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LuckyFour

I'm utterly sick of hearing Johnson being blamed for absolutely everything. People need to take responsibility themselves. We all have brains and we can use them. If something is not quite right it's somehow automatically BJs fault. I'm sick of hearing this. I take people as I find them and he has done his best during a terrible two/three years.
Everything can be improved 'with hindsight'.
Keir Starmer has no ideas and just criticises. That's easy to do.

Erm, a COBRA meeting is about co-ordinating a response to what the government consider to be a crisis, which might affect the infrastructure and the emergency services.

You're barking up the wrong tree. I'm sure the majority of people act responsibly and that the government assumes they will, but the meetings are not about telling people how to behave. Someone has to oversee an emergency situation in the country and work out how to deal with it.

If rail lines buckle and pose a danger, or tarmac melts on the roads, then these issues have to be dealt with by the agencies and organisations equipped to deal with them - so government has these meetings to decide how to harmonise the response. That's what governments do. And normally a PM would be there to oversee the arrangements - and be informed.

... and Starmer's job is to criticise - that's what the Opposition does. Although I'm sure a Tory government - in opposition - wouldn't dream of criticising Labour if they were in power ...

Here’s a good summary from ITV of the purpose of The meetings.

‘The purpose of a Cobra meeting is to discuss high-level coordination and decision-making in the face of a crisis, according to the Institute for Government.

The crisis could be a range of things, including natural disasters, terrorist attacks, major industrial accidents, and as coronavirus has demonstrated, threats to public health.

Chairing a Cobra meeting is often a good way for a prime minister to demonstrate to the public how he or she has a grip on a situation but the relevant people will usually already have been making decisions well before a meeting is called.

According to the Institute for Government, Cobra's purpose is to "keep ministers appraised of the situation, to ensure that the wider response of the government is coordinated, to record and disseminate key decisions and updates to all relevant ministers and officials, and to provide ministers and the prime minister with up to date information on the situation for any decisions that they may need to make".’

So kittylester is correct that the meetings do not have to be chaired by the PM. It’s abundantly clear though that the PM very often does chair them, that he should be intimately involved with them, and that they are a good way of demonstrating that he is in charge. Missing three in a row is a dereliction of his responsibilities however it’s dressed up.

Zuki

Where does
Lazy as above come from Boris seems to have been pretty busy All this Labour people usingfood banks People will always turn up for free things But Labour here block a popular discount good shop having a shop in an area known as deprived

I don’t understand your comment about a discount shop.

Your dislike of the Labour leader and his party are easy to understand. As is your contempt for those using food banks

Zuki

Where does
Lazy as above come from Boris seems to have been pretty busy All this Labour people usingfood banks People will always turn up for free things But Labour here block a popular discount good shop having a shop in an area known as deprived

You can't just "turn up" for free food - you need a referral from a doctor or social worker. And there's a limit on the number of times you can access a food bank.

And why do you assume it's just "Labour people" using them? Those who vote Conservative or Lib Dem also suffer impoverishment.

Goodness, these myths are infuriating.

I quite agree Baggs - I cannot understand this almost hysterical attitude to a heatwave. I think that the journalists and presenters - of whom there are far too many with nothing to say- ramp everything up with dire warnings. It is disgraceful and patronising. I have absolutely stopped listening to or watching the news. People are always whizzing off to spend holidays in countries where these temperatures are ‘par for the course’ - all we need is a good dose of common sense which is in short supply- so it seems. I am pushing 80 and resent these exhortations to ‘stay safe’ ‘take care’ ‘danger to life’ blah blah blah - as someone who was pregnant throughout the summer of 1976 - when the heatwave lasted for weeks and weeks - and as a student hitching around Greece for the whole of July and August in extremely high temperatures, I find the whole reporting of these 2 days, a kind of madness.

Train. were still running where I live but others had to stop as the sparks from the electric contacts were causing the grass to shoulder.
Thermometer was on my balcony this afternoon. I was sorry for the children not in the shade on the beaches on the itv news this shown evening.

Trains Smolder

Im 85...still awaiting SOMEONE to check I'm alive !!!

