Covid inquiry - when will Boris appear

[elephantblock]

Or has he already?

Who exactly are these mythical British people? I certainly haven't had enough of experts. I want an expert to fix my car and to teach my kids, to diagnose me and to perform surgery, to develop new medicines and in general to understand things I don't. The more experts the better I say. Every area of our life would be improved by expertise.

I think it’s interesting that expertise on SAGE was limited though. They didn’t look at all scientific positions. Mostly ones from virus experts. Given that the politicians knew nothing, they needed wider advice.

Based on what I've seen so far, I think there is grounds for criminal prosecution for all those in government including the now prime minister.

You couldn't get away with this if you were a company director and you behaved so wreckless that thousands of lives were lost.

The risks were all so clear but they failed to take on board the critical advice given to them.... simply because they didn't take the risks seriously. Worst still they made jokes about Italy and made no preparation for it hitting the UK....it's not like we were the first country to be hit.

They did the same thing during the mad cows disease outbreak were scores of lives are still being lost to an incurable disease despite all the warnings from scientists.

@dubsie We cannot have ministers being threatened with prosecution. No one would do the job. It’s difficult to say if they knew a certain outcome before they made decisions. Plus we now know lockdown has killed thousands more. So it’s no win whatever we did. How would you view politicians in Sweden? They did far less.

They didn't follow the advice given thousands died as a result. Had company director ignored the advice and the same he or she would be jailed. I think it's time for the next government to look at criminal proceedings against the whole lot including fraud and misconduct in office.

You also talk of Sweden but it's not even comparable in anyway, and having friends who live there they did actually lockdown....it's a complete myth they didn't. What they put in place was remote working, social gatherings were banned but healthcare continued to run normally.

Healthcare was supposed to be available here. The NHS decided GPs would not see anyone. I think we have completely missed others who dies because COVID was the only illness in town. Plus we had advice going to the cabinet purely on COVID. What about all the other services we needed? What about mental health and people with other illnesses? What about trashing the economy and the effects of that? None of the decisions taken are obviously criminal. Unless you can say that a government must follow certain advice legally, and didn’t, then it’s not a criminal matter. Not agreeing with a strategy doesn’t make it criminal.

The attached is Jonathan Sumption’s view. Sweden did not lock down as we did. He argues those at greatest risk should lock down but the cost was too high for the majority.

Ministers should not be taking risks with peoples lives and the health and safety at work act makes that very clear. And yet NHS staff were left without the PPE they needed and many died as a result. While you could blame the NHS trust the facts remain the government was at the heart of the decision to ignore the damning report that said the NHS failed an pandemic preparation audit....we didn't have the gear to deal with one...

This lot need locking up.

There was no getting away from deaths. With COVID and illnesses since. The deaths were overwhelmingly the old and already ill. You were never going to get perfect planning but I would rather learn for the future. We cannot lockdown like that again. We cannot seek retribution either. Most acted in good faith but were wrong. It’s just silly rhetoric to say lock people up. Immature really. We need to learn and we don’t have enough politicians who are good enough. However the public voted for a “get Brexit done” government do we got what we voted for. Zealots for Brexit but little else. It’s us who are the fools.

If another lock down is needed then that's what should happen. We can't let a virus run rampant across a population if it risks sending thousands into hospitals.

It's very easy to say now that's there will be no more lockdowns but people forget how many people were being admitted to hospitals at the peak.

I’m not locking down again and trashing the economy. Those who need to should. Younger people shouldn’t. Children have lost years of education. Look at the dreadful situation of waiting lists! Every single economic measure is showing a poor outlook. We need a different approach as we have messed up the economy for the young. Deaths of the elderly will happen. We will have to accept that’s inevitable.

We now think Boris will appear next week.

I'm so sick of reading about "what Boris is going to say" on Monday. Who gives a damn? He'll lie, anyway. Principally, why the hell does he get advance air time for his arguments?!

@marmaladeandpeanutbutter I find the advance disclosures distasteful too. I hope Hugo Keith asks him some searching questions where rehearsed answers won’t cut it. As usual , it’s Johnson showing contempt for the mechanisms of state.

