Westministenders: Can you tell your Rs from Elbows?

[RedToothBrush]

This week Mark Sedwill has resigned (or was he pushed?) and David Frost (chief brexit lead) was appointed National Security Adviser in a move that enraged Theresa May. The former prime minister felt that his appointment was unprofessional and that was a political appointment not an independent one and that he lacked experience. Of course in terms of national security we still haven't had that report on Russia and I don't believe The Intelligence and Security Committee has yet been named (not sat since Johnson was appointed as PM).

We have passed the deadline for extending transition and we have now apparently said that negotiations on the end of transition will finish at the end of September.

The bill ending Free movement of people has been signed, amongst much fanfare by the Conservatives saying they have delivered on the Referendum promise. However we might have up to 3million Hong Kongers who we are willing to allow into the country which might not go down too well with those who were unhappy with 'unrestricted EU immigration'.

We also have the demonstration of utter incompetence, outsourcing and lack of coordination and communication from central government and local government in the covid-19 crisis. A national scandal that isn't being properly reported by the press and leave you with the very large question of who is this government serving? If its contract with Deloittes over testing didn't require them to report positive tests to Public Health England, what was the point in the testing? How can this be consistent with 'The Government’s new approach to biosecurity will bring together the UK’s world-leading epidemiological expertise and fuse it with the best analytical capability from across Government in an integrated approach.' and will provide real time analysis and assessment of infection outbreaks at a community level, to enable rapid intervention before outbreaks grow.?

The growing feeling that Brexit is being exploited by this government for personal interests and those of big business at the expense of the general public is one which was feared and grows harder to argue against by the day.

Did the govt only now realise what No Deal means in practice,
or only now suddenly realised the EU won't cave in at the 59th minute & risk its Single Market ?

Kentonline with a little more info about Emergency Mojo :

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford/news/secret-deal-for-huge-brexit-clearance-centre-revealed-230216/

Oh, Jack Charlton has died ...

I remember watching him & the lads on the telly, back in 1966, winning the World Cup.
World-beaters just the once

and hence had to rush out hand-delivered letters to local residents to warn them of what would be happening

I am not going to feel sorry for many people in Kent - it was Brexit Central. They have to live with the consequences.

You'd be amazed at how many leave voters/brexiters think the EU will blink at the last minute.

It's staggering in it's hubris.

But they will whine and whine about the EU bullying them.

Emily, that is an excellent article, thank you. Says it all really.

I know the area around J10 of the M20 very well
I'd love to know how they think that they can move 10,000 lorries a day from Eastern Docks and Folkestone to that clearance site
past multiple motorway and other road junctions and through a town
and missing out the Jubilee Way route out of the docks
without significant wastage
deluded
just deluded

Farcical 🤦🏻‍♀️
I hope data collection methodology has advanced to nearer the 21st century since this chaos

(I suspect Brexit is also being organised via Cummings' scribblings on the back of an envelope .... which BJ accidentally flushed down the loo)

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-the-inside-story-of-how-uks-chaotic-testing-regime-broke-all-the-rules-12022566

In their [politicised] effort to release rapid data to show the increase in testing capacity,
officials from Public Health England (PHE) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
"hand-cranked" the numbers to ensure a constant stream of rising test numbers were available for each day's press conference
......
An internal audit later confirmed that some of those figures simply didn't add up
< these will be some of the "historical corrections" >
.....
Even as Health Secretary Matt Hancock struggled to get the number of tests carried out up to 100,000 a day by the end of April,
the collection of those testing statistics was still so primitive that they were being compiled with pen and paper

Sky News has uncovered hand-written tables of testing data, allegedly from mid-May,
which show national testing figures for different parts of the operation.

Oh, Jack Charlton has died ...

Is God gathering His Own ?

Just as well, as the Dyson designs were rejected at the final approval stage by doctors

8th May - (Reuters article re EU ventilator contract dated 12th May);

"The UK now has over 11,000 mechanical invasive ventilators available in total."

"The Government recently announced that 15,000 Penlon Prima ESO2 ventilators have been ordered, the first newly-adapted device to receive regulatory approval in the Ventilator Challenge...Smiths paraPAC ventilators, an existing device, are also being manufactured at speed and at scale as part of the Ventilator Challenge."

www.gov.uk/government/news/new-ventilator-challenge-devices-arrive-in-uk

I hope data collection methodology has advanced to nearer the 21st century they were being compiled with pen and paper

Don't knock it.
Germany;
"Old-fashioned contact tracers with pen and phone in hand will probably remain the mainstay of the system for some time to come."

but Dyson designs and others were rejected at the final stage before

which is what is always likely to happen when a firm is asked to design something for which they have no experience

... and other British firms who actually produced ventilators, or had stocks of them, were repeatedly rebuffed by the govt
But of course they hadn't been Leave or Tory donors

Bungs for the Boys ....

