UKH

All of this has been said before but to see it all laid out like this is sickening:

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/uk-population-being-fooled-by-...

Quite depressing. Even more so is the near certainty that the people who really ought to be reading it, wont be.

And that's just the response to the pandemic. Look back at the history of misdeeds and lies, and remember. Look at who is in the cabinet, and what they have done previously. Look at Johnson's history. Remember it all.

I just signed a petition organised by the NFU against the lowering of food standards.

After seeing billboards in fields over many years saying "vote Tory", "vote Tory", "vote UKIP" (for a bit), "vote Leave", "vote Tory" (again), "vote Tory", I had been expecting to feel a certain sense of schadenfreude when farmers finally realised that Michael Gove has been lying to them.  But nope, nothing. :-/

Borrowed from somewhere else - a few highlights from our current world-beating position on responding to a global pandemic:

1. The govt reduced the UK-wide coronavirus alert level on the advice of the “Joint Biosecurity Centre".

2. Matt Hancock revealed the “Joint Biosecurity Centre” doesn’t exist yet.

3. Boris Johnson said he was “very proud” of the UK’s response.

4. After previously telling us facemasks were essential, then not essential, then essential, then not essential, then essential, then not essential (6 U-turns) the govt said facemasks were, actually, essential.

5. But not until 15th June. 2 weeks more of them being not-essential.

6. And then NHS leaders revealed they hadn’t been consulted on any of this, but they all had to wear them.

7. The govt announced dentists were returning to work the following day.

8. And then dentists said they also hadn’t been consulted about this, or even warned it was happening.

9. The govt announced it was relaxing the lockdown nationally, because it said the R level (infectivity rate) had fallen as low as 0.7.

10. Within 2 days the R level had risen back above 1 in much of Northern England, but the govt has not reintroduced local lockdowns.

11. The gov justified relaxing the lockdown because we would have a “world-beating Test and Trace” in place by 1st June.

12. And then the next day, the head of the Test and Trace programme revealed it would not be operational until Sept.

13. The following day it was revealed an "urgent Test and Trace programme" was recommended by experts in February, but not acted upon until May.

14. Boris Johnson announced he is personally taking charge of the coronavirus response, a mere 138 days since the first UK case.

15. The head of Outbreak Modelling at Imperial College said he was shocked that Covid-19 was still “spilling out of hospitals and care homes”.

16. It was revealed advice was given to the govt on 24 Feb that there should be “no discharges to care or residential homes”.

17. The Italian Health Minister has reported that Boris Johnson had told him UK govt policy was Herd Immunity.

18. The govt and Boris Johnson continue to deny the policy has ever been Herd Immunity, even though Boris Johnson went on TV and advocated it.

20. The most comprehensive World Health Organisation study to date found the risk of Covid infection doubles if the 2-metre rule is reduced.

21. Then Boris Johnson went on TV to say he wants to reduce the 2-metre distancing rule as soon as possible.

22. Matt Hancock tweeted that he was proud we reached a 200,000 test capacity.

23. The next day he said he was proud of a lower 171,000 tests.

24. If you get a nasal, throat and antibody test, that counts as 3 tests, even if it’s 1 person.

25. So 171,000 tests = 57,000 people.

26. At that rate it will take 1,175 days to test the whole UK. That’s 3 years and 3 months.

27. And almost 75,000 tests had to be redone because of problems in UK labs.

28. Boris Johnson repeated he was “very proud” of the UK government's response.

29. The govt said it would not open playgrounds, because children from different families meet there.

30. The govt said it would reopen schools where - yes - where children from different families meet.

31. 44% of England’s schools did not trust the govt advice enough to re-open.

31. The govt announced people could now meet in socially distanced groups in gardens, but under no circumstances could anybody enter the houses of friends and family.

32. The govt said homeless people should “move in with friends and family”.

33. Parliament stopped digital voting, leading to a 1.3 km long queue of MPs, right down the road and into a local park, waiting 90 minutes to do one vote.

34. MP’s often vote 8 times per day. Under the new system, this means they will do nothing at all except stand in queues.

35. No provisions had been made for extra security, or to protect those vulnerable to Covid-19.

36. Within 24 hours a cabinet minister was ill and needed to be tested. He said he tested negative.

37. It was later reported around 1/3 of tests produce false-negative results.

38. Only 12% of Britons say Parliament needs to physical voting, and there have been absolutely zero instances of voting irregularities under the digital.

39. The House Of Lords continues to vote using the digital system.

40. The Minister for Mental Health objected to Pier Morgan's criticisms, and tweeted "could you please avoid wherever possible calling people 'completely mad”.

41. And then it was revealed some time earlier, she had called people on Twitter “window-lickers”.

42. A Tory MP breached guidelines by going to a barbeque during the lockdown, attended by the deputy chairman of Spectator, the Brexit Party chairman, and journalist Isabel Oakeshott.

43. All three of these defended Dominic Cummings, who is, incidentally, still not sacked.

44. The govt criticised Chinese food standards and lack of transparency, which it said first caused, and then exacerbated coronavirus.

45. And then the govt voted to lower UK food standards, and refused to publish a report on excess coronavirus deaths.

46. In Jan the Environment Secretary said “we will not be importing chlorinated chicken, we will not be importing hormone-treated beef” as part of any future trade deal.

47. The govt said it would import chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef as part of a US trade deal.

48. In a single day the UK had 359 Covid-19 deaths, which was 45 more than the other 27 EU countries *combined*.

49. Boris Johnson, joint-leader of the Brexit campaign, announced he would start a “charm offensive” to get EU workers to return to the UK, after earlier saying they were just taking advantage of the UK when they were here.

50. Sir Paul Nurse, former President of the Royal Society, described talking to ministers about coronavirus as “like talking to a blancmange”.

51. Boris Johnson said for a 4th time he was “very proud” of the UK govt's response.

52. Thousands are now gathering on beaches, in IKEA queues, in protests (but at least here mostly in masks), in parks, at BBQs or people just doing their own Cummings (hard to blame them now).

No.19 is missing, I think that may be reserved for Covid.

Ah yes, if only the politicians had never made any mistakes

time for Brexit Riots and Covid Riots

Announced that excess deaths may have reached 64000 in the UK on the news today

I feel like a riot as this gang of criminals is doing as they like having ruined our EU membership and our democracy in their lust for control.

btw did anyone see the fact based Windrush drama last night ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jz0g

A reminder of more of the destruction that May and her Treens of Conservatives have wreaked, forgetting the total dishonesty and lies that destroyed our EU citizenship and the status of EU nationals like my wife in the UK.  The Hidden nastiness that lurks at the heart of the Natural Party of Government (in their own toxic incompetent view)

Bastards, Bastards, Bastards, let you burn in hell  - Thank You Tory Voters and party members who visited SHITE on us

I think we may be at an historic moment - not in a good way - when we have one of the worst governments ever - judged by their competence, honesty, integrity and ability - ensconced with an incredible robust majority. In the old days we could usually rely on ruddy faced apoplectic  Tories dropping off their perches  at a satisfying rate, but we don't even have that consolation.

