policy. Contact tracing isn’t rocket science. It’s the preventative arm of every sexual health clinic in the world. It didn’t need to be difficult. It was bizarre to doctors that this wasn’t available.
In the absence of a reliable IgG antibody test, but knowing what we know about other family members of the coronaviridae, we should have put in place a policy of universal face mask use on public transport and in shops as far back as February. That ski trip returning from Italy should have had their temperature checked at Heathrow and been given advice as to what to do if they became unwell. Quarantine should have been enforced as it was for the Brits flown back from Wuhan. This isn’t the luxury of the retrospectoscope. Medical social media was alive with discussions and debates over these concerns as far back as February citing South Korea’s example.
I am privileged to be the GP who represents, supports and advises all the GPs and surgeries that care for the million patients across Cambridgeshire. In those early weeks the silence from government was deafening. My office issued practical advice on a weekly, if not daily basis to practices. We put in place a ‘No PPE No See’ policy on 10 March, rapidly transforming consultations to video and phone, undertaking essential emergency home visits in private PPE that GP organisations had sourced themselves at their own initial expense. Later on, government stated that they would refuse to reimburse any PPE that conferred ‘too much’ protection, only reimbursing the plastic pinnies, fluid repellent masks and gloves. Endless public goodwill came together to produce visors at cost price. Thank goodness for them. Three months on, despite promises from government, England’s GPs still haven’t received the essential Covid-19 Fund promised by the Treasury to cover additional costs for PPE, protective measures and staff costs. And we don’t like the look of winter.
And then it hit. And it was awful. Heartbreaking tragic stories have been shared across media. Those in caregiving roles will know of many more that didn’t reach print, but were no less painful, unfair and cruel. For some time it had been a worry about what would happen if and when outbreaks may take place in residential or nursing home settings. Some GP practices advised independent homes to put in place a lockdown prior to the government’s advice. In many cases, those decisions saved lives. But those care home staff (who often are on derisory contractual compensation for sickness absence) where was their PPE? Where was their ability to refuse known Covid positive patients into Covid negative care homes to clear those essential hospital beds for the next poor influx?
But it was ok! Because Boris Johnson clapped for us every Thursday. He doesn’t take the knee because he ‘doesn’t believe in gestures’ but he would happily clap for carers in front of cameras whilst scrapping those nurse bursaries which later had to be embarrassingly reinstated. And the public have generously donated over £130 million to a charity that will only give your little area of the NHS money if you pay their £1000/year membership fee. Which might be ok for those big hospitals and trusts, but no use to your local surgery, GP or independent community pharmacy. Anyway, at least we are led by a government following its own orders....
The Cummins affair made a mockery of the public health messages and were a grave misjudgement by a man who allegedly prides himself on being able to take the temperature of the nation. I hope the nation returns the sleight at the ballot box. But we get what we vote for, and Britain voted in December for a craven cabinet of sycophants who were prized only for their ability to nod their heads in unison to the leader’s latest ‘oven ready’ glib strapline.
In identifying where the government have gone wrong, it’s a struggle to understand where they have gone right?
Many of us GPs are now looking to Autumn and Winter with dread. To rolling out a socially distanced seasonal flu vaccination programme. We are trying to plan for how we can safely vaccinate the largest number. No sign of an SOP from NHS England as yet, of course. A government that refers to ‘Super Saturday’ clearly hasn’t thought enough about the other very real prospect of a novel pandemic influenza strain. It’s overdue.
But it probably won’t be this year, so let’s not worry about it eh? What’s the worst that can happen?
Erratum: @DrMikeRyan is far too young to have taught me 20 years ago! My mistake - I mean another Prof Ryan trauma surgery graduate from @ucddublin! The superlative Professor Jim Ryan - www.linkedin.com/in/jim-ryan-50719171
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https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-the-inside-story-of-how-uks-chaotic-testing-regime-broke-all-the-rules-12022566
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https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-the-inside-story-of-how-uks-chaotic-testing-regime-broke-all-the-rules-12022566
What you fail to comprehend is BOJO is not a doctor, or a NHS manager, or owner of IT systems OR an NHS procurement supplier. Who should have done their jobs! The money was handed over to organisations/staff - people who re paid to arrange these things- WHY do you think we need to change the way things are done? it is the same with the Army- sent to fight without proper equipment.
