Boris is back phew

[City123]

It also hasn't ever worked like that before.

Labour's spending up until 2008 was supported by the Tories as was much of their response to the crash. Labour carried the can for that massive mess whether it was partially their fault or not and I am pretty sure those squealing 'party politics!' in this thread every time a government **** up is pointed out weren't saying 'well hold on, the tories wouldn't have done any better' in 2010. This is how politics works, the party in government takes the hit. Time for the thin-skinned to put their big boy pants on.

The irony of course being that those on the right are often the first to scream "snowflake"

[life on mars]

And on that actually, you made a thread about this and I told you I agreed with the impressive speed the London facility (the only one open at the time) was put together. Short memory.

I know, it was noted , I wasn't talking to about you personally, just people in general .

I think people of this country will have time and facts to judge anc reflect on this remarkably sad moment in our history yes on how it was managed with little or no experience.

Yes it would be a foolish man to think it was easy, and mistakes weren't made , and good ones delivered.

The remarkable storyline for me is where a government has had too beg educated adults every night to wash thier hands stay indoors , don't over buy , think of others during and before the lockdown .

Isn't the real story about active and personal responsibility and care for others , as death has resulted from contact and behaviour.

[Heisenberg]

I know, it was noted , I wasn't talking to about you personally, just people in general .

I think people of this country will have time and facts to judge anc reflect on this remarkably sad moment in our history yes on how it was managed with little or no experience.

Yes it would be a foolish man to think it was easy, and mistakes weren't made , and good ones delivered.

The remarkable storyline for me is where a government has had too beg educated adults every night to wash thier hands stay indoors , don't over buy , think of others during and before the lockdown .

[B]Isn't the real story about active and personal responsibility and care for others , as death has resulted from contact and behaviour[B/].

What do you mean the "real story"?

[Rjk]

I know, it was noted , I wasn't talking to about you personally, just people in general .

I think people of this country will have time and facts to judge anc reflect on this remarkably sad moment in our history yes on how it was managed with little or no experience.

Yes it would be a foolish man to think it was easy, and mistakes weren't made , and good ones delivered.

The remarkable storyline for me is where a government has had too beg educated adults every night to wash thier hands stay indoors , don't over buy , think of others during and before the lockdown .

Isn't the real story about active and personal responsibility and care for others , as death has resulted from contact and behaviour.

Really, you don't think the prime minister saying he would continue shaking hands with people with the virus was sending out a bad message? is it any wonder that some people have been poor to take up the message given we started off saying we would ride it out without any lockdown and some good old british stiff upper lip.

I can remember commentators from Ireland looking on aghast after their lockdown when we spent about a fortnight carrying on like nothing had happened. Then many businesses and sports took the decision into their own hands before the government finally acted.

Can you imagine if Corbyn had done those exact things, try for a minute to imagine corbyn doing the exact things that Boris Johnson has done, even catching the virus himself, imagine the newspapers. He would never have heard the end of it.

[goats]

Wish we'd been in China only 83,901 cases and 4,636 deaths marvelous effort .

Still in lockdown aren’t they? 3 months is it?

[stan butler]

Im a long chalk from being a Tory supporter. Ive never voted for them in my life, but i don't think it would have mattered a jot how they'd handled this virus situation. They'd have still got a kicking from the resident hate mob on here 😁

Spot on.. Some right bitter oddballs on here.

[City123]

Spot on.. Some right bitter oddballs on here.

Aye, particularly that one implying a politician is a sex offender as they disagree politically

[delmbox]

Hong Kong - 6480 people / square km

4 deaths!

Shut down early you make a huge difference

Tell It Like It Is is doing a great job of Staying Away and Telling Nothing about these two posts

[jon1959]

Phew!

[life on mars]

What do you mean the "real story"?

Human personal responsibility for ones own behaviour to keep others safe .

[lardy]

You and others have every right to criticise the governments handling of this if you want. My point was, you and others cant possibly know if a Labour government would have done any better.
.

By the same token, no one can know if Corbyn and Abbott would have done any worse, and that's where this conversation began.

[Croesy Blue]

Spot on.. Some right bitter oddballs on here.

Yet you couldn’t counter one point or answer a simple question.

What would anyone be bitter about?

Just because you voted for them means you have to think everything they do is right. They aren’t a football team to support, you vote them in to do the right thing and when they **** it up like this you hold them to account.

[Croesy Blue]

You replied with one nation only, Germany.

I asked you to provide a German city with similar population and density.

You then edit your comment to add South Korea in.

Quite sad.

Still ignoring it?

[chris lee]

I think they have done OK giving the circumstances, they were obviously caught cold and unprepared, but lets be honest we all were. most of us did not really start taking it seriously for a long time, and there was so much miss-information (mostly from the media) telling us how harmless it was 0.1% death rate number floating around everywhere.

