| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 19:37 - Mar 19 with 1236 views | snudge27 |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 18:23 - Mar 19 by StokieBlue |
Sorry to hear of your loss, that must be horrible.
With regards to your last paragraph, what do you think should have been done? It's extremely hard to factor in unknown mutations into any planning, especially since the mutation made it much harder to restrict transmission.
I am hopeful that the mistakes which were made will be highlighted and there will be accountable but not everything can fall into that bracket.
SB [Post edited 19 Mar 2021 18:24]
|
Thanks for your kind words, Stokie.
I think the damage was done by the dither and delay (where have we heard that phrase before...?) of the Government in February and March of last year, which served to fritter away any tactical advantage we may have had at the time by virtue of our being an island nation.
By the time lockdown came on March 23rd the genie was already out of the bottle and it was never going to be put back in.
If we'd taken a more direct and forceful(?) approach, in much the same way as other island nations have done, we could have kept initial cases down to a minimum and had a fighting chance of keeping deaths down to the 20,000 that was touted as a good scenario. |  |
|  |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 19:42 - Mar 19 with 1222 views | Swansea_Blue |
Interesting thread. It's a bit of a blunt attack in the OP badly phrased, but there are a lot of valid points tied up in this. Nobody wants us to do badly with Covid, but there are several areas where they've been appalling. Yes corrupt, yes incompetent, yes putting themselves and their friends ahead of the need.
I suspect there won't be a reckoning; come the next election I'm resigned to them still having a large core support despite the awful last 11 years (not just the last 1). So in that sense yes they will "get away with it". You can see how they constantly throw dead cats at us and people lap it all up, rallying around their propaganda (there any number of examples in the 'culture war'). Depressing stuff.
I think I've said it before, but you almost have to respect how successful their tactics are (even if they are fundamentally vile and screw most of us over). |  |
| |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 19:50 - Mar 19 with 1208 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
I wonder if any chums of Tories have cashed in on this one...
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/19/uk-tutoring-scheme-uses-sri-la
"Tutors in Sri Lanka who are as young as 17 and earning as little as £1.57 an hour have been used by the government’s flagship national tutoring programme to teach maths to disadvantaged primary school children in England, the Guardian has learned.
The Department for Education announced the immediate suspension of the use of under-18s as tutors for the £350m national tutoring programme (NTP) after being approached about the revelations, and pledged a review of the use of overseas-based tutors in the coming year.
Critics condemned another example of the government outsourcing support and services in its pandemic response, and said the funding — which is part of a £1.7bn catch-up fund announced last year — should have gone directly to schools to source their own tutors rather than through a complex system of private providers." |  |
| |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 20:05 - Mar 19 with 1191 views | borge |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 19:37 - Mar 19 by snudge27 |
Thanks for your kind words, Stokie.
I think the damage was done by the dither and delay (where have we heard that phrase before...?) of the Government in February and March of last year, which served to fritter away any tactical advantage we may have had at the time by virtue of our being an island nation.
By the time lockdown came on March 23rd the genie was already out of the bottle and it was never going to be put back in.
If we'd taken a more direct and forceful(?) approach, in much the same way as other island nations have done, we could have kept initial cases down to a minimum and had a fighting chance of keeping deaths down to the 20,000 that was touted as a good scenario. |
This is much better than your original post, albeit I don't believe that many on the left would have accepted the approach you allude to; any shutting of borders would have been decried as Trumpian at the very least.
I completely agree that the government was incompetent during the first and second waves. I am not convinced they were corrupt, but they consistently failed to learn lessons and that cost time, money and most importantly lives (I echo the others in being sorry to hear of your loss).
But, they clearly have learnt lessons as the pandemic has progressed to the third wave. The vaccine strategy has been a massive success thus far, not least because it was a strategy - i.e. it hasn't happened by luck. Whilst it has involved massive efforts by a great many agencies and organisations, as much as you may not like it, it has been the government that conceptualised and coordinated it.
The big question now is whether they manage to cock it all up because they allow us all to swan off on holiday whilst other countries are still in the midst of the third wave. I somehow suspect they might. |  | | |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 20:09 - Mar 19 with 1172 views | Guthrum |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 19:37 - Mar 19 by snudge27 |
Thanks for your kind words, Stokie.
I think the damage was done by the dither and delay (where have we heard that phrase before...?) of the Government in February and March of last year, which served to fritter away any tactical advantage we may have had at the time by virtue of our being an island nation.
By the time lockdown came on March 23rd the genie was already out of the bottle and it was never going to be put back in.
If we'd taken a more direct and forceful(?) approach, in much the same way as other island nations have done, we could have kept initial cases down to a minimum and had a fighting chance of keeping deaths down to the 20,000 that was touted as a good scenario. |
Altho, in reality, by the time we knew there was a serious problem, it was already a month or more too late. To prevent the virus entering the country altogether, we'd have had to lock down in late December or early January. Covid-19 travelled fast and early cases were not correctly identified (indeed, accurate test methods were not yet available).
