Westminstenders: Following the EU lead

[RedToothBrush]

Coronavirus poses a particularly Irish shaped question. How the UK responds to Irish plans for ending lockdown and whether Arlene continues to back an all Ireland plan will be fascinating to watch and see justified regardless of which way we go.

The UK for all its new found independence is looking very closely to the success / failure of EU strategies before making our own plan public. Mainly because we've yet to write one.

Johnson hasn't led much. He's delegated. Yet he gets all the praise for doing the sum total of fuck all and never being the bad guy. There always another fall guy to blame.

Economically we are stuffed and promises of a very quick bounce back don't look likely based on public confidence and willingness to return to places like pubs restaurants and shops.

Our ability to adapt to new conditions at short notice has been tested and businesses can not afford to do this again soon.

This is the background to which we go into talks. Both sides need an extension to serve their best interests. Johnson is determined to cut our nose of to spite our face for the sake of his legacy and to keep those paying the back handers and dodging tax happy.

In the left hand corner of the FT page it says;

"Italian data are a representative sample of 86% of the country" which could mean anything tbh.

We are an island; we could have closed borders much more easily than some of our European counterparts.

We have one of the busiest airports in the world.

"It has been argued that the PM should have chaired all the COBRA meetings but this is not correct"

It is only in lesser matters that just a minister is in charge suffices

It would be different if the PM was attending an important meeting of world leaders, but he wasn't.
He was on holiday, or just being lazy.

The PM would normally chair meetings when there is an emergency,
which he did later after he finally realised it was an emergency,
but it took too long for him to wake up from his standard workshy mode of letting someone else do the job

When it comes to major decisions, getting the country organised for a real emergency, it needs the clout of a PM

Especially since he mostly chose a bunch of either very young or 3rd rate politicians for his Cabinet, people who wouldn't challenge him

• and hence the types who would hold back from taking major decisions without the PM there

Deaths outside of hospitals are not reducing sufficiently imo because 111 are being too strict, many people with breathing difficulties are being told to stay at home. Unless you're the PM of course. (Unless he was actually in for something else!)

The WHO didn't announce COVID-19 as a pandemic until 12th March.

Clavinova, Lots of countries went into lockdown/took measures before then or immediately after. If you look at the link posted earlier www.endcoronavirus.org/countries#winning, the countries doing best in Europe include those who reacted fast and hard when they had few cases.
The UK could have quarantined people arriving at that busy airport. The fact that it still isn't quarantining those arriving is batshit crazy, frankly.

We have one of the busiest airports in the world.

For which we did b**r all. I do speak from experience, we came back via Heathrow after the lockdown was in force. What we experienced was no temperature testing, and a half cock attempt to separate groups of people. We then caught the airport bus back to the car park and as it happened we were the only ones on it. Other people went on their way via public transport.

Contrast that with my nephew's arrival in Australia - he and his family were quarantined for two weeks in accommodation provided by the government, with supplies of food brought regularly.

The WHO was under great pressure from members not to call a pandemic

e.g. the US government because of the economic implications for big political donors and because it didn't fit in with Trump's reelection plans

and the Chinese govt because of the loss of face - their carelessness and coverups causing a world pandemic

... then in the UK the lockdown came because people started calling for school closures. Now the lockdown will be lifted because people are getting fed up with it and getting mixed messages from the Government.

A few squirrels later...
What baffles me the most was that even before the WHO classified it - which was frankly obviously going to happen (although I thought they were going to call it appx 3 days before when they were urging us to take it more seriously) - we had been testing and tracing. I remember reading about the ICU wards getting infections, a Dr getting it who hadn't been abroad and maybe 2 other cases where it was clearly a case of community transition within the same week. Almost immediately we STOPPED CONTACT TRACING> we just threw our hands in the air and said fuck it. Then we left it maybe 2 more weeks and then locked down. The stopping of tracing baffles me. The knowing it is being transmitted in the community and NOT locking down immediately baffles me. The sitting around doing zero ordering of PPE for weeks after that baffles me. There is no way on earth anyone can say we don't have people in this country who know what to do. More to the point, it seems that they did do what they were meant to do and were, rather suddenly, told to stop...

There are 2 sets of very large graffiti here with "LOCKDOWN NOW BORIS" on the main roads into the town. One on the back of the homeless centre

Meanwhile, Mike Pence's press secretary (whom we find, incidentally, is Stephen Miller's wife...) has tested positive for CV. Despite testing negative yesterday. DT keeps saying he doesn't need to wear a mask because he is tested regularly.
I wonder what it will take for that lot to cop on that distancing and face masks are not such a bad plan after all.

And Trump, in his usual incisive way, has just predicted the US death toll: "We may be talking about 95,000 people ultimately, we may be talking about something more than that."

So Clav - would you change anything? We should just accept that 50000 people have died (an estimate extrapolating current ONS data) - and we just couldn't do anything better?

The Deaths in care homes - was made so much worse, by PHE policy of discharging untested elderly, who had Covid symptoms into care homes . Yet we knew what had happened in Italy and Spain. Infact in complete contradiction of the government policy of shielding over 70's.