Volver you are always right! Well in this case it is you and yout lefty friends who
are deluded. Nobody needs the nanny state to tell them to keep
Out of the sun to stay hydrated and take extra care in hot weather. The nanny state is not required.There is a cabal of you on this board who are mainly interested in attacking Botis Johnson and anything Tory. A few grans dont need yout declarations. I never hear you denouncing the SNP men who were thrown out of the Commons for disgraceful behaviour. Nor of the problems Nicola Sturgeon has in Scotland. We will soon have s new PM and no doubt you will soon be telling us what an incompetent that PM is too. You, Maizie,Varian and WWM2 will soon be on the case. I cannot wait NOT!

Our last PM was often described as MIA- and he was, especially at crucial times. He lost the recent election. Now we have a different PM who has spent quite a lot of time overseas trying to mend a few broken fences. How is he described? MIA. You wouldn't read about it, as they say ....

Again please don't accuse me of Boris bashing. This could be about any Prime Minister who failed to perform. In this case it just happens to be Boris. I don't think hosting his leaving party, playing at being Tom Cruise or visiting the Farnborough Air Show is the same as visiting and talking to leaders of other countries. He may only be Prime Minister until September but he's not on garden leave. We pay him to do a job and he ought to be doing it.

As to the nanny state comments. This isn't just about keeping people safe. Yes most of us know that we need to keep drinking etc. and we'll be fine. The problem is that our infrastructure can't cope. The recipes (for want of a better word) for road tarmac and metal train tracks provides products that are perfect for our usual temperate climate. They are designed to deal with the temperate summer heat and winter freeze. They are not designed for extreme weather and this is extreme weather.

The councils are sending out their gritters to deal with melting tarmac. That sounds OK until you take into account that they are using the grit that is meant for winter so more will have to be bought even though none of the money for this will have been allocated in the local budgets. It's impossible for them to leave the roads to melt because the damage would be far greater and even more money would have to be spent on road repairs. Vehicles would also be damaged as the wet tarmac would stick to tyres and anywhere else it touched.

The trains are vital to many people but again there is a risk of tracks buckling. Lines have to be checked and trains have to travel at lower speeds. Maybe it doesn't sound like a problem until you think about how the timetables and signalling work. If a train is late to a signal then the next train will be held up. Now multiply this by thousands of trains moving all over the country. It becomes a logistical nightmare. Also, as the ground is so dry, the sparks from the trains are setting fires which leads to trains being cancelled and more travel chaos. This chaos won't only last a couple of days. Engines and carriages will be parked up at the wrong stations and these will all have to be moved to the correct places before things can return to normal.

Going back to the fires. No one wants to see wildfires spread so the fire brigade will have to be sent out. This takes them away from their normal duties and who wants to be the one to have a house fire when no local engines are available? If the wildfires aren't dealt with there is a risk of them spreading to the fields thereby destroying crops and livestock. Who's going to compensate the farmers for the loss of their livelihoods and possibly their homes and lives? Such losses would also lead to more food shortages and the subsequent costs as the country would have to import more food from abroad.

So yes, I agree that this is an event that will only last a few days but the consequences of it are far reaching. The Met Office have said this will become our norm. The future has to be planned for now. It can't be left until it happens. Hence the COBRA meetings. As the leader of this country the Prime Minister has a duty to attend such meetings. He is, after all, the one who can make decisions and is supposed to have an overview of what is happening and what is likely to happen. Boris Johnson seems to have washed his hands of all responsibility and so, if he doesn't do the job, then he shouldn't get the salary.

1959 was my O level year. I cannot rememeber anything being adjusted because of the heat, but the temperatures then were nothing compared with what we are experiencing now.

*nobody needs the nanny state to tell them to keep
Out of the sun to stay hydrated and take extra care in hot weather. The nanny state is not required*

Where’s the banging head against brick wall emoji.

Have you not bothered to read ANY of the thread explaining that the cobra meeting ISNT about staying out of the sun ????

