UKH

Anyone else notice how we seem to have become a Communist state in all but name? 

Every decision is dictated by the government and represents the long-term interests of the people.  Social rights have been removed, we wait to be told when to go to work, what we can buy, how we can spend our free time.

The Western world has been brought to its knees in a few short months.

Covid 19 originated in China.  

Boom, were through the looking glass.

It's pretty conclusive proof that chemtrail spraying exists and works.

You might be confusing communist states with totalitarian or authoritarian states. I’m not sure this is what Marx had in mind. 

To be honest, I think there are a lot of people right now very grateful for the socialist influences in our current system. Those able to seek state support for businesses or individuals. Those able to access free healthcare. Those being protected from eviction or home repossession.

It’s not clear what you think the alternative is right now, from an ideologically pure capitalist perspective. Do share. 

And just to be clear, are you saying that you believe this to be a global act of biological warfare by China? Big claim. 

It looks like he's saying.......... errrrrrrr what is he saying?............ errrrrrrrrrrrr beats me, I'm tremendously confused...... And then he titled his thread "Conspiracy Theories?, is he saying it's one of them???

I can’t make up my mind whether it’s a piss take or whether they are meaning something more along the lines of “you thought it was just a conspiracy theory, but open your eyes...”

Genuinely curious as to how the post was meant. But thanks all the same for your insights. 

I blame the Rothschilds. 

I blame Rothmans. Breathing difficulties was a speciality of theirs.

Me too, but I guess we'll never know unless he replies, too bad (??)

Thanks for your reply to me anyway

Do they even exist anymore? I've no idea. 

I blame Thatcher!

Hmm, no, not really.

Probably because fekwits do selfish things like buy shit loads of toilet roll, go to mass public gatherings such as race courses or go up mountains enmass.

We are in a pandemic. PANDEMIC!

So, fekin what?

Either you are on drugs, or you need some meds.

My advice is chill.

Bliar's been very quiet lately too. No doubt holed in one of his many properties. 

She stole my milk.

You see they have fooled you into not believing in them anymore. Now that is power. They are after you!!!!!

We really need to be able to format in green ink.

I imagine the various measures in place are similar to measures taken during World War Two, sometimes referred to as "war socialism." EG. Key workers moved around the country and told where to work. War socialism led to the Welfare State. I'd love to think we might see a radical redistribution of resources, a better NHS, many more affordable houses built, etc when this is over but I'm not optimistic.

You are an insurgent and ICMFP.  

I’m not usually into conspiracy theories but I find it slightly unusual that a country a large as Russia at present has 799 cases of Corvid 19 with 3 deaths.

Coronavirus is a natural disease.  

The Tories are a man-made problem.

I think you're talking total tripe

Then again, I did catch a glimpse of someone on a grassy knoll the other day .....

Does a government lying count as a conspiracy theory? Subset of government employees yes but didnt think it applied to when the whole government lies.

You'll notice though that most other political leaders are quiet.. They either think that there isn't really much else any government could do to fix a problem that appears 3 months ago and know all countries are making it up as they go along.. or they are thinking thank fu@k they aren't PM. 

The fact that he actually calls his post "Conspiracy Theories" suggests to me he's taking the piss out of people who promote such nonsense by postulating what they are likely thinking right now. Conspiracy theorists don't tend to think of their ideas as conspiracy theories but "the truth", its the rest of us that see them as conspiracy theories.

You do realise Thatcher isn't really dead and her and Tony are holed up with others in a crystal pyramid under the Antarctic ice? Their species lives a lot longer than humans. They probably created and released the virus, no threat to them as they're immune. Have you seen a lizard with coronavirus? Well HAVE YOU? Didn't think so!

I saw something on Sky news which said the Coronavirus originated from an accident at the Chinese Military Centre for Biological Warfare which was based in the Wuhan province. I couldn’t find any corroboration for this and the story didn’t repeat. So maybe Sky fact checked and it was fake news.
So I posted tongue in cheek cos as a mechanism for social change this outbreak  has proven very effective. 
But since I posted it’s been reported by China that the rate of infection is lower than in Italy or Spain. 
Italy and China. Population of 60 million with top health care system compared to China’s 1300million. Something is not adding up. 

