Hoping everyone remembers at the ballot box

[oldbagface]

I really hope we all remember the shit show this bunch have made.

They give zero fucks for us and our loved ones.

NHS workers have been treated with contempt.

Teachers now seem to be new potential cannon fodder along with family members of young people.

Let's hope we all remember. Never voted Tory in my life btw and certainly won't now.

@neutralintelligence who said that Britain didn't obey lockdown?

As a pp said, every country in Europe and many around the word did better based on the statistical fact from the ONS that the UK has the worst death rate in Europe. So it is not a matter of comparison with what Labour would have done, but more an issue of what our government did or didn't do. They need to be held to account for the terrible decision they made (or hard decisions refused to make). The UK was in a relatively fortunate position of being a couple of months behind China and a few weeks behind Europe, and had the opportunity to prepare and learn from the mistakes other countries had made. But they failed to do either. It isn't a matter of what another party would have done, because it is about those individuals who made the decisions.
The problem is that the current UK government got into power in a single-issue election (Brexit) and were not in a position to deal with any other problems arising.

@toohotz - you misunderstood- I do think the UK did obey lockdown and it was rubbish BJ saying beforehand the British needed to be free to have a drink at the pub. That is just him. The British are very law-abiding and did obey lockdown. It was BJ's personal opinion that led to lockdown being delayed 1 week after SAGE advised it.

oh I thought you were referring to posts on this thread.

All the labour would have done...

You’ve got no idea what labour would have done because it didn’t happen. They can say they would’ve done 101 things, but you’ll never know.

@labyrinthloafer

I guess given we're talking hypothetical, we can talk about any other PMs we want.

It speaks volumes that the conservative party are still banging on about Corbyn - and that is because the only thing making Johnson look good was how bad Corbyn was.

When neither of them could string a sentence together in the commons, Johnson came out on top. Now against Starmer, Johnson sounds incoherent and pretty juvenile.

The only things they say about Starmer is he's into details and is a lawyer. It's hardly the same killer blow they had against Corbyn. The key to analysing how Johnson is doing is what his own MPs think. And quite a few of them are already talking about replacing him before the next election. Because he's poor at his job.

Yes, but the point is that it was a choice between Corbyn and Johnson.

Starmer may well have beaten Johnson, but the Labour Party stone cold refused to even countenance anyone but Corbyn until the electorate very firmly made our feeling clear on him - and even then it took an extraordinary amount of time for Corbyn to step aside and the Party to soul search rather than rage, abuse and insult and scorn at it's own traditional working class voter base. It was clear Corbyn couldn't win and would have been a disastrous and dangerous PM - our security services were openly alarmed at the prospect - but the Party refused to deal with it, in addition to the open antisemitism and misogyny within the Party.

This isn't the people's fault, it's the Labour Party's fault. They failed to represent a functional opposition. That was their job and they refused to do it.

The problem is the Tories are always the best option. Blair out-Torying the Tories being the possible exception.

Labour have well and truly lost touch with the public and trust.

Our central Government were neglient over the handling of this pandemic at the outset as identified by select committees :
The Commons Public Accounts Committee call it 'an astonishing failure' highlighting that there was no advance planning for finance / business for a crisis situation
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53484998
Treasury Committee - people who fell through the cracks of the schemes are still unsupported e.g. people who were just changing jobs www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53504644?SThisFB&fbclid=IwAR1zmsPQHq-OKHJmLNxzEXFDRWEr1POZ0AZqGhtHcpObRfPYdYgUQjnWpn0

As for the public health side. The Government are desperately trying to blame the care homes deaths on lack of knowledge of asymptomatic patients but THEIR policy at the time was to tell care homes to accept people with Covid19 and without testing. I think most people can see what a terrible policy decision that was and they face judicial review over it. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/03/government-faces-prospect-judicial-review-policy-move-covid/

The Cummings debacle was the final straw for me - the 'Move On' message was so contemptuous of people who in good faith had been following the clear (at the time) rule to stay at home in some awful circumstances while Boris's inner circle do what they want.

The latest today with Johnson giving a peerage to his brother and bloating the Lords further with his old supporters and friends just highlights again the rotten old boys network at the heart of our Government.

I do think the Government are taking the pandemic more seriously now. I am very worried about children's education this has to be a priority going forward (I am dreading the prospect of more home schooling while wfh).

This Government have managed to upset a lot of people. I have extended family members that are 'true blue' now hopping mad with them, though for entirely different reasons to me as they don't want their 'liberty curtailed'!

Would love to know which University the recent remainer left wing politics graduate mentioned upthread went to, and hear by which measures he thinks Boris is doing a good job!

Incompetent decision making and indefensible supporting of their own cronies. BJ comes across as a bumbling idiot.

More to the point though, COVID has come at a time when our public services have been starved by Tory policy. Services running on deficits, services closed, cuts meaning viability is so precarious. In some cases those public services have stepped up regardless, giving their own time to help out. In other services it just isn't possible to meet the needs of COVID.
In my LA 2 out of every three schools has a deficit budget...not enough money coming in to for pay staff and resources to educate children ...and that was before COVID.
Cuts to school transport funding means so many bus companies went into administration or decided not to continue, now we haven't enough buses to safely transport children under the COVID guidance.

Managing a crisis when services are starved - of course the Tory government haven't been able to manage this well.

I'm in a part of the country which is under Labour control, so I do know how they would have reacted. Slowly, with much dithering.

Boris avoided several Cobra meetings while Covid was ramping up he also went on holiday and his staff weWe told not to bake notes too long or he wouldn’t bother to read them. As PM it is his basic responsibility to know what is going on in his country!

I'll never forget Cummings' hypocrisy and the toe-curling attempts to make it all go away. Never.