Sure, we should have locked down earlier in March, the Cheltenham Festival and the Liverpool football match ought not to have had crowds in attendance. All of that would have saved lives and is something many were advocating at the time. But Covid was very new and everybody was making mistakes based on ignorance. Some countries got away with it - we didn't.
I'm not at all sure that Johnson (distracted by Brexit) was at all the best man to have in charge at the time. Not decisive enough. Doubly so with Cummings in the background. It's notable how much better the Government has been performing since he departed. |  |
| |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 20:10 - Mar 19 with 1163 views | StokieBlue |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 19:37 - Mar 19 by snudge27 |
Thanks for your kind words, Stokie.
I think the damage was done by the dither and delay (where have we heard that phrase before...?) of the Government in February and March of last year, which served to fritter away any tactical advantage we may have had at the time by virtue of our being an island nation.
By the time lockdown came on March 23rd the genie was already out of the bottle and it was never going to be put back in.
If we'd taken a more direct and forceful(?) approach, in much the same way as other island nations have done, we could have kept initial cases down to a minimum and had a fighting chance of keeping deaths down to the 20,000 that was touted as a good scenario. |
Certainly there were issues early pandemic, I doubt many would disagree with that.
My question was more framed around your point on January. What should have been done to prevent those deaths in January 2021? The new variant threw off all modelling and calculations, to quote the late, great Iain Banks it was an outside context problem.
SB |  |
| |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 22:04 - Mar 19 with 1076 views | Swansea_Blue |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 20:10 - Mar 19 by StokieBlue |
Certainly there were issues early pandemic, I doubt many would disagree with that.
My question was more framed around your point on January. What should have been done to prevent those deaths in January 2021? The new variant threw off all modelling and calculations, to quote the late, great Iain Banks it was an outside context problem.
SB |
What could have been done? They could have listened to the warnings and learnt from the earlier spread of the variant here in Wales for a start (it is part of the UK Government's remit after all, despite Rees Mogg's claims that Welsh is a foreign language).
They had a couple of weeks in December when people were telling them they needed to change approach. As cases started to increase in early December they were told that the Christmas strategy was wrong - https://www.independentsage.org/rethinking-christmas-a-three-point-plan-to-keep-
Yet they did nothing with those warnings. Up to mid-Dec it was all about 'Boris saving Christmas'. On the 16th he said it would be 'inhuman' to 'cancel Christmas' - https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2020/dec/16/boris-johnson-it-would-be-in It was only then he started to acknowledge that things weren't as rosy as he'd tried to portray. Yet it still took until just before Christmas to act definitively, causing the infamous fleeing of London travel chaos and all the complaints about the food bought/not bought and plans made that had to be changed at the last minute.
Bear in mind they were told about the new variant in mid-September, yet Hancock only mentioned this to Parliament mid-December and then even a week later Schapps was touring TV stations saying he hadn't known anything about it - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/21/boris-johnson-cabinet-uk-t
They'd seen the new variant spread in Wales in late Nov/early December, and we over here had announced by 10th December we were closing schools - https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/schools-closing-monday-christmas-wa (and some had unilaterally decided or had had to close before then anyway because there weren't enough well teachers). Yet the following week Gavin Williamson was taking out legal action against Grenwich Council beacuse they wanted to shut schools to limit transmissions - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/14/sadiq-khan-urges-pm-to-let-london-
There's lots the UK Government could have done to prevent the winter wave being as bad as it was. Ours in Wales reacted too late as well, but at least they were more switched on than Westminster. | |
| |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 22:39 - Mar 19 with 1054 views | vapour_trail |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 20:09 - Mar 19 by Guthrum |
Altho, in reality, by the time we knew there was a serious problem, it was already a month or more too late. To prevent the virus entering the country altogether, we'd have had to lock down in late December or early January. Covid-19 travelled fast and early cases were not correctly identified (indeed, accurate test methods were not yet available).
Sure, we should have locked down earlier in March, the Cheltenham Festival and the Liverpool football match ought not to have had crowds in attendance. All of that would have saved lives and is something many were advocating at the time. But Covid was very new and everybody was making mistakes based on ignorance. Some countries got away with it - we didn't.
I'm not at all sure that Johnson (distracted by Brexit) was at all the best man to have in charge at the time. Not decisive enough. Doubly so with Cummings in the background. It's notable how much better the Government has been performing since he departed. |
He wasn’t distracted by brexit guthers, he just want arsed enough to engage. |  |
| |
Login to get fewer ads
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 22:43 - Mar 19 with 1047 views | jeera |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 22:39 - Mar 19 by vapour_trail |
He wasn’t distracted by brexit guthers, he just want arsed enough to engage. |
Have to say, this is how I see it.
