Dept of Health reply to Sunday Times trashing

Thank you.
Whether or not there have been failings, it is good to get the facts “from the horse’s mouth” and not via sensationalist tabloid or social media Chinese whispers.

The rebuttal was put out by the government press office. It would have been better if an independent body had counteracted the Sunday Times Article.

MawB8 I don't think that one can call the Sunday Times a "sensational tabloid"

Without looking too hard it's easy to point out evidence that the government did not act in a timely manner. Eg refusing to cancel sports events, not adhering to its own social distancing guidelines, ignoring most evidence until driven by social media etc etc

Here in Wales the Welsh Government didn’t ban the Stereophonics concerts 14/15 March at Cardiff and the majority of 584 deaths in Wales (571 in fact) are in the SE area. So shall we blame Labour for that?

Everybody knows that Murdoch has the knives out for Johnson and wants to see him replaced by Gove.

I was actually thinking of the typical “red top” headlines but sadly, the days of The Times and Sunday Times fulfilling their role as unbiased journalists went out a long time ago.

Yes, I took the i for a while, but that’s been taken over by the same Mail/Times group.

Gove is the husband of a pet journalist.

I don’t think there’s an independent newspaper.

The Guardian and the Observer are owned by the Guardian Media Group which is a subsidiary of the Scott Trust Limited.

The core values of the trust are "To secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity: as a quality national newspaper without party affiliation; remaining faithful to its liberal tradition; as a profit-seeking enterprise managed in an efficient and cost-effective manner."

So, I hink they are the only papers dancing to the tune of a paymaster.

Apologies =- last sentence should be:

So, I think they are the only papers NOT dancing to the tune of a paymaster

At the most basic of levels, whilst doling out advice on social distancing, government members were not doing that very thing.

Back and forward the fur flies.

Exactly Maw. With much of the media it seems ‘ why let the truth get in the way of a good story’ !
I’m always amazed how words and facts can be twisted to say whatever suits the authors.

Well done Glorybee ( great name) btw
I get tired of posters who have a real political axe to grind constantly using threads to simply bash the ruling Party , as whoever started the thread about the Sunday Times did.
It’s boring and so obvious.
I always think they are naive to give them the benefit of the doubt ( so naive that they fondly imagine only one political party ever gets anything right) but if they’re not.....well, that means they must be cynical and calculating and just political point scoring.Sad, in a national emergency like we are now facing ( and living!) to feel they must do this.

Naive, cynical and calculating? Or maybe horrified.

Thanks lemongrove. It really does seem as if the government is being accused of being casual with peoples lives and the accusation that they have ‘blood on their hands’ is ridiculous and obscene. It’s obviously a monumental burden for those in charge to carry and when all the facts come out at the end, although things could have even done differently, it will be seen that they will have done what they thought was for the best for the country at the time. There’s such a lot of hatred on some of these threads.

Pantglas I believe there are other reasons why the SE Wales area has had so many cases of COVID19 and it is not necessarily related to the Stereophonics concert which was held in Cardiff.

I appreciate that Callistemon but my point was that the (Labour) Welsh Government could have cancelled the concerts in the same way that the Tories are being crucified for not cancelling Cheltenham, Champions League matches etc in England! What’s good for one and all that!

Well, it is said that we had a pandemic strategy plan in the UK that was much admired throughout the world. However, it is acknowledged that the plan was not followed, partly because stocks had been so badly run down that the resources were not available to implement it properly and partly because the government from the outset had a very complacent attitude to the virus.

Anyway, it is said that there will be an inquiry when things are on a more even keel so presumably the situation is already deemed to be serious enough to warrant a thorough investigation of how the crisis has been dealt with. Certainly the medical profession is extremely unhappy with the current situation and the lack of honesty demonstrated so far.

Ah yes, Pantglas I see the point now.

I do know someone who went to the concert and he has delivered shopping for us since! I think we're past the danger time now, fingers crossed.

I've now read from different sources (most of them usually quite reliable), that 128 fake NHS Twitter accounts were set up to post "fake news".

Posts were sent using Hootsuite, a mass-posting tool. Accounts were registered to 1 person with 4 assigned contributors.

I hope this is investigated and, if it's true, the person behind it is sacked and made publicly accountable.

The reason it does ring true for me is that, on Sunday, a contributor I've met personally, who works for an NHS hospital as an ICU nurse, posted on a site run by an organisation set up by the County Council that her hospital would love to accept an offer of PPE masks and gloves, because they were running dangerously low.

About an hour later, the post disappeared and another post appeared, allegedly from somebody working for NHS Procurement, posted that it was a lie and that the hospital had plenty of PPE.

Not long after that, another post appeared from the admin of the group, with a copy of the threat of legal action the group had been sent, if they didn't remove the original post. This isn't some dodgy group set up by a troll. It's an official site, endorsed by the County Council.

It's all disappeared now and I thought I was imagining it, but somebody else did a screenshot. So what's going on? Somebody's telling porkies.

Is Sky News lying too?

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-uk-only-formally-asked-turkey-for-ppe-shipment-after-it-said-it-was-already-on-its-way-11976238?fbclid=IwAR3x3OG4CSOipI8HmwZlJE9m38Q74HT76OPmH3MrxFoyoDWczyd2AXLqMAM

Is it true that this PPE wasn't even ordered until after it was supposed to have arrived?

Are the manufacturers who have claimed to have exported PPE to other countries because the UK government rejected it, lying too?

Something very strange is going on.

Also from the Sky report, but doesn’t make such a good headline- “A government source said on Monday night that a commercial supplier in Turkey had been lined up to deliver the material over the weekend but something went wrong so officials were forced to ask the Turkish government for help.

A second UK source said the speed of manufacturing and paperwork may be causing the delays. Another factor could be the need to check goods meet safety and quality standards.”

Meanwhile we have British companies with stocks of PPE, who have contacted the relevant departments to offer their goods, hearing nothing from these departments and therefore sending their goods to the EU.
Perhaps things may improve with the appointment of someone to oversee all this. I think they need another appointment to oversee the testing. I heard the manager of a Care Home in Oxford saying that in order to get tested staff (who may not have a car ) had to go to Twickenham when there was a testing centre in Oxford. This is a round trip of 120 miles. What is going on ?

Locally we have individuals making PPE at home with the co-operation of a local hospital. People are cutting up duvet covers and sheets fgs! There definitely a shortage.

Same here Daisymae. That's what my post of 08.26 on this thread was about. A little group has been making scrubs and offered them to people who needed them. A nurse from a local hospital said "yes, please" and about an hour later, that post disappeared and another one appeared, apparently from local NHS management, and claimed there was no shortage. The admins of the group wrote a strange message, saying that they had been told to take the original message down and had been threatened with legal action if they accepted anything like it again. Weird! Meanwhile, staff in care homes and hospitals are still claiming they have shortages. Surely they can't all be liars

Glorybee….. yes, I read that too, but it doesn't fit the narrative for some.