People are in jobs where they are punching above their weight. we need look no further than the 'corporate nurses' moved from hospitals to the community and leaving auxiliary staff to do the 'nursing' in hospitals then we are told we need to bring people in from abroad to do the nursing. Yeah go figure...
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What you fail to comprehend is BOJO is not a doctor, or a NHS manager, or owner of IT systems OR an NHS procurement supplier. Who should have done their jobs! The money was handed over to organisations/staff - people who re paid to arrange these things- WHY do you think we need to change the way things are done? it is the same with the Army- sent to fight without proper equipment.
People are in jobs where they are punching above their weight. we need look no further than the 'corporate nurses' moved from hospitals to the community and leaving auxiliary staff to do the 'nursing' in hospitals then we are told we need to bring people in from abroad to do the nursing. Yeah go figure...
The buck stops with the government.
I hear that some of the relatives of the Covid dead are marching on Downing Street to demand an inquiry.
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The buck stops with the government.
I hear that some of the relatives of the Covid dead are marching on Downing Street to demand an inquiry.
We obviously went to different schools with a different education. This is how I was taught about government and got an A for my essay on the subject.
The Government are a group of people elected to represent the MAJORITY of the population who are entitled to vote. The UK have a party first past the post system.
The 'parties' set out an agenda and people vote according to their preferred choice. Once there is a mandate assured from the majority voted- the government set about putting them in place.
The people who actually put them in place are civil servants. So It is the civil servants to actually run the country!
As we saw with Brexit civil servants tried to fight against it including the speaker of the house of commons at that time. They have no right to go against the wishes of the people. I used Brexit as a reference, but there are a great many other things civil servants have been doing. They are SERVANTS they serve the people via Government who elected them!
So when you say the buck stops at the Government you are wrong!
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We obviously went to different schools with a different education. This is how I was taught about government and got an A for my essay on the subject.
The Government are a group of people elected to represent the MAJORITY of the population who are entitled to vote. The UK have a party first past the post system.
The 'parties' set out an agenda and people vote according to their preferred choice. Once there is a mandate assured from the majority voted- the government set about putting them in place.
The people who actually put them in place are civil servants. So It is the civil servants to actually run the country!
As we saw with Brexit civil servants tried to fight against it including the speaker of the house of commons at that time. They have no right to go against the wishes of the people. I used Brexit as a reference, but there are a great many other things civil servants have been doing. They are SERVANTS they serve the people via Government who elected them!
So when you say the buck stops at the Government you are wrong!
I would have hoped your understanding of how the country is governed would have developed and be rather more sophisticated and nuanced than at 16...obviously not.
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I would have hoped your understanding of how the country is governed would have developed and be rather more sophisticated and nuanced than at 16...obviously not.
Can you please put me right, me being all ignorant about Government and how it is run. Thanks.
To other members, who don't have claws pointing in my direction, and have a better understanding of how government DOES work, please feel free to advise others about how civil servants are appointed and how the government departments operate- each have a MP who is appointed minister to the cabinet (top dogs). Top dogs report to PM to ensure policy is being carried out. In the event of a real fkup civil servants and MPS can be called to account, via select committees, there are also public inquiries and Parliamentary committees.
I do not recall the prime minister of the day being held to account for the 'Baby P' horror story. AND don't even think that is a one off either, because it isn't!
The very Idea that one person is responsible for everything is so funny that people believe that. @)(++(*
BOJO is NOT a dictator- he is accountable- if he is given the wrong information and acts upon it he isn't sent to the gallows as some would like.
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Can you please put me right, me being all ignorant about Government and how it is run. Thanks.
