Do you feel sorry for Boris?

[User133847]

Seeing the headlines in the papers today and there seems a lot of sympathy for him. The front pages see him looking really forlorn and sorrow regarding the death toll.

When you think a year ago he was planning on ushering in what he deemed as a golden age of Britain. Now 12 months later it's in tatters.

I can understand the sympathy, but wonder whether a Labour PM would be offered the same.

@VinylDetective were you responsible for the Cabinet backing Cummings cross country visit to a second home and subsequent drive to a beauty spot to test his ‘weird eyesight’ - the Government were surprised at the degree of compliance to that point as the public followed their straightforward ‘stay at home’ message
@vinyldetective was it you that told the Government not to implement quarantine for international travellers?
@ vinyldetective were you behind the Christmas multi household indoor mixing plan announced when cases were serious enough to already be in lockdown?

If so you should take responsibility!

[quote GrumblyMumblyisnotJumbly]@VinylDetective were you responsible for the Cabinet backing Cummings cross country visit to a second home and subsequent drive to a beauty spot to test his ‘weird eyesight’ - the Government were surprised at the degree of compliance to that point as the public followed their straightforward ‘stay at home’ message
@vinyldetective was it you that told the Government not to implement quarantine for international travellers?
@ vinyldetective were you behind the Christmas multi household indoor mixing plan announced when cases were serious enough to already be in lockdown?

If so you should take responsibility![/quote]
Not guilty, m’lud! 😉

'Isn’t it the govt’s responsibility to ensure compliance? Either through fines, curfews, checking on those who are self isolating, permits needed for travel..?'

As I've said we don't lock people in their homes in this country. Your friend in Italy not being allowed to visit the forest (that she could see from her window) has had little effect on their infection rates and deaths per million are not much fewer than the UK rates

We do have fines and consequences for flouting! People get in a right froth about them though.

'No, I don’t think Johnson can take any credit for Sunak’s work beyond choosing the right person for the job'

Johnson is his boss. So, they will have meetings and come up with plans together. This idea you have that all minsters make it up as they go along without any discussion or authorisation isn’t how it works.

This idea you have that all minsters make it up as they go along without any discussion or authorisation isn’t how it works

I know it’s not, I don’t have that idea at all. If you honestly think Johnson’s contribution was any more than rubberstamping the work the Treasury has done, you’re deluded.

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'Isn’t it the govt’s responsibility to ensure compliance? Either through fines, curfews, checking on those who are self isolating, permits needed for travel..?'

As I've said we don't lock people in their homes in this country. Your friend in Italy not being allowed to visit the forest (that she could see from her window) has had little effect on their infection rates and deaths per million are not much fewer than the UK rates

We do have fines and consequences for flouting! People get in a right froth about them though.

'No, I don’t think Johnson can take any credit for Sunak’s work beyond choosing the right person for the job'

Johnson is his boss. So, they will have meetings and come up with plans together. This idea you have that all minsters make it up as they go along without any discussion or authorisation isn’t how it works.

I don’t believe I mentioned locking people in their homes.Not sure why you continue to mention it? How do you know movement restrictions had no effect on rates in Italy? Their rates are lower than ours. What other factors account for the difference? What about curfews like Austria? Checking people are self isolating?

I'm still waiting for highhorse to either:

a. Find a response to vinyl's list that absolves Johnson/the government of blame, or
b, a way to direct the blame to Scotland or Wales

@Stellaris22

I'm still waiting for highhorse to either:

a. Find a response to vinyl's list that absolves Johnson/the government of blame, or
b, a way to direct the blame to Scotland or Wales

Think we may be waiting a while...

I’m not holding my breath ...

Why are you repeating your little list vinyl, you've sneered at me posting the same stuff. Bit hypocritical, no?

1. They followed scientific advice, that it was already endemic so closing borders futile. They instructed travellers to quarantine when returning from hotspots. I mean if the scientific advice was incorrect fine hold phe etc to account but we can't blame Government for following expert advice.
2. Agree with you there. Mass events should have been cancelled. Also, why tf did people still go?! Such a lack of responsibility. Bit like those going on holiday then doing a daily mail sad face on the news that boo hoo they had to isolate on return.

3.We locked down 23rd Mar, told to restrict activities from 16th which was a week after Italy locked down on Mar 9th and we knew we were a couple of weeks behind them. 4.Sadly no magic wand to immediately produce PPE, the whole world in the same position. 80% now produced domestically and no Trust ever actually ran out. Some were reported to be accidentally misusing ppe, so for example discarding gowns after a single use.

1. Patients were discharged when clinically ready. Hospitals were high risk areas, care homes had to implement strict IPC procedures. We've discussed this.
2. Hmm not sure.