"Coronavirus is a natural disease. "

The virus is a natural phenomenon.  The pandemic is a man-made problem.

Admit it-you've been taking those David Icke pills again, haven't you?

Possibly you are not adding up the level of state control in China compared to Western countries? 

Probably one of the few times when it could be argued that (well directed) dictatorial  control could be a good thing.

Obviously untrue.  China, Taiwan, South Korea etc are not making it up as they go along.  They had extensive plans and preparations after the SARS and MERS outbreaks where we were lazy and penny pinching.   They handled and controlled it far better than the UK and US despite having had less warning.   

China could build a fever hospital for Wuhan and fill it full of equipment and staff in a week.  When you look at the pictures you see a ton of ventilators and people in full PPE suits.  That didn't just happen by magic, they were prepared.   They were also giving many patients anti-viral drugs.

Hunt refused to buy protection equipment requested by the UK flu pandemic preparation exercise due to cost.  Trump fired the people at CDC responsible for pandemic preparation because they hadn't been needed for a while.

The UK saw the outbreak in China and in Italy and kept its borders open.  The reason the sh*t is hitting the fan so hard now is that a ton of people went on holiday to Italy and came back infected.   The UK dithered far too long about locking down.  They didn't follow, and still aren't following WHO advice e.g. WHO says 14 day isolation if you get symptoms, UK says 7 is enough.   They didn't establish effective cordons around hotspots.  They didn't join in EU wide procurement for PPE and ventilators.

A reasonably competent government could have avoided the huge surge in cases that are about to hit us and been far better placed to deal with what did occur.

Yes. I'll partial agree and if the West had just cut all air travel we'd have been better off. Hindsight. We didn't severe all air travel for sars and mers, the West followed the sane plan.

Anti viral Drugs.. what drugs?

New built hospital..  it was effectively rows of portacabins joined together. 

Lots of hindsight.. what if it was Ebola and not covid? Etc. 

I'll agree. Europe missed countless chances to reduce the damage. The UK isn't any better or worse than any other in Europe. Nearly all were way too slow. Even now the measures are too weak.. it'll rumble on for months. This leaving to exercise and dog walk is a joke. 

I'm just waiting for you to tell us an snp immune system is better than a Westminster one. 

It's very fishy. I associate the brand with gold-braided "officer" cuffs on a pilot's arm, his hand nonchalantly resting on a walnut steering wheel of (what is now) a vintage Jag. These three things, Rothies, pilots and Jaguar, all gone, all at once. 

 They didn't join in EU wide procurement for PPE and ventilators.

There was a mistake in communication on the EU side about buying ventilators, and we were unintentionally left out.

If the tighter controls on movement had been placed earlier, a lot of people would have thought them unnecessary, as there would have been little outward sign of severe spread of disease at that point. Thus there would have been reluctance in a large part of the populace to obey the rules. The only way round that would have been a more police state approach, and that is not a particularly British/UK thing.

I believe that if the interviews by Steven Nolan on Radio 5 had been broadcast across all the networks, then people would have believed in the real threat at an earlier stage. One of these, I spread across friends and relatives via an email link, and every single person who listened had an immediate change in view of the degree of threat. The interview was an appeal from an A+E consultant for people to stay at home, before the government action.

The EU says we were represented in meetings where the procurement was discussed.

If there was a communication problem it wasn't down to the EU.  

https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/embed/index.html?ref=I-187505&lg=en&am...

What you say may be true, but the BBC said that the EU admitted that there had been a communication mistake on their side. Probably somebody on our side should have chased it up as well. The actual ordering would not have been done for the whole group in the UK, it would have been in Brussels or similar, and on that side they probably did not carefully enough go through the list of intending participants.

Two optiins: it got established there late or the numbers are wrong for one reason or another. 

OP: top trolling

Jk

Its ok though - we've apparently given an order for 10k ventilators to a company that has neither a design for ventilators, nor a facility to build them in locally. Even if they could build them, their factory is in singapore, which is a 4 - 6 week delivery lead time away. I wonder if the PO had Graylings signature on it........

