Westministenders: Lockdown continues

[BigChocFrenzy]

The UK has been on lockdown since 23 March,
with no end in sight.

The deaths peak is predicted to be around 17 April,
with the controversial IHME prediction that the UK will have considerably more total deaths - 66,000 - by summer than other European countries.

Supermarkets are struggling to satisfy demand for online slots for the vulnerable
and to keep shelves supplied for other customers

Like all countries, the UK economy is being hammered and heading for a deep recession.
Estimates are for UK GDP to fall 15% this year.

A million people have applied for Universal Credit
The self-employed and small - and some large - businesses are struggling to stay solvent.

They don't know how long to plan for.

The PM is in ICU and Raab has taken over as stand-in, but needs Cabinet approval for decisions.
Probably BJ will be unfit to resume his duties as PM for several weeks, if ever.

WIll he stand down soon and let the Cabinet choose a new PM,
or will the UK continue for weeks with a stand-in leader during the worst crisis since WW2

What's the plan, anybody?

@CendrillonSings can we talk about him giving his pregnant girlfriend covid-19 then?

How about a solemn moment while we all ponder how we all might feel if it was Carrie in the ICU and not The Great Man?

(Speaking of lack of class or morality)...

The demographics of covid-19 in the US make it attractive to Trump to have a massive wave of it.

Red but that is only because they have the jobs that mean they have to take the risks. Once you get through that important layer of people, white middle class men with obesity venture outside...

Let Joy Be Unconfined Throughout The Land. Saint Pfeffle Is Risen from the almost nearly dead. He says so, so it must be true.

He was put on oxygen for a few minutes then monitored. No other interventions. That is all we've had from the medics.

It was BJ who boasted about shaking hands in a hospital. He made a joke about "Operation Last Gasp." He infected the mother of his unborn child. He's not the messiah.

We need parliament back now to ask why these lying bastards are lying to us.

can we talk about him giving his pregnant girlfriend covid-19 then?

He infected the mother of his unborn child.

Do you have one particle of hard evidence for that claim? No, just your prejudice.

@CendrillonSings
Ok then - on the basis of that logic, I suppose the governments of Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands must all be run by stupid, arrogant, psychopaths too, given that their death rates are higher than ours and all our countries have followed the same trend line?

Or does that “logic” sound like insulting rubbish, with the truth being that most European countries were equally unprepared for a once-in-a-century pandemic, and are dealing with it as best they can?

I guess we’ll never know!

That's stupid OR arrogant OR psychopathic OR callous - four distinct possibilities. Not necessarily the perfect storm seen in the UK.

Some death rates are perhaps higher - for now.
The UK is what, four weeks behind? Or two? Or three weeks ahead? We don't know because testing is not what it should be, to put it delicately.

Meanwhile, several countries worldwide, including some in Europe, are not doing so badly. There is talk of flattening curves.

The phrase "dealing with it as best they can" has so many different iterations, doesn't it?
What accounts for all the differences, do you think?

...most European countries were equally unprepared for a once-in-a-century pandemic, and are dealing with it as best they can
Isn't that just another way of saying that those countries that are really struggling had governments who stuck their head in the sand when they learned of the virus and what it was doing in China?
Then there was sheer incompetence too - but maybe that's a subset of stupidity? One of the struggling countries missed a deadline for applying to join a scheme to provide necessary medical equipment.

Maybe your logic isn't as waterproof as you think it is. That is often the case when one ignores facts.

But we will know one day what happened in the UK.

There will be a reckoning.

MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing

Let Joy Be Unconfined Throughout The Land. Saint Pfeffle Is Risen from the almost nearly dead. He says so, so it must be true.

It’s sad that your hatred for Boris allows you to dehumanise him so completely in your own mind as to mock his suffering. What was all that stuff that used to be posted on here about how dehumanisation was the greatest evil and every person deserved human dignity and compassion?

It was all bullshit, wasn’t it? You omitted the silent caveat: “Dehumanisation is evil... unless I oppose them politically. Unless they’re a Tory”.

I salute your radical honesty in exposing what a sham your morality is.

If you've seen these lying fuckers in action for any length of time, you would have to be lobotomised not to see this "He Is Risen" narrative as accidental at this time of year. We had "Independence Day" for the referendum. We had the Falklands Factor and giving thanks to the almighty for Thatcher, with the wounded hidden behind pillars if they were invited at all and opponents labelled "The Enemy Within."

