To be flabbergasted by this Government’s incompetence.

[Cam77]

*2000 of 500,000 NHS staff tested.
*Germany performing nearly TEN TIMES the number of tests as the UK. despite the WHO saying for weeks and weeks that they key is to “test test test”
*Continuing shortages of basic PPE for health workers (who are being threatened if they speak out)
*Thousands of people still cramming on to public transport, with not one metre let alone 2 metre distance.
*The Government failing to sign up to the EU ventilator scheme.
*Being one of the last Western countries to close schools and implement any kind of lockdown.

I know it’s tough for everyone but this is a level of criminal negligence from the British government. Absolutely shocking.

I think they're doing a great job.

All threads like this do is encourage the government to manage the positioning and not the actual situation. Thank God it will be ignored given they've got so much to do at the moment.

Isn't China going in to lockdown again in certain areas or am I mistaken? Not quite the succes story that they would have us believe...

I don't claim to be an expert. But the WHO is. And they singled out the UK gov for their spectacular contrariness in going against explicit and clear advice.
And now the herd immunity theory is shown up to be crap Boris is rapidly u turning and trying to rewrite history in saying that he's always said "testing is key". Absolute bullshit.
He was wrong. He should have listened to experts - the WHO. And all of a sudden he's realised he is wrong and us doing a u turn. Well surprised I am not.

Why do people keep mentioning Corbyn? It's irrelevant, you lot are obsessed.

It's not irrelevant when people are whinging about Boris and the Tories. If you want to whinge, then you have to consider what the alternative would have been, i.e. Corbyn the clown.

“But actually no other country is doing any better than the UK.”

This is where the mentality of so called “patriots” loses contact with reality completely. You can not argue any kind of facts with people who will always have this opinion no matter what is going on around them.

@AlternativePerspective

What a shame they didn’t come to Mumsnet for advice. I presume that there will be a Mumsnet party in the next election/. Because you all know so much better than, you know, the experts.

LOL @ this. ^ Couldn't have put it better myself.

Corbyn refused to self isolate.
The Germany's may be doing X times the tests I heard most were young testing and that their govenment were constantly self testing even while in isolation.
Hindsight always means you look clever as so easy to know what you should have done, so anyone can pretend they would have done the right thing
This is a worldwide problem, if someone finds an answer it profits them to help everyone else.

Why do people keep mentioning Corbyn? It's irrelevant, you lot are obsessed.

@Kazzyhoward

It's not irrelevant when people are whinging about Boris and the Tories. If you want to whinge, then you have to consider what the alternative would have been, i.e. Corbyn the clown.

LOL @ this too. ^ Well said.

You seem intent on running the current govt down and that is your right. I was just pointing out that things could be a whole lot worse

Except you don't know that. That is just your bigoted opinion. What we do know is that things are pretty bad and it is the Tories in charge. The same tories who have spent a decade running down and decimating public services and now expecting those very same public sector workers to step up and deal with this in some 'Blitz Spirit' mentality.
Those of you harping on about Corbyn are pathetic apologists for a lying, craven government and prime minister.

Brexit means there are thousands of people with this Britain First mentality ready to Troll online in defence of anything the govt does. While British farmers are letting their crops rot in the ground and we have limited imports they will be online defending it. It’s bizzare.

It's not irrelevant when people are whinging about Boris and the Tories. If you want to whinge, then you have to consider what the alternative would have been, i.e. Corbyn the clown

This.

This is where the mentality of so called “patriots” loses contact with reality completely. You can not argue any kind of facts with people who will always have this opinion no matter what is going on around them.
Have you qualified yourself to make this claim by reading foreign press in original language, watching foreign news in original language, reading foreign equivalents go mumsnet? Thought not. The world is divided into people trying to positively do what they can in this awful crisis (including governments) and as always, the whiners trying to detract from it.

Actually it could be worse than Corbyn, it could be Donald Trump 😱

anotherlittlechicken

Yes because listening to scientists and global experts like the WHO is unpatriotic.

I think they're doing a great job
You need to raise your standards

All this diversion to an alternate reality in which another idiot was PM,

instead of concentrating on the idiot who actually is PM

That is just your bigoted opinion

Hmmmm.

"And now the herd immunity theory is shown up to be crap" who told you that? Herd immunity is a real and well known factor which is going to help us in the near future. It's just that a lot of people didn't listen to the explanation early on and got confused.

1. They ignored the WHO back at the start. (Just as they ignored comments made about poverty in the UK from the UN.)

1. Public Health England (the health mouthpiece of the government, I'd be curious to know how long it is since most of them have been inside a hospital as staff, let alone on the front line) downgraded this disease from an HCID. I"m sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with the lack of PPE.

1. They didn't read their OWN risk register. A pandemic of some kind is top of the list of natural disasters. And has been since AT LEAST 2017. That's without even taking into account the fact that many, many people have been warning about this for at least the last 100 years. Never mind the Black Death and other pandemics.

1. They didn't pay any attention to the way South Korea or other countries were handling this. I mean, what could they possibly have learned from SARS, eh? That we could have learned from?

1. They ignored offers of help from small companies that presumably weren't on the NHS framework.

1. They ignored offers of help from non PHE labs (until now). They're STILL ignoring the science and the offers of help from scientists that aren't attached to the mighty Milton Keynes lab testing facility they're whacking up overnight.

1. I don't know where this alleged warehouse of PPE is, though I see images with healthcare workers in FULL PPE kit are being used on the mellow yellow campaign from Government PR Central by the same people who were in charge of the December election campaign.

I could go on, but people who think BJ is a "spaffing good chap" devotedly working from his apparent death-bed won't ever admit that this could have been handled differently, or that systematic running down of the NHS and other public services, combined with rampant materialism and a "just in time" approach plus an over-reliance on China for many goods and raw materials has contributed to this mess.

None of it changes that we are where we are now. I just wish to God the government and their PR spin doctors would stop lying and I wish the journalists would stop enabling them.

Anyone who seriously thinks this government is telling the truth might like to look at their track record.

When I have had to criticise a team member in the past for poor performance,

I would be totally unimpressed if they had claimed it would be worse if I had told someone else to do the job

@CendrillonSings
The vast majority of the public invariably backs their government during a national crisis. They also frequently turf them out afterwards. All Irrelevant anyway - because the argument isn’t about whether the U.K. wants a Labour or Conservative government (personally I often vote either Lab or Lib , and could not say I’d Labour right now until we see who the new leader is).
... the the argument is about how well/poorly this government is handling the crisis, measured against reasonable expectations/the choices that were open to them, and reasonable planning that could/should have been made. I think they’ve been bad, occasionally veering into terrible.

You simply saying X number of people disagree with you does not prove everything; Believing something is true does not make it true. Happy to provide examples if required...

Actually it could be worse than Corbyn, it could be Donald Trump

My brother is (the equivalent of) a GP in the States. His heart is breaking at what is happening there. He is genuinely afraid.

"While British farmers are letting their crops rot in the ground" When is this happening? I saw recently for example that advertising in the UK for berry pickers etc had been hugely successful.

On the PPE front it's not just us that have a lack of it, plenty of other countries have shortages.

Now that the US has woken up to the fact that this is real and not just a cold it means that the whole of America will be looking to buy what PPE there is as well.

There are only a small (in comparison to the demand) number of companies that makes the equipment.