Boris announcing in House of Commons now

However many rules there are there will always be those who will break them. For instance the two in Norwich who held a party for hundred people.
The law abiding people suffer the consequences.

MaizieD

Coco51

The Mayor of Liverpool was whining about needing Government support for the imposition of stringent measures but there was no evidence he was doing anything to stop the carousing of students plainly and deliberately ignoring social distancing in the towns centre. Ditto other northern locations

Perhaps you could tell us what the Mayor of Liverpool could do to 'stop the carousing of students'?

Local authorities do need government support. They're not the ones who are having £billions thrown at them to, for instance, fund local public health authorities whose tracing operations are proving to be far more effective than the privatised £10billion government operation. They've had their budgets cut to the bone over the last ten years. They're not in a very good position to do anything.

Typical of Labour Mayor of Liverpool. They think the answer to everything is to throw more money at it. It would make more sense to stamp down on the drunken morons who have caused the spread of this virus. Perhaps they should be made to see the state of people in hospital with this and realise that they are not immune.

Bijou

However many rules there are there will always be those who will break them. For instance the two in Norwich who held a party for hundred people.
The law abiding people suffer the consequences.

That will always be the case, so there need to be consequences if people break the rules.

I don't think anyone else in any other party would have done better. It's too easy for them to shout and blame with hindsight. If you feel safer self isolating, do it. Don't wait to be told.

19Maria61 Totally agree. People are focussing on 'how much can I get away with' rather than 'How can I make sure I minimise transmission chances'.

I think the PM is doing his best in the face of a very unrelenting virus. I would like to know from those who carp and criticise what they expect him to do, and how they could do better were they to be in power, which they are not.
Probably most of the critics are supporters of other political parties, and Keir Starmer would no doubt find it very difficult to do a better job than BJ.

No, Janpt. The mayor of Liverpool accepts that some businesses need to close, so he wants them to be compensated for loss of earnings. Who says they're the same people who have been breaking the rules?

The city also needs money for enforcement and to increase its own testing and contacting.

In the long run, compensating them for loss of earnings is better for society as a whole.

WHO advised against lockdown as the way out but advised that Test, Test, Test, trace , isolate was the way to go. We haven’t managed that. Instead of bunging millions to mates who haven’t a clue we should have followed the Apple, google system from the start, we then might have had a better system up and running and not the world beating death rate. Angela Merkel is a scientist , and has proved to be a more stable leader in this crisis than the Cummings cabal. So don’t say he couldn’t have done better - he definitely could. But we’re lumbered with it so it’s each to their own.

Annaram1

I think the PM is doing his best in the face of a very unrelenting virus. I would like to know from those who carp and criticise what they expect him to do, and how they could do better were they to be in power, which they are not.
Probably most of the critics are supporters of other political parties, and Keir Starmer would no doubt find it very difficult to do a better job than BJ.

Unfortunately, Johnson's best isn't good enough. He hasn't got it in him to be a leader in difficult times. He always sounds like somebody trying to motivate the village under 7s football team.

What do I expect him to do?

Sack Dominic Cummings and his mates.

Delegate to people who know what they're doing.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

No, the bottom line is that it’s up to everyone of us to play our part. Even those who claim to not understand the rules ( buy a newspaper! The Mail sets the rules out clearly) surely know the Hands Face Space phrase.

It’s all of us doing out bit which will help to slow the spread.

The virus isn’t going away so we will have to learn to live with it until the vaccine is ready.

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MaisieD you said just what I would have said. Namely (1) opposition parties are not criticising the measures being taken in themselves, but the incompetence of implementing them, including e.g. the announcing of new systems that then don't materialise or fail to deliver. We all know that has happened. (2) Prevention measures cost money to introduce and monitor. For instance, £££ billions have been spent on Public Health England. Now it has been decided that local councils could do all this more efficiently but with 0 extra funds. Mayors are quite right to object to this.
Pointing out these failings is not undermining the overall war effort.