Starmer is faced with an historic challenge. It may be that he is up to it. If he can rein in the unelectables (he still has some in his cabinet), get a decent PR machine working, (come back Campbell, redeem yourself) , then he can grind Boris and his wholly inadequate team into the ground. This isn't just a matter of disagreeing with their policies - they really are inept and inadequate. I'm also not sure that Boris has either the heart or the bottle to last the course. Interesting times.

50,000 dead!.. some mistake

I keep remembering how much hope was invested in Tony Blair in the run up to 97 - I hope Starmer has learned from those misdeeds

I put my hope there but we've been here before

Basically we are screwed, all we can do at this point is do the right thing, stay home, distance, maintain good hygiene and hope that enough of the population do the same thing to make a difference. 

...and still the report into Russian interference into British elections goes unpublished...

About Sage: https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/coronavirus/2020/06/where-science...

Part of me hopes AUSTERITY hits hard for the next ten years and millions of Tory voters get to enjoy it and lose their delusions and wealth.

I don't care, it's the new norm for me. I've had ten years of practise already.
Unfortunately it's going to drag millions down who don't deserve it.

I didn't realise Dom read UKC.

Dom; you need to order the Cabinet to come along and give me a few more dislikes. Or maybe get some of your Russian bots to do it instead. Cheers now.

Remember though some people are happy with that failed hope for most. They dont really like the country having a choice in politics and just want a choice of centre right or middle right.  They havent quite understood thats not how things work in reality and we end up with hard right and centre vearing ever rightwards right with the centre line being reset to normalise that. Then they wonder why people get pissed off and vote for anything which might give a change.

Yep, my mates keep asking me to go out climbing, but this ain't over yet so we're keeping to a low profile. I'm seeing a massive increase in direct social interaction <for which I judge no one other than Cummings and his disciples> and I can't see how we're not about to have the real tsunami. But, the sea has suddenly gone out and everyone is gorping in wonder because they can't see the impending peril. 

Look on the bright side. Their decisions killed about 34 950 000 less people than Mao's.

Don't blame me.

I voted Green.

Same here,  are you bringing the dog to the park, the cafe is open for takeout, are you coming for a ride to the seaside, we can stop at X Biker cafe on the way.

I'm getting a reputation for being a miserable shit. 

What makes you think  Starmer is electable? Right wingers in Labour have won the battle and put in the man who'll represent their interests but there's an appetite for change in this country and centrists are running against the tide.

Tories are still polling at 50%. Starmer should resign, a credible leader of the opposition would be 20 points ahead against this shambolic government. 

What!!??  Did you completely missed the disaster of Corbyn-led Labour?

I think giving him more than a few weeks in the middle of crisis might be reasonable.

Just a reminder, there is an appetite for change from some people. As always it is not as widespread as people think especially when they are surrounded by people who echo their own thoughts..........

'there's an appetite for change in this country and centrists are running against the tide.' We're going to have to differ here, I think. The 'changeists' had their moment; it didn't end well. I hold Jeremy Corbyn and his incompetent, disorganised shambolic group of  rabble rousers personally responsible for delivering us into the hands of the most most inept and dishonest government in my lifetime.

You think there is civil unrest at the moment? You have a short memory.   Vietnam, 1st and 2nd Coal strikes, Grosvenor Square, Winter of Discontent, Poll tax, Toxteth and St Pauls, Iraq, Brexit - robust demonstrations crossing into civil and uncivil disobedience are part of our landscape. We're not Sweden or Norway, but we're not France either.

The reality is that the majority in each constituency - which ultimately is all that matters in our current democracy - have more to lose from violent change than they stand to gain. This isn't the 1820s, or even the 1930s - every household with a wage earner, a roof over their heads,  a holiday to look forward to, a network of friends and relatives to visit, is doing ... OK. They might like the idea of Branson's piggy bank being raided and getting a few quid extra but know that the reality is they aren't suddenly going to become significantly better off, however aggressive  redistribution might be. Ironically the Blue Wall was a pretty radical shift, and people can see how well that has worked out for themselves - 60,000 dead and the country in financial ruin. There will be an appetite for a steadier, more consensual government in the coming months and years. 

Or maybe there won't, in which case we really are f*cked.

Congratulations are due to those "moderates" who did their best to ensure that happened eh?

Good to see though the inability to take any ownership for the mess from the "centrists". In the same way they take f*ck all ownership of the brexit mess and the general rise in populism.

It was the disaster of Labour being seen as the party defending the status quo. Labour's chance was 2017 riding the wave of anti establishment feeling stirred up by the Brexit vote, you can't always choose your moment you have to ride the wave.

In 2017 Labour were going to honour the referendum and deliver a people's Brexit. In 2019 centrists had forced a change in direction and Labour were seen as the party defending establishment interests. Of course anti Corbyn feeling was also a factor by then but Starmer is hardly a huge personality with popular support and theres more than enough time for the media to demonize him before the next election. 

It might have been reasonable for the Labour right to have afforded the same for Corbyn.

What do you want me to say or apologise for? I've spent 5 years arguing as honestly as I can about the benefits of the EU - and also the failings, which needed to be addressed - and got blown away by the most concerted, professional, heavily funded campaign of lying since Goebbels (and no, I won't apologise for the reference.)

This was the nightmare political science scenario that we used to consider as an academic possibility back in the 70s - what should democrats do when faced with an opponent that doesn't obey the rules, who is happy to tell lies and doesn't even acknowledge, let alone apologise, when they get caught out?   Well now we know - we all lose. You've got the same corrupt and incompetent government as me.

Yes so it's worth remembering that UKC forums are an extremely centrist dominated echo chamber for the most part.

It might have been, except that he was leader for well over 4 years.........

The difference is that Corbyn was a thick, ignorant cnut with nothing to his name other than a lifetime of whatever it was, being agin it. And being paid hansomely for the privilidge . And so lacking in self awareness that he was expecting - hoping - for a seat in the shadow cabinet after leading his party to the worst electoral defeat since Ramsay MacDonald.

Oh no, that was my fault.

Maybe if the centrist hadn't done everything they could to destroy Corbyn (and he's not my favourite person) then we might well have had a change of direction. If instead of attacking Corbyn at every opportunity they'd supported and got behind him, we wouldn't be in the shit we're in now.  The media played a large part in this too, days of "his tie wasn't done up" or, "he didn't bow low enough". So I'd be careful of who you're blaming, because it was the centrists who fought hard at any cost to get rid of Corbyn.

At the end of the day though, it doesn't matter about Corbyn, it's about what this government is doing, they're in charge, as they were over Brexit, which some also laid at Corbyn's door.

That you focussed just on the EU campaign shows the problem in a nutshell. You need to ask why people were so willing to believe the lies. Why did they opt for a change, any change? 