China, should be held hugely responsible for the delays and misinformation, Outstandingly their propaganda machine has been working overtime and they even have people still defending and praising them on the public stage.


I suppose we can just be thankful it is not an incredible lethal disease, but one that can cause just enough ripples to make us sit up and take notice, I hope in the long term we can look back on this as a positive experience to help shift our priorities back in the right places.

[goats]

I think they have done OK giving the circumstances, they were obviously caught cold and unprepared, but lets be honest we all were. most of us did not really start taking it seriously for a long time, and there was so much miss-information (mostly from the media) telling us how harmless it was 0.1% death rate number floating around everywhere.

China, should be held hugely responsible for the delays and misinformation, Outstandingly their propaganda machine has been working overtime and they even have people still defending and praising them on the public stage.


I suppose we can just be thankful it is not an incredible lethal disease, but one that can cause just enough ripples to make us sit up and take notice, I hope in the long term we can look back on this as a positive experience to help shift our priorities back in the right places.

When the dust settles I reckon the Chinese will be held to account for trying to cover it up initially, trying to silence their own doctors etc...

[lardy]

I think they have done OK giving the circumstances, they were obviously caught cold and unprepared, but lets be honest we all were. most of us did not really start taking it seriously for a long time, and there was so much miss-information (mostly from the media) telling us how harmless it was 0.1% death rate number floating around everywhere.

China, should be held hugely responsible for the delays and misinformation, Outstandingly their propaganda machine has been working overtime and they even have people still defending and praising them on the public stage.


I suppose we can just be thankful it is not an incredible lethal disease, but one that can cause just enough ripples to make us sit up and take notice, I hope in the long term we can look back on this as a positive experience to help shift our priorities back in the right places.

It doesn't matter that we, the public, were caught cold. The government has a pandemic response ready to use, in fact a really good one. Apparently Singapore took it and followed it to good effect - the UK didn't follow its own guide. So it's not really enough to say, well I was surprised by it so it's understandable that they were too.

As for China, yes they deserve blame. But we can't blame them for it all. By the third week of January, we (as in the public) could see it was becoming pretty serious, let alone the government. I haven't checked dates but I think that was clear from reports before the first confirmed UK case.

Aside from that, I don't recall 0.1% as the covid death rate at any point, I recall that as the flu death rate. Not saying I'm right and you're wrong, but that's my recollection.

[the other bob wilson]

This message is aimed at those who spring to the aid of the Conservative Government as a pure reflex when they are criticised - you know what I mean, there are a few of them in this thread and, I must say they've been particularly feeble so far with their "why is everybody always picking on them" defence.

Firstly, you are coming at this from a purely party political point of view, so how do you answer this excellent earlier post from Surge?;-

"For the record, I'd much rather vote Tory at next GE on back of their fantastic handling of this health crisis, and aftermath, than a majority feel the need to vote elsewhere because of how they continue to mishandle it. Think that sums up 95% of the UK.

Of course there will be other issues to consider as well, we hope, but counter to scrutiny of current UK government seems to be suggesting it's party politics or opposition couldn't have done better. Don't think we care so much about what other parties could do, we want this one to do much better."

Second, have a look at last night's Panorama on IPlayer if you've not seen it already. You should know that it's not all about the UK Government, in the first few minutes a NHS worker at Morriston Hospital criticises the Government, so that will give you a chance to indulge in some Labour bashing because I know that's very important to you at this time of great suffering for many.

However, it has to be said that the programme was very damning of the UK Government as it carried what seems convincing evidence that the status of the virus was downgraded just before it really established itself in this country because it was known that the UK didn't have the stocks of PPE required for a virus with the highest category ranking.

Watching that made sense of the UK's decision not to enforce the wearing of face masks by the public in certain circumstances despite it being Government policy in many other countries. Surely it's not the case that, despite the fact that it is now generally accepted that wearing face masks greatly reduces the chances of you passing the virus on to others if you have it, the UK Government is stopping short of following the example of others because it knows that they are struggling, and often failing it would appear, to provide face masks of the required quality for NHS staff without having to worry about the general public as well?

Speaking for myself, I usually need no second invitation to knock the Conservative party, but I've been just as critical of the Welsh Government when it comes to handling of the virus. There is too much that has gone wrong with the UK's handling of COVID19 for anyone who criticises it to be written off as a Tory hating, Labour voter - indecision is indecision, complacency is complacency, obfuscating is obfuscating and relying on the goodwill of a group of workers because you know the huge majority of them will continue on despite having substandard tools to do their jobs is political cynicism and opportunism no matter who is responsible.

[the other bob wilson]

It doesn't matter that we, the public, were caught cold. The government has a pandemic response ready to use, in fact a really good one. Apparently Singapore took it and followed it to good effect - the UK didn't follow its own guide. So it's not really enough to say, well I was surprised by it so it's understandable that they were too.

