Westminstenders: Run Forrest Run

[RedToothBrush]

Need i say more?

Dmitry Grozoubinski@DmitryOpines (trade wonk)

"No Deal Brexit is also going to see meteoric growth in our world beating Bankruptcy and Foreclosures Legal Services Sector,
but you'll never hear about THAT on the Remoaner BBC."

It's slowly starting to crystallise what the Leave problem is.

They don't actually know what they want from the EU. When they had it, they didn't understand it. Now it's gone, they don't know what it did.

The whole point of international treaties (and that's all "trade deals" are) is they basically involve an exchange of some degree of "sovereignty" to secure a benefit to the country.

Even the US constitution writes treaties into US law.

@Clavinova

www.nursingtimes.net/news/coronavirus/harder-for-bme-nurses-to-access-ppe-during-covid-19-crisis-finds-survey-28-05-2020/
Fresh light has been shed on the inequalities facing black and ethnic minority nurses during the Covid-19 crisis, with a survey suggesting they have found it harder to get protective equipment (PPE) than their white colleagues.

Only 43% of BME nursing staff in high risk environments on the coronavirus front line, including intensive care units, had access to enough face and eye protective equipment, according to the Royal College of Nursing survey...

...More than half (53%) of BME respondents reported they had been told to re-use single-use PPE, compared to 42% of their white British counterparts.

The RCN survey, which involved 5,023 nurses across all sectors and was carried out from 7 -11 May, comes in the wake of widespread and ongoing shortages of PPE for health professionals during the pandemic.

Leaving aside the racial divide, I think we can safely infer that PPE was in short supply across the board, clearly placing healthcare workers' health and even their lives at risk.

^www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/ppe-supply-remains-low^
Pub. 18 April 2020
Supplies of basic protective equipment continue to fail to reach large numbers of frontline doctors despite scores of factories ready and willing to make them, new BMA research reveals.
Links to separate results for GP and hospital doctors' experience of PPE availability included.

I am wondering what is an acceptable death toll from covid for healthcare workers, in your opinion.

www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/ppe-supply-remains-low

I'm not sure why that link didn't auto convert. Hoping this works.

You can always C&P anyway.

On the BBC, our national broadcaster has, I’m sorry to say, allowed it’s output to become wildly unrepresentative of the nation who pays for it...

...Ask yourself this, when is the last time you heard BBC report speaking positively about EU exit? i.e. when did they express excited anticipation at “just X number of days to go until the transition period ends.” I suggest to you that millions of Britons hold that view, yet where is it reflected from BBC journalists?

@LouiseCollins28
You seem to believe that the function of journalism is to reflect back to an audience what it feels or believes.

I think you need to crack open a dictionary and look up 'the free press'. Or 'the fourth estate'. Or 'journalism' would probably do.

You are confusing news with light entertainment and news organisations with pollsters.

Since a second referendum before the result of the first were enacted would be (by any reasonable assessment) wholly illegitimate...

Why would this be the case, @LouiseCollins28?

I want the full 'reasonable assessment'.

math I believe it is the function of a national broadcaster, paid for by every adult with a television at home to reflect the views of all of them. It's that simple. If I'm paying for it, I can reasonably expect some representation of viewpoints I hold to be broadcast.

@mathanxiety
I am wondering what is an acceptable death toll from covid for healthcare workers, in your opinion.

In view of yesterday's comments, I have to point out that your posts are sadly lacking in any compassion whatsoever towards the healthcare workers who have unfortunately died during the pandemic.

Perhaps regular posters on Westminstenders think BlackeyedSusan's comments don't apply to them;

"While it may or may not be factual...it lacked or appeared to lack any awareness that these are not just statistics, but real lives that have been ended too soon. People with families, colleagues, friends."

"Discuss statistics by all means, but don't forget the people behind them, nor the readers who may be directly affected."

I believe it is the function of a national broadcaster, paid for by every adult with a television at home to reflect the views of all of them. It's that simple. If I'm paying for it, I can reasonably expect some representation of viewpoints I hold to be broadcast.
If you believed that white people should be the master race would you expect the BBC to pander to you ?
Or if you believed that being gay is a sin - should the BBC support that view?
Or if you believed that disabled people are cursed by your God - should the BBC publicly report your views ?

OR
Should the National broadcaster aim to provide the facts and evidence based analysis as far as possible ?

they could talk positively about the point when we are able to retake fuller control of our own lawmaking
they could talk positively about the new trade opportunities we can build with the rest of the world from our new position
they could talk positively about the forthcoming end of EU free movement
they could talk positively about increased availability of goods from other parts of the world and consequently lowered prices
they could talk positively about the ending of absurdities like the EU working time directive

@LouiseCollins28
Or they could just rename themselves 'Isvestia' or 'Pravda' and get it over with.

Heres my "reasonable assessment" math and it's pretty academic now anyway.

If the Government of the day offers the electorate a plebiscite on an issue (such as EU membership) as part of its election manifesto, and is elected on that, it is under an obligation to hold one, which it did.

Once the decision to hold the referendum has been enacted in law the Government says to the people it has just given them a referendum decision to make. As they wrote, "This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide" See page 20 below.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/517014/EU_referendum_leaflet_large_print.pdf

Once it has done that, if the decision is "Remain" Britain Remains, if the decision is "Leave" then Britain Leaves. Fortunately we don't have much of a history here recently of asking the same question again and again until the voters give the "right" answer in the view of their representatives.