It does seem to be a genuine problem with "centrists". They really seem to think they are the silent majority as opposed to just the swing voting minority. As such fail to see that if politics are focussed on them then a lot larger group are being left unrepresented and thats the extremists will pounce and pretend to represent them.

Its ironic that you talk about bringing Campbell back when he contributed heavily to the issues you mention in your second paragraph. He helped set up the path of never apologising and carrying out attacks on any media who dared question the line.

I was aware of the irony, which is why I also mentioned redemption(!) And naive though I may be, I don't believe that either he or Blair even set telling lies at the heart of government in the way that Johnson has. Yes, even over WMD - I think they genuinely were concerned and fooled themselves.

Wow! I don't know what else to say, this is absolutely crackers.

jk

'it was the centrists who fought hard at any cost to get rid of Corbyn.'

Yeah right. One democratic challenge in 4 years. Not a word of criticism from any of the top table - including Starmer - in all that time.

He had 4 years and two elections.  How much did he need?

I cant say I am convinced by that. The all out campaign against the bbc comes across more as people who know they have been caught out.

Were they as bad as Johnson? Definitely not but they helped set the stage for him.

A good piece that sums it up well. Let's hope this (and, as said elsewhere in the thread, the other lies etc) is not forgotten at the next election.

Dave

As opposed to the situation when the left wing of the party won and elected Corbyn, to be followed by two general election losses, the most recent resulting in an 80 seat majority for the Conservatives. 

I'm not convinced your analysis stands up to even the most cursory scrutiny.

That prompted me to look currently about 43%C 40%L.  Quite a turn around from Corbyn's efforts, and very quick.  It will be interested to see the situation in a year when we are in a deep recession on top of everything else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_g...

That rather flies in the face of your suggestion that "there's an appetite for change in this country".

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/government-approval

Well, it was 50% a while ago, but was 32% at the most recent poll.

That’s approval ratings. Not voting intension. Politico has them at 43%. 

https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/

It's only some centrist progressives and some socialist progressives and to a lesser extent some one nation tories in some constituencies that mattered under FPTP but I agree it does illustrate a wider problem. Demonising all brexit voters was always a bad idea.  Demonising those with anything but extreme political difference was always a bad idea. These threads show it is still happening at a level that Boris would be chuffed with. That's oxygen to the popularists' fire. The fire extinguisher is working together to remove Boris.

There were enough progressives (3% majority) to win an unlikely coalition in the last election. One nation tory europhiles saw their best talent depart or be removed from cabinet in Boris's cull, with only tribal links left to support. To most other centrist progressives Boris was a high probability threat with high consequences where Corbyn was a low probability threat with high consequences. For socialist progressives Corbyn was OK or good and the best choice. However, even if Corbyn somehow had pulled off a miracle and won a small majority the right of his own party would not have backed his crazier ideas. In any coalition the most likely outcome would be his resignation and a compromise plan with a compromise leader. This means the hard reality, let alone the propaganda about Corbyn, should logically have been of near zero consequence. Voting 'anything but Boris' was about as black and white a decision as any I've ever seen in an election..... but way too many liberal minded and socialist minded people couldn't bring themselves to hold their nose and vote tactically to keep some free really obnoxious Tory's out at the expense of good Labour and Lib Dem MPs. We in England and Wales instead gifted the liar and popularist Boris and his cabinet of known toadies, crooks and incompetants a huge majority.

Thats fine; the tale is still the same; it isnt 50%. Mr Mammoth reckons Starmer should go because he hasnt got a 20% lead, but he has turned a 22% lag into a 5% lag (from your intentions graph) in less than 3 months without really doing anything except embarrass Raab, Hancock and Johnson at pmq's (without breaking sweat, either). 

The only problem is that all those policies are popular. We can shit on the tories all we want for stuff like windrush and screwing EU citizens like your wife, but the harsh reality is what they did is simply what a small majority of the population wanted them to do.

The problem is more fundamental than just « tories bad », the problem is that we don’t really have a properly balanced democratic system with proper safeguards to prevent abuse.

The tory party's billionaire-funded, sycophantic messengers - otherwise known as the mainstream British media - are complicit in ensuring the public are as misinformed as it takes to effectively 'legitimise' government misdemeanours and incompetence. It is a perverse, symbiotic relationship eminently capable of transforming lies into truth, incompetence into competence, and even pseudoscience into science. This, in my opinion, is the elephant in the room.

I am unclear as yet as to whether this has come about due to gullibility in readership, or if it is related more to a collective latency of political persuasion in Britain, which the media have effectively legitimised and made acceptable.

Either way, it looks to me like a huge percentage of the population seems to have been hoodwinked into a particular thinking and voting style that benefits only those directly involved in such a dysfunctional symbiosis, presided over by a greedy and selfish elite.

Alarm bells start to ring loudly when even the doyen of impartial reporting, the BBC, is subjected to such control. Witness the gagging of Emily Maitlis when she dared to convey the truth about Dominic Cummings. Witness also the new appointment of the BBC's Director General, Tim Davie, who is an active tory with obvious political leanings. It remains to be seen what will become of the broadcaster, and what the compulsory licence fee is actually funding.

Corbyn's history was the problem. Without that history the 'centrists' (ie. everybody who wasn't hard left, let's remember) wouldn't have had any reason to attack him. 

The media always attack Labour leaders, it's to be expected. They've already tried with Starmer (Donkeygate) but he doesn't appear to have any useful skeletons in his closet. 

I have to agree with you there. We are stuck with this shower for now, and we need to move on. 

lets not remember because its wrong. The use of "hard left" is, as ever, telling. What were centre left positions are now portrayed as hard left thanks to the "centrists" of new labour chasing the tories ever to the right.

How is it wrong?

Here's some Labour soft left MPs. (From Wikipedia - 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_left#Labour_politicians_on_the_soft_left

"The following Labour politicians are often considered on the soft left of the party, but may not identify themselves as such:

Hilary Benn; Andy Burnham; Rosie Duffield; Anneliese Dodds; Angela Eagle; Barry Gardiner; Kate Green; Nia Griffith; Andrew Gwynne; Emma Hardy; Louise Haigh; John Healey; Sadiq Khan; Anna McMorrin; Ed Miliband; Lisa Nandy; Jo Platt; Lucy Powell; Angela Rayner; Owen Smith; Alex Sobel; Sir Keir Starmer; Emily Thornberry."

I agree partly, but his "history" wasn't reported honestly. And the AS saga wasn't history, neither were the not bowing enough, tie not straight, blah, blah, blah.

And as Mondite says, "hard left"? his policies we so hard left the Tories have nicked a few, so a bit of a stretch there too.

But wait a minute - such chaos was not ONLY in the UK. In France too the people are up in arms, they accuse the government - not just of neglect, but deliberate lies.

