Remember BREXIT has it made COVID-19 worse here?

I think you have a good point - and I've said this all along. If the UK turns its back on the EU (with all its flaws), the only alternative is to develop closer links with China and the US, which I certainly don't want. Whether people will realise, I honestly don't know. All that bell bonging and eating bent bananas stuff seems a world away. Maybe the reality of living in Blitz conditions will hit home.

.............and what of Italy, but all accounts they feel completely abandoned by the EU. It appears there has been a lack of of solidarity between the richer countries of the north and parts of southern Europe.

I agree with your second paragraph.

They did have quite a lot of heated discussion about financial help where Northern Europe didn’t want to bankroll the south, in the end they did. In my book they always will because industry in the north depends on the south to buy goods. The right wingers on both sides both want separation, the vast majority know that on continental Europe closed borders would be a huge step backwards.

Terriball Italy is not a poor country. The area most affected by the Covid virus is the industrial north, which is the power house of the country. Italian engineering is excellent.

The problem with Italy is that it has had a succession of weak governments. It has had 68 governments in 73 years and no government can risk doing anything that will limit expenditure or increase taxes. It runs on a burgeoning debt mountain. It is in exactly the position Greece was in before it collapsed and needs much the same treatment.

Of course other EU memebers are wary of lending any more mney to it. It should never have been allowed into the euro system. Again as with Greece, the figures were massaged to make it look as it it met the financial standards required. One problem with the EU is that politics too often over ride good economic management.

I wouldn't disagree with the points you have made Monica, particularly your last paragraph.

I have been to Italy umpteen times, mainly to the north, I've never actually been south of Rome, but have read there is an enormous disparity between the relatively wealthy and industrialised north and the much poorer rural south. Quite apart from being part of the greater union of the EU, it seems that there is a regional outlook in Italy. It has been mooted that the richest area of Northern Italy, The Veneto has similar aspirations to Catalonia, in that it would like greater autonomy from the rest of Italy.

Terribull I too have been to Italy several times but only once to the southernmost part. About 20 years ago we holidayed in Apulia and I was surprised at the visible differences. Being used to the smart shops in the north there were very few in the south. Superficially the mens' suits looked similar to those in the north except they were made of cheaper fabrics. And not the plethora of bars that there are in the north. However it was and, I imagine, still is relatively unspoilt. Plus it's a beautiful part of the country.

A bit like Scotland wanting independence?

Pity we lost the Medicines Agency due to Brexit; would have been good to still have that based here at this moment in time.

Cindersdad

'Time will show that extreme capitalism as here and in the US is almost as bad for humanity as the Chinese way. Learn from countries like Denmark and New Zealand.'
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What do you mean please?

Perhaps he/she means that the PM of New Zealand regards peoples lives as being more important than the economy.

Yes I agree with you Labaik and also she has added two more jobs to the essential workers list.......The Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.

Solidarity, pull the other one, ask member states like Italy and Greece how much they have been helped by the wonderful monstrosity which calls itself the EU. Cuba has sent more aid to Italy than any other country and, of course, China has been kind enough to send faulty stuff. If we were still a member they would be after a lot of our money to bail them out; we dodged a bullet there.

Extreme capitalism here and the US? Not, of course, in the EU and other parts of the world.

You cannot sensibly compare the experience of countries like Denmark and New Zealand with the UK without taking account of the size and concentration of the population. As mentioned elsewhere, London (which accounts for 25% of UK deaths from COVID-19) is much larger and more concentrated than Denmark or New Zealand.

Time will tell whether the UK has come out of this relatively well or badly and, hopefully, a thorough, independent analysis will investigate all the many factors involved.

Hopefully, this will not be the case but the economic impact of the virus could yet claim more lives than the virus itself.

Time will tell.

Totally agree quizqueen, we've certainly had a narrow escape re:- the EU! The Dutch are being slapped down for daring to suggest that their taxpayers money should be for its own nationals! How selfish can you be to even suggest such a thing!!!!!!!
With regard to NZ and Denmark, how can you possibly compare their outcome with here, bearing in mind their populations,(a fraction of the UK) and their terrain. A silly comparison!

I still think NZ's 2 death [? it may have gone up] is pretty impressive no matter which way you look at it. You could argue that they're an island but, so are we [and one with total control of our borders thanks to Brexit....].

Re Italy’s economy: apparently in the South the mafia are circling - they intend to ‘offer’ much needed loans.
?

NZ's nearest landmass is Australia 1000 miles away, the UK is France 21 miles away. I think the likelihood of imported virus is somewhat more likely for the UK than NZ!

But we're still an island with control of our borders, And even the virus can't be transmitted across 21 miles of sea.

Your headline really made me laugh (thanks) as it's a perfect Daily Mail one. Have you been on the Mail-o-matic site?

If only we could blame Coronavirus on Brexit - it would suit so many people!

Brexit has been blamed for so many things that I suspect somebody is even now working on a link to coronavirus. More likely, the thought in the UK will be how to use the new situation to overturn Brexit and, in the EU, how to use it to move more quickly to an ever closer union.

I have no information to support such a view, just a reading of how these things tend to work.

Post-Brexit trade talks: Hard Brexit could push up the family food bill by £50 a week

inews.co.uk/news/politics/brexit/post-brexit-trade-talks-latest-hard-brexit-family-food-bill-warning-2444725

Well the government can blame coronavirus for the Brexit fallout so it’s a gift to them.
Unemployment
No trade deals
Economy tanking
Can’t possibly be anything to do with Brexit.
As for Patel saying the immigration bill means they are “opening up Britain to the world” - really?

No-one is blaming brexity for coronovirus. Brexit was a self-inflicted disaster.

Coronovirus is a pandemic inflicting great harm all over the world, but the harm done to the UK be coronavirus is so much worse because in 2016 and 2017 the government chose to ignore experts advice to prepare for a pandemic by stockpiling PPE and other equipment, increasing our testing capacity and investing in the NHS. Instead, they prioritised brexit so by the end of 2019 £130 billion had been wasted on this appalling Boris Johnson vanity project.

The Vote Leave government, at the direction of Dominic Cummings, then wasted the opportunity in January of this year to learn from the experience of other countries and start to take measures to mitigate the effect of the virus.

Instead they chose to prioritise the nonsense of "getting brexit done". Then in February, BJ took a nice long holiday in the Caribbean leaving a leadership vacuum.

To compound matters, even now they are refusing to ensure that we can have a good trading relationship with our European neighbours by extending the transition period.

OK - brexit may not have caused this pandemic, but it is the reason that the UK is having a worse time, and more people are dying, than in any other country in Europe. Only in the USA do we see a worse performance and more tragic results.

The Cummings affair has diverted attention from the so-called brexit negotiations which are a charade.

John Keiger, writing in The Spectator considers that " A no-deal Brexit is now all but inevitable"

www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-no-deal-brexit-is-now-all-but-inevitable