Governments have to do what they can with the hands they are dealt and expect to be judged accordingly. As do the rest of us, that's life.

Quite agree that the rules are clear. Don't understand the grumbles about that.

I am heartily sick of hearing the reaction to the pandemic as evidence of a north/south divide with the north coming off worst. Just look at the infection rates in Liverpool or Nottingham and compare them with other parts of the country where the rates are much lower and ask yourself why. Perhaps further education about hand-washing and social distancing combined with rigorous enforcement of the law regarding illegal gatherings might help.

The truly worrying thing is that people from these areas could spread the infection to the rest of the country which have lower infection rates. Alarm bells are already ringing in Wales with their government considering how they could close their borders to people from heavily infected areas. A terrifying prospect if things got so bad that it is not inconceivable that individual towns could face similar isolation.

I feel exactly the same Iam64 I too am very sad the impact on my family has also been very bad , I voted Conservative for many years, not the last time though and never again I feel at the moment.

To Lemongrove, “Well said that man!!!” I second that, and Suziewoozie, jennifereccles, libra10, craftycat ,LauraNorder, you speak so much sense!
Mollygo too true!
JANPT, at last a voice that speaks for the silent majority. Thankyou so much for being brave ?

I don’t see why calling someone’s opinion “disgusting” is OK.

No amount of 'understanding the rules' is going to help us out of this one because the rules aren't adequate. Without a rigorous test, track, trace and isolate regime in place, with financial support for people who have to isolate, the virus will continue to spread.

The TTI operation 'lost' 16,000 people who had tested positive not so long ago. That's 16,000 potential spreaders of the virus who, despite frantic belated efforts to trace their contacts, had time to infect thousands more people who, in their turn could have infected thousands more. All because the 'world beating' privatised system was so incompetent that it was using obsolete software to transfer positive test results to the track and tracing operation.

Meanwhile, local authorities which have used their public health infrastructure to track and trace have done a far better job while working on a shoestring budget.

Coastiepostie is spot on in their analysis. Elect an incompetent, fantasist, lying charlatan as PM and this is the result. Chaos and incompetence.

Or brave

Janpt

coastiepostie

Lol. Boris won't answer questions because that's what personality disordered people do! If you want a straight answer, don't ask a sociopath or a narcissist, they can only do compulsive lying.
There's absolutely no point in hoping, wishing or expecting honesty or clarity, that's only causing yourself unnecessary upset. Their promises are empty so don't bother to remember them and certainly don't rely on them. Bottom line, don't trust a word they say, focus on what they actually do. 'Actions speak louder than words.'

That's just your disgusting opinion. I suppose you would prefer the Labour/ Marxist alternative run by the abhorrent Corbyn and his cronies who obviously think the rules regarding Coronavirus do not apply to them or are just arrogant enough to ignore them.

No mention of Cummings or Johnson’s father then I see.....

Paddyanne I happened upon today's FM announcements and found she didn't answer questions. Always just saying she is dealing with a difficult situation. Yes, much more articulate than BJ but not any more decisive as all her decisions as she kept saying us based on scientific advice, ie SAGE. In comparison Scotland has a widespread 5.5 million population whilst England has 60 million with many high density areas so of course management will be different.

Personally I don’t deny it’s not easy being a leader under these circumstances however I still feel the management of the pandemic was botched from the start. Lockdown was too late and wasn’t proper lockdown anyway, no enforcement etc, letting those huge events go ahead was a mistake, not getting mask wearing introduced a long time ago, to mention just a few.
The tired old “corbyn wouldn’t have been better” is utterly irrelevant.

All over the world, countries have faced the same challenge of dealing with the pandemic, protecting their populations and their economies.

Unfortunately the countries which have proven to have badly failed their citizens are the USA, Brazil, UK, Hungary, India and some other countries where governments were voted in (using an undemocratic FPTP system) by so-called "silent majorities"

Not enough according to the medical officers!