Westminstenders: A test of logistic planning

[RedToothBrush]

We are witnessing a demonstration in Government crisis management.

For the past week journalists have asked the same questions and politicians have said they've already done it / are doing it in the near future. But as time wears on, the inability to produce the answers or demonstrate results is proving illusive.

This will have consequences.

It is a demonstration in how planning has proved to be lacking in certain areas.

With Brexit in mind, the lack of vision, coordination with business and wider capability and capacity this does not bode well.

[LouiseCollins28]

DGR I take your point about “drive the narrative” but I invite you to consider the following.

You seem (and please correct me if I have this wrong) deeply unhappy the government “driving the narrative”. I ask, if we are in a state of national emergency, then whom would you rather have drive it?

I am frankly, deeply sceptical about the qualities of “the state” as a mode of action, but in such emergency circumstances I recognise that 1) government action is pretty much the only option and 2) that the government (any government, not this one) is the right actor. Do you disagree with me?

[DGRossetti]

LQ I have no idea about 3D printed masks

www.instructables.com/id/HEPA-Vacuum-Bag-Mask/

I would have thought if there's no metal, a zap in the microwave would sanitise them ? (I am aware it's non-ionizing. But it should heat any cells to death .....)

[DGRossetti]

You seem (and please correct me if I have this wrong) deeply unhappy the government “driving the narrative”. I ask, if we are in a state of national emergency, then whom would you rather have drive it?

I don't mind the government driving the narrative so much as there not being any road markings, or give ways, or junctions, or lay-bys for the media to hold them to account. And while the media are frothing - to no great effect - about testing. Or lockdown police powers. Or this inspiring collage of dust these Bolivian cheese farmers have made in praise of the NHS, there are very very serious questions not being asked, aired or even allowed the light of day.

It's impossible to ever suppress the truth - indeed to even try is to make it more public (Streisland effect). It is however worrying easy to bury the truth beneath Petabytes of absolute irrelevance.

[MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing]

Here we go: Hancock's Half-Hour, and getting his excuses in early. "We have been following advice."

[BigChocFrenzy]

Thanks, red 💐

louise I want the govt to take charge, but I want them to do so reasonably competently
That's not an outrageous demand, surely ?
People shouldn't have to choose between Boris and anarchy or Putin's kleptocracy or whatever

In a crisis there will probably always be the occasional brainfart,
but this govt is staggering from putrid fart to putrid fart and following through in our faces

[DGRossetti]

Here we go: Hancock's Half-Hour, and getting his excuses in early. "We have been following advice."

Seems they had concerns about Liz Truss being at the helm. Probably worried she'd try and sell some cheese.

[titchy]

Hancock's Half-Hour,

Why haven't I thought of that?!

[MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing]

Seems they had concerns about Liz Truss being at the helm. Probably worried she'd try and sell some cheese.

Maybe it was her new pork products that infected the Chinese in the first place?

[BigChocFrenzy]

Hancock came to a very sad end, iirc

[DGRossetti]

Hancock came to a very sad end, iirc

So did Tony Hancock.

[MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing]

"No test is better than a bad test..."

Who wrote that?

[dontcallmelen]

Thanks as Red & all contributors.
prettybird that bread looks amazing.

[LouiseCollins28]

I put it to you BigChoc that there is nothing that this government could do which you would adjudge as “reasonably competently”, your mind is made up and that’s that?

It is, at some level, the media’s job to hold the government to account day-to-day, at one level, but it isn’t the government’s job to create hostages to fortune, why would they do that?!

Lots of these questions are sadly grandstanding, verging on vexatious nonsense.

It is the governments job to be accountable to the electorate at election time (not to the media!) and before or during 2024 they will be.

[pointythings]

Louise BigChoc is in Germany so has a pretty good idea of what competent government in the midst of a pandemic looks like. Frankly, I'd like some of that here.

[ICouldHaveBeenAContender]

Anybody should be able to hold a government to account. The official opposition, the unofficial opposition, the media, me, you..... We as a country can't afford to wait until the next general election. That would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

[MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing]

Govt held to account once every five years at the polls is what Lord Hailsham (Tory Lord Chancellor) called elective dictatorship.

[pointythings]

Governments should be held to account constantly. Otherwise it's not democracy.

[BigChocFrenzy]

That's nonsense, Louise
If he was doing a good job I'd be relieved that he stepped up in a crisis

In case you haven't noticed...
Even many Tory commentators and newspapers are tearing into him about the testing cockup and the PPE cockup and all the rest

Why blame those of us who always thought he would be crap, rather than those who supported him and have only recently discovered he's incompetent ?

[MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing]

Tories are used to an easy ride from the press, but now the Mail, Telegraph and Sun are pushing back and they are dumbfounded.

[Peregrina]

It was hard to miss how the normally sycophantic Tory papers had changed their tune today.

If he had genuinely stepped up, the majority of us would have been glad and willing to give him the credit for doing so.

[BigChocFrenzy]

btw, Louise I think Sunak is doing an excellent job, as well as one could expect from any chancellor,
especially not having been in post long

He comes across as being very capable, on top of his job
but also sincere and genuinely caring

BJ may be worried there

( I know, DG "Sincerity – if you can fake that, you’ve got it made !")

[LouiseCollins28]

What would you characterise as “a good job?” though? I’ll look forward to reading the praise, though I don’t expect to!

Look, I’d like Boris not to be PM and I’d like Hancock not to be Heath Secretary but they are. Not seen much “tearing into” from outside the usual left leaning sources I consult far more regularly than right leaning ones.

[BigChocFrenzy]

Good job by Sunak = very competent, knows his stuff when he talks or answers questions

Successfully took on an emergency situation to rescue millions of people potentially without income or drastically less income

Sounds sympathetic and compassionate to the suffering, no lecturing about it being their own fault for not having enough savings / better job etc

"Not seen much “tearing into”

Haven't you read any Tory papers the last few days ?
Even his Telegraph mates are hammering him for blundering over tests, PPE

[Peregrina]

It is often more difficult to say what a good job is, because it's things like a crisis averted and day to day events going on apparently as normal, which doesn't attract any attention.

Think of a situation you know yourself e.g. we have all seen good teachers who can control a class, without apparently doing anything. Then we see bad ones, where the teacher is shouting and screaming and the class are rioting.

Similarly with BJ - "we don't need to be part of the EU ventilator scheme", when called out, "oh we didn't get the email". You might get the picture - a competent person would have just got on with being part of the EU procurement scheme, and we wouldn't know until later until what had gone on behind the scenes.

[Barrique]

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