They can shove their hand clapping and pot banging Thursdays up their arses for me, now.

[TheLadyAnneNeville]

I’m disgusted with Mr Hancock and our Govt.’s stance on there being no “likely” direct link to COVID19 deaths and lack of PPE.

They’re clearly shitting themselves at the prospect of having NOT shifted themselves soon and reacted by trying to get the equipment necessary to protect those in the frontline. As a retired nurse I’m f***g furious on my colleagues behalf.

Typical Tory “run away!” reaction.

AIBU to think that when this is over, political heads should roll? That under no circumstances should the “heroes” of this debacle, end up sitting in the Lords?

I’m with you, OP. The sight of those hypocritical incompetent bastards clapping for the NHS when they’ve spent 10 years underfunding and undermining it is obscene.

I agree OP. The government are a bunch of slithery bastards. The journalists aren’t holding them to account by asking hard questions. Instead they hold some sort of vigil outside the hospital BJ is in to report the merest snippet of banal information. They do this several times in the same news report. When we are told not to travel, they report ‘live’ from areas they’ve clearly travelled to to tell us the same shit that the studio based news anchor has just told us. I cannot understand why they think this is ok.

And then what maddens me and scares me is the crowds following the king in his altogether because they are too fearful of being criticised. I clapped for the NHS once, the first time. I won’t be doing it again but it doesn’t mean I care less. But it’s easy to stand and clap st your doorstep isn’t it? To feel you’ve voiced your opinion in a virtuous way. I didn’t clap for Boris and will be glad when he’s well again so I can call him out for what he is without being verbally abused for being a heartless bitch.

What would I like them to do @affor? Well they could have listened to the people who have been warning them a out being woefully ill prepared for a pandemic for years.

They could have acted in January when it was bloody clear what was coming.

They could stop obfuscating and flinging blame now.

The arrival of a pandemic may have been inevitable. Our unpreparedness for one was not.

Don’t be so stupid. This is not a Tory thing so please don’t make it one. People are clapping for the NHS.

It’s a repeat of the soldiers in Afghanistan.
They had poor provisions, no equipment, not enough kit, then sent in.

Sent in to die.
Then of course abandoned when they came home.
Is that what we have to face? PTSD. With nothing but the memory of clapping and pot banging.

Agreed OP. I was fuming when I heard him say that PPE should be used as a 'precious resource', what an utter cunt. Not providing enough PPE is entirely their problem. Their official 'guidance' is based on the fact that they don't have enough PPE, so to turn around and tell frontline workers to use them sparingly is an insult.
Also any managers that tell a frontline worker to stop wearing PPE because we are 'short', should fuck off before they get sued.

I make PPE (not for the NHS) and I can categorically tell you that we have had far more orders under Conservative governments than we did under Labour govts! Labour have never been keen on spending money on PPE for the police or military.

Instead of clapping and cheering how about everybody shouting..."Where's the PPE?" That,to me, would be far more supportive of the NHS.

@FartyBumCheeks (great name BTW) thank you. I agree. It’s not a “war” it’s a slaughter in the style of the Somme in the First World War when the Generals and Politicians stood well back, blew the fucking whistle and sent the canon fodder over the top. “I say! Damned good show!”

@anothernotherone... indeed. When my son was little, I worked the 7 on 7 off 12hr shifts and I would have been very, very hacked off with pot banging!

@affor... just glance up thread slightly to @Magic2020. Instead of sitting in their arses in Jan doing Fuck all, they could have commissioned ANY textile companies within the UK to start preparing by making PPE. Instead of Matt Hancock standing up at the press briefing like he’d turned up at a nightclub without a tie asking ‘if anyone has a spare ventilator (tie) I’ll buy it off you’, that might have helped. They gave the contract to Dyson (great Brexit supporter) who fucked off to Singapore to build a factory, to build ventilators when there were British companies here making them. What I do know is, we vote the Govt. in to serve us. Do their best for us the voters. I don’t think Boris Johnson shaking hands and joking about it and worse, listening to his buddy (the unelected Cummings) was much of a strategy at all, do you?

And don’t get me started in London transport 😡

It's even more nauseating when they keep saying save the NHS. The NHS they drove into the ground, the NHS that is not well enough equipped or staffed at the best of times. Claps and platitudes, put unreasonable expectations such as heroes and angels on normal people,that are fucking terrified to go to work every day. That are expected to work without PPE and in unsafe conditions. But it's ok... we can clap. We're saving the NHS.

Who needs PPE when we have The Clap?

Clapping is our way of rewarding NHS workers.

It doesn't cost anything. It's a lot more convenient than funding the NHS and providing PPE. NHS workers are heroes who should not complain but willingly put their lives in danger.

