Coronavirus update - NO MORE RESTRICTIONS

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

Politically, I have never voted for one singular party. It very often changes. However, there is one mainstream party I have never been able to vote for, and that is the Conservative Party. That is purely because they have never struck me as a party that cares for people who fall on hard times, and I have always said that hard times are only a bad day away for most people. I find the concept of voting for one party all through a lifetime a bit strange because parties evolve. The Labour Party that my granddad voted for in 1997 was not the same beast as the one he voted for in 1983.

So, it is sad to see that "staunch Tory voters" are reduced to saying nonsense like "imagine how much worse it would have been if Corbyn had got in?". It's a useful line because it is purely hypothetical, and in the hypothesis it is assumed that Corbyn would have made a mess of it. It's difficult to argue against without hypothesising yourself.

lisvaneblue, who seems to be very anti-Drakeford and not very anti-Johnson (despite the Welsh handling of the crisis post lockdown being much better than the English), has replied to the video by pointing out one inaccuracy and has completely ignored the roll of shame.

I defended the Government when locking down, I still think it was the right thing to do and it very likely saved a lot of lives and saved the NHS. However, during the lockdown huge mistakes were made, not least the decision to release hospital patients into the care system. In time, that will be seen as the most idiotic decision made by a British Government in decades. The decision to rush out of lockdown (in light of removing the spotlight from Cummings and onto good news) will also be seen to be negligent in time. Labour, and Blair, may be accused of introducing "spin" into politics (although Thatcher had a very good spin team) - but Johnson spins us out of the stratosphere. Diverging from the science to divert attention from Cummings was obvious to anyone with half an ounce of sense, as is the increase in anti-migration rhetoric whenever his Government has a bad day.

As for bad days, well the BTEC results were held back today affecting 450,000 young kids. We had the A level fiasco last week affecting thousands of kids. Did we have any statement from Johnson, or is his holiday still of paramount importance?

im not very anti-Drakeford, just pointing out that it was not factually accurate. Like you I am 'not died in the wool' attached to any particular party as TOBW is. Last time around I voted Boris in for no other reason than to get Brexit done. If an election was held tomorrow Starmer would probably get my vote.

As for the current situation under Boris, it's shambolic. Everyday we seem to be exposed to another mess and no end in sight. He is a delegator but his team is young and inexperienced and it shows. Sad thing is it doesn't seem to be getting any better

[Jordi Culé]

Re: Coronavirus update

im not very anti-Drakeford, just pointing out that it was not factually accurate. Like you I am 'not died in the wool' attached to any particular party as TOBW is. Last time around I voted Boris in for no other reason than to get Brexit done. If an election was held tomorrow Starmer would probably get my vote.

As for the current situation under Boris, it's shambolic. Everyday we seem to be exposed to another mess and no end in sight. He is a delegator but his team is young and inexperienced and it shows. Sad thing is it doesn't seem to be getting any better

The bumbling beanbag is a “delegator...” You’re giving the colossal fuuckwit far too much credit.

By the way, he picked or chose his team and filled it with people who blow smoke up his arse and who are as competent as he is.

Best description I can give them is a gaggle of fuuckwits.

[A Quiet Monkfish]

Re: Coronavirus update

The bumbling beanbag is a “delegator...” You’re giving the colossal fuuckwit far too much credit.

By the way, he picked or chose his team and filled it with people who blow smoke up his arse and who are as competent as he is.

Best description I can give them is a gaggle of fuuckwits.

I'm actually coming round to think Drakeford hasn't done too bad - certainly wouldn't call him a fuuuckwit..

[Rjk]

Re: Coronavirus update

to be fair, drakeford has an easy win as he's ever likely to get at the moment.
all he has to do is be 10% better than those currently running England and he comes out with a lot of credit.

and those running England are making a right mess.of things.

[CCFCC3PO]

Re: Coronavirus update

im not very anti-Drakeford, just pointing out that it was not factually accurate. Like you I am 'not died in the wool' attached to any particular party as TOBW is. Last time around I voted Boris in for no other reason than to get Brexit done. If an election was held tomorrow Starmer would probably get my vote.

As for the current situation under Boris, it's shambolic. Everyday we seem to be exposed to another mess and no end in sight. He is a delegator but his team is young and inexperienced and it shows. Sad thing is it doesn't seem to be getting any better

It is completely shambolic; he was caught in no-man's-land between saving people, retaining freedoms, and not trashing the economy. I have sympathy for him, I know I'd be completely incapable of managing the situation and would have run a mile. Maybe he should have done so too.

