Covid Inquiry

Grandmabatty

Again I would like this thread to stay en pointe as it were. The focus of the inquiry is the Westminster Government's handling of the pandemic and how to move forward. I started it commenting on the statements made regarding elderly people by Johnson and other conservative MPs as reported by mainstream media. Can we keep it relevant?

Totally agree GMB

^maddyone
MerylStreep
I wish I’d gone to my daughter and carried on doing the childcare for her. I didn’t mind the lockdown as I thought it was protecting us, but it didn’t protect my daughter from being persuaded by her manipulative husband from taking advantage of our absence to persuade her to move away from her loving family to New Zealand. He would never have achieved that without lockdown. She had refused for eleven years to move abroad because we were/are a close family, but he had always wanted to dispose of family, both his and hers.
They’re separated now, divorce will follow in a few months. He refuses to allow her to bring the children home to the UK to live.
Maybe if we hadn’t obeyed lockdown this would never have happened.^

maddyone I so sorry that this happened to your family. I hope your DD and DGC are OK and a resolution can be found. I understand how this must make you feel towards those partying during lockdown.

sazz1

So do you think Labour under KS would have done any better? He chose to ignore many many complaints as head of CPS about Jimmy Savile. Makes you think what else would he have ignored during the pandemic.

"Whataboutery":
the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue.

I have no idea how Labour would've dealt with the pandemic and it's irrelevant anyway because they were not in office. I don't know why you think it is - unless you're assuming I'm a Labour voter?

As for the accusation against Starmer. Here is the Reuters Fact Check finding on the repeated claim. And, as there is no evidence to support it - I was tempted to report your post for continuing the slur... not because I'm a fan of Starmer, but because defaming someone on such a serious matter is ugly and dangerous.

But I didn't report it - I'll just let it stand for others to see. Boris Johnson made the same claim, for the same purpose - to detract from the matter in hand. Ad was rebuked by The Speaker - as well as others in his party. Even those who defended him were not willing to repeat the accusation.

I think it's a below the belt punch.

"We can FIX the economy...we cant bring back the dead " said more than once by Ms Sturgeon who URMS appears to hate above her own government...even though Urms isn't a scot nor does she live here .Most folk here and elsewhere in the UK appreciated Ms Sturgeons daily reports and felt it gave us confidence things were being dealt with .
Whatever your political affiliation we felt she held our interests and health dear and was on our side .
Unlike your own dear leader !!

paddyann54 yes, I used to wish our Prime Minister was as clear and sensible as Nicola Sturgeon. She sounded as if she cared what happened.

It must be so hard though, if you have trusted your Government and your Prime Minister to have your best interests at heart, when you have stuck up for him on social media, made excuses for him, and by extension Dominic Cummings, and then found out that he didn't actually give a fig what happened to you and even joked about it.
No wonder you might want to think that no one else would have done better.

No, sorry paddyanne I’m not buying into this ‘I’ll keep you all safe by imposing more draconian measures’. Anything to differ from Westminster was the overall feeling when she was at the daily podium. I can understand the yearning to be reassured and the comfort it must have brought to feel everyone was being looked after. But the sad fact is it didn’t work anything like the SNP hoped and, as events showed in hindsight, things were made considerably worse by some of her decisions. Not everyone in Scotland thought she was doing a sterling job - there were many dissenters.

Has this thread now strayed so far from the inquiry that it's no longer worth contributing?

growstuff

Has this thread now strayed so far from the inquiry that it's no longer worth contributing?

No, there are attempts to keep it on track

I'm sure your contribution will be worthwhile.

so sad and scary when things come to this

paddyann54

"We can FIX the economy...we cant bring back the dead " said more than once by Ms Sturgeon who URMS appears to hate above her own government...even though Urms isn't a scot nor does she live here .Most folk here and elsewhere in the UK appreciated Ms Sturgeons daily reports and felt it gave us confidence things were being dealt with .
Whatever your political affiliation we felt she held our interests and health dear and was on our side .
Unlike your own dear leader !!

Unlike your own dear leader !!

As Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom, he was your (and our) leader too, paddyann, like it or not.

Many of us didn't.

As you were, growstuff

Apologies if you think I am straying. I thought it relevant.
If not, I’m sorry. I’ll not revisit that particular aspect and move along.

Callistemon21

paddyann54

"We can FIX the economy...we cant bring back the dead " said more than once by Ms Sturgeon who URMS appears to hate above her own government...even though Urms isn't a scot nor does she live here .Most folk here and elsewhere in the UK appreciated Ms Sturgeons daily reports and felt it gave us confidence things were being dealt with .
Whatever your political affiliation we felt she held our interests and health dear and was on our side .
Unlike your own dear leader !!

Unlike your own dear leader !!

As Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom, he was your (and our) leader too, paddyann, like it or not.

Many of us didn't.

As you were, growstuff

I think it’s really important to understand what that meant in practice Callistemon, in fact for me it’s one of the most important points of the inquiry, because we need to understand whether if we have another pandemic the nations should act individually, and to what extent. I fail to understand why Boris Johnson refused to discuss issues with the first ministers in the height of the pandemic for example, and what if any, the consequences of that were.