It seems that instead of the clapping you’d prefer a daily Two Minutes’ Hate. Well done for getting one started on MN!

They could have acted in January when it was bloody clear what was coming.

or the SARS wake up call, or the MERS wake up call, or the Ebola wake up call

Epidemiologists have been warning about such a pandemic for a long time and one good thing, amongst the many very bad things, to come out of this might be that we have to be prepared in the future. Bad as this one is, it could have been very much worse, with a higher morbidity and mortality rate, could have primarily killed the 20-40 age group like the 1918 pandemic, could have killed mostly children

I say this as an older person myself. I am not saying that older people are worthless, just that this really could have been so much worse. I would rather it is more likely to kill people my age than children and I think most people my age would agree

The arrival of a pandemic may have been inevitable. Our unpreparedness for one was not. angry

absolutely

Also hand clapping, like chanting, is used by cults and oppressive regimes as a way to get everyone to unite in a frenzy of collective excitement and not think about what is really going on

If people want to clap it's up to them but I would rather show my support to the NHS by adhering to social distancing, isolating if I get sick and expressing outrage over the PPE issue, which also affects the police, prisons officers, transport workers, retails workers and a load of other hard working ordinary people whose work puts them at risk of this horrible virus

@Tonyaster, thank you. That’s interesting. Doesn’t get them off the hook, for me but interesting. I did read that one reason there aren’t massive stores of PPE available at all times is because it constantly needs replacing. Well, that’s backfired, hasn’t it? I’d say to Mr Johnson, how about we get the millions paid to Branson back for NOT being awarded the NHS contract; add that to the money you “staffed up the wall” on your Garden Bridge and water canons; see if the banks will give back some of the billions you fed into them to “rescue” them after the 2008 crash; and top it off with the Brexit Money Tree millions stash... and shell out for something fucking useful? Just saying.

And yet if the government had ordered thousands of ventilators and we hadn't had a pandemic, you'd all be moaning about the waste of money.

What if the next pandemic means we need a different piece of specialist medical equipment? Should we start making those now and mothball them until they may be needed?

I was told on Friday that I have to wear 1 set of PPE for my whole shift, I have to take it off and put it back on when I go for a break or to the toilet.
Admittedly I am not working with Covid patients but I am in primary care and I do see the family members of shielded patients as well as other vulnerable people all day. I also work in close proximity to at least 2 other people all day.

They could not have acted in January and bought up a shitload of PPE. Because there was already a global shortage by then.

The country that manufactures 90% of what my firm buys was the country that was hit first. They stopped exporting and kept it all. We have found it almost impossible to source some things since the end of last year.

Still, it could be worse, we could have Trump in charge.

I get the impression that the people most enraged about this are probably the same people who are enraged that we don't have thousands of snowploughs immediately at our disposal the minute we get half an inch more snow than expected.

In fact the people most enraged are probably the sort of people who habitually go out of their way to be enraged about something.

Go into politics. Get elected. Make changes.

The country that manufactures 90% of what my firm buys was the country that was hit first

Yep we've really struggled to get components as China and India make them.

Maybe buying it 3 months ago would have been good?

@PrincessConsueIaBananaHammock... Who needs PPE when we have The Clap? Excellent post. Well said.

@hoodathunkit... indeed. Learned buggerall from that. Possibly because it didn’t really affect us did it? We, as a nation, do tend to have a “This is Great Britain... we’ll be alright!” attitude. You make some excellent points.

@HannahStern...please tell me, you are not serious? I don’t think it’s a case of “minding” about putting their lives in danger more a case of, “if you’re going to send me into the battle, at least give me some armour and a pointed stick”. You’re being funny, right? Clapping being more convenient than funding? Tongue in cheek?

TheLadyAnneNeville

see if the banks will give back some of the billions you fed into them to “rescue” them after the 2008 crash

What utter BS is this? Those billions were fed to the banks by a certain Gordon Brown, the Labour Prime Minister who had previously been Chancellor for ten years and fucked up all the bank regulation.

Just saying.

Maybe buying it 3 months ago would have been good?

3 months ago noone had any clue how this was going to go, and China had already started to shut factories (where the bulk of most PPE is made) slowing production.

Well, serves us right then for letting this country become a nation of “buyers” rather than “makers”. We’re truly fucked after Brexit (I sincerely pray it never happens now... the idea of being “in bed with” China and Crazy Trump scares the bejesus out me me) after this.

Well, serves us right then for letting this country become a nation of “buyers” rather than “makers”

Yep. Everyone wanted cheap shit from China 20 years ago so a lot of manufacturers closed.