7.Track and trace is effective and we test more than anywhere else (please refer to my worldometer link)

1. As I said up thread, eat out to help out had no effect on stats. The areas with high uptake had low rates.
2. Yes a last minute balls up I agree. Still one day at school then off is hardly a hand wringing disaster really. It's a pandemic vinyl, rapidly changing situation.

HTH.

@VinylDetective

I have obeyed every single rule in lockdown. I don’t see anyone indoors apart from my husband, I do a sanitised and masked supermarket shop every ten days or so and leave the house once a day to walk the dog. What more do you want of me

I appreciate that, but if you read thread after thread (at least here on MN) you will see that you are an exception for adhering responsibly to the guidance (and more importantly not trying to look for loopholes at every opportunity)

@GetOffYourHighHorse

Johnson is his boss. So, they will have meetings and come up with plans together

The sheer hate that posters seem to be feeling for Johnson personally on this thread is puzzling.

1. They followed scientific advice, that it was already endemic so closing borders futile. They instructed travellers to quarantine when returning from hotspots. I mean if the scientific advice was incorrect fine hold phe etc to account but we can't blame Government for following expert advice.

N Zealand, Australia, Taiwan and numerous others did it. It worked

1. Agree with you there. Mass events should have been cancelled. Also, why tf did people still go?! Such a lack of responsibility. Bit like those going on holiday then doing a daily mail sad face on the news that boo hoo they had to isolate on return.

Good.

3.We locked down 23rd Mar, told to restrict activities from 16th which was a week after Italy locked down on Mar 9th and we knew we were a couple of weeks behind them.

We could have locked down on 9 March too, then we’d have been ahead

4.Sadly no magic wand to immediately produce PPE, the whole world in the same position. 80% now produced domestically and no Trust ever actually ran out. Some were reported to be accidentally misusing ppe, so for example discarding gowns after a single use.

We sold PPE to other countries in April 2020. My stepdaughter, who’s an ITU nurse did 12 hour shifts without a break because there was a shortage. There was none for care homes

1. Patients were discharged when clinically ready. Hospitals were high risk areas, care homes had to implement strict IPC procedures. We've discussed this.

We have and you blamed care home management

1. Hmm not sure.

Pretty poor planning and waste of money in my view. We knew how many nurses we had before we started

7.Track and trace is effective and we test more than anywhere else (please refer to my worldometer link)

We tried to produce our own special system which cost ££££ and was trialled on the Isle of Whyte. It had to be scrapped because it was rubbish

1. As I said up thread, eat out to help out had no effect on stats. The areas with high uptake had low rates.

It cost a fortune and most definitely accelerated spread.

1. Yes a last minute balls up I agree. Still one day at school then off is hardly a hand wringing disaster really. It's a pandemic vinyl, rapidly changing situation.

We agree - which must be worth breaking out the champagne for

The U turn on schools was not a disaster, but indicative that the govt did not have a clear plan and and I certainly felt they were floundering and unclear as so what approach to take resulting in some members of the public losing confidence in the govt and their ability to take decisive and considered action.
I felt the same way over the Cummings debacle. It was ludicrous to suggest that to test your eyesight was up to the drive you would go on a quick jaunt and take it from there. Please don’t insult our intelligence.
I think the govt was slow to react. I flew into Heathrow in Feb and documentation only referred to contacting NHS if you developed symptoms and had been in Wuhan. By the beginning of Feb there were cases in every province in China, yet the focus remained on Wuhan.

The sheer hate that posters seem to be feeling for Johnson personally on this thread is puzzling

You're confusing contempt with sheer hate. The contempt is obviously well-deserved.

Priti Patel has said that she was overruled in relation to border closures last March. I'm curious as to her motive for coming out and saying this, but clearly BoZo made the wrong choice.

@NoWordForFluffy

Priti Patel has said that she was overruled in relation to border closures last March. I'm curious as to her motive for coming out and saying this, but clearly BoZo made the wrong choice.

That’s interesting. I missed that. It just makes the whole debacle even more incomprehensible.

@VinylDetective

N Zealand, Australia, Taiwan and numerous others did it. It worked

Do you think the british public would have supported completely closing the borders for almost a year NZ-style? It's not 2 weeks. I don't think they would have been able to sustain it here. I think at some point we need to start being realistic even though in principle some would have preferred different measures were taken

Same with Track & Trace - some were just giving false details or not wanting to quarantine when they were contacted (some due to money pressures, others just didn't want to bother)

[quote trulydelicious]@VinylDetective

N Zealand, Australia, Taiwan and numerous others did it. It worked

Do you think the british public would have supported completely closing the borders for almost a year NZ-style? It's not 2 weeks. I don't think they would have been able to sustain it here. I think at some point we need to start being realistic even though in principle some would have preferred different measures were taken

Same with Track & Trace - some were just giving false details or not wanting to quarantine when they were contacted (some due to money pressures, others just didn't want to bother)[/quote]
The British public would have had to accept closing the borders. Just as other populations did.

