Your views on how the Tories have handled Coronavirus.

[trueblue]

It is not a case of who is in power when a pandemic arises as that is out of any government's control it is how the incumbents handle the situation. Personally I think only the chancellor has done well.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

you really couldn't make this up.

That's my line, anyway the bridge is for opinions and sweeping statements.
Anyway both DLG and Edward were great leaders.

 

[dad_of_jon]

I'll be 65 years of age in December this year and have lived through quite a number of UK governments during that time but I can't remember any one of them having as much staggering incompetence as this current shower. Full disclosure: I'm not a fan of the Tories so I may be accused of bias. But come on guys....... open you're eyes.


And please let's not get into any "whataboutery" of previous administrations abilities or faults: it's plain to see that this lot take that biscuit hands down.




I wholeheartly agree with those sentiments but at the moment I'm struggling to remain optimistic with this craven lot in charge of the nations present and future. It's not going to end well.

I can help there - there will be a chance to vote them out in a few years, but if they get back in then maybe more people have a different view of their performance than those who think they're crap.

I'll be clear. I voted for IMO least worst option at the last GE. I'd say it's too early to call the government on this. I'll reserve my judgement until I see how this covid-19 is paid for and of course if we end up engaging in a war e.g. Blair/Bush WMD in iraq which made things a lot worse for the world.

As for the thread's title can we add the welsh assembly or whatever its called now to the title.? I've had more issues with them over policy than uk govt.

vaughn gething fish & chips. you can only cycle as far as you can reasonably walk. lack of testing compared to england per capita.


I will call an egg an egg. The foreign travel quarantine restrictions are/were a real dogs dinner. A policy that lasted essentially a week or so. And the big one for me is the APP - lol. what a foul-up that is. However furlow saved my daughter and her boyfriends job and they are still able to pay their rent so I am on balance more supportive in general of the government at this time.

There could also be some pent-up resentment of the govt for having delivered brexit wheras mays government was incapable of doing so.

part 2 of this saga will no doubt re-ignite later on this year.... in the mean time getting cancer patients back to their treatment regimes would be a good move.

And being forever optimistic it's almost beer 'o' clock.

 

[Dutto]

You couldn't make it up! Wearing Facemasks in England:

1. On Sunday morning Michael Gove, The Cabinet Office Minister, tells everyone via TV that he 'trusts people's good sense' that people will wear face-masks without any mandatory commands.
2. On Monday at 12.26pm Jonathan Ashworth, The Shadow Health Secretary, demands more clarity from the Government in a letter to The Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
3. On Monday afternoon, Boris Johnson the Prime Minister tells the BBC that people "should be wearing" face masks in shops. (Please note: The word "should" means that it is an option, which is hardly a clear instruction and any claims that the PM clearly indicated that he didn't agree with Mr. Gove is pure nonsense.)
4. On Monday afternoon, the BBC News reports that the government is to announce on the Tuesday that "Wearing a face covering in shops and supermarkets in England will become mandatory from 24th July." and "Those who fail to comply with the new rules will face a fine if up to £100."

So, from "trusting people's good sense" to "mandatory" and attracting a £100 fine for non-compliance has taken just a day!

Here's the rub, the move will only bring England into line with Scotland and other major European nations such as Spain, Italy and Germany.

As is usual with Boris's lot, the action will be "a day late and dollar short" so when using American sayings, please let's not forget the USA!

About a month ago I saw a video of New York supermarket customers (all of whom were wearing face-masks) demanding that the Supermarket Staff eject a lady who was NOT wearing a face mask. The lady concerned was not very happy, but the staff insisted that she leave the store. This is probably why New York State is one of the very few areas in the USA where pandemic infections is not increasing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53388444

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I think Boris is past the point of no return with his "leadership " and the Tories will find a way of getting rid. But who have they got to replace him?

 

[Dutto]

I think Boris is past the point of no return with his "leadership " and the Tories will find a way of getting rid. But who have they got to replace him?

How about "Backstabber Gove", as he is known amongst the two friends he still has?

The problem for me is that he reminds me so much of John Selwyn Gummer, the Agricultural Minister in The Bitch's government during the BSE Crisis.

