Thread 38 Starmer: Tax your Hamster

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I’ve thought for some time that we’d have fared better if Hunt had still been running the Health department.

Not just a 'buffoon and a cheater' but a lazy buffoon and cheater

Wasn't he at Chevening over half-term because Carrie Johnson was heavily pregnant and he was also finalising his divorce @Notonthestairs ? Anyway whatever the reason he wasn't receiving any communications - so he might as well have been on the moon

He didn’t have to be at Chequers for that to be the case. Do you remember Cummings boasting that he filtered stuff? I think it was in the garden interview after the eye test.

I don't remember that @BIossomtoes but it sounds entirely plausible

Agree Hunt would have been better at Health but Johnson couldn't risk keeping on his leadership rival. Hunt didn't have the best relationship with the unions but worked well with NHS leaders and I think would have shown leadership in the role (another reason why Johnson wouldnt have wanted him in)
Hancock was brought in and proved himself not up to the job. He was of course kept quite busy with his then girlfriend.
Fuck what a bloody mess it all was.

I dont think anyone expected the Government to function perfectly during a pandemic. I think we accepted then (and now) that it was unchartered waters.

Everyone started in March 2020 with a sense of "let's all buckle down and we will all get through this together" (sound familiar ?).

By April that had been pissed away and the next 18 months were not "UK vs. COVID". they were "UK vs. UK. vs. COVID".

If the shower that pretended to be in charge for COVID had been in charge in 1939, then all we know is that 300,000 soldiers would have been left on the beaches to be rescued by non existent ships supplied by a mate of a Tory minister, whilst huge open air bonfires were arranged to help beat the Luftwaffe.

Brexit has caused almost twice as much damage to the UK economy than estimated by official forecasts, according to new paper from a group of experts including a senior Bank of England economist
https://bsky.app/profile/bloomberg.com/post/3m64xv5figi2o

And the Cardiff Stereophonics gig. I remember thinking that was a mistake but that often gets forgotten about.

@BIossomtoes mortuary trolleys is my abiding memory of Mar 2020. So many mortuary trolleys. Only for the government to repeat the same mistake again in Nov 2020 and for Dec/Jan to be even worse.

I’m not sure enough is being made of the inquiries finding that acting too slow in March was bad but that repeating the same mistake in the winter of that year when they knew what the outcome would be was unforgivable. That was the time of Boris’s let the bodies pile high.

Absolutely fuck all from Badenoch on X about the findings, but she finds the time to crow about a minor by-election win:

Hale (Trafford) Council By-Election Result:

🌳 CON: 46.5% (+9.7)
🌍 GRN: 38.1% (-9.6)
➡️ RFM: 8.1% (New)
🌹 LAB: 4.2% (-7.6)
🔶 LDM: 3.1% (-0.6)

Conservative GAIN from Green.
Changes w/ 2024.

I think of course people did do good things, but COVID was like a war. It has had that kind of impact. It has strongly affected trust among people and our wider society. It accelerated conspiracy theories, information wars and further division in the UK.

Children were seriously affected; their development, their education, and in the very worst cases, being locked in with abusive adults who killed them. I was lucky. My children went to school. I was working. But seeing children I knew pawing at the windows as I went to work each morning waving to say hello was awful. Or seeing furtive outdoor parties by desperate mothers for birthdays. Or children who had been lively become quiet over the years.

COVID was a disease that mostly killed older people. Children were not thought about properly. The consequences will be with us a long time. It is the lack of empathy for those children that I think will be Johnson’s greatest failing.

The consequences will be with us a long time. It is the lack of empathy for those children that I think will be Johnson’s greatest failing.

Agree. There is also a lack of empathy for those young people who have fragile mental health as a consequence of the pandemic.

The Green Party has its first councillor on Cheshire East Council after a win in the by-election. Polling 750 votes and a loss for Labour. Macclesfield Central

Oh, well done Mahmood! Let's chase all the doctors away. It's not as though immigrants were propping up the NHS or anything...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/21/overseas-trained-doctors-leaving-uk-record-numbers

Nathan Gill ex Reform leader of Wales gets 10 and a half years, release after 5 on licence. He plead guilty only after his phone was searched.

Wow. I think that is the maximum sentence fir the crime? I wonder how Farage is feeling right now...

I'm sure Mamoods recent interventions haven't helped but she's not the only party/ politician saying unpleasant racist things - let alone the general publics new found confidence in openly expressing racist opinions

But as you say depressing indeed

"hardly ever met the guy" the Trump Epstein defence?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c891403eddet

All the details here. I watched the judge's sentencing remarks.

Police and prosecutors have made clear is that Nigel Farage is not among the politicians subject to the ongoing investigation

Police found no connection between Gill's activities and Farage, while Gill's defence barrister said Farage was "never the subject of any proposition" from Gill

To quote Richard Rich: "Every man has his price.". Man for All Seasons.

MRD applies

What's MRD?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_Rice-Davies

My first thought was the “They would say that wouldn’t they” quote as well Jane
Mrs Jinks so so awful for you & your family my heartfelt sympathy 💐
I did have some very surreal moments which I remembered last night my 60th birthday was a couple of days before Christmas 2020 Boris put us back in no gatherings shops/cafe etc shut had a takeaway coffee sitting on a bench in the deserted high street with dd &dgd’s whilst they sang happy birthday & gave cards & presents the following week was Dh’s birthday which we spent on the drive with the girls in the boot of the car wrapped up in blankets & hot water bottles had a glass of champagne & slice of cake it was so cold the birthday gathering lasted about ten minutes was sheer lunacy.
yy about kindness & unexpected support neighbour started a street WA support group which we still running now that was a mine of knowledge on what shops had what in stock, getting meds/shopping for vulnerable/shielding/isolating people being really supportive & neighbourly.

I was poolside at a swim meet just after half term and then caught Covid.

A lot of swimmers had been on ski trips and I swear that’s where I caught it from.

It was a really weird illness. I remember laying there for 3 days watching tv on my lounge floor and my brain just repeated “breathe in breathe out” subconsciously for that time.

I wasn’t struggling to breathe as such - had an extremely high temperature and a mild cough. But breathing felt like trying to get air in past concrete littered by glass although I could breathe iyswim?

I honestly didn’t realise how affected I was by those few days until a few months later. Just the sheer memory of my brain reminding me to breathe and I couldn’t switch it off.