It may have become a bit of a cliche around that time, but it really did seem that he had got his dream job but had no sense of responsibility when it came to the duties that entailed.
Claims that he may have 'grown' into the role since dismiss the damage that was already caused by his flippant approach.
I hate him and all he has ever stood for, I really do. |  |
| |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 23:35 - Mar 19 with 1003 views | StokieBlue |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 22:04 - Mar 19 by Swansea_Blue |
What could have been done? They could have listened to the warnings and learnt from the earlier spread of the variant here in Wales for a start (it is part of the UK Government's remit after all, despite Rees Mogg's claims that Welsh is a foreign language).
They had a couple of weeks in December when people were telling them they needed to change approach. As cases started to increase in early December they were told that the Christmas strategy was wrong - https://www.independentsage.org/rethinking-christmas-a-three-point-plan-to-keep-
Yet they did nothing with those warnings. Up to mid-Dec it was all about 'Boris saving Christmas'. On the 16th he said it would be 'inhuman' to 'cancel Christmas' - https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2020/dec/16/boris-johnson-it-would-be-in It was only then he started to acknowledge that things weren't as rosy as he'd tried to portray. Yet it still took until just before Christmas to act definitively, causing the infamous fleeing of London travel chaos and all the complaints about the food bought/not bought and plans made that had to be changed at the last minute.
Bear in mind they were told about the new variant in mid-September, yet Hancock only mentioned this to Parliament mid-December and then even a week later Schapps was touring TV stations saying he hadn't known anything about it - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/21/boris-johnson-cabinet-uk-t
They'd seen the new variant spread in Wales in late Nov/early December, and we over here had announced by 10th December we were closing schools - https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/schools-closing-monday-christmas-wa (and some had unilaterally decided or had had to close before then anyway because there weren't enough well teachers). Yet the following week Gavin Williamson was taking out legal action against Grenwich Council beacuse they wanted to shut schools to limit transmissions - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/14/sadiq-khan-urges-pm-to-let-london-
There's lots the UK Government could have done to prevent the winter wave being as bad as it was. Ours in Wales reacted too late as well, but at least they were more switched on than Westminster. |
That's all fair.
With regards to Christmas, that was always a ridiculous idea as I stated back in November. I was misremembering when the new variant was discovered but I believe it wasn't know to be as contagious as it was at that point.
In reality the only way to stop the more contagious variants is to totally shutdown which was what happened in the end. There were unfortunately a lot of people against that position across the country and even on here which makes things problematic. It's especially problematic when you have a government trying to please everyone it can but in the end failing to do the right thing.
The government will have to answer for all this at some point hopefully.
SB [Post edited 19 Mar 2021 23:36]
| |
| |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 01:13 - Mar 20 with 954 views | pointofblue |
I personally think we'll get a third wave; maybe not as high as Europe but opening up before the majority of the population has had at least one dose of the vaccine is going to cause a spread and the big risk is a variant will be created which is vaccine resistent.
I know there's economic and mental health pressures but in truth at the very least the indoor restrctions should remain in place until the end of July at the earliest. | |
| |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 08:01 - Mar 20 with 888 views | chicoazul |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 16:50 - Mar 19 by Herbivore |
He's not a million miles away. |
Nonsense. |  |
| |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 08:18 - Mar 20 with 867 views | GlasgowBlue |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 08:01 - Mar 20 by chicoazul |
Nonsense. |
If we had a Labour government in power who attempted to prorogue parliament, introduced legislation to limit free and legitimate protest and was riddled with corruption then I’d probably be the first to shout “Communist state” and “stasi”.
Of course, like the claims of fascism against this mob, it would be hyperbole. That doesn’t mean this current government aren’t a bunch of incompetent, corrupt charlatans. There are some nasty pieces of work around the cabinet table, such as Pritti Patel and JRM but it’s far from fascism. Johnson’s views on personal Liberty are one of the reasons he has been reluctant to go into lockdown when he should. |  |
| |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 08:56 - Mar 20 with 827 views | GlasgowBlue |
| They're going to bl**dy get away with it, aren't they... on 15:58 - Mar 19 by m14_blue |
You’re obviously fortunate enough to be far better at avoiding social media than I am.
I have to say, I haven’t seen anyone on here doing it but there’s no denying the barely disguised glee at every European f**k up, of which there’s been plenty. |
People who float about Europe going into a third wave and idiots. A third wave in a Europe is very bad news for us and could seriously fcuk up our road to recovery. As well as causing more unnecessary deaths.
Macron really needs to go over this though. He’s completely undermined the vaccination programme in France, which is a country with an antivaxx problem already.
First their vaccine roll out was painfully slow, even compared to other EU countries, then he said that AZ was ineffective on over 65’s, then he suspended the use of AZ, then he threatened to sue AZ for not delivering the vaccine, now he’s saying AZ should only be given to over 55’s.
He’s completely lost the plot. | |
| |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