For those who can't remember, Gummer was the one who fed a beef burger to his young daughter to "prove" to us all that British cattle were "safe", but noticeably didn't eat any of it himself!

I swear that, had that been me and my own daughter, she would have had a Contract out on me by now; yet Gummer still lives and is still a Member of the "Caring and Sharing" Tory Party. Remember, they have no shame!

 

[Old Geezer]

Seems to me the old saying "lions led by donkeys" is particularly apt at the moment.

I despair when I look at the incompetent government we appear to have at the moment led by a de facto Prime Minister called Dominic Cummings.

 

[Old Geezer]

I read this yesterday online in the Guardian who described this government as a "sorry bunch of inept obfuscators" must admit I had to google obfuscators to see what it meant.

To obfuscate is to "make something less clear and harder to understand, especially intentionally"

Synonyms. Muddy the waters, obscure

to confuse, bewilder or stupefy.
to make obscure or unclear:
to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information.

I just learnt a new word

 

[Falco]

Senior Tory accuses Johnson of blaming NHS for government's Covid-19 failings.

Andrew Lansley says ministers made mistakes over lockdown, PPE and testing.

“It was central government that was in charge of the decisions on lockdown, on PPE procurement and on testing, where the delays impacted most”

Let the backstabbing commence

 

[An Ankoù]

Is it just me, or does anybody else think reintroducing a quarantine on travellers from Spain is anything other than a political ploy? Why Spain? It's got it's hot spots and its Leicesters like every other country (bar NZ). I wasn't aware the Canary Islands was a hot spot. While most can't afford to do so, others can just sidle across the Pyrenees and travel back from France. Or arrange a connecting flight from another European country. And then, who's going to take this seriously? Are returning holiday makers really going to lock themselves away for a fortnight? I don't think so. Not when the rozzers have already said they can't be arsed policing masks in public spaces. So what's going on? What has the tourist industry and airlines in particular done to upset the shower that passes for Government? Any serious insights gratefully received.

 

[Old Geezer]

What we need is a proper competent government, something we are sadly lacking at the moment.

What we do have is a Dominic Cummings fuckfest who is leading the "sorry bunch of inept obfuscators" (my new favourite word) by the nose, the whole sorry bunch of them couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.

It's no secret Dominic Cummings was the one who wanted to go for a herd immunity approach and as a result, the lockdown was delayed causing tens of thousands of preventable deaths.

I thought one of the reasons for Brexit was to get rid of unelected officials well no one voted for Cumming but that's what they got.

I just hope the idiots who voted for them finally wake up and smell the roses, the country couldn't be in worse hands, it's hard to imagine how anyone could have made a better job of destroying the country and its future than this shower.

They go off half-cocked and never appear to think things through properly.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

s it just me, or does anybody else think reintroducing a quarantine on travellers from Spain is anything other than a political ploy? Why Spain?

The Guardian -

Why have travellers from Spain been ordered to quarantine on entry into the UK?
Since Spain emerged from lockdown on 21 June, coronavirus cases in the country have surged. The health ministry logged nearly 1,000 new infections a day at the end of last week. The steep rise in cases prompted the UK government to remove Spain from the travel corridor list on Saturday evening, meaning travellers returning to the UK must now self-isolate for 14 days.


The government’s caution is backed up by genetic analysis of coronavirus circulating in the UK. One reason scientists advising ministers failed to appreciate the extent of Britain’s epidemic back in March was that thousands of cases arrived unnoticed from Europe, with more than a third coming from Spain, home to one of the continent’s worst Covid-19 outbreaks.


Why have cases surged in Spain?
A week ago, Spanish health officials reported that the rate of new infections had tripled in just over two weeks. The surge is being blamed on multiple factors: a rush out of lockdown, opening the borders, patchy compliance with physical distancing, and inadequate contact tracing. Outbreaks have emerged in bars and clubs, while other clusters have been traced to seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers, who often live and work in poor, cramped conditions that make distancing difficult.

