Coronavirus

[Graham Breeze]

I'm absolutely no fan of Boris and co and they have so screwed up in so many ways really (cheltenham races, the Liverpool game, ignoring early lockdown advice from Italy and Spain, f**king up testing and tracing, not testing or quarantining at entry points, not having sufficient protective gear in the NHS, dumping infected elderly patients on care homes, setting a gob smackingly shameful example to the country asking them to swallow the Dominic Cummings bollocks, wasting valuable time 'developing' a now dumped, unusable smartphone app through a crony firm linked to Cummings etc etc...

But why so parochial?

Surely you can lay the Sumatran tsunami, 9/11, Chernobyl and probably the Plagues of Egypt as his door as well?

[Fellbeast]

A cabinet of mostly talentless sycophants and yes men/women, just there to tick off brexit, have suddenly been found completely out of their depth

[Stagger]

Surely that better than the other 2 parties that never had any depth.

Corbyn was a joke.

[Muddy Retriever]

T Scotland have been piss poor at protecting care homes as has England and Wales, albeit it if not quite so piss poor.

Not true. Scotland has been the worst.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politi...ngland-2850266

[Muddy Retriever]

I'm absolutely no fan of Boris and co and they have so screwed up in so many ways really (cheltenham races, the Liverpool game, ignoring early lockdown advice from Italy and Spain, f**king up testing and tracing, not testing or quarantining at entry points, not having sufficient protective gear in the NHS, dumping infected elderly patients on care homes, setting a gob smackingly shameful example to the country asking them to swallow the Dominic Cummings bollocks, wasting valuable time 'developing' a now dumped, unusable smartphone app through a crony firm linked to Cummings etc etc) but despite of all that, you can't really say Wales and Scotland have done any better. Northern Ireland have though I guess

Some of those failings are undoubtedly true, but are they all the fault of the Government?

Take Cheltenham and the Liverpool game. At the time Patrick Vallance was not in favour of banning those events. He said it would not have a big effect on transmission rates. So rightly or wrongly the Government was only following the advice of its chief scientific officer.

Testing and PPE provison in the early days were both inadequate but they were the responsibility of Public Health England. For a whole month PHE turned down requests from private and university labs to assist with the testing. It was only when the Government got involved and overruled PHE that this changed.

I said at the time that Cummings made an error of judgement, but ultimately the worst that the police could say about the whole episode was that he might have committed a minor breach of lockdown rules in going to Barnard Castle. Most of the criticism was clearly politically motivated. The most vehement critics of Cummings have turned out to be the people who have cheered on the mass BLM protests, if not actually taken part in them themselves. This has been a much larger breech of lockdown rules.

I have to say though, the failure of an NHS App was entirely predictable. Why they didn't go for Apple/Google in the first place is beyond me.

[Witton Park]

Some of those failings are undoubtedly true, but are they all the fault of the Government?

Take Cheltenham and the Liverpool game. At the time Patrick Vallance was not in favour of banning those events. He said it would not have a big effect on transmission rates. So rightly or wrongly the Government was only following the advice of its chief scientific officer.

Testing and PPE provison in the early days were both inadequate but they were the responsibility of Public Health England. For a whole month PHE turned down requests from private and university labs to assist with the testing. It was only when the Government got involved and overruled PHE that this changed.

I said at the time that Cummings made an error of judgement, but ultimately the worst that the police could say about the whole episode was that he might have committed a minor breach of lockdown rules in going to Barnard Castle. Most of the criticism was clearly politically motivated. The most vehement critics of Cummings have turned out to be the people who have cheered on the mass BLM protests, if not actually taken part in them themselves. This has been a much larger breech of lockdown rules.

I have to say though, the failure of an NHS App was entirely predictable. Why they didn't go for Apple/Google in the first place is beyond me.

I've heard a few point the finger at the Cheltenham festival, but I haven't seen any evidence to back up the claim.
There was an article around a month after, but that was the mad Prof Ashton stirring it up.

[anthonykay]

But why so parochial?