The BBC is full of sh*te, even more so since the emergency powers law was brought in.  They are feeding us wartime style propaganda full of happy news stories about brave British boffins building a ventilator industry from scratch in two weeks and clapping the NHS.   Now they are cutting Scottish news bulletins and replacing with UK coverage to gaslight the devolved government.

The EU says ministers were present when offer was made.  UK doesn't want to participate in any EU programs because they are determined to get a Canada style free-trade deal and disengage from EU.  Not taking part in this procurement is consistent with every other decision they have made recently, its far from the only useful EU program and organisation they are leaving.  They are putting Brexit before breathing.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-coronavirus-tr...

Yes, if tighter controls had been brought in earlier a lot of people would have thought they were unnecessary.  So what.   There's an epidemic with an exponential growth curve and a 7 to 14 day incubation period.  It doubles every 3 days, which means there are just under 5 doubling times in a 14 day period of 2^5 = 32 x as many cases.  You need to act before the problem looks bad.   A competent government would have looked at the maths, ignored public opinion, and acted faster.

I said at the time it was f*cking stupid.  So did many others.  The UK was way out of line with WTO advice and best practice among other countries and it was intentional because they had this insane model that there was no alternative and you may as well let it pass through the population quickly.

Chloroquinine and HIV medicine.

It was a mobile design they created after SARS specifically to deal with this kind of infectious disease.  It was obvious to them there would be more occurrences, just like it was obvious to Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and many planners in the US and UK.  But the right wing governments refused to spend money preparing for something that might not happen.  Politicians were acting like stupid laymen following 'common sense' and thinking it was something that only happened in Asia.  The reason is our politics is full of lawyers and PPE graduates, they don't think like scientists and you can't convince them with maths.

FFS.   It isn't hindsight when other countries were prepared and responded properly at the time.  What it was is lack of foresight from the UK.   Due to political choices made by the Tories.  They thought aircraft carriers, nuclear missile submarines were more important than pandemic preparation and they imposed austerity and ran the NHS with zero spare capacity.

This is starting to go through the classic Yes Prime Minister list of excuses for a complete government f*ck up.

UK is far worse because it saw the sh*t hit the fan in Italy and let people go on holiday there.  Even football games with visiting teams.  It was intentional.

Just about any f*cking system is better than a Westminster or Trump one.   They are the standout least competent responses in the entire world.

Right wing governments? Like Italy’s and Spain’s.

Right wing like the eu, who by their own admission were late to yet another party? 

The borders are still open. Flights are still arriving, eurotunnel is still operating. Completely and utterly bizarre. Nobody should be moving anywhere.

A) The pandemic isn't over. It might have gone away mostly in China but most likely it will return.

B) If you want to spread blame around just remember that NHS Scotland is entirely independent of NHS England and run by the Scottish government but no better prepared than NHS England. NHS Scotland could have stock piled PPE for example but chose not to.

C) It isn't hitting the fan in the UK. Yet. We will have to wait a week ot two to see how we fare.

They've done a hell of a lot better than the UK.   Maybe it will come back.  Maybe their quarantines on the border, tracing and distancing practices will let them squash new outbreaks before they grow.  The rest of the world is letting them down by not clamping down enough and making re-infection from abroad more likely.

Scotland's budget is decided by Westminster.  We've improved the Scottish NHS as far as we are able within the budget constraints.  After independence we will be able to go further.  It isn't perfect but it is better resourced than England.

It is hitting the fan in London.  Just look how many politicians are getting it and royals running for the hills.  The BBC is hiding it.  Things like during PM press conference they had the numbers for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and UK but they didn't show the numbers for England or London split out to make comparisons more difficult.

Absolutely, and there is also a background here.This is the chinesse year of the rat as anyone can see if you check their horoscope.Well, it is also know for every one that rats spreaded the pest back in the horrible days during medieval age.

Scotland has the taxation freedom to put 1 or 2% on the base rate for the Scottish health service? Nothing Westminster can do to stop them. 

Things like during PM press conference they had the numbers for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and UK but they didn't show the numbers for England or London split out to make comparisons more difficult.

For anyone interested, the detailed daily breakdown for England is here: 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-track-coronavirus-cases

The BBC is hiding it. 