If you think it would still have been legit to have held another referendum and overwritten the unenacted decision of the 2016 one immediately I can't help you further I'm afraid. People are entitled to that view, of course, but I can't share it. Instead, I think the damage to our democracy of doing that would have been severe.

The BBC should aim to represent fully the nation who fund it, including those with views others would find abhorrent, if those views can be expressed in accordance with the law.

The BBCs core purposes as I have always understood them are Inform, Educate and Entertain.

If people cannot express their views in such a way as the law allows, they shouldn't be able to. God, this really isn't complicated.

Sorry listening I missed something out, you asked if I thought the BBC should "support" some highly controversial views you identified. My answer to that is no it shouldn't. It should be prepared to broadcast controversial views on any number of topics (and to its credit it quite often does) but it shouldn't "support" them.

@LouiseCollins28

So the questionable result of an advisory referendum that nobody expected to have to implement (see the declaration 'Brexit means Brexit' for an idea of the scale of the shitshow, and also the massive problem posed by the existence of the UK border with Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement) after a campaign that featured gross manipulation of social media by outside forces intending to capitalise from the destruction of the UK economy that will happen once the declared aim of national economic suicide is carried through, must stand until the country is on its knees.

Your explanation makes the necessity to keep on running at top speed toward the cliff edge as clear as mud.

Math you've raised all the objections I expected you would. They amount to very little so I'm not going to refute point by point. Clearly we won't agree on this one but I've given the answer you asked for. People are either democrats or they aren't.

They amount to very little

Not sure Northern Ireland will agree with you there.

The BBC should aim to represent fully the nation who fund it, including those with views others would find abhorrent, if those views can be expressed in accordance with the law.

The BBCs core purposes as I have always understood them are Inform, Educate and Entertain.

If people cannot express their views in such a way as the law allows, they shouldn't be able to. God, this really isn't complicated.

You are again confusing a news department with a polling consortium.

You can't 'represent' the views of selected individuals including many who don't know their arse from their elbow and simultaneously inform and educate, though you can certainly provide a ghastly form of entertainment.

When a news organisation trips merrily across the line from informing and educating into garnering ratings by means of providing entertainment, when serious debate is ditched in preference for circus-like spectacle, it renders itself irrelevant as an informer and educator.

If you can't see the difference between provision of free airtime to clowns and the provision of serious, factual news and impartial analysis then no wonder the UK faces disaster and dismemberment.

The BBC is I am delighted to confirm, far, far more than a "news organisation". I entirely agree with your comments about news organisations debasing themselves, but fortunately the BBC has a far broader remit than just news. I know the difference between news and entertainment very well thank you.

I know the difference between news and entertainment very well thank you.

Good. So you’ll also understand that “Brexit is great and we’ll be sovereign and control our borders and money and laws“ comes under “entertainment” and “Brexit poses a serious threat to the UK’s ability to trade” comes under “news”.

Clearly we won't agree on this one but I've given the answer you asked for. People are either democrats or they aren't.

@LouiseCollins28
But a referendum on the same subject five years from now isn't a mockery of democracy?

A second Scottish independence referendum within ten years of the last one isn't?

A general election in which one party gets tossed out and another with a completely different approach to almost everything usually presented to the voters isn't?
Two general elections in the same year?
The result of a by-election that completely changes the balance of power in the House of Commons?
Party leaders chosen by party members can become PM without ever having to submit themselves to public scrutiny?
A confidence and supply deal with a party that represented ten constituencies in an offshore province, with protracted negotiations held after the election, and the agreement sealed with £1 billion of British taxpayers' money?

You seem to be looking down your nose at countries which hold more than one referendum on a topic 'until the voters give the "right" answer'. This is, if I am not mistaken, a sneer directed at Ireland. Not surprising if so, coming from a Brexit supporter. How frustrating it must be to see a province and a border whose existence was always defended as an important point of principle come back to bite you in the arse.

Maybe those countries which recognised improper funding of select points of view and as a result decided to hold second referenda and set up impartial agencies to present facts to counter the fake news generated by sundry very wealthy interested parties are actually working harder to protect democracy than anyone in the UK is?

Democracy does not mean vote once and then you can't vote again

British Parliamentary democracy in particular allows politicians to chance their minds any time they wish,
or indeed change their party,

because they are not delegates, but people elected to do their best to make decisions for all their constituents, those who didn't vote for them juyst as much as those who did

Nicely done Sabrina. I was pointed towards a BBC podcast called "The Briefing Room, Brexit Deal or No Deal" so demonstrably not a news programme and found it troubling that in a panel of 5 experts (all pro-EU) none of them had anything positive to say about Britain after Brexit. That to me is the Beeb failing to represent the broadest spectrum of opinion.

On a news programme of course it should all be about the facts.

I know the difference between news and entertainment very well thank you.

@LouiseCollins28
But you posted this:
they could talk positively about the point when we are able to retake fuller control of our own lawmaking
they could talk positively about the new trade opportunities we can build with the rest of the world from our new position
they could talk positively about the forthcoming end of EU free movement
they could talk positively about increased availability of goods from other parts of the world and consequently lowered prices
they could talk positively about the ending of absurdities like the EU working time directive

And this:
I believe it is the function of a national broadcaster, paid for by every adult with a television at home to reflect the views of all of them. It's that simple.

So you clearly do not understand what journalism or news is.

The referendum was legally advisory only

Cameron's promises - or BJ's promises - were no more legally binding than those of any party leader in a manifesto,
i.e. zero

Nicely done? Why thank you.

But nothing to do with The Briefing Room.

Just a POV from someone a lot of NI family.