Penlon has been specialising in that department for at least 50 years - DH worked for them after leaving school.

There was no need for any silly Johnson hoo-ha about 'Ventilator challenges' - a quick phone call could have been made to them back in January when Wuhan locked down, asking if they could ramp up production.

Big difference to contact tracing - where old-fashioned and boot leather based methods give good results, better than Apps & call centres,
because you are coaxing information from often reluctant civilians

and collecting test data - which should be electronic, because you are receiving data from paid professionals

If you can't understand the difference between those needs, you really have a problem

and other British firms who actually produced ventilators, or had stocks of them, were repeatedly rebuffed by the govt

Which ones?

a quick phone call could have been made to them back in January when Wuhan locked down, asking if they could ramp up production.

Why did the EU set up a ventilator procurement scheme if all the other member states ordered ventilators in January?

Good contact tracing work is rather like police investigations:
some phoning and online detective work is necessary,
but face to face interviews nearly always best to get accurate information from "suspects"

I don't understand why the Uk cut so many experienced contact trackers over the years

Even 10 years ago, the Uk had 10,000 environmental health staff based at nearly 350 local council offices.

Big mistake, after transfering this public health function to Public Health England,
was to savagely cut this capability to 226 staff operating out of 9 offices.
Such a valuable asset abandoned

That's why the Uk gave up contact tracing back in March - PHE could only track about 50 cases !

There are of course still some environmental health officers employed by local councils, but nowhere near as many as there used to be and not enough to help much, back in March

"Why did the EU set up a ventilator procurement scheme if all the other member states ordered ventilators in January?"

because some smaller states had problems obtaining ventilators & PPE on their own
and because sensible govts of bigger states like to have additional options just in case their own resources aren't enough

That's what's exasperating about the UK not taking advantage of the EU vaccine project:
With this crisis costing hundreds of billions, shortening it by a few months is worth joining several projects in the hope one or more will be productive.

Scientific research doesn't alway pan out as hoped

If the UK or EU ends up in the happy position of having more vaccine doses than needed for their own population,
there are a few billion other people who need it

In fact, the EU project mandates that members won't hog extra doses of vaccine - this proviso may have been after seeing what Trump did recently -
but will just take what they need for their vulnerable groups and make the rest available to developing countries

@Clavinova

and other British firms who actually produced ventilators, or had stocks of them, were repeatedly rebuffed by the govt

Which ones?

A couple were named in this story from Bloomberg in mid March. Including Penlon. When the government were contacting carmakers and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-17/johnson-s-ventilator-plan-puzzles-u-k-firms-wanting-to-help

Financial Times report about British ventilator firms:
www.ft.com/content/f9051f66-cfbe-4b36-848e-3980225ae542

It's not just a US FTA to worry about wrt food standards, environment etc:

Peter Foster@pmdfoster

Because as Josie Cohen ‪*@josiecoh‬ of ‪*@PANUK‬ Pesticide Action Network tells me,

the countries of the Asia Pacific CPTPP group also would want U.K. to subscribe to lower (non EU) standards.

Her report is here/6.

‪https://issuu.com/pan-uk/docs/toxictradereport2020?fr=sM2MwNTExOTMxNQ‬

Why on earth would anyone in the UK want firms to be allowed lower standards

Do profits really trump everything else ?

Chersfrozenface
A couple were named in this story from Bloomberg in mid March. Including Penlon. When the government were contacting carmakers and Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

From your link;
"Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the nation has about 5,000 ventilators and needs many times more."

“They will not be able to get as many as they want,” said Craig Thompson, head of products and marketing at Penlon Ltd, which makes anesthesia machines that perform some of the functions of intensive care ventilators."

"Cummins" has read the pshycological profile of authoritarian Leavers, remember? A huge proportion of them hate any recreational drug and strongly believe they are the cause of most of society's ills (not poverty - no!) and people who take them in any form should have HARSHER punishments, not be given it on the NHS.

We did a whole lot of this in Drug Abuse and Addiction module. The right wing of my peer group all protested loudly at "the War On Drugs didn't work" lectures and frequently left the hall shaking their heads and almost clutching their crosses. If "Cummins" wants to find people who support his viewpoint there will be a few already working in health although not any with a decent science background in the area I suspect