To think we should let scientific advisers advise?

I also think M0nica is the voice of reason and someone who draws parallels from other situations in life to make us reflect. From there we can all make our own minds up and prioritise. M0nica's point about advisers offering advice and "others decide whether it is feasible or safe to follow that advice" is spot on.

Do you automatically accept all the advice you are given, even from those you seek professional advice from, like a solicitor or doctor. Don't you, at

Yes, I do agree with some points.

However, these are Government advisers; their role is to advise the Government and the point of this thread was that a group elected politicians are rebelling and choosing to ignore that advice. These Tory MPs object on the grounds that the experts are running the show.

They are not, they are advising. The Tory MPs should listen carefully to the medical experts and evaluate - they're not the experts in that field on the whole, although there may be one or two who are medically trained.

The UK does not have a balanced economy - sadly it is driven by going to shops and buying stuff, or pubs, cafes and hotels/restaurants, or cinemas and enjoying ourselves, oh yes, and gambling with money in "the city" to pay for it all.

Maybe if we had a mixed economy and made stuff we would be less dependent on these businesses.

No - I'm not saying it would be any easier, but maybe we would have a broader economic base to recover from.

I don't believe Chris Witty would make a better PM, he has a much more detailed set of technical skills and expertise that we need to rely on to provide expert advice .

The PM needs to be able to accept and understand that advice, and provide the serious response and deliver the technical information in a meaningful way.

Sadly, Johnson simply does not have the skills, and is not up to the job of leading the country and helping us at all. He is clearly an attention seeker, and a very poor communicator.

We are currently stuck with his style until the Conservatives decide who will be our next PM, when they have decided it is enough - that is not democracy.

the only reason MP's do not want a lock down is because they want to be able to travel anywhere over Christmas attend family parties and do as they please without people saying one rule for the rich mp's and so called celebs and one rule for all others

I think it's safe to say they would be doing that, anyway.

Well said Maw. I totally agree with your post and cannot fault it. Too much egotistical behaviour from our MPs these days and not always good common sense.
My best wishes to you over the festive season.
Carole Anne.

growstuff

When I read posts such as yours MOnica, I really do despair. It's too early for me and I don't even know where to begin.

I agree he is only a medic with years of experience, not watching his own back and planning secret parties.{hmm]

Chris Whitty and his colleagues on SAGE have been using totally inaccurate modelling since day one. None of their PREDICTIONS have come anywhere near to reality.

Care to give us the benefit of your obvious knowledge and experience?

Raab's PPS Morrissey should be sacked for attacking Chris Whitty. It is a source of encouragement to loony anti-vaxxers to attack him physically. We have seen in North Shropshire what voters now really think of Johnson and his Brexiteer plonkers. Thank God for Whitty, Valence, JVT and the other experts despised pre-Brexit by Gove.

Vaccination was heralded as the way back to a normal life by medical and scientific advisers. Unless and until there is evidence that omicron is causing greater harm than any other respiratory disease I think it’s perfectly reasonable for individuals to make their own risk assessment. Even before omicron, data was never given in the reports of daily deaths about how many of these were unvaccinated people. So far there has been one omicron death reported and despite being pressed the government has refused to say whether the individual was vaccinated or not. It seems to me they should be shouting from the rooftops about deaths attributable to non-vaccination as a wake up call to the anti vaxxers.

Isn't prioritising to preserve Christmas exactly what our esteemed government told us to do last year? And lots of people did that, some schools closed early to try to protect kids' ability to see grandparents on Christmas Day and very many of us returned to very early lockdown rules for the same reason - so not sure why suddenly the advice has changed if, and I say if, the omicron threat is the same as the Kent variant threat this time last year.

Tory policy will be dominated by their donors, Wetherspoons etc don't want to loose their Christmas taking, so thats what will prevail when the tories are in charge

PhilJaz

Chris Whitty and his colleagues on SAGE have been using totally inaccurate modelling since day one. None of their PREDICTIONS have come anywhere near to reality.

Please someone correct me if I'm wrong about this, but surely the predictions were for what would happen if the government DIDN'T take action. The reason they have not come close to reality is that they DID take action, however ineptly. Mathematical modelling seems to have a bad press, but it is a very useful tool amongst others in situations such as this pandemic.

It is possible to find pockets of information about unvaccinated deaths by coming across comments from medical professionals in news articles. From what I've seen, there are many.
I suppose the problem is that there appear to be quite a lot of people with reasons for not getting vaccinated that are to do with allergic and anaphylactic reactions to the vaccination itself. Some people are on medication or having treatment which also, I have read, means vaccination is not wise.
One wonders whether these people have gone through life avoiding all vaccination. Whatever, announcing unvaccinated death rates would encourage more division which is surely the last thing we need now.

I am keeping an open mind until we have more precise figures to see if the scientific predictions based on statistic modelling are right. In the meantime I am doing everything to keep us safe and generally following Chris Whitty’s advice. I don’t think ‘banning’ Christmas will work as too many won’t do it for whatever reason. The rest will follow the advice.

We all know he's right, of course, but Tory MPs have one eye on the economy too.

So by lambasting Whitty they can claim that the economy being harmed is not their fault, while avoiding responsibility for the health consequences of not taking care.

I don't know how any politicians have the utter gall to criticize any scientist!!!! As if they know better! They're jealous simply put, they don't like anyone queering what they perceive to be their 'pitch' . They think they have a monopoly on telling us what to do ,good/bad/indifferent . I think they feel inadequate too as their reaction is akin to that of someone being soundly bout gunned in the intelligence dept!..... Not a difficult thing to achieve in itself but CW does it so effectively with so little effort.......

Imo Chris Whitty is the calm, measured voice of reason and should be listened to and his advice followed. When I tune into the Covid broadcasts I tune in to hear what he has to say not Boris.
As a side issue I do wonder why he hasn't been awarded some sort of honour/gong as many others have.

I do believe that Chris Whitty’s advice and observations (for that, in a democracy, is what they should be!) is correct and wise. It is a decision that I myself, and most sensible people I should think, have already arrived at and are following. If our democratically elected government, however incompetent they are perceived to be, wish to reaffirm that, enshrine it in policy or law, that is another matter. As I see it, unelected officials dictating what should be law, is a very slippery slope indeed. Personally I think that Professor Whitty, mild mannered as he is, did no such thing; he was merely doing his job as an ADVISER. It has been blown up out of all perspective by the media I think-the fact it is even being debated shows that! Btw another thread moots that this gentleman should be a contender for PM. Now that really is a knee jerk reaction to an altogether different problem. There is a great deal more to being PM than Covid and ‘protecting the NHS’! It is a great pity that all the other serious problems we have in this country, (many of which are/will arise from the pandemic and will take decades to play out) do not receive the same attention.

Would say that those MP's need to show respect to Chris Whitty. He is the voice of reason and expertise. They just need to shut up

'The media' are even more unelected than Whitty.
A bunch of journalists & tv pundits who produce alarmist headlines and general criticism about anything and everything, based on nothing but their wish to make money.

Really Monica?

I know who I'd believe m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10160205902572625&id=784877624

Good post Amalegra