Surely you can lay the Sumatran tsunami, 9/11, Chernobyl and probably the Plagues of Egypt as his door as well?

No, Boris was only responsible for the Plagues of Egypt; his sphere of influence is restricted to the Classical world.

But more seriously . . .

A cabinet of mostly talentless sycophants and yes men/women, just there to tick off brexit, have suddenly been found completely out of their depth

Yes, this is the problem: he has purged not only his cabinet, but his whole parliamentary party, of anyone who wouldn't do exactly what he demanded -- Sajid Javid being the most egregious example. In doing so, he got rid of a lot of talented and experienced MP's. The classic mistake of the megalomaniac, surrounding himself by yes-men (and yes-women), and then finding that there is no-one around him who can generate original ideas to solve problems.

The fact that many of these experienced politicians jumped before they were pushed doesn't make it any better. The constituency where I live is a classic example. Nicky Morgan was an excellent MP, who did a lot for the constituency (and I say that even though I never voted for her!). She resigned last year because the abuse she was getting from Brexiteers eventually became too much for her. She has now been replaced by an insipid woman who probably has a PhD in platitudes, but would probably never dream of criticising anything Boris did.

[Fellbeast]

I've heard a few point the finger at the Cheltenham festival, but I haven't seen any evidence to back up the claim.
There was an article around a month after, but that was the mad Prof Ashton stirring it up.

There was something In the news I’m sure mentioning a period in April where the cases and deaths in Cheltenham were higher than nearby places like Bristol and Bath but it will be almost impossible to tell I’d have thought. The daft thing though is that people travelled from all over to go there and ‘herding’ c 250,000 people together in a pandemic, knowing that they’d be returning to all over the place, is a completely stupid thing to allow (unless you were still barking up the herd immunity tree of course)

[Mike T]

Hopefully when normality returns we will see an end to all this pretentious, and over the top, hugging that seems to have crept into society. Even blokes do it. On a couple of occasions, people I have been introduced to have tried to hug me. Creepy or what. Now if I see them coming I quickly step to the side at the last minute in the hope they fall over. Only a couple of stumbles to report so far!

As for footballers, they hug each other in the centre circle before kick off as if they've not seen each other for months, having just come out of the dressing room!

Very strange behaviour hopefully destined for Room 101.

Could not agree more!

[Oracle]

To be fair to Wales and Scotland, they've only got limited wiggle room to play with. Scotland and Wales alone couldn't have come close to funding business support and furlough schemes without the UK Government so would've definitely towed the line on the timing of introducing lockdown. Wales still has the 5 mile travel rule which now seems bonkers and Scotland have been piss poor at protecting care homes as has England and Wales, albeit it if not quite so piss poor. I think excess death figures for all three have been higher than most other European countries but, from the non-English perspective, its fair to say England have the worse track record and I guess from the devolved governments' points of view, that's all they need to be able to prove. To be honest its all a bit of a red herring as England will have been hit hardest because of its huge travel hubs surrounding London and also the packed population down there.

I'm absolutely no fan of Boris and co and they have so screwed up in so many ways really (cheltenham races, the Liverpool game, ignoring early lockdown advice from Italy and Spain, f**king up testing and tracing, not testing or quarantining at entry points, not having sufficient protective gear in the NHS, dumping infected elderly patients on care homes, setting a gob smackingly shameful example to the country asking them to swallow the Dominic Cummings bollocks, wasting valuable time 'developing' a now dumped, unusable smartphone app through a crony firm linked to Cummings etc etc) but despite of all that, you can't really say Wales and Scotland have done any better. Northern Ireland have though I guess

The travel hubs and population density are clearly the problem.

Much of the rest of your opinions seem politically targeted rather than factual. For Vaccines, testing , politicisation of ppe study the facts not the press.

Boris took the views of medics who cannot agree to this day. Blame them. I do - they trashed the economy needlessly with project fear.

My other country is Portugal. All they did was more lax and later than the UK- reopening earlier , so attempting to blame Boris is a #fail

Anyone who mentions Cummings proves political intent not objective criticism.