FR: Pénurie cachée, consignes sanitaires fantaisistes, propositions d’importations négligées, stocks toujours insuffisants, entreprises privilégiées : basée sur de nombreux témoignages et documents confidentiels, une enquête de Mediapart révèle la gestion chaotique au sommet de l’État, entre janvier et aujourd’hui, sur la question cruciale des masques. Et les mensonges qui l’ont accompagnée. Les soignants, eux, sont contaminés par centaines. 

EN: Hidden shortage, fanciful health instructions, neglected import proposals, stocks still insufficient, privileged companies: based on numerous testimonies and confidential documents, a Mediapart survey reveals chaotic management at the top of the State, between January and today , on the crucial question of masks. And the lies that accompanied it. The caregivers are contaminated by hundreds.

http://71.snuipp.fr/spip.php?article2148

At least 3 petitions have been raised to collect signatures

• mesopinions.org        26,990 sigs
• change.org                61,680 sigs
• leslignesbougent       26,639 sigs

Now french professionals are further angered - even while masks remain short supplies in hospitals - they are proposed by the supermarkets in abundance !

Deployment of masks by nurses dealing with sick patients is obviously going to spread disease. This evidently has added to new infections and deaths. And this has happened in UK and France.

Maybe we need to look beyond european government - at the people who control the supply chains. It's time to question not just negligence - but also intention. Who controls the politics of mask supply - along with all those other steps in the chain of negligence - which contribute to 40k UK deaths ? According to Monbiot -

Q: This political conflict is always fought on behalf of the same group: those who extract wealth. 

Yup but by virtue of those few mattering some other centrists get confused about how important centrists in general are and start thinking they are the silent majority.

In fairness this was mostly fairly rare and its generally the extreme loons claiming that something referring to them applies to all. That said it can be difficult since whilst I sympathise with why people feel let down by the current system and are looking for a change going the brexit option is frankly batshit crazy. Its like solving an ingrowing toenail by amputating the other leg using a rusty spoon.

Yup.

I'd forgive the divisive anger more in normal times but this gave us Boris. I have good friends who are incredibly well educated and informed who have accused northern ex Labour voters en masse as being racist and thick. Too many (depending on their politics) go on about Corbyn being a menace well avoided, or Swinton of being completely useless Tory stooge, with no reminder of the context of the alternative we took as a result. A few here are talking in public forums of violence as the best route to now progress an anti popularist agenda.

Progressives say they want voting reform and missed the best opportunity to achieve that yet in that missed possibility of a progessive coalition, by not enough of them voting tactically. 

Apologies. As has been pointed out my stats are out of date. I looked at a polling site that I have always found reliable but it hasn't been updated for a month so when I saw polls from 7th I assumed they were 7th June rather than May.

So the polls have closed a bit in the face of an incompetent government that is literally killing people by its failings, so all's well for you centrists then? Corbyn led in the polls at a number of stages.

I was chucking the unreasonable demands of centrists back at them in saying Starmer should resign. They worked tirelessly to bring Corbyn down from the start and actively worked from within the Labour party to lose both elections. The tory government taking us for fools now is the result. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-...

The accusation works both ways: some good popular MPs left Labour because of dumb internal politics and if anything there were proportionately more diasappointments in Lib Dem tory marginals due to Labour supporters (and Tory europhiles) not voting tactically, than in Labour Tory ones. If progressives can't work together when faced by the existential threat of popularism the future has more Boris style disasters in store.

Corbyn was never ever going to get elected as PM, he was an absolute disaster for the Labour Party....thank god he's fired off back to his allotment. 

For the former I suspect many of them really do prefer a hard right failure of a government to anything leftwing.  For them destroying the left and moving the party permanently to the "centre" is more important than anything else.

With regards to Swinson. The problem was her history in the coalition. Its fairly hard to aim for a coalition of progressives when one group is fairly happy to work with the tories.

I do wonder why the "centrists" went for dragging both Labour and libdems rightwards rather than going for joining the tories and dragging them leftwards.

My take at the last election was that everyone should vote for the most committed Remain candidate in each constituency, even if that was a Tory. 

In hindsight that may have been a mistake -  there was more resentment about Brexit being deferred than there was any revisiting of its wisdom - any number of people just said 'how bad can it be, just get it done.' Well we're going to find out. 

And both Swinson and Corbyn were not very charming or charismatic individuals, whereas Johnson was definitely popular - and would be today if his idleness, moral cowardice and ineptitude hadn't resulted in 60,000 excess deaths AND the worst financial outlook in the G7.  (Hmm, memo to PLP - does Starmer have a GSOH? That would be an asset.)

He wasn't a disaster, he was made to be a disaster, so now we've got Boris, since Corbyn's first win as party leader, the right got scared and crucified him, one day the Labour leak dossier will be published in full, and we might all see what happened and why.

He's still an MP, unlike many others he's still working for his constituents.

Lie I said, not my favourite person, but I also don't like the relentless campaign of lies which has quite possibly robbed us of a change to politics we so dearly need.

But they never do. I can't recall any politician ever saying, either about a policy or a personal statement, they had got it wrong.

Dave

No-one is responsible, We've made some mistakes, Its all legal,

and oh by the way, NOW - we ARE telling you the truth

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/02/no-10s-coronavirus-br...

I think they may do more often than you think, it's just the media don't report it as it goes against their narrative.

There again, the clearest expression of 'we got it wrong' was by Robin Cook when he was foreign secretary, so  a long time ago! I remember him on the Today programme say something like 'You're quite right, we definitely got that wrong...' and the interviewer just carried on, he didn't even notice.  

Interesting moment in PMQs yesterday... Johnson tried to make a joke to offset a point of Starmers, something about 'using that old fashioned device called a telephone' - not very funny, admittedly, but usually enough to get any self respecting Tory MP weeping with mirth. Johnson turned round to acknowledge the guffaws from his supporters and was faced with ... nothing. Nada. Not a smirk, not a chuckle, not even an amused head shaking. He was visibly unsettled. Bonhomie and joviality were his get out of jail card, and they've stopped working for him.  

I listen to Witty and Valence rather than Johnson at the daily briefings( Johnson just comes across as bumbling and not sure of himself). I thought yesterdays comments by both were spot on and the way they handled the media's questions was correct.

..... was correct.... on specifics but still not owning up to their part in this disaster. 50,000+ C19 deaths according to ONS and 63,000 excess deaths. They are the leading government employees representing the public servant input from science and should have resigned by now if they had any conscience. The only excuse I can think of is they fear loss of reputation for the government public health message, as if most people didn't lose that weeks ago.

Whether now is the right time for them to go I'm not sure; maybe they have learnt something over the last 3 months that can still be applied? 

I do think this crisis has revealed how dysfunctional the arrangement of health services in this country has become, with a proliferation of bodies, groupings, bureaucracies all fighting turf wars and scrabbling for resources, with no sense of a bigger picture. And whatever the solution is, more privatisation isn't part of it - you wait till the unfolding scandal that is Track and Trace is revealed in all its final glory.

You have a different interpretation of their comments than me is all I can say. I can see little reason for them as public servants to resign.

