Covid Inquiry

I bet that Nicola Sturgeon’s missing WhatsApp messages to her team were full of ‘what can we do to stuff Boris?’ as whatever we in England had imposed upon us, she did it with bells on north of the border. Some folk there regarded her as their caring ‘mammy’ looking after them. To no better outcome it seems. Did the SNP pay any more attention to their experts or was it a simple competition with Westminster?
Shame about the deleted WA messages - they might have been very revealing! Probably why they disappeared.

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.

Are any of them Kiwi born? If not, they don't automatically have the right to live there. Another problem is, I assume your daughter is UK born, if he is Kiwi, SHE has to prove she needs to be there. My sister married a kiwi in the 90's, had sprogs, then came over here for 14 yrs, went back BUT she has to prove that she's there legally, married, children (though all adult now) and WONT be a burden on the state (one reason mum can't go over, she's too decrepit!) Another issue, is hubby WONT do a will and laws are different, she doesn't automatically get it, no will, HIS family get good portion and they hate her, always have done, meaning property over here that is half his/half hers, they could lay claim to. This worries mum as that property was originally hers, she deeded it to 2 of my sisters, one sold her share to brother in law.

I CAN imagine what you're feeling and if your daughter is genuinely in distress, there is help, surely? I know a lot of folk say NZ brill etc. It is beautiful, reminded me of Wales when I went BUT it's also expensive. Every day stuff is more than here, sister is constantly complaining and wants to come back but he doesn't for a couple of years. He's actually recovering from major surgery at the moment which the GP managed to get free as he should have paid. Son has type 1 diabetes, HE has to pay for his prescriptions!

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.

Oh, maddyone. That is so sad. I know from your posts how much it has hurt you to be separated from your DD and grandchildren. I do hope that there is successful resolution for you all.

Thanks Casdon, I was a little behind with my reading and that link helped clarify.

JANH

Casdon - We were supposed to have a Wales only enquiry re Covid however The First Officer refused to have one. There were different approaches in Wales and we were kept in lockdown a lot longer than England.

I live in Wales, so I know about the decision not to have a separate Inquiry, and it was the right decision, what a waste of public money it would have been, when the actions taken by all the UK governments will be scrutinised anyway in the UK wide Inquiry. No doubt mistakes were made in Wales as they were elsewhere, and one of the really important aspects of the UK inquiry is to compare the different approaches, to identify how much freedom the individual nations had in decision making and to improve on the communication for next time. This is interesting though.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67289154

The Response to Covid was down to the Doctors and Specialists of SAGE the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. The Government are not Medical Experts and just provided the Money.

The Comments of Simon Case and Dominic Cummins should be considered on the basis that they have very personal axes to grind.

I just wish we could avoid the ‘goady’ comments alluding to perceived uncritical tribal political affiliations. If we are not careful this thread will lose its excellent focus about the wider analysis of the inquiry in my opinion.

Casdon - We were supposed to have a Wales only enquiry re Covid however The First Officer refused to have one. There were different approaches in Wales and we were kept in lockdown a lot longer than England.

Thanks for starting this thread, GrandmaBatty. I have been wondering if Johnson fans have been taking any notice of the Inquiry, but I rather fear they might all be sticking their fingers in their ears and singing "La la la la". Truly devoted fans can see no wrong and I find it very disturbing. They still talk of "charisma" where I would like to see integrity. Or they try to throw mud at Starmer - so glad you answered that, Iam64. (I'd also like to remind Sazzl that Thatcher put Savile forward three times for a knighthood.) There's talk of learning lessons, but the fact is this government hadn't learnt any lessons from SARS. What a disastrous shambles.

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.

Iam64

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.

No sizzle, you’re entirely wrong. Starmer was head of CPS during a period 2007-2008 when four allegations were made to Surrey and Sussex police that Saville had indecently assaulted girls and young women in the 1970’s.
Starmer was not the lawyer involved in reviewing the police information. There is no evidence that Starmer was directly involved in the decision not to prosecute Saville.

I am so tired of the same accusation being made over and over again by the same people who absolutely refuse to believe the truth when it is carefully explained.

It does make one just tend to ignore or dismiss anything else they might have to say.

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.

I don’t care which government was in charge, if they had behaved in the same way as that lot did I would be expecting the same level of scrutiny and would feel the same level of anger. This is not about party politics but about a government that appeared to behave in ways that were immoral, corrupt and reckless.

It’s not really a defence to say the other lot would have been just as bad.

I worked at a major teaching hospital throughout covid and unfortunately decisions were made about not just the age but the clinical condition of patients who could go to ICU - they had to be made because demand exceeded supply. You can’t just create endless ICU beds. This would have happened in every hospital and had nothing to do with govt policy. It was down to the clinicians to make these extremely difficult and distressing decisions.