People like you make me laugh because the argument you present was that it was just elderly that died. My daughter worked on intensive care throughout and many many healthy adults died from COVID and many more were made critically I'll from infections related to it. Ending up in intensive care from a respiratory infection will often need months of intensive recovery to get back to normal life.

The whole point of lock downs was to create a lag so thousands didn't all end up in hospital all at once....it was never about stopping the virus completely. What your argument seems to miss is that when hospitals become that busy those requiring other urgent treatment may also die....so something as simple as a dog bite becomes life threatening if they don't get seen because they need anti biotics by IV for example.

The UK government deliberately left the UK exposed and was willing to throw old people under a bus until it finally hit home that it was killing healthy adults including nurses, dentists doctors....only then did they act but they hit the panic button which simply made it worse.

There should be criminal charges against then all...it was an utter shambles. Misconduct and corporate manslaughter...

Over 92% of deaths were in 60 plus age range. The majority above 80. Many who were younger had other health issues . The complete outlook of the NHS was about COVID. Everything else was put on one side. We didn’t care about other issues so now people are dying due to poor care in the last 2 years As the inquiry is still ongoing I would suggest you don’t know the outcome. Labour could have stocked up on what we needed! We had had earlier warnings on Labours watch about pandemics. I’m not sure anything was deliberate. Other things took precedence.

Nice attempt to try and blame Labour!
Cameron cut ICU beds, scaled back on PPE and the Tories (can't remember which PM) didn't take forward the pandemic prep recommendations.

You seem to be suggesting the fact that 92% of the deaths were amongst people aged >60 means they were less important. This was Johnson's disgraceful attitude too. I diagree. I think people >60 deserved the rest of their lives if possible.

Plus, waiting lists were extremely high BEFORE the pandemic.

I’m that age group and would prefer to see my dc have a life. They didn’t need to lock down in the way we did. We now have massive problems with children, the nhs, and not enough tax income so we needed to keep the less vulnerable working. This country needed to generate money. We are now very highly taxed and that’s wrong.

Should the young really have to stop their lives for me? I’d rather they didn’t but I wasn’t asked. Older people, and I’m one, have had decent lives. I’m firmly of the opinion that when you’d time is up, it is. I don’t want my life prolonging if younger people pay a heavy price. They did and I don’t want to see it again. I don’t want to live a life that’s not worth living by being locked down and lots of older people feel like this.

Nothing stopped Labour spending money on a Pandemic plan. Nothing. When times were better they could have done. They didn’t.

You really can't blame Labour for the Tories' choices. COVID happened 10 years after Labour left office.

Labour did spend on NHS preparedness up to 2010, and then the Tories started making cuts.

For example, Labour invested in ICU beds, Tories cut them. Labour invested in PPE, Tories cut it.

As for you wanting to die, that's your view, but you don't get to speak for the rest of that age group.

Long term planning starts way before 10 years. What PPE? We hardly had any. Of course labour bought next to nothing. I think it’s because we didn’t expect anything the size of this pandemic. We do need to look forward and not make mistakes but all parties would have been floored by this. If we don’t get the economy going again we will ruin the future of younger people. I don’t want that.

PPE and preparation is ongoing and most of it has a sell by date so while Labour had spent the money while in government on such an event Mr David Cameron decided we didn't need it ....as a result ICU units were shut, walk in clinics were closed, he privatised pathology units and cut A&E..

Looking forward are you having a laugh....this government has purposely pulled the plug on spending so they can buy a few votes. Hospitals are rationing care at the moment.

As for your figures....the vast majority had some vulnerability but that includes stuff like Asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes....which for your information...is pretty damn common. However, 11% of deaths were from perfectly healthy people....that equates to thousands of lives cut short.

This government is done and the Tory's are done for for at least a decade. Once this is over there will be immense pressure to bring charges against this bunch of imbeciles...I personally will support criminal proceedings and there are many like me

We hardly had any because the Tories didn't restock. It has a shelf life, they didn't renew.

The Tories failed to prepare.

The Tories ignored their own advisors.

The Tories were in charge and failed.

Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Exactly this.