I would agree with that. Those turf wars are hardly surprising when you have such a large organisation to manage.

The biggest issue seems to be that we planned for an influenza not a respiratory pandemic ( seems to be a common theme in Europe though, we are not unique in that).Its almost as though we Europeans ignored what they were doing in some Asian countries.

How many more tens of thousand would meet your needs Neil?

They could easily inform their replacements of any lessons. They are damaged goods and are now part of the problem of public trust. How can any intelligent person believe them standing there and defacto backing Boris and his 'we have done really well' line. I was hoping, back when wintertree and I were gobsmacked by their 'we are 4 weeks behind Italy' nonsense, that the politicians were distorting the picture.  Yet after the famous Times article it was clear SAGE constitution was dangerously biased to faulty models with not enough input from epidemiologists and medical staff experienced in the risk off fighting exponential growth in high risk viral outbreaks. The final nail for me was when the Swedish government subsequently told us our lead scientists (and NL) were indeed going for a shared herd immunity approach, but they 'bottled it'. Whitty and Vallance look as guilty as Boris in my view.

The problem, as ever is the electoral system, I'm tempted to describe it as ridiculous but it's far worse than that.

The problem is if we always vote tactically it never changes because we return majority (or major-minor coalition) governments rewarded by that system, hopefully ones we broadly agree with. If we vote for a better system that means minor parties because the system rewards the major parties who will never implement change if they can even bring themselves to hint at considering it. Voting for minor parties has tended to shift power rightward where the landscape is more homogeneous, and of course implacably opposed to electoral reform beyond a bit of gerrymandering.

I grumble about this tediously but I'm trapped in the same cycle of bad choices as everyone else. Luckily I have an MP (Labour) I like and respect, who I haven't had to vote tactically for in most recent elections allowing me to apply the tiny bit of pressure I can for systemic reform. If her position weakened I have and would vote for her with some misgiving, not because I don't want her as my representative but because Labour has no real interest in electoral reform. Actually I'd say they do now stand to gain from a more proportional system but incredibly the permanent looking loss of Scottish Labour from Westminster and its almost complete exclusion of Labour from electoral contention has yet to sink in. Labour are basically another, albeit sizeable, minor party looking for their place in a crowded centre & left landscape, facing reasonably organised monolithic right (despite the various Farage vehicles). Even under better leadership facing the worst government in living memory without formal PR they will once again have to look to local alliances to be assured of power.

This doesn't just disenfranchise us harmlessly, it's fostered resentment which has been weaponised by nationalists and looters in 'brexit' and it's silenced a sizeable young-green voice in Britain leaving us increasingly out of step with nations where all voters count.

jk

One word: brexit.

jk

Zero just like you.

Sober faces to back the 'I tried to warn him...' excuses they'll be trotting out for the next 20 years of public enquiries.

jk

If it's zero who in your view (from what you can see now) will take most of the blame for all these C19 deaths when an inquiry happens? If we had matched Germany I'd be blaming no one.

There is still no risk free option and the virus is still with us and we have a long way to go.

As I see it there was a more blended approach in Germany between  public , private and universities . I am all for ditching this idea that we have in the Uk of the  public sector NHS knowing everything ..

By the way I looked up how many epidemiologist s etc there are on SAGE and NERVTAG .Probably too many.Not enough from other backgrounds.

A lot of the the SAGE epidemiologists are of the modelling variety. The criticism of the constitution of SAGE at the critical time the decision was made comes from much wiser and way more expert views than mine as per the famous Times article, which included SAGE members explaining what went wrong.

The 'public sector NHS' comprising of tens of thousands of discrete organisations were by a large majority for a much earlier lockdown as were the average of University epidemiologists, virologists and public health specialists. What is needed is more open debate about the future of such groups, as we cannot afford another government selected small group operating in secrecy to leave us again in such a terrible position.

You still are avoiding providing any concrete view of your own on who carries the can for what is a massive public health disaster. How about it?

SAGE is also a group that varies over time, it isn't a committee that is fixed from beginning to end. 

Exactly a point I made. The regrets being expressed publicly about the lockdown timing were due directly to SAGE at that time and members at that time are saying that and that they made a mistake.

Mistake... an error or that in hindsight with much more information they may have made different decisions are not the same thing. 

They acknowledge that as well. They trusted models too much that were not up to the task.

I assume you are mostly referring to testing here, since it makes even less sense outside of this context, in which case one major question is how much of the central testing strategy was driven by the private sector Deloitte consultants knowing everything.

Others, almost all others, often with less time, resources and information made better, safer choices. Yes, these are mistakes by any sensible definition.

jk

The centralisation of new testing capability rather than the parallel creation of new long term PHE capability and a faster lighter layer of infrastructure to unite and utilise pre-existing distributed industrial/medical/research capability and skills will I think be the defining technical failure of Britain's covid response.

jk

The app could be a competitor for the title. Handily since that also has NHS splashed all over it they can be blamed again for others failings.

I think this paragraph in the article is a misrepresentation:

"Soldiers built pop-up hospitals in exhibition centres, stadiums, airports. Anything Wuhan can do, we can do too. Except protect lives. But there were no extra nurses or doctors to work in the new hospitals, so they couldn’t take many patients and were mothballed."

From what I have read, the Nightingale Hospitals weren't mothballed owing to lack of staff; rather, the extra capacity they provided turned out not be needed.

Well it goes back years. You could argue a Brexit vote , you could argue a lack of faith in institutions from  the public , a hollowing out of the abilities of politicians of  right, centre and left., the inability of voters to recognise low taxes mean poor services, uk so called exceptionalism, an unhealthy society, an unhealthy view that the nhs is the best , no industrial policy , a failure of politicians to benefit from the lessons of predecessors .A failure for the last 20 years to address social care( as an example May being shot down for coming up with proposals during an election campaign),

it’s not just one thing. It is also not unique to the uk. There are quite a few of our neighbours who are just as much in a mess. 

Maybe a bit of both - I understand that there was a problem in finding critical care nursing staff, as in this Mail piece:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8244733/Four-governments-hastily-b...

The app is another beautiful example of the exceptionalism albatross we still bear but we'll have to weigh our abject failure against other comparable nations' tech responses in the fullness of time. I'm not sure many open democratic nations will get this working well. Of course the opportunity still exists to fix the mess unlike unavailable testing in March-April where the damage is long done. The app if it can be made to work as part of a broader, trusted and widely used test, track and contain tool will probably be with us for a couple of years. Delayed vaccine roll out in Britain is a risk even if vaccination proves possible, yet again we've put ourselves out on a bit of a limb gambling on Oxbridge over wider collaboration. We can still afford to start over with the app which opens up the opportunity for some PR work to increase trust and buy in by clearly dissociating our rotten government and their crony data thieves from any new tech solutions. Sadly the trusted and loved NHS brand, government's greatest asset here has been tarnished by their first effort.

jk

Which to be fair was ditched a few weeks later when it was realised it was not working . It was only when private sector such as AZ were brought in to boost capacity that things started to improve. Learn fast and fail fast so to speak. 