I see you’re falling for Johnson’s blame the people rhetoric, exactly as he intends you to. Some of us aren’t as easily fooled.

It's irrelevant whether the public would have supported it. If they closed the borders, what would the public do about it? Swim to France?

It may not have taken that type of action; even quarantining travellers into the U.K., from all destinations, would've had some positive effect on numbers / transmission.

So much more could've been done when all the skiers returned from Italy / others returned from European holidays after half term. They were instructed to go about their lives as normal until they became symptomatic. I read threads on here where there was amazement that they didn't tell all of those who'd been to affected places in half term to isolate when they got back. We discussed the same measures at work.

If we'd taken more decisive action at that point, the whole course of the pandemic could've changed. This isn't hindsight from me; I actively discussed it with people at the time and expressed bewilderment that the government wasn't thinking along the same lines.

Libertarian / popularist PM = refusing to choose the difficult / unpopular path until it's nigh on / actually too late.

BoJo and his cabinet did lots wrong, without a doubt. I agree with what has been said that borders should have been closed, remote learning should have been implemented long before second wave, etc. The govt screwed up, MASSIVELY.

But...with BoJo's open chequebook, whilst it won't make up for the loss of life at all, it gives hope. AZ, Phizer, Novavax, J&J, and more all have contracts with the British govt. It's also brought back some manufacturing to the UK. According to Bloomberg, 70% of UK PPE is now made domestically. The UK is also Covax biggest single donor (outside of the US-Biden has plans to donate but I don't know the figure).
I don't know about the test and trace situation but testing health and social care is FAR better than what is during first wave along with access to PPE. This is my experience so anecdotal.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-30/u-k-s-early-pandemic-chaos-spurred-revival-of-key-manufacturing?srnd=premium-europe

www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/covax/COVAX-AMC-Donors-Table.pdf

Posting this because it is a good read:

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/29/we-had-to-go-it-alone-how-the-uk-got-ahead-in-the-covid-vaccine-race

Trust me, I'm no mouthpiece for the Tory govt but I can what was done wrong (even repeatedly) and what was done right.

The sheer hate that posters seem to be feeling for Johnson personally on this thread is puzzling

You watch this then tell me there’s no justification for feeling like that? And this is only Jan-May 2020. twitter.com/bydonkeys/status/1354175393327153152?s=21

You too @GetOffYourHighHorse, as it debunks your points about timing of lockdown, PPE procurement and shortages (trusts did run out, and only coped with downgrading the recommendations - look at the PPE in Asian countries compared to what we had, and look at our healthcare worker deaths). And they initially scrapped contact tracing then spent millions on the stupid app then billions on Dido Harding’s effort which took bloody months to get anywhere and is still not as effective as it needs to be. Because - as I pointed out and you ignored -too many people aren’t self isolating as they can’t afford to, and less than a quarter of those who apply for the paltry £500 support actually receive it

I don't think it's that puzzling @trulydelicious when his inability to do his job caused the death of many people's relatives.

Also still waiting for you to point out the racist among us if you get a minute...

I'm still waiting to find out who was racist against Johnson too .....

@NoWordForFluffy

It's irrelevant whether the public would have supported it. If they closed the borders, what would the public do about it? Swim to France?

It may not have taken that type of action; even quarantining travellers into the U.K., from all destinations, would've had some positive effect on numbers / transmission.

So much more could've been done when all the skiers returned from Italy / others returned from European holidays after half term. They were instructed to go about their lives as normal until they became symptomatic. I read threads on here where there was amazement that they didn't tell all of those who'd been to affected places in half term to isolate when they got back. We discussed the same measures at work.

If we'd taken more decisive action at that point, the whole course of the pandemic could've changed. This isn't hindsight from me; I actively discussed it with people at the time and expressed bewilderment that the government wasn't thinking along the same lines.

Libertarian / popularist PM = refusing to choose the difficult / unpopular path until it's nigh on / actually too late.

I agree with you, Fluffy.

I remember being puzzled as to why the borders weren't closing as numbers rose. Also, people going to and fro abroad and back with no checks.

Plus sending all the uni students and school kids back around September. The UK had months to implement at least SOME remote learning. Most unis students, aside from the practical subjects, could have worked long-distance.

The lack of decisive action did a lot of damage, for sure.

And me. Again I’m not holding my breath.