Just how pathetic is Boris going to be allowed to be?

Let’s hope all the people that have been clapping for the NHS on Thursday nights write to their MP’s and complain about the way student nurses have been treated. Although I doubt if they will.

Helen Whatley, who probably would never have been promoted to supervisor if she'd worked in a supermarket, is an example of the totally incompetent sycophants promoted well beyond their capability by this Vote Leave government.

Isn't Helen Whatley the Minister for Social Care? And she thinks she provides better value for money for the taxpayer than do nurses?

The trouble is that I think BJ would be flattered by the "Mafia Boss" image.

I agree

“Lesson of Cummings & Jenrick, getting away with apparently major breaches of Whitehall rules: there needs to be an independent watchdog of propriety by ministers, as there is of parliamentarians

It can’t any longer be left to a prime minister who is behaving like a Mafia boss“

All a bit quiet in the Boris fan club this morning! Seriously, as I said before, this now goes beyond political affiliations and support, this government is unfit for office and needs a shake up from the bottom down. I do not, however, want a GE, it would allows Tories and their supporters to blame the new government for the cataclysmic times that we will be going through. I do not blame the Tories for the pandemic, but I blame them for the pre-pandemic austerity, and I blame them for going for popularity over professionalism when they decided to put Johnson in the top office.

Hypocrisy

From the 1st of December 2018 to the 30th of November 2019 Conservative MP Helen Whatley claimed £174,772.22 in expenses.

This is the same Helen Whatley who rejected plans to backdate a £5000 student nurses grant because she doesn’t believe they provide a service.

More corruption

“Non British media now reporting that the Russian report, suppressed by Boris Johnson, May include details over donations to the Conservative party by Russians with connections to Russian security services.“

I cannot read the article without registering - but I absolutely agree that public trust has (quite rightly) been lost. The government have just bumbled around.

The Economist is a long way from left-wing but they carry another article analysing this governments reactions. It is headed Britain has the wrong government for the covid crisis

Yet you do not need hindsight to identify other mistakes. Delays in fixing PPE supply chains, promoting face coverings and increasing testing capacity were clearly errors at the time. Despite the urging of the country’s scientists and the World Health Organisation, by the middle of April Britain was still carrying out just 12,000 tests a day, compared with 44,000 in Italy and 51,000 in Germany. Because most testing was reserved for hospitals, care homes struggled to find out which of their residents and staff were infected. Competition for PPE was fierce, so they also struggled to get the kit they needed to protect their workers.

The government is not solely to blame. The pandemic made new demands on the system. Some crucial bits of machinery did not work. The publicly owned company which supplies the health service with PPE failed. Public Health England, which was responsible for testing and tracing, failed. But there was a failure of leadership, too. When systems break it is the government’s job to mend them; when the evidence argues for drastic measures ministers need to take them.

Britain is still living with the consequences. The spread of the virus and the devastation it has wrought have made leaving lockdown difficult, as shown by the halting return of pupils to school. Only five year-groups have gone back, many parents are choosing to keep their children at home, and the government has abandoned an earlier ambition to get more in. The “world-beating” contact-tracing system still lacks its app, which is not due to arrive until winter. Slow progress at suppressing the virus will have grave economic consequences, too.

These shortcomings have claimed many victims. Among them is public trust. Britain went into this crisis with a powerful sense of unity and goodwill towards the government. Now Britons think worse of their government’s performance during the crisis than do the citizens of any of 22 countries polled by YouGov, aside from Mexico. That reflects the government’s mistakes and its hypocrisy, after the prime minister’s main adviser broke its own rules about when to travel—and kept his job. While the world waits for a vaccine this lack of trust will make managing the disease a lot harder.

This weeks Economist has a long article headed The British state shows how not to respond to a pandemic for anyone who has access. It's a long but very interesting article, much of it about how Care Homes were left to flounder making the deaths much, much higher than they needed to be but this, I think, relates to why we have the issues with getting the schools up and running for all children.

Boris Johnson was focused on protecting the economy, and his instincts are liberal. “Of course people must make their own decisions,” he told a press conference. “I’m a believer, as I say, in freedom.” He was unlikely to scrutinise advice that went with his grain.

He is still not listening to anything he doesn't want to hear.

I would never believe an individual doctor about anything.

It was a paediatrician who told me to avoid my grandchildren as they were likely to be asymptomatic: he is now saying schools should reopen. So where does that leave me and the teachers ? Does anyone know who to believe any more?

More lies and a hint of corruption

Labour is demanding that Robert Jenrick come to the House of Commons tomorrow to explain "serious discrepancies" between his statements to Parliament and those by Richard Desmond

Source says announcement expected soon

It was the Unions who objected to reopening of schools, arguing I would be unsafe for staff and pupils.

I thought that was the head teachers and members of staff who could not see how they could both bring the children back and follow the government rules. If their unions supported them in putting this forward that is their job. I wonder if you can put any evidence forward that "It was the Unions …" I imagine we would all be interested.

"Eminent paediatricians this week in an open letter to Government advised reopening, otherwise children’s welfare would suffer."

As said previously the paediatricians were complaining that the government didn't have a plan. They praised the teachers and the schools. It was much more of a "sort yourselves out" to the government both in the letter and in interviews that followed.

Which “experts” should the Government base their strategy on I wonder?

Personally, I would have thought those explaining how to avoid gross numbers of death and extreme illness. But then the government have been slow to act and clumsy in their acting so far so why should we expect them to have got it together now.

* it would be unsafe

It was the Unions who objected to reopening of schools, arguing I would be unsafe for staff and pupils. Eminent paediatricians this week in an open letter to Government advised reopening, otherwise children’s welfare would suffer.
Which “experts” should the Government base their strategy on I wonder?

Post references deleted post Talk Guidelines.

Dinahmo, I am so sick of the lies, that I simply cannot stand to watch the daily briefing any more
Hancock assured us that Apple were liaising with him about a new track and trace app
Apple said that there had been no dialogue
It's sickening

Whitewavemark2

I’ve come to the conclusion, that nothing this government says and Johnson in particular is true, especially in the more difficult areas.

This government is imo no longer legitimate.

Agree - but how do we get rid of them? They can do a huge amount of damage during the next 4 years.

Dollymc2 Where is the money coming from? The govt promised laptops for those children without them, but that hasn't happened. So many broken promises.

“What has happened to the Intelligence and Security Committee's report on Russian interference in British democracy? It was cleared for publication in December.“

Chris Mullen

Surely everyone wants children to go back to school
What measures have the Government put in place, to ensure that it's safe?
Extra space is required, extra teachers and TA's to work in that space are required
Where are the children all going to eat their lunch and go out at playtime, once the schools are at full capacity?
Liason with teaching unions is essential

Because we find the disease scary. We know of people close to us who have died. We are worried for ourselves, because our GC/AC could pass it to us. And for me, as I said above, the additional illness faced by children related to C19. The UK is nowhere near to having the virus under control.

My personal perspective, JUST on my DGS, is that there are 5 weeks of school left (or in his case, nursery). He can cope without that. We can do enough with him to make up for his not being at nursery. It's a personal choice. I wouldn't risk it. Others of course make their own choices.

They wanted a proper plan (well anyone can dream!!!)