A TRIBUTE TO OUR PRIME MINISTER.

Today a 21 year old woman and a 37 year old British diplomat died after testing positive for COVID-19. Both of these would likely be alive if the lockdown measures had been implemented 3 weeks ago. 87 people died yesterday. The figures are not yet out for today, but it could be another 80+ unnecessary deaths.

So maybe, swearing is unnecessary but the dither and delay from the PM have lead to all of the extra deaths and have greatly increased the chances of my family and friends from catching this monster of a disease. Some of whom are in the high risk category. The OP himself is in the highest risk category, and it will decimate his peers - literally.

 

I know normally you and I are poles apart politically etc but on this occasion you are 100% right imo . If there had been viable alternative industry I don’t think one miner would have given two hoots about her shutting the accident disease ridden industry

 

Brilliant post this. Agree with every word.

 

He may not be to blame but his party was. It's not living in the past it's not forgetting it. Shameful pro - Tory posts will always get a response from me.

 

At this time though 'Pro' any party re political posts relating to Covid pandemic should really be off limits and I know many of us are guilty of being sucked into them. The OP was OTT but at least it did not deserve the vitriolic abuse that some posted - one using extreme language.
NOW is not the time as the virus doesn't check to see if the host is a card carrying Labour, Conservative, LIB-Dem, SNP, Green voter. IF lessons are to be learned and any recriminations are to be made do them once the dire situation is relieved. Blaming previous or even incumbent Governments and laughably Brexit and Brexiteers (given 'Pandemic' = Worldwide and I don't see China And Asia having been impacted by Brexit in terms of the Covid outbreak) is 100% irrelevant. We are where we are and whilst we may disagree with the timings and some decision being made on how to tackle the problem we are where we are.
As a final comment, and at the risk of being accused of contradicting what I have just written about avoiding political posts I want to just give one example. I note some have acknowledged that the Govt has followed Scientists and Medical experts advice whilst others are placing the blame squarely on Johnson for a) 'dithering' and b) running down the Health service over many years. Whilst the latter is true that the NHS has been inadequately funded for years, Johnson has only been PM since July 2019 and only had a working majority since December last year and is confronted with the biggest crisis any PM has had since the outbreak of WW2.
Lets cut them all some slack, they have all the data, we don't. TBF all the other parties have attended meetings (except for stay-away Sturgeon) at no10, as they are now on a 'War Footing' and trying to avoid party politics. If they can then so can we!
EDIT: One group I do blame is the media. During a 'War' media journalists tends to rally round and sing from the same hymn sheet (call it propaganda whatever) but at least avoid rocking the boat. Nowadays, that seems to have gone by the wayside and political sniping is seen from both sides which is unhelpful to say the least

 

The problem is with 2 party politics and 5 year fixed term elections that with no consensus, when a change of Govt take place the incumbent party feel the need to reverse the current policies.
With the polarisation that has existed between the two main parties for decades, when have you ever heard a new Minister come into office and say... "Actually , my predecessor had some very good ideas A,B,& C so I am going to leave those as they were and only make some minor changes to XYZ"? Their egos and ideologies do not allow it!
There is no way either party has policies that are 100% right whilst the other party's are 100% wrong but we always seem to get a 180 degree turn when Labour and Conservatives change places and vice-versa. It is the lack of continuity that stuffs the country.

 

Up until Thatcher there was more of a consensus politics.

 

Good post and now is not the time to bicker about who is to blame, it's time to stick together and the half a million volunteers shows that in the last 48 hours.
I do find the abuse dished out when anyone as a differance of an opinion.
It does remind me of some of the vitriol we had amongst our union (num) when certain members had different views.

 

Getting off topic here...There is a common held belief that consensus politics continued up to the Thatcher era, and whilst true to some extent that she was a very divisive woman much of the consensus for the previous 3 decades was a 'benefit' if one can call it that of WW2 where the UK had a common enemy. There is some debate as to whether there really was a consensus to the extent some claim... The link below (bearing in mind it IS Wikipedia so not 'de-facto' proof.. it is nevertheless, interesting....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-war_consensus

Again though, can we leave, Thatcher, Johnson, Corbyn and all party political comments out of the Corna virus threads...Pleeeese? I will if others will.

 

Tbf media pressure seems to have resulted in the lockdown, more testing for NHS workers and maybe free car parking for hospital staff.

 

Introduce Universal Basic Income.

 

I know why you say this, and I've heard other people quote the same, but when you look at the facts, the Tories have been in charge for about 30 of the last 40 years. On that basis, most of the issues with society, the underfunding of the health service, the me first society, can be laid firmly at their door.
I am pleased that the last budget saw increases in public funding, but Corbyn got absolutely slaughtered for saying he would increase spending.

 

Why should the media sing from an hymn sheet that has all the wrong words ?
The media should hold them to account , there’s plenty this govt have done wrong and should be exposed .
The media should do and have done promoted the spirit and praise for NHS but that does not mean they should be blowing smoke up the arses Of politicians that may have got this drastically wrong even though hindsight and warnings from other govts . They have only just started putting in orders for respirators which is unbelievable do you want the media to ignore this ?

 

I'm not sure it's fair to accuse Boris and co of making a mistake on the timing of the lockdown - their approach was backed up by the science that has informed their decision making so far. It's an unthinkable crisis and I think he's actually doing a good job with the daily briefings etc.

It also doesn't make sense to me to criticise the current government for the actions of ones from 30 years ago. You can question the character of the current Tory party members who went down that path having seen the damage Thatcher did, but that's by the by at this point.

All that being said, I think Boris is a lowlife. He plotted his way into number 10 by throwing the country under the bus and nudging us over the Brexit cliff. He caused untold harm to our economy for many years (decades?) to come for his own political gain. He saw the underhand cambridge analytica style targeting of voters andknew that Leave could win it. He then ran a shameless election campaign of refusing to answer questions and banking on the terrible opposition to let him sail through. Any high quality Labour leader should have trounced him.

People have become too tribal about politics and it's doing a lot of damage to our democracy. Politicians are barely accountable any more. How the Conservatives are still in power after the nightmare of the lst 10 years is beyond me. Tribal brexiteers and tribal momentum types are ruining both parties, and this is what we're left with.

Come On You Reds

 

Stuck in the old socialist, Trotskyist past. Just like Corbyn and his cronies in Momentum.. go to Venezuela and see what a socialist paradise looks like.

 

Go to the poorest parts of the richest country on earth and see what capitalism has done .

 

I agree, let's blame the current German chancellor for what the lunatic Hitler did, or let's call people who weren't born or have no connection to the miners strike scabs..........oh wait a minute.

 

Germany took strict measures after the war and still to this day to make sure the Nazi atrocities can never be repeated.
What have the Tories done to revitalise the Northern mining communities?

 

I do not blame Boris for the timing of the various stages, because he has worked with and advised by the scientific bods. However other things that should have been in place such as ppe and testing for the NHS front line should have been in there days if not weeks ago, but instead we are playing catch up. Same goes for ventilators.

 

Wherever socialism or even real communism has sprouted America has done its utmost to strangle it either by subterfuge, blockade or straight out regime change by force.
There's nothing wrong with socialism. I suspect you equate it with "commies" of the type demonised by McCarthyism etc.