To other members, who don't have claws pointing in my direction, and have a better understanding of how government DOES work, please feel free to advise others about how civil servants are appointed and how the government departments operate- each have a MP who is appointed minister to the cabinet (top dogs). Top dogs report to PM to ensure policy is being carried out. In the event of a real fkup civil servants and MPS can be called to account, via select committees, there are also public inquiries and Parliamentary committees.
I do not recall the prime minister of the day being held to account for the 'Baby P' horror story. AND don't even think that is a one off either, because it isn't!
The very Idea that one person is responsible for everything is so funny that people believe that. @)(++(*
BOJO is NOT a dictator- he is accountable- if he is given the wrong information and acts upon it he isn't sent to the gallows as some would like.
Oh to be so innocent....I do envy you sometimes MTI.
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Oh to be so innocent....I do envy you sometimes MTI.
I take it yo have no alternative argument? Just to be curious, do you have a different take on how governments are run.
It would be interesting to read it. 8**8:/:
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I take it yo have no alternative argument? Just to be curious, do you have a different take on how governments are run.
It would be interesting to read it. 8**8:/:
You’re not interested in my take, be honest.....and being honest I don’t think you deserve the time it would take me to write it.
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You’re not interested in my take, be honest.....and being honest I don’t think you deserve the time it would take me to write it.
Being honest, I think you have no explanation to refute my take on how Governments are run. And your narrow view of blame everything on the right wing and Tories, and Boris Johnston, and anyone who does not agree with you are racists. Name calling in a debate is very much an immature thing. I was taught to stick to the subject.
So being very honest- you have no debate to offer.Therefore, I accept your resignation regarding not wanting to discuss further.
Other people may be interested in these links:
" Civil servants also have some traditional and statutory responsibilities which to some extent protect them from being used for the political advantage of the party in power. Senior civil servants may be called to account to Parliament."[/b]
AND
" In general use, the term civil servant in the United Kingdom does not include all public sector employees; although there is no fixed legal definition, the term is usually defined as a "servant of the Crown working in a civil capacity who is not the holder of a political (or judicial) office; the holder of certain other offices in respect of whose tenure of office special provision has been made"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Service_(United_Kingdom)
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Sir Patrick Valence......”we should learn lessons as we go along”
So there you have it. Those who were trying to denigrate those of us who were criticising the government’s reactions in the first months of the pandemic have been vindicated.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-sage-urged-govt-to-lockdown-a-week-earlier-uks-chief-scientific-adviser-says-12029956
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How stupid is this, and what does it say about the accuracy of our death stats which must surely be over-reported?
“No one with Covid in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness,” Carl Heneghan, from Oxford University, and Yoon Loke, from East Anglia University, wrote. “A patient who has tested positive but been successfully treated and discharged from hospital will still be counted as a Covid death even if they had a heart attack, or are run over by a bus three months later.”
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https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/coronavirus-scandalous-silence-of-governments-disability-unit-as-thousands-die/
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How stupid is this, and what does it say about the accuracy of our death stats which must surely be over-reported?
“No one with Covid in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness,” Carl Heneghan, from Oxford University, and Yoon Loke, from East Anglia University, wrote. “A patient who has tested positive but been successfully treated and discharged from hospital will still be counted as a Covid death even if they had a heart attack, or are run over by a bus three months later.”
Statistics- say what you want the answer to be and load the questions- SIMPLES! also, it helps if you only ask those who you know will give you the answers you want.
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The civil service need a cull as far as I am concerned. It is filled with people who have been promoted beyond their capabilities. All about self promotion, huge egos...
What was that I was saying about huge egos?
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1311392/Black-lives-matter-Winston-Churchill-Treasury-room-Westminster-Whitehall
poor wee darlings all upset over a name! Time to clear out those who are clearly unable to cope with their work.
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https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-no-plan-rushed-and-run-on-the-hoof-mps-condemn-governments-pandemic-reaction-12034359
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https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-no-plan-rushed-and-run-on-the-hoof-mps-condemn-governments-pandemic-reaction-12034359
News of the day. shock horror- some people do not like the Tories or BOJO.