Thats far too forgiving. NZ just got lucky huh ? Same intelligence network. Different politics. Different results.

The government is playing us like fools, yes. But the governments is also being played like fools. We have the recent blatant example of the turnaround on chicken meat. Do we imagine this is just an occasional external interest in national affairs ?

My opinion is not just one. Monbiot has said it. Trace the blame to it's source. 

I suspect that is a bonus for them.  Since if you can blame the public sector for the failings then that helps set things up for later and gives a nice scapegoat. Obviously you would need to skip over how much was outsourced to the private sector but thats just details like confusing NHS and PHE.

Is it really.? U.K. is pretty good at digital technology.

Whether people will use it is a different subject. O

Well it apparently didn't work well when trialed. Won't work in blocks of flats even when it's debugged.

Saying the UK is good at digital is meaningless. There are good UK developers as there are everywhere but even they can't make a fundamentally flawed concept shine.

Not really. Trust is absolutely central to this working, buy-in is arguably a higher priority than high predictive accuracy*. Making the product work is irrelevant if people don't trust or see value in it. I'd say nothing has been done to build that trust but it doesn't go far enough, as usual for this government it's been actively squandered!

*not saying it doesn't have to work but it only has to work well enough in concert with living and employment security support measures that people do isolate when asked.

jk

Especially in this case since the primary firm responsible is Swiss.

Well if you look at Germany it’s a mix of public and private funded differently.  It is the outright refusal of a lot of sections of the nhs  to acknowledge there maybe better healthcare models elsewhere that annoys me.

Well that is why they have trials, standard practise. Hardly earth shattering. 

Bowman, Passport System, Student Loans, the NHS number reforms of the 90s, The Post Office, Universal Credit, to name a few projects.  Oh and the Farmers got a good agricultural payments system.  The Army's online recruiting system too

Annoys you so much that you blame the NHS for things that have f*ck all to do with them?

Roy Lilley on a linked subject.

I don't...

News and Comment from Roy Lilley

Throughout the pandemic we have been treated to the proxy-views of Trust leaders, via, NHS Providers or the Confed, strutting like cocks in a hen house.  The cost of membership of these organisations is in the thousands of pounds, paid for by Trusts, usually from their cash allocations.  Summing in the hundreds of thousands of tax payers money. Why are there are two organisations?  Dunno.  If membership of one isn't good enough, then belonging to two is, probably, no better.

The Confed sometimes get chunks of money from the DH+ to create reports on this-n-that.  Important but how independent that makes them and if it matters, is for the people paying the memberships.  You can make up your own mind.  They strike me as somnambulists. NHS Providers are always good for a spine-chilling sound bite.  But, there's never been any of the doomsdays they've predicted.  They are the Aesop's shepherd-boy of the NHS. Neither organisation is a think-tank, neither can claim to truly represent an NHS that is moving to an integrated future, dominated by social media. Both organisations pontificate about the future without much thought about how they'll change their own configuration.  The covid-fulcrum-point will create as much leverage for change in the bodies that claim to represent the NHS, as it will on how the business of the NHS is actually done and organised.

They should merge, cut their overheads and the cost of membership and be done with it. 

The Confed have just stirred themselves and published a report called 'Getting the NHS Back on Track'.  Nothing to do with track and trace. It's a look at the problems the post-covid NHS is facing.  It is certainly not an analysis.  If the report were lunch, it would be a corned-beef sandwich.  If it were dinner, it would be a Chinese meal... read it and half an hour later, you're starving.  Wondering what all the fuss was about. To be frank, there's not much in it that anyone couldn't have cut and pasted from Google.  There are no real insights.  It just recites everything we already know, with a few solutions we've all thought about weeks ago. 

The Confed say government must give thought to how the NHS is managed out of the crisis.  I'll tell you how they'll do it, like they've managed everything else; they'll want everything for everybody, yesterday.  End of... In a paragraph, I can tell you the report says, post-covid; 

'... the NHS will need more money, social distancing will grind the services to a halt, the CQC are irrelevant, health inequalities need sorting and although they don't use the words; there isn't a hope-in-hell of sorting out the waiting-lists, in my lifetime.'

It didn't need Sherlock Holmes to work that out.

In the accompanying press brouhaha, the Confed suggest the waiting-list could be ten million by Christmas.  There is nothing in the report to show how the 10,000,000 figure is arrived at.  Indeed, there is no mention, at all, of the ten million figure, anywhere in the report!  The Confed have somehow wangled a click-bait headline of fake-news, right out of the Donald Trump playbook. 

There's a list of stuff the Confed thinks the NHS, government, or someone should be getting on with.  It's hard to argue with, it's all obvious. And, there is an even more obvious bit, missing.  There's a huge hole in the report, a gap the width and length the NHS.

No mention of the disastrous state of the workforce, 

No mention of the mess HEE have left us in.  

No mention of the People Plan, overtaken by events, 

No mention of the likely exodus of knackered people who will have had enough and...

No mention of the uncertainty of recruiting into a bewildered uni-system, still charging £9k.

Oh, and...

No mention of workforce remodelling, creating opportunities for the predicted million, or so, unemployed.

And, for good measure...

No mention of a post-Brexit overseas recruitment collapse.

None of the Confed's lofty must-do's will get done without enough people.  We are already short of 100,000 people. I can't figure out who this report is for?  Not the NHS, we know all this stuff.  If it's the public, frightening them with a spurious headline is no way to cement the Confed as a serious player. Maybe it was to keep someone occupied in lockdown?

Who knows?  I don't.     

Your comments sum it up nicely. You only have to look across the channel and see the way Germany has a more pragmatic view of public and private healthcare , the methods of funding and the results[ as yet again  by their Covid figures, never mind anything else).But we choose to ignore this .

In case you havent noticed lots of people have been comparing the failures in the UK to elsewhere. So to make this claim is absolutely wrong.

Secondly you seem determined to repeatedly confuse the NHS with PHE to push your idelogical agenda. Most of the failures have been down to PHE and the various private sector firms who were contracted to provide key services.

Editor of the Lancet today...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/14/the-lancets-editor-the-uk-...

yep, just noticed that we are on the way to matching the losses (dead) on the allied side at Gallipoli - already exceeded by 50% if you are looking at excess deaths over the seasonal norm

Q: But he predicts that 675,000 could die from the collateral damage – far more than the 577,000 deaths predicted by Imperial College London if coronavirus had been allowed to run through the population unchecked. More, in fact, than all British lives lost in the Second World War. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/07/lockdown-restrictions-not-simpl...

'Stay at home and save lives' - we won't forget that one in a hurry, huh

Hasn’t the editor got other issues to write about, like the number of parents not vaccinating their children?

Cheap shot - and addressed in the article.

Far from a cheap shot.

