The honeymoon will be shorter than most

I'm self-employed and have paid Class 2 NICs (and in some years Class 4) for the last six years, in addition to over 40 years NICs as an employee. I'm not eligible for a single penny from any government scheme because my self-employed business has taken years to build up and it wasn't until last year I was earning more from self-employment than I was receiving from a small pension. I will have to use savings to survive until I receive my state pension.

Please don't label all self-employed people with your bigoted stereotypes.

If you're going to have a rant, it would be helpful if you could check out some facts.

It sounds as though you're relaxed about people in care homes dying. I guess you don't have any relatives in one.

By the way, I haven't actually spotted any of this "strong team" surrounding Johnson. I've seen plenty of untalented sycophants.

Don't forget that constructive criticism is a prerequisite of both science and democracy.

There will be two stages of this unprecedented crisis. The first stage, which we are all going through now, is the health stage of the situation, while the second stage which will be the worldwide economic recession or even depression is yet to come.

However, well or badly in the future it is perceived that this government handled the health stage of this crisis, it is unlikely to be the deciding factor in any future general election as that is in all probability four years away.

However, it is very likely that the economic impact of this pandemic will produce at least two or three million unemployed and that will in all probability still be the situation at the time of the next general election.

That may make the outcome of that election very unpredictable at least, and give the Labour Party a real chance of gaining power if Labour still exists in its present form.

Although, labour still existing in its present form is becoming ever more unlikely I feel.

Good post newnanny.

Well said Eloethan and growstuff as always

20k uk civilians died in WW11? And the rest.

The stupid austerity measures put in place by Cameron & Gideon certainly didn’t help matters. Services were stripped to the bone. I think they were in charge too at the time of the Cygnus findings? Theresa May was pretty useless.

And so now we have Boris. The man gets a thumping majority of 80 by the electorate to deliver Brexit. Lurking in the wings is C-19.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

At the beginning even Guardian (moaner, Remainer Crace’s newspaper quoted so ardently by WWmk2) also failed to read the evidence... For weeks it ran a kind of primer on coronavirus that included breezy injunctions not to take it too seriously - Just a chinese/Asian thing. And ended with cheery advice to go on holiday if you had one planned!

Perhaps if the media sharks calmed down with their feeding frenzy we would allow THIS government (Tory, yes but under Boris - more sincere) the opportunity to get to grips with this god-awful pandemic.

Even here in Spain, the government took their collective eye off the ball regarding care homes. But do their newspapers continually berate Pedro Sanchez over it ad nauseum? No, they do not. They realise as the pandemic evolved those in charge learnt much and acted accordingly.

Grandad. You are probably correct in your prediction of the future direction of politics in the U.K., now that Labour have a credible leader look to the future. Put aside the past because now there is a real chance to change things for the better.

Grandad has a point, but anyway, I should think in four to five years time, at the next GE the public will be in the mood for a change anyway as by that time the Conservatives will have been in power for an amazing amount of years.

newnanny
Good post at 02.04 today. I agree with everything you said.
My daughter and her husband are doctors and these are desperately worrying times for us but I still agree with what you say. The majority of the criticism appears to be coming from the left. To be honest, it wouldn’t matter what the current government did, there’d still be criticism. I also have a criticism, I think we went into lockdown too late and didn’t take sufficient notice of what was happening elsewhere. It didn’t help that China almost certainly didn’t tell the truth about the numbers of deaths. Anyway we are where we are, and criticism doesn’t help the situation. In fact it I find it too negative and I no longer watch the news as much as I did, I don’t look at all the threads on here either. I find the negativity is bad for my mental health.
Because we are extremely worried about our daughter and her husband and their three little children I try to avoid too much negativity. I’m fully aware that in the fullness of time that there will be an inquiry and that whatever conclusions it reaches will help the governments of the future, whatever colour they maybe, to prepare fully for such a situation should it arise in the future.

Criticism of a government is always valid maddyone, unless you're happy to live in an autocracy.

Rose-tinted positivity specs never achieve anything.

If we didn’t have negativity we’d still be sending children up chimneys and slavery. Negativity and criticism is a good thing - it pushes for change for the better and holds people and Govts to account.

newnanny It was a most impressive achievement to construct large hospitals within a short space of time. However, it is not just space and beds that are the problem. Experienced and fully qualified nurses are needed to treat the patients in those beds.

Extracts from The Guardian (April):
"Dozens of patients with Covid-19 have been turned away from the NHS Nightingale hospital in London because it has too few nurses to treat them, the Guardian can reveal.

"The planned transfer of more than 30 patients from established London hospitals to the Nightingale was “cancelled due to staffing issues”, according to NHS documents seen by the Guardian. All the patients had been intubated and were on a ventilator because they were so unwell.

"One member of staff said: “There are plenty of people working here, including plenty of doctors. But there aren’t enough critical care nurses. They’re already working in other hospitals and being run ragged there. There aren’t spare people [specialist nurses] around to do this. That’s the problem. That leads to patients having to be rejected, because there aren’t enough critical care nurses.”

