At a time of crisis this Government is FAILING

Weegord I agree with part of what you say, but the complicit in killing is absolutely bonkers
 
As already outlined earlier, we should have had a lockdown far sooner based in the evidence from other countries. Businesses should have shut up shop sooner. Instead, he waffles, dithered and didn't really make any decisions becuase he didn't want to risk alienating the business community.
And what other measures?
Wages?
Food supply?
Utility supply?

Singapore hasn't locked down for example and they seem to have things under control?
 
Was wondering when you were going to resort to that. I never expected an apology but the apology was not for me. It was for the millions of people you a accused of complicity.
Still - come the revolution eh bro ?

What on earth are you banging on about? This has nothing to do with party politics, the management of the crisis has been completely focused on keeping the wrong people onside.

What do you find so difficult to understand about that?
 
And what other measures?
Wages?
Food supply?
Utility supply?

Singapore hasn't locked down for example and they seem to have things under control?

Of course there has to be key workers available to work; we need utilities, transport etc but it had to be just absolutley key workers.

Instead of taking control of the situation Johnson actively fluffed and dithered when the cost is likely to be thousand of unneccesary deaths.

How anyone can defend him is beyond me.
 
What on earth are you banging on about? This has nothing to do with party politics, the management of the crisis has been completely focused on keeping the wrong people onside.

What do you find so difficult to understand about that?
Nothing to do with party politics ?. Well you have finally given me a chuckle and for that I salute you
 
Nothing to do with party politics ?. Well you have finally given me a chuckle and for that I salute you

It hasn’t at all - you’re just reading what you want to read and trolling as usual CRS. Perhaps it’s about time I made you the first member of my block list, you bring absolutely nothing to the table.
 
It hasn’t at all - you’re just reading what you want to read and trolling as usual CRS. Perhaps it’s about time I made you the first member of my block list, you bring absolutely nothing to the table.
Block away. It will be positive to criticise for all to see but not yourself.
 
In my view the government have done a half decent job of it. They followed the advice of their senior medical team.

The reality is that the British people are not good at being told what to do, its a hard win to tell a family they are having no money coming in for an unknown period of time.

Hopefully today is a signal of improvement on the lowering of deaths.

February was a missed chance , but there were very few cases and I doubt people would have listened .

Weegord does my opinion make me a mass killer? You should be ashamed of yourself
 
I personally think it's been handled fairly well in the circumstances. Its unprecedented.
I would agree that we had a head start and more preparation could have been done. In hand with that then why didn't we close borders straight away. All internal and external flights - non essential. No holidays, no business.
Some of the measures that have been put in place in such a fairly short space of time have been impressive and hopefully ensure we can get the country running again when were through this.

Whatever side of the fence your on, it's a terrible, dynamic, hard to control situation.
Stay safe everybody
 
I can’t see how any of general public could be complicit in the murders of people due to covid

That’s quite inflammatory and over the top

I do agree with the sentiment around the government though This government is likely to have be able to save more in the first wave:

It failed to prepare
It’s failing to supply
It’s failing to prevent spread
If failing in true leadership

What we would give for a Churchill type character right now
 
Its strange how the Tories on here have jumped to defend the Govt, people have the right to criticise how its been handled. The Govt have probably done their best imho, they arent exactly good at what they do with simple things anyway and we have to accept that.

The neglect of the NHS and associated system has finally come to bite the Tories and their voters on the asre, thing is its ended up biting us all.
 
In my view the government have done a half decent job of it. They followed the advice of their senior medical team.

The reality is that the British people are not good at being told what to do, its a hard win to tell a family they are having no money coming in for an unknown period of time.

Hopefully today is a signal of improvement on the lowering of deaths.

February was a missed chance , but there were very few cases and I doubt people would have listened .

Weegord does my opinion make me a mass killer? You should be ashamed of yourself
I believe that you are well wrong about the government. Here is what I believe is a fair summary of the current situation. Taking the emotion out of it as much as I can....