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ministers-waste-150m-buying-unusable-masks-from-banker-5v8390xtp
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ministers-waste-150m-buying-unusable-masks-from-banker-5v8390xtp
Interesting...
I could fill a whole terabite of data- of money wasted in the NHS from ministers/managers of both Labour and Conservative.
Putting our lives at risk? Covid -19 is a flu like virus. It kills some people,like all viruses.
Living in Scotland, BOJO is out shone by 'Queen of Scotland'- Ms Sturgeon.
I like to keep it real.
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Interesting...
I could fill a whole terabite of data- of money wasted in the NHS from ministers/managers of both Labour and Conservative.
Putting our lives at risk? Covid -19 is a flu like virus. It kills some people,like all viruses.
Living in Scotland, BOJO is out shone by 'Queen of Scotland'- Ms Sturgeon.
I like to keep it real.
Masks protect...if the masks are faulty then yes, people who are vulnerable to the virus are put at risk.Not to mention the bill footed by the taxpayer.
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I don’t want to say I told you so but has anyone ever seen such a incompetent government sh*t show ?
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I don’t want to say I told you so but has anyone ever seen such a incompetent government sh*t show ?
....As in Boris trying to protect UK interests during Brexit negotiations while Labour & SNP want to bow down & submit to the EU?
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Interesting...
I could fill a whole terabite of data- of money wasted in the NHS from ministers/managers of both Labour and Conservative.
Putting our lives at risk? Covid -19 is a flu like virus. It kills some people,like all viruses.
Living in Scotland, BOJO is out shone by 'Queen of Scotland'- Ms Sturgeon.
I like to keep it real.
Sturgeon hasn't impressed the Shetland Islands, it seems.
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....As in Boris trying to protect UK interests during Brexit negotiations while Labour & SNP want to bow down & submit to the EU?
Well you’ve certainly drank the Koolaid.
In what way is he protecting the U.K. and does that mean that he couldn’t care less about the union when he lauded the WA as a ‘fantastic deal’ ?
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Sturgeon hasn't impressed the Shetland Islands, it seems.
Or Orkney!
She will be ousted at next election. People are not in the mood for indyref2 and the anti English hate crimes being manifested by her and her ilk.
Scotland to get new hate crime bill- it is so spiteful and anti democratic just like the left marxist agenda we have all come to see through!
Millions to be wasted spent on conscious bias training. Copying the Chinese with regards to the Muslim 'problem' detaining them to deprogram them. OH Here come the head Fux people with their smart board and team times/Zoom presentations.
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Well? What should he do next, critics?
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For @John
Not sure what the implications for you may be...
Agriculture bill: Bid to protect post-Brexit food standards rejected
MPs have rejected the latest attempt to require imported food to meet domestic legal standards from 1 January.
They struck down a Lords amendment to the Agriculture Bill to force trade deals to meet UK animal welfare and food safety rules.
Campaigners have warned the UK could be forced to accept lower standards to secure a future US trade deal.
But Farming minister Victoria Prentis said the government was "absolutely committed to high standards".
Existing laws would safeguard them, she told the House of Commons, adding that these were "of more use than warm words" in maintaining animal welfare, food standards and environmental protections.
The bill - designed to prepare the farming industry for when the UK no longer has to follow EU laws and rules next year - returned to the Commons on Monday following amendments by the House of Lords.
The government says EU rules banning imports of chlorine-washed chicken and other products will be automatically written into UK law once the post-Brexit transition period ends on 31 December.
But peers made a number of changes, including one which would give MPs a veto over sections in trade deals relating to food imports, which would be required to comply with "relevant domestic standards".
They argued these changes were necessary to make it impossible for the US or other countries to export so-called chlorinated chicken or beef fattened with hormones.
However, MPs voted by 332 votes to 279 - a majority 53 - to back government plans to reject the amendment.
However, Conservative MPs Sir Roger Gale and George Freeman said they would vote for the amendment to remain in the bill, saying it was in line with their party's 2019 manifesto pledge to maintain welfare standards.