Casdon, let us hope we never have another Prime Minister like Boris Johnson, because we are likely to be subjected to more pandemics.

I remember seeing that clip of Mark Drakeford's frustration at Johnson.

No one I know thinks Ms Sturgeon did a good job. She took draconian measures that impacted so many people negatively and that still reverberate today. But then I don’t live in the Central Belt. 🤷‍♀️

Let’s not forget that Johnson’s own father was constantly flouting the rules. I think his comment when his son caught covid was quite revealing ie ‘he’s took one for the team’ which I always assumed meant that they were still thinking in terms of herd immunity.

MaizieD

growstuff

Has this thread now strayed so far from the inquiry that it's no longer worth contributing?

No, there are attempts to keep it on track

I'm sure your contribution will be worthwhile.

No, let's get back to it.

Inevitably there will be 'digressions' as with all N&P threads, but this is too important to just let it fizzle out.

There will be other virus outbreaks no? We really do need to be prepared as a nation.

Towards the end of the last lockdown some sections of the public got really restless and almost mutinous; there were some ugly scenes at a hospital in Newcastle after the end of the lockdown restrictions when hospital staff tried to encourage people to continue wearing masks and socially distance once inside the building. There were hundreds of physical and verbal attacks on staff.

In another hospital, in Surrey I believe, a group entered the hospital - presumably as visitors - and refused to wear masks and also refused to leave when asked by Security.

These incidents may be peripheral, but they were gaining traction and really do need to be looked at because whatever the findings, getting people to conform to demands put in place during a health crisis is going to be central to the prevention of viral spread. Anti vaxxers are also anti mask-wearers... perhaps we need to look at the whole issue of wearing masks - especially the simple surgical masks which, apparently, do slow the spread if used in conjunction with other measures - like frequent hand-washing etc - but are not as effective as the respirator type, the N95s, or whatever they're called.

I cannot see the public tolerating another lockdown TBH and on a personal level, even though I'm CEV, I'm not sure it would be a good idea to try to impose them further. Maybe there is another way to model "shielding" for the elderly and the vulnerable?

I'd also be interested to see the results of other countries' Inquiry findings, for the sake of comparisons.

This inquiry is about a lot more than Johnson and the parties isn't it? And it's not part of a witch hunt against him or his party. He and they were in office, and have to be held accountable - as any PM or government would. I'm sure other governments in other countries made mistakes and that's why it's so important to have these investigations. Maybe countries could co-operate with their findings and learn 'lessons' from each other?

I do hope we get back on track. I don't usually post on the N&P threads because I am neither knowledgeable nor robust enough.
However, I have been following the Inquiry every day getting little else done and have found this thread interesting and informative, until it went off track.

Thank you Dickens and Marydoll. Your support for the purpose of the thread is appreciated.

I did say as you were
Naval term meaning return to previous position.

Sorry, *Callistemon. I didn't mean to leave anyone out!

Grandmabatty

Sorry, *Callistemon. I didn't mean to leave anyone out!

👍

Grandmabatty

Sorry, *Callistemon. I didn't mean to leave anyone out!

Actually, when they did call in the Forces to help, some glimpse of efficiency was apparent.

Towards the end of the last lockdown some sections of the public got really restless and almost mutinous; there were some ugly scenes at a hospital in Newcastle after the end of the lockdown restrictions when hospital staff tried to encourage people to continue wearing masks and socially distance once inside the building. There were hundreds of physical and verbal attacks on staff.

Interesting stuff, Dickens.

I remember all the furore about mask wearing, we even had discussions about it on here at the time. It took a long time for the Western countries to take on board the fact that covid spread most effectively by means of aerosols which dispersed more widely than droplets and which were best countered by the use of masks, N95 or FFP3. Especially as the World Health Organisation was initially of the opinion that mask wearing wasn't particularly effective. Yet the Asian countries which had experience of SARS and MERS used masking as an effective barrier to covid infection and had far lower infection rates than us in the west. There seemed to be some sort of exceptionalist belief which prevented the West from taking heed of the example of the East, despite its lower infection rates.

I haven't looked in depth at the evidence from the scientists but, from the commentary on it, the spread by means of aerosols and the use of masks as a preventative measure doesn't seem to have been in the foreground. But perhaps this may come at a later point in the Inquiry.

Of course, by the time masking was introduced in the UK there was so much information and misinformation being spread on social media and by self identified 'libertarians' that unless one was prepared to look at and evaluate the research on mask wearing it was difficult to know who was in the right of it.

It didn't help that Jennie Harris, deputy CMO, was equivocal about masking, at one point even suggesting that masks could 'trap' the virus and make it more likely for the wearer to become infected. I see that she has already given evidence to the Inquiry, I shall have to check if masking was mentioned and what she said about it.

I think my point is that the public were getting very mixed messages by that point.

I see that she has already given evidence to the Inquiry, I shall have to check if masking was mentioned and what she said about it.

I can't find that Harris has given evidence. The article I got the info. from must have been confused.