"My take on this is that the government in power has deliberately run down the NHS throughout the time they have been in power. That has put the UK in the position where it cannot respond as well as people would have hoped.

Add to that the government in power did not plan effectively once they were given warning of this upcoming issue.

Add to that the government in power more recently appears to have gone against the advice of the WHO in the way they started to deal with the issue. Probably partly due to lack of resources in the NHS.

That means that the government in power is likely to be culpable of most likely causing additional unnecessary deaths.

At present we do not have the evidence as the situation is not over.

If other parties had been in power for an extended period recently the running down of the NHS capabilities would probably have not occurred as much. That we can state reasonably clearly.

The rest, at present, is a matter of opinions. We will have to wait to see the evidence.

I feel that is a fair summary of the current situation. "
 
I personally think it's been handled fairly well in the circumstances. Its unprecedented.
I would agree that we had a head start and more preparation could have been done. In hand with that then why didn't we close borders straight away. All internal and external flights - non essential. No holidays, no business.
Some of the measures that have been put in place in such a fairly short space of time have been impressive and hopefully ensure we can get the country running again when were through this.

Whatever side of the fence your on, it's a terrible, dynamic, hard to control situation.
Stay safe everybody
I believe that you are well wrong about the government. Here is what I believe is a fair summary of the current situation. Taking the emotion out of it as much as I can....

"My take on this is that the government in power has deliberately run down the NHS throughout the time they have been in power. That has put the UK in the position where it cannot respond as well as people would have hoped.

Add to that the government in power did not plan effectively once they were given warning of this upcoming issue.

Add to that the government in power more recently appears to have gone against the advice of the WHO in the way they started to deal with the issue. Probably partly due to lack of resources in the NHS.

That means that the government in power is likely to be culpable of most likely causing additional unnecessary deaths.

At present we do not have the evidence as the situation is not over.

If other parties had been in power for an extended period recently the running down of the NHS capabilities would probably have not occurred as much. That we can state reasonably clearly.

The rest, at present, is a matter of opinions. We will have to wait to see the evidence.

I feel that is a fair summary of the current situation. "
 
Its strange how the Tories on here have jumped to defend the Govt, people have the right to criticise how its been handled. The Govt have probably done their best imho, they arent exactly good at what they do with simple things anyway and we have to accept that.

The neglect of the NHS and associated system has finally come to bite the Tories and their voters on the asre, thing is its ended up biting us all.
I believe that you are well wrong about the government. Here is what I believe is a fair summary of the current situation. Taking the emotion out of it as much as I can....

"My take on this is that the government in power has deliberately run down the NHS throughout the time they have been in power. That has put the UK in the position where it cannot respond as well as people would have hoped.

Add to that the government in power did not plan effectively once they were given warning of this upcoming issue.

Add to that the government in power more recently appears to have gone against the advice of the WHO in the way they started to deal with the issue. Probably partly due to lack of resources in the NHS.

That means that the government in power is likely to be culpable of most likely causing additional unnecessary deaths.

At present we do not have the evidence as the situation is not over.

If other parties had been in power for an extended period recently the running down of the NHS capabilities would probably have not occurred as much. That we can state reasonably clearly.

The rest, at present, is a matter of opinions. We will have to wait to see the evidence.

I feel that is a fair summary of the current situation. "
 
The WHO have criticised our government actions
Other leading virologists have (The guy from Harvard saying he thought someone was being satirical when someone described our approach)
European leaders apparently had to resort to closing the borders before we agreed partial lockdown
Everyone appears to now agree the ‘Herd Immunity’ policy was flawed. Hancock says it was never policy despite the Chief Medical Officer saying in a radio interview that it was.
The self employed have criticised the government response to help them
The employed also had to wait longer than those in other countries for an announcement.

I’ve no idea whether we have done the right things are not - others better placed than me have raised many questions tho
 
I would also add to the statement I repeated above as follows:

We have to wait and see what happens in the next week or two. We should know a lot more by then. So I suggest that people (including myself) keep their powder dry.