I wouldn't imagine that they are for a moment. Oh sorry I forgot that this is a conspiracy thread

They already put 1% on to higher earners.  The ability to tweak income tax rates is nothing like enough to make structural changes between Scotland and England.  

Only independence will give Scotland the range of powers necessary to move radically away from what England decides.   First and foremost we need to be able to not buy stuff the Tories want to free up money for stuff we want.

Which shows 38% of the cases in England are in London.

You're assuming that one form of modelling is correct, but how come Sweden is not following the lock down model of control?

Bringing in a lock down earlier would not have worked to reduce spread of virus anymore, due to what I suggested, i.e. that people would not believe it to be that serious, until numbers became greater for those infected and those dying.

As for independence, there is no coherence in Scottish politics,(apart from going into the red on public spending), to the point that political leaders get stabbed in the back by their internal party competitors and conspirators...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52076293

Some bits are rubbish.. the whole emerging from winter, winter was exceedingly mild and folk head out just as much in winter as summer. 

Anyway.. I don't think the plan will work, stockholmers think they know best and keep travelling around. There were some on the news yesterday complaining how they've been made to feel unwelcome when they travelled to another part of sweden. UK national parks problem repeated. 

It also helps if you neighbours have already closed their borders, closing your own is just a paperwork exercise. 

I'm pretty certain that we are operating with 20:20 hindsight and nothing was clearcut, including advice from WHO.

This is worth a read, and includes links to actual minutes 

 https://twitter.com/LawDavF/status/1243607117552115712?s=19

Bantz

Do you ever talk about, like, you know, normal stuff? Brave heart. 24/7. Day in, day out. No let up. Relentless. 

I hope you get whatever it is you want or something. 

This is the central mistake that the UK and Sweden are making.  They are assuming, up front, that Coronavirus is going to be endemic and that sooner or later 80% or more of the population are going to catch it.  Therefore, their strategy is not to stop people catching it but to limit how many people catch it at any one time.  In essence they are trying to shepherd about half the population of the country through hospital treatment and about 20% of the population through ICU.   They don't want to crush it, they want to keep the infections coming at a rate which keeps the hospitals continuously busy but not overloaded.

This strategy is stupid for two reasons.  First, the Chinese have shown that crushing it is possible.  That is a pretty good reason to try and crush it.  The deaths are bad enough but there's also the people who come out the other side with long term health problems, and there's not sufficient evidence  that everyone who gets it will be immune.

Second, epidemiological computer models of virus spread can't model the rate at which technology will improve.  The fact this is a new situation means we haven't yet exhausted the 'low hanging fruit' for improvements, we should expect our options to improve with time.  It may be that they are right and in the end we have to give up on crushing it and manage its flow through the population.   But we don't need to make that decision in advance: we need to hold off and study and prepare.  Getting coronavirus may be nothing like as dangerous in three to six months if there are effective anti-virals.  We can have better hygiene products and better tracing technologies.   At the very least if we conclude after sufficient study there's no choice we can prepare the logistics like ventilators and PPE and release the lockdown one region at a time so resources can be concentrated.

The UK/Sweden fatalistic 'we are all going to catch it anyway' approach is throwing in the towel up-front without even trying.

Given the amount of whining, prevaricating and outright dismissal of pleas to stay at home when it starts to impinge on our lives I'm not sure that the country could stand a Chinese style "crush it" approach.

Half the population through hospital? 20% through ICU?

Although it's too soon for definitive figures, the hospitalisation rate globally appears to be less than 10%, ICU much lower. Not a small number to be sure, but stop grabbing hyperbolic numbers out of the air, will you?

A pity, because some of your later points are quite valid.

The hospital/ICU fractions are way too high.

CB

It could be 5 years before it's 'crushed', perhaps never, just restrained. The problem isn't the approach of any country in Europe, but to crush countries need to be honest about their testing and reporting... I'm sure we can all think of a few we wouldn't trust a no new cases report from. Plus there us the little mentioned African continent..  if Europe can't contain it now, what hope do some poorly resources African nations have? Or the poorest in South central America. 

There are massive global repercussions coming, which will make Brexit and certainly indef2 an irrelevant side show.