"cast iron guarantee"

[Ridcully82]

The journalist from Daily Mail just asked for one about never having an increase in restrictions:I was getting hacked off with Boris' pie crust promises in the statement anyway. Yes,it's been hard,yes he lies his backside off:so why are people trying so hard to get him to predict the future when he struggles to state the truth in the present?!

Because, for better or for worse, he is the Prime Minister I guess.

But could any prime minister,even one with a better track record with the truth, hand on heart say "I won't bring restrictions back" when we all know that if the NHS was at risk due to a surge (for example if the vaccine began to slip in its efficacy) he would bring back restrictions. Just feels like asking for promises that 'its all going to go smoothly' is quite juvenile,and not acknowledging the variables we can't control

@Ridcully82

But could any prime minister,even one with a better track record with the truth, hand on heart say "I won't bring restrictions back" when we all know that if the NHS was at risk due to a surge (for example if the vaccine began to slip in its efficacy) he would bring back restrictions. Just feels like asking for promises that 'its all going to go smoothly' is quite juvenile,and not acknowledging the variables we can't control

If the NHS was at risk why were all, ALL, the Nightingale hospitals closed down last summer? Why not re-open them? Or was the scare visual of dying alone in a vast hangar surrounded by industrial scale beds (plus money for the lads who fitted them out) the only purpose?

• Covid can easily overwhelm NHS and we can't know when, and must sacrifice everything to prevent that.

• Nightingale hospitals closed and dismantled.

Pick one of the above. ONLY one.

I thought it was a useless & wasted question too, OP.

But the nhs isn't at risk though is it? The number of delta has risen, but not hospital admissions that much.

Nightingales are still closed. Hardly at risk.

Not just closed but dismantled in summer last year when it become obvious to all that the exponential infection rate levelled off, as it always does with viruses.

For someone claiming not to have a crystal ball, that was a pretty confident action. Bet you saw yourself or youre loved ones in there for a moment though, those ranks of beds and the whole thing stripped down to breathing equipment, no decor or privacy. Job done.

Thing is,I'm not even arguing that we'll need restrictions,and absolutely take the point about the nightingales (though personally I think lack of staff was main problem,but they were there in case of hundreds of thousands extra deaths,and maybe using the army as last resort as last spring everything was so unknown):my op was really about why people are asking for promises when we've seen such promises are worthless.partly as that's not how new and unknown illnesses work in a pandemic,but absolutely a large part of bad decision making by the government. Rather than asking for more promises, critical analysis of new decisions from this point would seem a better way of handling this now. Then once we're properly through this,then we definitely need to have the inquiry into this to see what went wrong.

It's a tried and tested but tedious journo trick of putting words in someone's mouth to get the headline you want...

'PM, can you absolutely guarantee that there will never ever be lockdowns ever again?'

'Well no, no one can guarantee that there will never ever be a need for lockdowns at any point in the future.'

Headline: PM says lockdowns could return!

Absolutely agree on it being tedious, watercoloursky

If the NHS was at risk why were all, ALL, the Nightingale hospitals closed down last summer?

Because they were simply an enormous PR stunt, built to satisfy a bunch of gullible Brexit supporters that anything that China could do, the UK could do better.....

We didn't have enough staff to run our existing hospitals, never mind a bunch of new ones.