LuckyFour

I'm utterly sick of hearing Johnson being blamed for absolutely everything. People need to take responsibility themselves. We all have brains and we can use them. If something is not quite right it's somehow automatically BJs fault. I'm sick of hearing this. I take people as I find them and he has done his best during a terrible two/three years.
Everything can be improved 'with hindsight'.
Keir Starmer has no ideas and just criticises. That's easy to do.

I quite agree! I think that we have been encouraged in this country to become accustomed to government directing and informing our lives. The pandemic has helped this enterprise enormously and I find it a very worrying trend. We need to return to individual responsibility and accountability with government as an ally not a ‘benign’ dictator. This was what the essence of conservatism was about. The Conservative Party and its leaders should remember this otherwise we will end up with an imitation of the Labour Party and political choice will be dead in the water.

Excellent post vampirequeen. A calm and measured response.

I find it ironic that those who complain most about the 'nanny-state' are right-wing (I'm assuming that because of the derogatory "leftie" label they attach to anyone who is critical of Boris Johnson) and, presumably, voted for this government... and we - "lefties" - end up defending the government they voted for, and we probably didn't!!

... I don't know why anyone gets upset about being reminded to stay hydrated, keep out of the sun, etc, etc, and takes it as some sort of personal insult - it's just so easy to ignore the advice, when you already know the drill!

... but, that isn't what COBRA is about - as you have clearly and articulately indicated...

The government was ill-prepared for the pandemic - but has stepped up to the mark over the heatwave and planned in advance. Good for them.

sazz1

Really can't see what all the fuss is about. Most on here wanted Boris out. So he's going. Most wanted him to go immediately. So why do most want him to chair a meeting or be at any meetings?
Perhaps because they feel nobody is as competent as him?

He is still being paid because he says he is Prime Minister till September. His wage for being PM should be stopped as well as using number 10, Chequers and all the trappings unless it is linked to running the country.
Playing Top Gun considering the pollution it must of caused regarding climate change was not necessary, being in a Cobra meeting was.

Excellent post, Vampirequeen. Leaving the heatwave to the ‘common sense’ of some on here who think they know better than the experts would result in a disaster-movie situation.

The difference, globally, between summer 1976 and summer 2022.

It's a nice coloured picture so making it easier to understand that the two years are completely different.

BTW temperatures in '76 were nothing like as high. It was a drought (no rain for weeks) not particularly a heatwave.

mobile.twitter.com/globalhlthtwit/status/1549267053546274818/photo/1

I was travelling round Europe on an Interrail during the summer of 1976. Everywhere we went, there were posters warning people not to have BBQs in forests and fields and to carry water. There were announcements on trains telling people not to throw cigarette butts out of the window. I remember travelling past numerous fires.

On that map the UK looks like it was actually hotter in 1976 irrespective of the differences globally

I'm not sure why the fact that something did or didn't happen in 1976 is important now - it was 46 years ago! I was 16, and did a few things I wouldn't do again with hindsight . Things have moved on since then. Where they haven't, such as the infrastructure of the country, we need governments to take the lead, based on the advice of much-maligned experts.

I am very aware that young people are mocking the 'we coped in 1976' mentality, and whereas I usually dislike generational stereotyping I'm starting to agree with them.

Doodledog I commented because it was one of the few summers from my "youth" I do remember. I was contradicting those who claimed that we all just got through it with "common sense". I wasn't in the UK, but my experience was that other countries' governments were pro-active in warning people of dangers through public information and, in some cases, fines.

It was a heatwave in 1976. There were 16 consecutive days where the temperature reached above 30 degrees. It is hotter this year, but it’s nowhere near as prolonged as yet.

Annie1, just to correct your misapprehension - the MPs who were thrown out of the House of Commons are in the Alba party now, and not the SNP. You can bash Alex Salmond for their conduct if you would like to, but not Nicola Sturgeon.

growstuff

Doodledog I commented because it was one of the few summers from my "youth" I do remember. I was contradicting those who claimed that we all just got through it with "common sense". I wasn't in the UK, but my experience was that other countries' governments were pro-active in warning people of dangers through public information and, in some cases, fines.

I didn't mean you?.