It goes to the credibility of the editor who should, in my opinion, be spending all his time trying to repair the damage that he is responsible for.

Q: "... there was a collusion that took place between scientific and medical advisers and politicians which was in the end damaging to public health.”

Conspiracy called out - can't be clearer !

Q: Godlee says that the Lancet usually has a cosy relationship with big pharma, often publishing major drug trials. It’s a “pact with the devil”, she believes, that has enabled the journal to become a global powerhouse.

Deeply compromising ! he stood by criticism of the MMR vaccine for 12yrs, and now he's "repaying his debts". Two possibilities:

the debt that he did not bow to commercial pressure and honour BigPharma right from the start 

the debt that he was pressured to finally quit objectivity

I NEVER used the name Godlee. This has been changed in my text here and on facebook.

Cyber-smearing in action - ALERT !

No but not for one second surprising that our trial failed where others have at least developed technically functional systems in which trust can be built.

I could trial a rocket car made of noodles but it would be pointless because I knew in advance rocket cars really shouldn't really be made of noodles and the probability of success would be very low. Doesn't mean trials are a bad idea.

jk

What name did you mean to use, then?

I would check your spell checker, and check your posts before you post them. Certainly before claiming that 'they' have been manipulating your FB and UKC posts.

Woah.  How deep does this thing go!?

Who are you?  And what have you done with captain paranoia?

'captain paranoia' came to life to counter someone paranoid on MtnUK, 21 years ago...

Forgiving of what? I suspect one of us is misunderstanding the other, I'm not feeling very forgiving at the moment and I certainly don't think luck (or geography, genetics, demographics, subservience, obesity etc etc) played the greater part in countries like NZ containing and controlling their outbreaks!

That is in large part down to good leaders taking good advice, making tough choices with the right priorities in a timely manner, earning and maintaining trust, clearly conveying what was necessary.

Can you spell out clearly what you mean for those of us who maybe don't think alike? I genuinely have no idea what you're hinting at.

jk

I apologise for the post you reference. I have no evidence to prove it, so even if it were true it's neither useful not convincing.

The 'incident' which set me off comes after other more tangible internet interventions - feeding the notion 'what will they stop at'. So I was confused with that expectation. In this case the more optomistic conclusion is that things haven't got so far out of hand - yet.

In view of the campaign of information and counter-(mis)information, some confusion is inevitable.

The focus of this thread around The Lancet and Richard Horton has unearthed significant evidence. It seems the kernel of the conflict goes back to Jan with his tweets starting as:

https://twitter.com/richardhorton1/status/1252183975893884933?lang=en

In which, RH asserted evidence that the virus was deadly but not desperate; he also advised immediate action to deal with it.

I ask - if a 'highly contagious' virus got into NZ and only found 22 victims - could this only be the result of luck and good management ?

By contrast, the UK has been the victim of a collusion (named in the Guardian) which shows what happens if such a virus is not managed well.

RH was ignored - to his incredulity - why ? he called out the media for creating an escalation of fear - why did the media do this and what is the result ?

In Sweden it is known that - despite lack of lockdown constraints, the country is way off herd immunity. I heard of 10% circulation with 60% or even 80% necessary for herd immunity. Is this the behaviour of a 'highly contagious' virus ? 

Discovered further down the same twitter from RH:

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/108million/

Unless I am remarkably dull - this appears to be an exposé of how the gov manipulated supply of PPE / masks. Lack of PPE when it mattered - in the hospitals where it mattered most - has resulted in a lot of deaths. Why did the gov want this result ? 

Lee, I wouldn't call you dull; just a bit inventive. That expose is nothing to do with the government manipulating supply, and everything to do with the government awarding very big contracts to companies without the usual due diligence. Tendering, competitive quotes etc, chums on the board etc (see track and trace, testing etc etc). 

This does seem a strange one to go after however, as the company awarded the contract do seem to have performed reasonably well thus far. The bad thing is that there were a number of British manufacturing companies that would have loved to have had the chance to provide the equipment. But, as BoJo is fond of saying, f**k business.

Thats a matter of perspective. But when we see the same judgments play out too many times - in favour of profit rather than human life - it results in the title to this thread. 

The Government is Playing us like Fools.

The public are already angry - quite rightly. But 'forgiveness' is still too high - the need to dismiss all these judgements as careless neglect, poor decision-making. The flip side of this is deliberate manipulation; only when we accept this possibility can we muster the depth and scale of anger and reaction necessary to deal with the problem.

But you tell me - what sort of proof might we need to prove mask supply was deliberately braked ? What would we need to tip the balance of judgment ?

Ah, i may have got the wrong end of your stick (!) in my prior response.....agree entirely the government are playing us for fools, but if the restrictions on ppe are not due to incompetence but are deliberate, doesn't that take us into the realms of genocide? That they are deliberately killing off tens of thousands of the population? 

That to me is too far into conspiracy theory. i note that as a private organisation, we have had no problem sourcing ppe for our employees throughout this past 3 months (retail, approx 80 people).

for proof, surely you would need evidence that ppe was available, that it was known to be available, and that a decision was taken to withhold it deliberately. not sure how you would get that......but I would rather believe it is just incompetence coloured by ideological bias towards "the free market".

Did you paste the wrong link?

Jk

The obvious answer is to (probably mis-) quote Carl Sagan: extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.

Do you have it? I'm no apologist for this government but I don't believe they had a policy of deliberately stifling PPE supply into the NHS. To what end, who benefits? 

Jk

Nice one !

Monbiot makes his opinion clear - that the neo-liberal ideology supports the ultra-rich - who then manipulate election of suitable presidents - who then in turn manipulate crises, trade deals and other political issues - for the generation of their own security and the ultra-rich who control them

Q: This political conflict is always fought on behalf of the same group: those who extract wealth.  

Q: the approach which has proved so disastrous in addressing the pandemic has been highly effective, from the lobbyists’ point of view, when applied to other issues: delaying and frustrating action to prevent climate breakdown, pollution, the obesity crisis, inequality, unaffordable rent and the many other plagues spread by corporate and billionaire power.

Even if it is 'just' that then we have a grave problem which you have done well to highlight. The disconnect and remoteness of decision making has de-prioritised ethics in favour simply of - profit. 

We have been sadly 'more comfortable' accepting this mechanism in treatment of third-world lives. Far far from the reality of locust plagues, droughts and struggle to find clean water, a computer operator in a New York office plays with exchange rates and interest rates, which affect the way whole african nations buy and sell. 

Now the problem has come home. France and Canada both alleged that the USA snatched masks out of their supply chain - driven by bids in some far away office. In one case a consignment sitting on airport tarmac - was re-appropriated by the USA (who denied this !) .

Q: They were "just looking to do business" while the whole world is in a state of distress, she told LCI television.

https://www.france24.com/en/20200403-french-politicians-accuse-us-of-buying...

The point is - this alone dehumanises decison-making. But scrutiny of supply chains make it ever more difficult to identify responsibility and creates opportunity for remote manipulation.