Of course we can have opinions and express them. However, as yet, we do not have conclusive proof. (Apart from with the charge of deliberately neglecting the NHS since they last took over power 10 years ago).
 
WeeGord, whilst I agree that the government have mismanaged the situation, and I believe knowingly so. I believe that there were an acceptable number of deaths to keep the tax revenue coming in for bit longer. I am not sure it is productive or has any merit to accuse people, who are positive about the governments handling of this crisis, of being complicit in the governments decisions.

They would be complicit if we referendumed the decisions, but they are unilaterally the governments decisions unaffected by you, I or anyone else on this board.

Let's not start attacking each other,

Oh someone said earlier in the thread that UK deaths had started to decline, I am not sure why but the numbers came in very late at 43 new deaths. They haven't started to decline and it doesn't seem likely they will decline anytime soon. By that I mean 10 days or so. At that point social distancing may begin to have an impact, let's hope so.
 
Oh someone said earlier in the thread that UK deaths had started to decline, I am not sure why but the numbers came in very late at 43 new deaths. They haven't started to decline and it doesn't seem likely they will decline anytime soon. By that I mean 10 days or so. At that point social distancing may begin to have an impact, let's hope so.
In my province of Almería in Spain the figures are still small (115 incidents, 7 deaths I believe were the figures yesterday). Since we started the lock down (10-11 days ago) we have had days where the figures have hardly changed. Then yesterday we had 24 additional incidents. So it is clear that the changes on one day are not enough to give people positive feelings. It needs to be a continued multi-day trend. My guess is that the UK is not at that point yet.
 
In my province of Almería in Spain the figures are still small (115 incidents, 7 deaths I believe were the figures yesterday). Since we started the lock down (10-11 days ago) we have had days where the figures have hardly changed. Then yesterday we had 24 additional incidents. So it is clear that the changes on one day are not enough to give people positive feelings. It needs to be a continued multi-day trend. My guess is that the UK is not at that point yet.
Your absoloutely right, but human nature being what it is, we are all looking for any ray of hope, which is understandable.
 
During the biggest global crisis since the Second World War this Government has been sitting on its hands and trying to protect the economy more than the lives of its citizens. We had a head start on the likes of China, Italy and Spain and we did NOT heed their warnings; if this had been tackled head on then the number of deaths would no doubt be significantly less.

Boris Johnson has dithered around trying to keep big business and the markets happy (who just so happen to be the main source of funds for the Tory party) and only acted when he was left with no other choice.

It was suggested in the media that he only enforced the closure of pubs, restaurants, cinemas etc when given an ultimatum by President Macron that he would close the French border to the UK effectively damaging our supply lines. Then, he only enforced a sort of lockdown when senior members of his Cabinet threatened a revolt.

He promised help for the self-employed, of which there are over 5m people in the UK. None has been forthcoming. Workers in many industries are still being made to go to work despite their concerns, and all because he hasn't enforced a strict lockdown. Likewise, the tube trains are rammed and 500 police officers are 'advising' travellers on the trains to only travel where essential.

It's an absolute mess and this Government's decisions (or lack thereof) over recent weeks will sadly sound the death knell for countless people.

From the New York Times.


Boris Johnson has spent decades preparing for his lead role, honing his adopted character, perfecting his mannerisms, gauging the reactions to his performance and adjusting it for maximum effect. Now he has the national stage and the rapt audience he always craved. His speech this week announcing a lockdown drew the biggest television audience in Britain in this century.

The problem is that he has been preparing for the wrong part. The man came to power playing Falstaff, a double-dealing, comically entertaining, shameless rogue; now he is suddenly onstage as Henry V, the wartime king whose solemn judgment, intense focus, charisma and conviction must lead his nation in a time of crisis. Mr. Johnson does not know how to play that part, and it shows. This is not a rehearsal. His careless, inexcusable reluctance to track and halt the virus earlier will have cost lives.