I think Keir Starmer was elected leader of the Labour Party in April 2020, so in the middle of the pandemic. There’s no way to know how he would have performed had his party been in power at the time. In any case, as I said earlier, every country in the world was dealing with this and the deaths all over the world were huge. There may have been fewer or more deaths with Starmer in charge, but I do feel there would have been considerably fewer breaking of rules as Starmer seems to be a reasonably principled man (if a bit flip floppy.)
What do I know though?

growstuff

maddyone

One of the experts was guilty of going to his girlfriend’s house regularly whilst advising the rest of us to stay at home and not mix even with family.
Just saying.

That didn't mean he was wrong with his modelling.

Neil Ferguson was the person.
By his actions he showed that he didn’t believe in the lockdown in the lockdown rules.
I remember the day that news broke. I received a call from my distraught daughter. I told her I was going to her. She begged me not to, I might get pulled up.
I told my daughter just let them try and stop me, I’ll show them this breaking news on my phone 😡

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.

No sizzle, you’re entirely wrong. Starmer was head of CPS during a period 2007-2008 when four allegations were made to Surrey and Sussex police that Saville had indecently assaulted girls and young women in the 1970’s.
Starmer was not the lawyer involved in reviewing the police information. There is no evidence that Starmer was directly involved in the decision not to prosecute Saville.

Boris was elected leader on a vote of ordinary party members. As I remember it, elected MPs were far less enthusiastic about him and I think some of them voted for him with one eye on their constituency members, they didn't want to be without a constituency in the next election.

Jeremy Corbyn was also the result of a massive bottom up vote, with far less support from MPs, although again i think some voted for him with one eye on Momentum in their constituency.

The problem is, with both parties, that many of their members would vote for a cods head, if it was wearing the right colour rosette.

I don't think it's helpful to blame people and a party who weren't in charge of government at the time. That's deflection. This is about recognising the very real failings of those who were allegedly in charge in the hope that answers might be given

Grantanow

What is appalling is that when the Tories chose Johnson as their Leader and therefore PM they knew exactly what he was like but they wanted him as a vote winner. Nothing else mattered. The price was paid by those who died in the pandemic. Never vote Tory again.

Do you think there would have been no deaths if the leadership or government had been different? Despite all the shenanigans going on in Downing Street, I think Covid was always going to cause an enormous number of deaths, particularly in the older demographic. There was a huge number of deaths in almost every country in the world and they were not all being governed by our government. My comments are not a defence of what was happening in Downing Street, anything but, because I think it was entirely unacceptable for the behaviour that went on, in particular the breaking of rules that the rest of us had to follow, but Covid was always going to cause large numbers of deaths, just as it did everywhere else. I was happy to isolate and to try to protect myself and my husband. Almost as soon as restrictions were lifted we both got Covid.

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.

I think we can be pretty confident that the business of government would have been conducted with more professionalism and less disdain for the the lives of the elderly sazzl, whatever other failings there would be.

I think this sums it up.

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.

Matt Hancock was NOT called Midazolam Matt for nothing. HE was the one responsible for shipping the vulnerable people back to care homes where Covid spread like wildfire and finished them off. He was the one who ordered VAST supplies of Midazolam to make sure the job was done under the cover of medication.
If you joined the dots like I do, you'd honestly be horrified at how everyone has been misled.

Remember the old adage, that there's no smoke without fire, and what you are hearing now is the tip of the iceberg. Will anyone be held accountable? Of course not.

sazz1

I think our government did the best they could the same as every government in the world. Would you prefer China - forcibly locked up if they suspected symptoms. Or France not allowed in shopping centers, restaurants etc without a vaccine. Or Canada no entry without vaccine. Or try Scandinavia where there was no lockdowns.
We now need to move on from this it's a waste of time and money. With 2 wars happening atm, cost of living crisis, UK kids starving in poverty, NHS in chaos especially dentists let's put it in the past and sort out the current state of affairs. You can't rewrite history- bad mistakes were made in all countries.

...bad mistakes were made in all countries.

Of course. And other countries are also holding inquiries - for the same reason as we are. Which is to learn from those mistakes so that we don't repeat them the next time there's a major public health crisis. And to be as prepared as we can possibly be for such an eventuality.

Lives, lots, were lost. And money - lots - was given to various dubious companies for equipment that either didn't materialise or was sub-standard.

... and you think we should just "move on"?

If you don't look at what you did - you won't know what to do - or not do, next time.

The inquiry is not preventing government from doing its job which is to deal with the "current state of affairs".

I think Sazz1, that those who were prevented from seeing their loved ones in hospitals or care homes, those who were prevented from removing loved ones from care homes to look after them in their own homes, those who saw DNR put in place on their relatives without consultation, those who could not attend funerals or give support to family members who were bereaved, whilst those in power acted as judge and jury on us all whilst simultaneously partying and capitalising on the situation to increase their own and their mates’ wealth, it is impossible to ever put this in the past or forgive the people responsible.