Thats where they've got to in spain. I found the original article in spanish - then this one for translation. Some fact-checking is noted. I also found the independent journal in spanish - which notes receipt of the complaint. The original spanish is also presented lower in this page - so anyone can search the title out independently.

https://www.europereloaded.com/covid-the-hague-tribunal-registers-a-complai...

Are you arguing influential disaster capitalists have the government's balls in a drawer so they're deliberately hampering our covid response to precipitate an economic collapse? Why bother, those with the government's ear who are that way inclined (and I'm sure there are some) already have brexit? Brexit doesn't threaten their lives, a rampant, deadly and barely treatable virus does. It's no respecter of wealth.

I'm not sure I see the un-targeted* killing hundreds of thousands of people being on balance in the government's interest. Ultimately all they care for is power which means re-election. Killing your electorate is unlikely to further that cause whether you pretend you did so maliciously or incompetently there's no getting around the fact we don't like dying.

*as the virus kills predominantly older people it makes no sense at all for Conservative governments given the age-conservatism correlation.

I mostly disagree.

It has clearly illustrated the environmental benefits to voters of measures which also address climate change.

It has disrupted the economy creating cracks into which new industries must and will grow. Far more likely those will be green than extractive.

It has by creating visibly parallel, grossly unequal social security systems highlighted to those who have fallen back onto 'benefits' for the first time the deliberate cruelty and inadequacy of UC. I hope but am not certain that will colour voters opinions of social security. Either way, there is no way the government or those who buy influence so as to minimise taxes wanted light shone on this.

I don't see the relevance of obesity either way.

Rent affordability hasn't yet been explicitly addressed during this crisis, it probably will need to be if a truly desperate homelessness and banking crisis are to be avoided. Housing market forces have changed slightly and are likely to dramatically as the economy settles into it's new reduced and distorted form, I'm not sure who ultimately looks most likely to benefit from this but it's not automatically going to be landlords and lenders.

jk

You're absolutely right that this crisis should be shining a light on the absurdity and inhumanity of our economic system but the people who have rigged the system have little to fear from this. The media they control will continue to distract from the cruelty of the system and now the opposition are the defenders of the status quo while it is the Tories who are the party offering change (of the snakeoil variety).

BIG carrots and even BIGGER sticks !

It's all about fear - without the fear generated by a 'deadly' virus, the public would happily slip back to the 'old normal'. The government(s) want the 'new normal'. Some of this will be to our benefit, but even more will benefit the ruling neo-liberal structure. The biggest changes will be profit driven - by non-democratic commercial and corporate interests.

Changes include distance learning and working from home.  The need for tracing and surveillance to solve multiple issues - immigration, terrorism and health risks. All will become 'reasonable' if fear is maintained. The whole package relies on new technology and 5G network - to reach every corner of everywhere. While country economies are at an all time low the stock mkt has already reached new highs, led by hi-tech companies - they know where we're headed.

It's all rather daunting - government choices are already dis-empowered by the tentacles of big commerce, but for our part - the public - we are handicapped by exceptional emergency powers of the state - TWO years under the rule of Coronavirus Act 2020

How should we react to all this ?

------------ Recap in reference to preceding discussions -----------

How deadly is the sars2 virus ? This is the kernel of all reactions which shape public opinion and justify government reactions. With correct procedures NZ has proved that it is far from worthy of pandemic status.

Richard Horton was talking about measures to deal with the then known viral threat back in January. The collusion which RH speaks of has resulted in many more deaths than necessary. Both UK & USA have been the source of the similar statistics which prove two things

• how many deaths result from bad management
• how deadly is the virus

But the latter depends on the former. The overall strategy which RH advised in Jan was decisive immediate action for a moderate threat, without escalating media hype.

UK has experienced the opposite of this. Slow reactions followed by huge media inflation of risks and fear. The Coronavirus Act 2020 allowed a 'covid-19 death' to be loosely defined. The only reliable statistic is 'all deaths', and we are now aware more than ever that current deaths are 'pandemic collateral'.

So, why might the government wish this lie upon us ? The UK government, as many others in the western world, is under the squeeze between the rich lobbies and the disgruntled poor (relatively) . The wealth differential weakens democracy and creates the need for the wealthy and the governments which protect their interests - to control public reactions - the discontent of the masses.

A letter from earlier in the week pointing out a very strong opinion on PHE.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/17/public-health-england-is-n...

Absolute nonsense... 

Before you dismiss my fumbled attempts listen out a more articulate speaker - Naomi Klein on Global Neoliberalism, 14mins:

youtube.com/watch?v=sKTmwu3ynOY&

Naomi Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization and of capitalism.[2] On a three-year appointment from September 2018, she is the Gloria Steinem Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University.[3][4] ( wikipedia )

Nailed it. Labour members are beguiled by the winner takes all, fptp system, where they can have control for 5 years then everything they do gets undone in the following 5. Surely it would be better to have permanent influence? (which would wax and wane every 5 years, sometimes they'd be in government, sometimes not, but they'd always have some clout)

Funnily enough I think there is something in what you say. There is a natural tendency with governments and their supporting bureaucracies to always extend their power and influence.

At one level a pandemic like this must have been a nightmare, Christ knows Hancock at least has the grace to realise what an ineffectual  w*nker he has been, at another it is a Whitehall wet dream - spending money (our money) like water, (Wales have just spent £166 million on temporary hospitals hospitals that have treated  just 46 patients, so God knows what the English equivalents have cost, Test and Trace must be costing us north of £half a million an hour), and rules and regulations - lots and lots of lovely rules and regulations!

Bliss! Completely out of kilter with what is going on on the ground, or what the scientific adviser's 'advise', irrational, illogical but hey, this is what real government feels like! 2 m distancing, 5 miles travel, air corridors with countries with same or lower infection rates than us (how is that supposed to make sense?)... Ironically the one rule I would totally support and makes perfect sense to me at any rate would be compulsory handwashing before entering a shop. But that seems to be too complicated.

And don't get me started on the pernicious influence of the private sector; I imagine the directors of Serco, Capita, the frigging Companies supplying 'life coaching' to the Test and Trace temporary employees FFS!, the actual developers working for NHSX (?), the landlords of the Nightingale hospitals must all be blown away with the money they are earning from this lovely, lovely crisis.

No, I'm sticking with total nonsense

What complete bollocks.

Specifically which part of our covid response to date or that proposed but not yet implemented relies on 5G?

Yet most recent weekends there have been mass street protests by anti-racists and the far right and here you are perfectly legally amplifying your conspiracy theories. In what way are you hampered?

It has already spread globally and was pre-intervention doubling every 2-3 days in developed countries killing thousands daily while only tiny percentages of populations were yet infected. I suggest some reading up on the definitions of pandemic and deadly.

Reference required.

jk

But how much of this comes from influence outside of the UK. We have growing evidence of America's influence - and given the same pandemic scenario has been acted out there - is this purely conicidental ?