Throughout these last weeks as the coronavirus crisis became apparent to everyone in Britain, Mr. Johnson has been indecisive, contradictory, confused and confusing, jovial when he should be grave, muddled when a frightened nation desperately needs him to be clear. The man picked for his supposed talents as a great communicator has stumbled his way through news conferences, occasionally hitting with evident relief upon a jolly riff he finds familiar. In the rare moments when he has struck the right note, he unerringly hits a jarring one minutes, hours or days later. His switches of strategy and his lack of clarity left far too many Britons oblivious to the importance of social distancing until far too late.

As the virus spread into Europe in mid-February, an alert prime minister would have taken immediate charge, turbocharging preparations, aware that a possible pandemic posed a grave danger to Britain. Instead, he vanished from public view for 12 days, most of it spent on a private holiday with his pregnant fiancée at a palatial country house.

It was only at the end of February, with 80,000 known coronavirus cases worldwide and the World Health Organization on the edge of declaring a pandemic, that Mr. Johnson began to wake up. By that time there were 20 confirmed cases and one death in Britain already — and surely many more coming.

On Feb. 28, after the FTSE index had suffered its biggest one-week fall since 2008, Mr. Johnson finally said the virus was the country’s top priority. Only not enough of a priority, it turned out, for him to start work on it that weekend. He could have convened an immediate meeting of the government’s top emergency committee, Cobra, but he postponed it to Monday, as if the virus’s unseen and exponential spread would also be taking the weekend off.

The next week Mr. Johnson announced that “we should all basically just go about our normal daily lives’’ so long as we washed our hands for 20 seconds, several times a day. It was advice he immediately undermined by boasting cheerfully that he was still shaking hands, as he had indeed done at a hospital with several virus patients just days before. He did not recommend stopping.

Two days later, as Italy and Spain were shutting down, pleading for other countries not to repeat their mistakes, Mr. Johnson was explaining jauntily that one of the options for handling the virus was not to close schools or sporting events but to “take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures.” The policy, it was later revealed, was to encourage “herd immunity.” That implied some 40 million people getting ill and another 800,000 ending up in intensive care.

It was instantly apparent to an aghast public that a creaking, underfunded health service with fewer than 5,000 intensive-care beds; an acute shortage of ventilators, masks, suits and gloves; an inadequate testing capacity; and a disease running free would fall apart just as Italy’s had done.

“Herd immunity” was quietly reversed. Suddenly restrictions started piling on, but sometimes only as recommendations: 14-day isolations, a warning against pubs, restaurants, theaters; a ban on mass gatherings; school closings. Each day brought new shocks as the government ran to catch up. Each day it acted as if taken by surprise by the virus’s spread.

Mr. Johnson found it impossible to maintain either consistency or seriousness. He delighted in describing cutting peak death rates as “squashing the sombrero” and declared with verve that we would soon “send coronavirus packing.” He has veered among solemnity, evident boredom and grins, as if his virus briefings were the Boris Johnson Entertainment Show, not the grimmest of necessary broadcasts.

He said the elderly must be protected from contact, then declared he hoped to visit his mother. Desperate doctors and nurses were warning of imminent disaster, and some of his cabinet were in revolt at his failure to grip the crisis, risk his jolly image and order Britain closed. On Monday, finally, he had to announce that Britain’s lockdown had begun.

Even then, at this time of profound national fear and disorientation, Mr. Johnson could not speak with gravitas, only with the odd, stagy emphasis of a man pretending while half his mind is elsewhere. His whole political appeal has always rested on his capacity for artful ambiguity, for never necessarily meaning anything he says, for amusing and uplifting people, for avoiding hard facts. It’s what he knows, but not what we need. He is trapped in his unsuitable role, and we are trapped with him, fearing he will not grow into the part. Britain is going into battle without the armor a Henry would have found. We do not know how badly this play might end
 
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