My view of him is that he is incapable of taking responsibility for past failings, there is nothing wrong in holding up hands and saying "sorry, we have got it wrong". The Cummings episode was the thread that led most of the previous hard work to unravel.

Allowing people to travel to Europe to holiday while, at the same time, stopping people from visiting relatives at home? Opening pubs before opening schools? No briefings giving people the impression this is "all over" (I have heard someone actually say this in Sainsburys), a necessary furlough scheme that has seen people refuse to go to work (neighbours are my anecdotal evidence), kids out in the street during April clamouring around an ice-cream van who was getting paid by the tax-payer precisely not to do that?

The lockdown was necessary, the speed at which England came out of it was not. We are still breaching the 1,000 cases limit on an almost daily basis, yes there is more testing meaning that we are recording more minor cases than previously but the 1,000 cases limit is based on those parameters.

It is shambolic. There doesn't seem to be any strategy, and the scientists seem to have become nodding dogs with more political than scientific answers (during briefings it was interesting to see scientists look at Johnson whilst giving answers).

We hear of upcoming unemployment figures, the cliff-edge that is the end of furlough but we still have the Brexit cliff-edge to come! I was never convinced that we were in a "strong bargaining position" when it came to the EU or anyone else worldwide, I am even less convinced now.

We are not hearing, though, of people on zero hour contracts. My partner works in a care home where some carers were placed on furlough on the last day of the scheme in June. When the burden of NI payments was passed back to the care home last month, they took the people off furlough. Guess what? Because they are on zero hour contracts, they haven't worked since meaning that the care home have jettisoned the NI burden and the wages.

Personally, I have taken a significant pay cut (supposedly my hours were cut) but my workload has meant I have continued working full time. I think there are probably many people experiencing the same thing, but nobody has mentioned this as a national problem yet - that we will have fewer people working, and those that are working will be on reduced wages or reduced hours.

I am not sure that I would vote for Starmer at this stage, although he impresses me the depth of "skill" in the labour party is particularly shallow, as it is in the Tory Party where incompetence caused by undying devotion to the leader seems to be a key requirement for getting to the cabinet. It is a terrible shame that most PMQs seem to retain attacks on party lines, although that tends to be more Johnson than Starmer with Johnson's answers insufficiently blaming Labour for "supporting going back to schools, but not supporting going back to schools" for example. Even though it is completely legitimate to support going back to schools, and to oppose the Government's plans for returning to schools.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

im not very anti-Drakeford, just pointing out that it was not factually accurate. Like you I am 'not died in the wool' attached to any particular party as TOBW is. Last time around I voted Boris in for no other reason than to get Brexit done. If an election was held tomorrow Starmer would probably get my vote.

As for the current situation under Boris, it's shambolic. Everyday we seem to be exposed to another mess and no end in sight. He is a delegator but his team is young and inexperienced and it shows. Sad thing is it doesn't seem to be getting any better

It's true I have voted Labour most of my life, but not entirely so - I'd say I've almost voted as much for other parties as I've voted for Labour in local, general and EU elections in the last twenty years. Also, if you were sad enough to go looking through my posts on here around early March time, you'd see my saying that I didn't want to be political when it came to the virus because the UK Government had been landed with a hell of a task, worse than anything I could remember in my lifetime.

I was also critical of the Welsh Government as well as the UK one in the spring when I had realised that it was impossible for me not to bring politics into what was happening, but, increasingly, it seems to me that Drakeford and Welsh Labour are outperforming Johnson and the Conservatives - although, as Rjk rightly points out, the latter are setting a very, very low bar.

As mentioned earlier, the present UK Government are facing a test that much more able administrations than this one would have struggled with, but has the situation changed much in the last few months when it seems to me that only a Chancellor who has had things relatively easy in so far as he has been, mainly, giving money out up to now has suggested he has the competence to succeed in a Cabinet that seems to have too many in it who have been rewarded for their loyalty to both Brexit and the Prime Minister?

I'm not naive enough to believe that we would not see instances of the sort of cronyism involving Dido Harding, her husband and Alun Cairns if there was another party running the UK, but it just seems more blatant and out in the open under this lot.

I may not have been Labour all of my life, but I have been, and always will be anti the Conservative Party. Johnson and co aren't bothered about someone like me I'm sure, but they should certainly be very concerned about what some of their friends are saying about them. For example, the Daily Mail front page has made for some very interesting reading at times during the past few months - this article, written this month, is also hardly the sort of thing you'd expect to read in that paper;-

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8605927/SIMON-WALTERS-fear-Boris-Johnson-heading-MAJOR-trouble.html

[Jordi Culé]

Re: Coronavirus update

I'm actually coming round to think Drakeford hasn't done too bad - certainly wouldn't call him a fuuuckwit..