Only a matter of time before the oppostion are likened to a virus.

Why do you keep calling him Boris, Cendrillon? You took issue with people calling George Osborn Gideon, and immediately jumped in about James Gordon Brown, conveniently forgetting Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson.

Do you have one particle of hard evidence for that claim? No, just your prejudice

So Carrie doesn't live at 10 Downing Street?

To be fair, we don't know he gave Carrie Covid. It could easily have been the other way round.

I don't think she was out shaking hands and guffawing around the country or standing too close to people at press conferences.

Why do you keep calling him Boris, Cendrillon? You took issue with people calling George Osborn Gideon, and immediately jumped in about James Gordon Brown, conveniently forgetting Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson.

Bit of a logic fail there, Peregrina. I said that people should be consistent in what they call politicians who change their given names, and should ideally respect their choice. Thus I call George Osborne by his preferred name, Gordon Brown by his preferred name, and Boris Johnson by his preferred name.

So you’ve caught me out on... what, exactly? Nothing.

To be fair, we don't know he gave Carrie Covid. It could easily have been the other way round.

An honest voice at last.

I don't think it is a nice game to get into as to who ahs infected someone though. That definitely is a bit crass. This may be the one and only time I agree with cendrillon. I was ill ; I may well have infected others.

I agree Boris and many around him were lax.

Don't get too excited cendrillon.

No. Nothing to go on except over fifty years of first-hand observation and the core of their philosophy from Hobbes to Friedman and Strauss and the elevation of personal selfishness to an ideology of greed is good.

And in the case of Johnson, an ethic-free habitual liar, philanderer who litters society with his wild oates and moves on to the next one, pausing only to conspire with a crook to have a fellow journalist beaten up and handing contracts to his mates as London Mayor before the sham process of tendering has begun.

He's a shit.

This is quite funny.
Cendrillon jerks the strings and everyone starts dancing .....
As usual

If you've seen these lying fuckers in action for any length of time, you would have to be lobotomised not to see this "He Is Risen" narrative as accidental at this time of year. We had "Independence Day" for the referendum. We had the Falklands Factor and giving thanks to the almighty for Thatcher, with the wounded hidden behind pillars if they were invited at all and opponents labelled "The Enemy Within."

So you actually think Boris deliberately caught a potentially-deadly virus that sent him to ICU, timing the moment of infection perfectly just so that he could recover around Easter and present himself as the Second Coming of Christ?

I’m sorry, but that’s so batshit insane that it’s almost funny. Are you a 9/11 truther as well?

It is also good to hear that never again will we hear Johnson refer to Emily Thornberry as a member of the aristocarcy, as he did at the dispatch box. No more shall we hear mention of Harriet Harman's aunt, nor of how the decorated war hero Ralph Miliband was a 'traitor who hated Britain,' and certainly all this bizzare stuff eminating from somewhere? about Kier Starmer being an Old Etonian will immediately cease.

So you’ve caught me out on... what, exactly? Nothing.

Jumping in with both feet to slag of Labour.

......on the same principle they should be calling his opposite number Gordon Brown “James”, since both of them chose to eschew a disliked given first name.

Conveniently forgetting Alexander Boris de Pfeffle. I don't know about Gordon Brown and whether everyone calls him Gordon. I suspect that Paddy Ashdown was still known by his real name to his parents and family. We do know that Boris Johnson's family call him Al, and that some people started asking "Who's this Boris" when he started to develop the Boris persona.

MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing

And in the case of Johnson, an ethic-free habitual liar, philanderer who litters society with his wild oates and moves on to the next one, pausing only to conspire with a crook to have a fellow journalist beaten up and handing contracts to his mates as London Mayor before the sham process of tendering has begun.

He's a shit.

Even if every word of that were true, you honestly think it justifies dehumanising someone who was critically ill only days ago? It doesn’t. Like I say, any moral pretensions you have are a sham - in your heart, you fit the stereotype of a heartless Tory better than I ever could!

Peregrina

I’m sorry, but the argument you’re making is extremely dense. The very clear point in my quoted words was to criticize those who use Osborne’s birth name as a gotcha but refuse to do the same for Brown. I didn’t “conveniently omit” Johnson, because I obviously think he should be called by his preferred name, just like all the others. You’re picking nits where none exist.