In 2019 the Guardian reported:

"The NHS is relying on less qualified staff to plug workforce gaps because of a huge shortage of nurses, according to a new report.

"Support staff, such as healthcare assistants and nursing associates, have been used to shore up staffing numbers, said the Health Foundation charity.

"At present, there are almost 44,000 nursing vacancies across the NHS (12% of the nursing workforce), but this could hit 100,000 in a decade, the report said.

"The report said: “In 2009-10 there were equal numbers of nurses and support staff, with one clinical support staff member for every full-time equivalent nurse in the NHS.

“By 2018-19, the number of support staff per full-time equivalent nurse had risen 10% to 1.1 full-time equivalent per nurse.”

So far as other industries providing ventilators and PPE, it was the industries themselves that were proactive in contacting the government and many who came forward claimed that their offers of help had been ignored.

As with most things during this crisis, it has been the general public and businesses who have taken the initiative provide community support and to help with the provision of vital equipment - the government has been criticised for its lack of application to these urgent matters.

As for the suggestion by somebody that it is only those on the left who have been critical of the government's performance, that is quite patently untrue.

The New European reports:

"The Daily Mail uses a “statistic that humbles ministers” by reporting that of the 550,000 NHS staff only 2,000 people had been tested.

"It’s “the latest shocking example of our testing scandal” but the newspaper claims it has stung “Boris into action”.

"The Times uses the headline “virus testing plans in chaos” as it claims Boris Johnson has been forced to shift strategy on the government’s testing regime after criticism of the slow pace of checks on NHS staff.

"The Daily Telegraph is the most critical with the headline “Questions without answers”,m t asks why the UK is lagging behind other nations on testing, why so few NHS workers have been tested, and asks when new antibody tests will be ready."

“20k uk civilians died in WW11? And the rest.”

Around that number were thought to have been killed in London during the blitz, total civilian deaths of 67k including some from the colonies.

That was bad enough but other European countries had far greater losses and Russia many millions

growstuff and SirChenjin
Actually I agree with you both. It’s just that for me too much negativity causes my mental health to suffer and I begin to get symptoms of clinical depression. I already take tablets for that and normally they keep me well and happy. However I found I was watching too much news and reading too many negative threads on here and the old familiar feelings began to creep back, especially in the mornings. I made a decision to avoid too much negative press or threads and it has helped me.
Obviously I’m not looking through rose tinted specs growstuff, as I said earlier my daughter and son in law are doctors and have a limited amount of PPE. My son in law, a GP, did a weekend shift where he had to visit nine different care homes and some of the patients he saw were Covid19 patients, and he had only two face masks for the whole shift. They have three young children and I’m very concerned and frightened for them. I’ve said this on a couple of other threads so apologies if you’ve read it before. However it doesn’t help me or them to soak up as much negativity as I can.
I said in my earlier post and other posts that I have criticised the government for waiting too long before lockdown and for allowing planes to take off and land normally, undoubtedly bringing many cases of Covid19 into the country. This country was slow to act and is paying for that with increased deaths in my opinion. Having said that we have to go forward from where we are.
When this is over, and who knows when that will be, there will be an inquiry and all failings of government and health authorities will be identified, and hopefully we will all learn how something like this can be properly managed in future.

Incidentally I think the government has done a lot of good things and as said before, made some mistakes.

If criticism of the government for perceived ineptitude in this crisis is what some forum members are looking for then it certainly will not be forthcoming from Kier Starmer.

I am working from home at present and stopped at lunchtime to view prime minister's question time. I felt that Starmer's performance was the worst of any Labour leader at PMQs in my living memory.

His questions were too long and detailed, and he spread his six questions over a range of topics which meant he never at any time placed any real pressure on the government which could have been the case with a series of questions on the same issue.

The above amounted to another total loss for the new Labour Leader following his failure to come to grips with the enormous crisis which has erupted throughout the whole Labour Movement following the leak of the antisemitism report.

The Parliamentary Labour Party just seems to stagger from one failure to another and one crisis to the next.

Time for real change in this whole Labour Parliamentary set up.

I would say they’ve made a lot of mistakes but I do understand about recognising when the negative feelings start creeping back in and taking steps to help yourself deal with that - whatever those steps are.

I find it interesting that some people (I don’t mean you here maddy ) automatically view realism as negativity and don’t wish to discuss anything that interferes with their positive thoughts - or if they do they very quickly push them to one side.

That to maddy

Well actually it seems the honeymoon is over for Kier Starmer after just two PMQs lol.

Why Firecracker? What happened? I missed it. (sat in the sunshine ??)

A lot of good HAS been done. Compare us to other countries where no provision whatsoever was made for keyworker childcare, where lockdown poverty from there being no support for the self employed has seen a surge in organised crime, where bereaved keyworkers families get no payments to keep a roof over their heads.

Lots has been done here that wasnt done overseas even by some of our nearest neighbours

Urmstongran Quote [Why Firecracker? What happened? I missed it.] End Quote.

Urmstongran, the problem is the Kier Starmer stood up at the dispatch box at Prime Ministers Question Time and nothing happened. ?

And lots wasn’t done.