*Raises eyebrow then smirks*

Nice try Monkfish.

[CCFCC3PO]

Re: Coronavirus update

It's true I have voted Labour most of my life, but not entirely so - I'd say I've almost voted as much for other parties as I've voted for Labour in local, general and EU elections in the last twenty years. Also, if you were sad enough to go looking through my posts on here around early March time, you'd see my saying that I didn't want to be political when it came to the virus because the UK Government had been landed with a hell of a task, worse than anything I could remember in my lifetime.

I was also critical of the Welsh Government as well as the UK one in the spring when I had realised that it was impossible for me not to bring politics into what was happening, but, increasingly, it seems to me that Drakeford and Welsh Labour are outperforming Johnson and the Conservatives - although, as Rjk rightly points out, the latter are setting a very, very low bar.

As mentioned earlier, the present UK Government are facing a test that much more able administrations than this one would have struggled with, but has the situation changed much in the last few months when it seems to me that only a Chancellor who has had things relatively easy in so far as he has been, mainly, giving money out up to now has suggested he has the competence to succeed in a Cabinet that seems to have too many in it who have been rewarded for their loyalty to both Brexit and the Prime Minister?

I'm not naive enough to believe that we would not see instances of the sort of cronyism involving Dido Harding, her husband and Alun Cairns if there was another party running the UK, but it just seems more blatant and out in the open under this lot.

I may not have been Labour all of my life, but I have been, and always will be anti the Conservative Party. Johnson and co aren't bothered about someone like me I'm sure, but they should certainly be very concerned about what some of their friends are saying about them. For example, the Daily Mail front page has made for some very interesting reading at times during the past few months - this article, written this month, is also hardly the sort of thing you'd expect to read in that paper;-

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...R-trouble.html

Oddly, John Major is the one Tory PM who I had some respect for. Wouldn't have voted for them though, and a minority Government might have tempered his actions, but he speaks brilliantly on Brexit.

Johnson lives in the knowledge that he probably won't be leader at the time of the next election but his party are giving an impression of fiddling while Rome burns.

[Jordi Culé]

Re: Coronavirus update

Oddly, John Major is the one Tory PM who I had some respect for. Wouldn't have voted for them though, and a minority Government might have tempered his actions, but he speaks brilliantly on Brexit.

Johnson lives in the knowledge that he probably won't be leader at the time of the next election but his party are giving an impression of fiddling while Rome burns.

He was obviously not Tory enough for some within their party but another conservative who I always had respect for was Ken Clarke. He would’ve been an interesting Tory leader.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

Just like with Labour in 2008, the Conservatives have been the victims of a situation which was out of their hands in so many ways, so it doesn't seem right to be critical about this, but it does show the size of the problem;-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53859299

[Elwood Blues]

Re: Coronavirus update

Well at least one Tory is willing to say why they still favour them and it seems to be the usual "yeah, but what about Labour?" stuff. I did not mention any other party, I'm just bemused as to what it will take for people who, on the one hand, seem almost embarrassed to admit they are Tories to start to question their allegiance!

Did you know that besides being involved with an organisation that was advocating the abolition of Public Health England, Dido Harding's husband was the Government's anti corruption "Champion"? I didn't, so whether it be politics by Twitter quote or not, David Schneider was passing on something that was relevant and informative, but, like lardy, it seems that it is who is revealing that information that is most important to those who defend this Government, not what he revealed.

Meant to reply to this earlier.

I would describe myself as a Tory voter rather than a Tory which implies a level of support for the party I do not have.


For many years I voted Liberal or SDP or Lib Dem or sometimes Tory. My Dad was a Liberal my grandfather before him even more so, he was from North Wales and really did know Lloyd George!

There is not really a plethora of parties as an alternative. The Liberals shot themselves in the foot with their ridiculous pledge to overturn the referendum result if they got into power (that went well!).

I don't see us being better of if Wales became independent sometime soon so that rules out Plaid.

Which leaves Labour. And yes despite your rather disparaging remark what about them?

I may have some reservations about the Tory performance but that does not mean I will unquestionably vote for Labour just because they have a new leader.

He has done reasonably well particularly at PMQ's where he has often tied Boris in knots, but then as a barrister and ex DPP he really should be able to speak and debate well

But Labour seem to be going back to the olf opposition for oppositions sake which to an extent I can understand but I had hoped that more constructive opposition was here to stay.