I am not so sure at present there is any point in quarantining individuals flying in - we have so much in the community...... if those that can get tests are showing new cases of about 35000 a week ( isn't it about 5000 new cases a day?) and then you need to allow for false negatives - so new cases are still huge. As long as those people are going home and following lockdown rules - it's not going to make much difference. Once we get those new cases down, showing we have got control of it in the community- then we need to pay attention to travel.

AuldAlliance
Unrealistic to think we could have closed our borders weeks before we did.

BigChocFrenzy
It is only in lesser matters that just a minister in charge suffices

Where is your quote from?

He was on holiday, or just being lazy.

I expect he was dealing with all sorts of important matters, not least Brexit, having only just won a general election - while Matt Hancock and Michael Gove were following the normal COBRA protocol I quoted above.

The Dutch Prime Minister a full week after Boris Johnson's hand shaking comment - oh, the benefit of hindsight;

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-51820520/coronavirus-dutch-pm-tells-nation-not-to-shake-hands-then-does

There is a fierce fight in the Tory party going on behind the scenes:

those in the Cabinet who want lockdown to remain until the 5 criteria are satisfied

• Hancock, Raab, BJ himself and several others -

vs
the Social Darwinists who always thought lockdown was a mistake and that the weak should be sacrificed for the economy

Now also great pressure added from businesses, whether normally on the left or right of the party (brexiter or remainer)
because they are losing so much money

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/08/lockdown-boris-johnson#comment-140473837

“The Tory party has decided it hates the lockdown.

We can’t blame the PM so we’ve decided to blame the advisers,”
explains one fed-up MP.

Peregrina - Australia just doesn't have the cases we have.... they should absolutely be quarantining people. NZ is doing the same.

So Clav - would you change anything?

Of course - many countries in Europe and across the world would change things.

"Where is your quote from?"

We don't need a quote, just knowledge of how any government, or for that matter any competently run business or organisation, works:

In a real emergency, the boss takes charge as soon as any emergency becomes apparent

Look at how previous PMs of both parties handed crises

• although this is by far the worst post-WW2

BJ obviously wasn't paying enough attention to his day job
and the relevant Cabinet ministers were too inexperienced and lacking confidence to feel able to call him away from his holiday lazing.

We could do with some cut and pastes to show that lovable Boris, who can do no wrong was working.

I am pretty sure that much of the time he was on holiday. He had a long holiday over Christmas as I recall, with a dispute as to who had paid for it. Then he was on holiday over the half term week.

Don't forget that we had had severe flooding in parts of the UK before then, but again, his presence was conspicuous by its absence.

He did though manage to fit in a Tory party ball.

To be fair, BJ has been working hard once he realised the scale of the crisis

However, first with his absences from being lazy,
then becoming seriously ill and now probably needing several weeks to get back to full strength,
he still hasn't been able to get up to full speed

He hasn't all the details in his head, which is obvious whenever he has to answer questions, instead of reading out a prepared statement

Hancock and Raab are the ones really in charge of the crisis
It's fine and indeed necessary to delegate work , but a PM should have a full picture of all that is going on, during the worst crisis since WW2

Clavinova
I posted this:
The UK could have quarantined people arriving at that busy airport. The fact that it still isn't quarantining those arriving is batshit crazy, frankly.

To which you replied this:
Unrealistic to think we could have closed our borders weeks before we did.

Do you need or want me to explain the difference between quarantining incoming travellers and closing a country's borders?

He had a long holiday over Christmas as I recall

A remarkable achievement if we had banned flights and quarantined then.

To which you replied this
I meant to reply to ClashCityRocker -

"We are an island; we could have closed borders much more easily than some of our European counterparts."

Ah.

?
Bozo didn't believe it was a problem until late March (take it on the chin/herd immunity gaffes and all), why is it not obvious why we have the highest death rate in EU? Come on Clav, even for you that is a serious case of blinkers. Or are you suggesting we don't have as qualified specialists as other countries? Frankly it's either bad leadership or lack of qualified personnel. I know which one most of the world thinks it is.

'Putting Your Hands Up and Admitting When You Have Got It Wrong is the Only Way to Get It Right'

(by Dr John Ashton, a former director of public health)

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/20/the-coronavirus-crisis-putting-your-hands-up-and-admitting-when-you-have-got-it-wrong-is-the-only-way-to-get-it-right/

According to the Sunday Times investigation, Boris Johnson did not attend the first five meetings of the emergency committee COBRA
and spent 12 days during this time on a working holiday at a mansion in Kent.

The Government’s response to the investigation, published within hours, is remarkable
– not only in its hasty and panicked manner but also in its clumsy, tin-eared and arrogant example of this niche art form.
.....
With its sloppy drafting and lack of properly gathered evidence,
it falls back on the flannel of assertion that has become so familiar in the Government’s daily Downing Street press briefings:

that it has been “guided by the best scientific evidence”,
that “the NHS has been given all the support it needs”,
that “the Prime Minister has been at the helm… providing leadership”,
that “it is entirely normal and proper for COBRA to be chaired by the relevant Secretary of State”,
that “the suggestion that the Government’s attitude was nonchalant is wrong”.

These are indicative of an attempt to drag a trail of mud and confusion over serious allegations

and to distract attention from the failure of the Prime Minister, his colleagues and advisors to get a grip early on
and prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths.