... and the sleaze goes on ...

Apologies. Casdon (autobluddywrongagain ?)

That graph made interesting reading Caslon but for some reason it shows Istanbul figures rather than Turkey! Any ideas anyone?

lemongrove Here’s a summary looking at total excess death rates across the world compared with previous years which makes it clearer. According to this Germany has done much better than the UK in terms of total excess deaths in the past year - I don’t think there’s any ambiguity in this, although if anybody knows more please say.
www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker

Don’t Germany use different criteria for what’s on the death certificate anyway? Many countries don’t use our 28 day Covid
Diagnosis, but simply have say ‘heart failure’ on the certificate.
I wouldn’t trust anything that China says about anything, and India and Brazil etc don’t have reliable fact gathering going on.

Germany has about half our number of deaths per million population and is a comparable country..

Not sure that using Germany as an example of low COVID deaths is that good, given they have a population the size of Turkey and double their deaths!

I think all countries could’ve done better on one or more levels (except maybe anywhere that had no deaths!) when the investigations begin in earnest.

I’ve posted this on the Johnson/Cummings thread, but really it is as well on here.

Sir Edward Lister, who recently resigned from a government post after only 2 months, told The Sunday Times, that Cummings lives in fear of imprisonment because of fraud committed during the Brexit referendum.

I think many of us are aware of this and have been banging on about it for years.

It is time this was thoroughly investigated, the perpetrators dealt with (regardless of who they are) and the whole issue out in the open with justice done. Otherwise we will never move forward as a country.

..

It all needs a clean out

Interesting that Johnson personally called the papers to blame Cummings though.

All ridiculous.

Whitewavemark2

Apparently it was Cummings wat done it.

Leaking to press that is.

Who cares? Not convinced he has left no 10 anyway.

Apparently it wasn’t, wwm2
Not according to Cummings...

Cummings wrote in his blog
The Cabinet Secretary told the PM that the leak was neither me nor the then Director of Communications and that ‘all the evidence definitely leads to Henry Newman and others in that office, I’m just trying to get the communications data to prove it.
The PM was very upset about this. He said to me afterwards, ‘If Newman is confirmed as the leaker then I will have to fire him, and this will cause me very serious problems with Carrie as they’re best friends … [pause] perhaps we could get the Cabinet Secretary to stop the leak inquiry?

GrannyGravy13

Statista.com has the UK at 11 in the world for per capita Covid deaths. keepingquiet I have just this minute checked.

Lemongrove I think you are correct in your last sentence, the man/women in the street just want normal, not new normal or any hybrid normal, just plain and simple old normal.

We are lower than 11 (at 13) it seems to me but the problem is that most other countries (with the exception of Italy) who have a higher death toll have small populations - Gibraltar for example - so one death is disproportionately significant.

Germany has about half our number of deaths per million population and is a comparable country. Italy, which was the “guinea pig” of the pandemic in Europe has only a couple more deaths than we do. We have handled the pandemic very very badly. We are fortunate that the vaccine has been rolled out so well.

This (image attached) is a screenshot from Worldometer which draws from over 5,000 sources.
Here’s where they get the info from:
www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/about/#sources

So what! They always get away with it

Just received this email from The Good Law Project:

"Explosive emails revealed in a hearing on our legal challenge over direct awards of PPE contracts show civil servants raising the alarm that they were "drowning in VIP requests" from political connections that do not have “the correct certification or pass due diligence”.

One email shows a civil servant warning that when VIPs “jump to the front of the queue it then has a knock-on effect to the remaining offers of help."

For ordinary people, the pandemic was a tragedy. But for well-connected VIPs it was the chance of a lifetime - huge fortunes were up for grabs. What this civil servant is saying is that it became more of a tragedy because so many VIPs - overwhelmingly introduced by Ministers - were interfering with civil servants’ ability to purchase the PPE needed by healthcare workers on the frontline.

Remember Ayanda, the company linked to Liz Truss, fast-tracked through the VIP Lane - who supplied £155m worth of unusable face masks to the NHS frontline? This email shows Ayanda threatening to escalate their bid to ministerial level and another includes a civil servant warning of the Ayanda deal “the bar seems to have been lowered on this one.”

This is the cost of cronyism - good administration suffers, efficient buying of PPE suffers.

Government has been doing everything it can to keep a lid on the names of VIP contacts and those responsible for putting them in the VIP lane. We went to Court today, along with our co-claimants EveryDoctor, to try and force them to disclose this information.

So far, Government has provided partial and incoherent evidence, heavily redacted. And key items are missing from the evidence we’ve received - in particular no Whatsapp messages, text messages, file notes or submissions to ministers are included. If ministers were pushing civil servants to prioritise PPE contracts to politically connected suppliers, then this information is highly relevant to the case.

The Judge agreed that the identity of an individual can be relevant and should be publicly available if they were involved in the procurement or had a significant role to play in decision-making, in particular on companies referred to the VIP Lane. But she has said we will need to ask for specific disclosure of details on specific documents.

We'll be back in Court next week with that application. The fight for truth and transparency continues. You can read our skeleton argument and the evidence disclosed in Court today in full. "

There is so much evidence coming to light and yet still some GNers appear not to be bothered by the cronyism and sleaze.

wot

Apparently it was Cummings wat done it.

Leaking to press that is.

Who cares? Not convinced he has left no 10 anyway.

Of course people want to get back to some sort of normality but once they've achieved that we have to hope that they turn their thoughts to other topics, including politics.

The behaviour of the present govt has been appalling. Yes, they did all they could to ensure that the country got a vaccine quickly but don't forget it was rolled out by the NHS. Commissioning and paying for a vaccine is the only thing that the govt has achieved, as far as I can see. No cronyism involved. Given the govt's track record with test and trace, they aren't exactly the bees knees when it comes to organising a vaccine rollout.

I have read, don't ask me where because it was a long time ago in the present scheme of things, that the pharmaceutical companies insisted upon a no liability clause for the vaccines. This means that should there be later reactions they cannot be held liable.

What is now taking place in these threads is reminiscent of Brexit - people who support this govt will ignore whatever evidence is placed before them, even when it is detrimental.

Sorry, should have said the new, heavily redacted, documents came from the Government.

Sky has obtained more documents under FoI but very redacted. These after a heap from the Bank of England this afternoon. Seems to be a lot of Cameron's comments that are blocked out.

Now talking about a row over the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat.

I would love to be wrong Casdon

But I am rapidly becoming an old cynic. I no longer regard this country as a functioning democracy.

I think you’re wrong varian. We’ve gone through an unprecedented period over the last year, which has resulted in people being forced to give up their normal lives, leaving less headspace for other things. As the country returns to normal operation the 60% of people who take an interest in politics will resume those interests, including making their minds up based on a range of media reports and their own investigation into the elements that interest them. It’s already starting with the news coverage stepping up, there’s a sense that the COVID news is reducing and other issues are coming to the fore.

Oh dear God!

I’ve just watched Johnson prattling on to the world at the Climate Summit.

It was toe curlingly dreadful.

The only way Tory voters can continue to support this utterly corrupt Vote Leave Government is to be completely blind and deaf to the facts presented to them.

They just keep reading The Telegraph. The Daily Mail, The Express and The Sun and never question what they are being told to believe.

This government can literally get away with anything.

PippaZ

Thanks for quoting the letter Dinahmo, showing once again the ability of some on here to make up answers to suit their point of view (now where have we seen that before?)

The government did, indeed, bring in a “concession” on the tax rules for a period. Under the "Emergency Powers", it was reported to but not discussed or voted on, by Parliament.

I think it would be good if posters ensured all sources are reliable and didn't just makeup "facts" to suit their argument.

This article makes it clear that Rishi fixed it for Jim on the instructions of the PM. Privileged texting came before amending the tax rules.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/21/boris-johnson-says-he-will-publish-text-messages-to-james-dyson

Lemongrove do you never ever have anything but praise for the PM and his government ?

I’d prefer a different party to be in power but am not blind to the faults of, say, Starmer.

Thanks for quoting the letter Dinahmo, showing once again the ability of some on here to make up answers to suit their point of view (now where have we seen that before?)

The government did, indeed, bring in a “concession” on the tax rules for a period. Under the "Emergency Powers", it was reported to but not discussed or voted on, by Parliament.

I think it would be good if posters ensured all sources are reliable and didn't just makeup "facts" to suit their argument.