As for China, yes they deserve blame. But we can't blame them for it all. By the third week of January, we (as in the public) could see it was becoming pretty serious, let alone the government. I haven't checked dates but I think that was clear from reports before the first confirmed UK case.

Aside from that, I don't recall 0.1% as the covid death rate at any point, I recall that as the flu death rate. Not saying I'm right and you're wrong, but that's my recollection.

I'll admit I've been surprised at the scale of the virus in this country, but, back in early February I can remember telling someone who walks their dog with me that they were wrong to think it was just like the flu and would have little or no impact over here (in fact she thought it would not even reach the Rhondda valley) that they were wrong. As I saw it nearly three months ago, all of the evidence pointed towards it claiming lives in this area. If I could see this, surely the UK Government could, but judging by their response in those vital weeks in February and early March, it would seem that, maybe, they didn't - I can remember being flabbergasted by the news that the Prime Minister was taking half of February off while he stayed in Chequers and we later learned that he had missed five COBRA meetings during those six weeks!

[the other bob wilson]

A link to last night's Panorama;-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...failed-the-nhs

[lardy]

I'll admit I've been surprised at the scale of the virus in this country, but, back in early February I can remember telling someone who walks their dog with me that they were wrong to think it was just like the flu and would have little or no impact over here (in fact she thought it would not even reach the Rhondda valley) that they were wrong. As I saw it nearly three months ago, all of the evidence pointed towards it claiming lives in this area. If I could see this, surely the UK Government could, but judging by their response in those vital weeks in February and early March, it would seem that, maybe, they didn't - I can remember being flabbergasted by the news that the Prime Minister was taking half of February off while he stayed in Chequers and we later learned that he had missed five COBRA meetings during those six weeks!

Organ Morgan started a thread on here on 24th January, saying that the virus was the lead story on BBC news for the second day running. So yes, there's no doubt that the virus was a big story whilst we were still in the midst of January.

Maybe most people on the British Isles at the time thought they were safe as it was so far away, but it was certainly a big deal even then.

[celticknight]

Anyone who is saying "don't politicise this" just wants people to agree with their particular opinion without question.

The Tories politicised this whole thing back in Jan/Feb when they made a choice to ignore the early warning signs and "take it on the chin", if a few pensioners and ill people die, who cares? And anyone who voted for them at the last election is complicit in the thousands of preventable deaths that would never have happened if we had planned ahead and prepared like some other countries.

[Eric Cartman]

I think they have done OK giving the circumstances, they were obviously caught cold and unprepared, but lets be honest we all were. most of us did not really start taking it seriously for a long time, and there was so much miss-information (mostly from the media) telling us how harmless it was 0.1% death rate number floating around everywhere.

China, should be held hugely responsible for the delays and misinformation, Outstandingly their propaganda machine has been working overtime and they even have people still defending and praising them on the public stage.


I suppose we can just be thankful it is not an incredible lethal disease, but one that can cause just enough ripples to make us sit up and take notice, I hope in the long term we can look back on this as a positive experience to help shift our priorities back in the right places.

I don't believe a word that comes out of China.

The government have never once claimed to be caught cold/unprepared. To the contrary they claim to have always taken the right steps at the right time. So my first question would be, how is that much different to the misinformation from China and my second, why do you hold the Chinese government to a higher standard than our own?

It disappoints me that yet again reasonable British people have, without protest or a second thought, bought the 'bloody foreigners' narrative.

[surge]

I think they have done OK giving the circumstances, they were obviously caught cold and unprepared, but lets be honest we all were. most of us did not really start taking it seriously for a long time, and there was so much miss-information (mostly from the media) telling us how harmless it was 0.1% death rate number floating around everywhere.

China, should be held hugely responsible for the delays and misinformation, Outstandingly their propaganda machine has been working overtime and they even have people still defending and praising them on the public stage.


I suppose we can just be thankful it is not an incredible lethal disease, but one that can cause just enough ripples to make us sit up and take notice, I hope in the long term we can look back on this as a positive experience to help shift our priorities back in the right places.

If you have a government exercise where you imagine a pandemic and don't take action based on the results, is that China's fault?

If you are told at the end of January that this pandemic is coming to your shore in a major way and don't take action til mid-March, is that China's fault?

If you are incredibly guarded about the information you're following so that some are still denying herd immunity was part of the government's plan, is that China or the media's fault.

[Hilts]

Another Tory Minister getting leathered by Piers Morgan this morning. They really are completely incompetent and thats being nice.

[Rjk]

There was just an article on Vietnam, on 5live, where they have managed it really well. They locked down very strictly and very quickly.
They border China but have only had 270 cases, most of whom have already recovered, and 0 deaths.

We had a lot more warning about how bad this was and we didn't act, did we think it was some beastly foreign disease that wouldn't affect us Brits? Or was the FTSE100 more of a concern than people's lives back in February and march?