Most coronavirus testing in Spain is performed in hospitals, and since mid-June all close contacts of those who are infected with the virus have been tested whether or not they show symptoms. In the seven days to Friday, 10 people in Spain had died from Covid-19, the health ministry said.

The latest figures show that Spain has logged 272,421 cases in total and has reported 28,432 deaths, though an investigation by El País published on Sunday suggested the actual death toll could be nearly 60% higher, if regional statistics for all suspected and confirmed fatalities from the virus were counted. The official toll includes people who were formally diagnosed with coronavirus, not suspected cases who were never tested.

Britain, with a population roughly 50% larger, has reported 300,270 infections and 45,823 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Covid-19 tracker.

María José Sierra, the deputy head of Spain’s centre for health emergencies, has said the country could be experiencing a “second wave” of Covid-19 infections, but has insisted that the flurry of small outbreaks is being traced and isolated. According to the Spanish health authorities, there have been 369 small outbreaks of Covid-19 since the state of emergency ended on 21 June. Of those, 281 remain active and involve a total of 3,200 cases. To date, the north-eastern regions of Catalonia and Aragón have been hardest hit by the resurgence of the virus.

Earlier this week, the government of the south-eastern region of Murcia ordered the 32,000 inhabitants of Totana back into the second phase of lockdown reduction after 55 cases were traced to a bar in the town. On Friday, the Catalan government ordered all nightclubs to close for a fortnight and imposed a midnight curfew on bars in and around Barcelona and Lleida, both of which have had a rise in new cases.

 

[Old Geezer]

Google "how many times has the government backtracked" and see what comes up seems to be happening just about every week.

And the prize for the most incompetent government in our history goes to Boris the clown and his inept puppets.

 

[An Ankoù]

Well if that's as bad as it looks then good old Blighty has had its chips this time since, there are hundreds of thousands of Brits in Spain at the moment and I don't think they're going to be sympathetic to a two-week lockdown, nor are their employers. Does our present shower have the credibility to appeal to a popular sense of civic duty? Not from where I'm sitting.

The surge is being blamed on multiple factors: a rush out of lockdown, opening the borders, patchy compliance with physical distancing, and inadequate contact tracing. Outbreaks have emerged in bars and clubs, while other clusters have been traced to seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers, who often live and work in poor, cramped conditions that make distancing difficult.

Knowing this, and there is no excuse for not knowing this, why was Spain taken off the quarantine list when other countries were not? I predict something of a backlash, to quote the title of a gentle little ditty by the Kaiser Chiefs.

 

[An Ankoù]

Google "how many times has the government backtracked" and see what comes up seems to be happening just about every week.

And the prize for the most incompetent government in our history goes to Boris the clown and his inept puppets.

I wonder if they'll backtrack on this quarantine? I wouldn't be surprised. Pass the popcorn.

 

[Old Geezer]

I wonder if they'll backtrack on this quarantine? I wouldn't be surprised. Pass the popcorn.

Is the Pope a catholic.

.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I've been thinking how asking returnees from Spain to self quarantine can be policed. My suggestion is to track them via their mobile phones which is doable but would need a lot of manpower or just tell them that and don't do it.

 

[An Ankoù]

Meanwhile, France is urging its citizens to avoid travel to Catalonia, which is normally the top destination for French tourists in Spain. Norway has also introduced a 10-day quarantine for all travelers from Spain, and Germany’s Foreign Ministry is advising against travel to Catalonia, Aragón, Navarre and the Balearic Islands.
https://english.elpais.com/economy_...lls-disaster-for-spanish-travel-industry.html
Well I'll eat my hat if our lot are really ahead of the game for once. :hat:

 

[MyQul]

This is what I've been wondering. The papers have been screaming about how terrible this all is but how on earth are they going to police it. Plenty of people (in london at least) completely ignore the rules (and now law)m on face masks. So people will do exactly the same thing when it comes to ignoring the 14 day self quarantine

 

[MyQul]

Government advice up until 12 March 2020: ‘it remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home will become infected.’

Gavin Williamson 10 August 2020: "There is little evidence of coronavirus being transmitted in schools"

Nothing to worry about then?