As regards your last point well yes I knew about John Penrose. I looked up Dido Harding when she was appointed to Track and Trace some weeks ago.

Then I looked him up. Took a couple of minutes.

You do an excellent quiz before games which must take considerable research.

I an surprised it took Mr Schneider to tell you about Penrose.

Incidentally I am concerned with what is revealed more than who provides the information.

Presumably your are suggesting there is something corrupt about Dido Harding's new appointment?

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Coronavirus update

Meant to reply to this earlier.

I would describe myself as a Tory voter rather than a Tory which implies a level of support for the party I do not have.


For many years I voted Liberal or SDP or Lib Dem or sometimes Tory. My Dad was a Liberal my grandfather before him even more so, he was from North Wales and really did know Lloyd George!

There is not really a plethora of parties as an alternative. The Liberals shot themselves in the foot with their ridiculous pledge to overturn the referendum result if they got into power (that went well!).

I don't see us being better of if Wales became independent sometime soon so that rules out Plaid.

Which leaves Labour. And yes despite your rather disparaging remark what about them?

I may have some reservations about the Tory performance but that does not mean I will unquestionably vote for Labour just because they have a new leader.

He has done reasonably well particularly at PMQ's where he has often tied Boris in knots, but then as a barrister and ex DPP he really should be able to speak and debate well

But Labour seem to be going back to the olf opposition for oppositions sake which to an extent I can understand but I had hoped that more constructive opposition was here to stay.

As regards your last point well yes I knew about John Penrose. I looked up Dido Harding when she was appointed to Track and Trace some weeks ago.

Then I looked him up. Took a couple of minutes.

You do an excellent quiz before games which must take considerable research.

I an surprised it took Mr Schneider to tell you about Penrose.

Incidentally I am concerned with what is revealed more than who provides the information.

Presumably your are suggesting there is something corrupt about Dido Harding's new appointment?

I knew of Penrose's connection to that organisation that has, apparently, backed privatising the NHS, but not that he was the Government's anti corruption "champion".

Is there something corrupt about Dido Harding's new appointment? I don't know, but I definitely say it is distinctly dodgy and reeks of cronyism of a type that does any political party who indulges in it no favours and it's far from the first instance of jobs for the boys/girls type appointments from a Government that is so intent on trying to centralise things.

I find your comments on the two main parties interesting. On the one hand, after the obligatory "I may have some reservations about the Tory performance", you then, presumably, excuse them completely as you tell me what is wrong with some of the non Labour alternatives who you write off completely on what seem fairly flimsy grounds to me in the case of the Lib Dems.

As for Labour, your main criticism of them appears to be the line that I heard Johnson laughably coming out with during one PMQ session that the opposition is not supporting the Government enough! My guess is that there are plenty of Labour supporters who are critical of their party for giving this Government which, even with making allowances for the crisis' that have been thrust upon them, are unusually error and u turn prone too easy a ride.

I've asked on couple of occasions on here just what is it in this Government's performance in the nine months since the election that is making 40 per cent plus of those who vote stick with them? What answers I've got back have tended to be of the "yeah, but what about Labour" type and there is of course those who still place such stall on getting Brexit "done". There is a third reason I hear from time to time which I'd say strikes me as a desperation on those who use its part not to admit they were wrong to support the Conservatives - they say the Government are trying their best and working really hard.

Really? Some of them may be, but Johnson? Working hard? I think not.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/21/yurt-holiday-pm-british-exams-meltdown-boris-johnson

It's in the nature of things I suppose, you pick holes in the party you disapprove of's performance while ignoring or excusing equally bad or worse aspects of your own party's workings - I do the former continuously with the Tories and although not so much during this century, I tend to to go easy on the Labour party, but, truly, the amount Conservative voters have had to sweep under the carpet as they stay loyal to Johnson and co is truly breathtaking, what will it take for them to start saying enough is enough?

[blue matt]

Re: Coronavirus update

Just like with Labour in 2008, the Conservatives have been the victims of a situation which was out of their hands in so many ways, so it doesn't seem right to be critical about this, but it does show the size of the problem;-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53859299

its just zero's though, we will never pay that amount off, so its just figures

[cyril evans awaydays]

Re: Coronavirus update

its just zero's though, we will never pay that amount off, so its just figures

The next job you do I suggest you don't bill the client in round numbers

[lisvaneblue]

Re: Coronavirus update

its just zero's though, we will never pay that amount off, so its just figures

You're right. It'll be left to your children and grandchildren, and maybe great-grandchildren to try to sort it out. At the end of the day there are no free lunches. Someone has to pay.