Neil Parish, the Conservative chairman of the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, told the Commons that Brexit meant UK agriculture could move in a "much more environmental direction", including planting more trees and cutting the use of nitrates.
The country should be a "beacon" of high animal welfare and countryside-protection standards, he added.
But Conservative MP John Lamont supported the government, saying the amendments were "not in the interests" of food producers or standards and would be "bad for trade".
Party colleague Anthony Mangnall said there had been a "huge amount of fear-mongering" over the importation of chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef, and that "has to stop".
'Back British farmers'
In the Commons, Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Tim Farron said the controversy over chlorinated chicken was not "about the quality of food" but the "integrity of our farming industry".
For Labour, shadow environment secretary Luke Pollard said this was a "crucial moment for British agriculture", adding that high standards could all be "thrown away".
He urged the government to "show some leadership" and "back British farmers".
The bill must include guarantees that UK farmers would not be "undercut" in post-Brexit trade deals, Mr Pollard said.
However another potential rebellion by backbench Tory MPs was avoided by the government when the deputy speaker ruled out an amendment to strengthen the new Trade and Agriculture Commission.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-54506185
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For @John
Not sure what the implications for you may be...
Agriculture bill: Bid to protect post-Brexit food standards rejected
MPs have rejected the latest attempt to require imported food to meet domestic legal standards from 1 January.
They struck down a Lords amendment to the Agriculture Bill to force trade deals to meet UK animal welfare and food safety rules.
Campaigners have warned the UK could be forced to accept lower standards to secure a future US trade deal.
But Farming minister Victoria Prentis said the government was "absolutely committed to high standards".
Existing laws would safeguard them, she told the House of Commons, adding that these were "of more use than warm words" in maintaining animal welfare, food standards and environmental protections.
The bill - designed to prepare the farming industry for when the UK no longer has to follow EU laws and rules next year - returned to the Commons on Monday following amendments by the House of Lords.
The government says EU rules banning imports of chlorine-washed chicken and other products will be automatically written into UK law once the post-Brexit transition period ends on 31 December.
But peers made a number of changes, including one which would give MPs a veto over sections in trade deals relating to food imports, which would be required to comply with "relevant domestic standards".
They argued these changes were necessary to make it impossible for the US or other countries to export so-called chlorinated chicken or beef fattened with hormones.
However, MPs voted by 332 votes to 279 - a majority 53 - to back government plans to reject the amendment.
However, Conservative MPs Sir Roger Gale and George Freeman said they would vote for the amendment to remain in the bill, saying it was in line with their party's 2019 manifesto pledge to maintain welfare standards.
Neil Parish, the Conservative chairman of the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, told the Commons that Brexit meant UK agriculture could move in a "much more environmental direction", including planting more trees and cutting the use of nitrates.
The country should be a "beacon" of high animal welfare and countryside-protection standards, he added.
But Conservative MP John Lamont supported the government, saying the amendments were "not in the interests" of food producers or standards and would be "bad for trade".
Party colleague Anthony Mangnall said there had been a "huge amount of fear-mongering" over the importation of chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef, and that "has to stop".
'Back British farmers'
In the Commons, Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Tim Farron said the controversy over chlorinated chicken was not "about the quality of food" but the "integrity of our farming industry".
For Labour, shadow environment secretary Luke Pollard said this was a "crucial moment for British agriculture", adding that high standards could all be "thrown away".
He urged the government to "show some leadership" and "back British farmers".
The bill must include guarantees that UK farmers would not be "undercut" in post-Brexit trade deals, Mr Pollard said.
However another potential rebellion by backbench Tory MPs was avoided by the government when the deputy speaker ruled out an amendment to strengthen the new Trade and Agriculture Commission.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-54506185
Good god this is a no brainier (pun intended). We have been infiltrated with 'dodgy Irish beef' illegal meats infiltrated our food chain from all over the world, kidding yourselves about high quality. Maybe in Scotland using Scottish beef reared and slaughtered here. And in some English farms.
The chlorinated chicken will be marked and it will be choice no one will make it a law you have to buy it.
calm down carnivores.