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Coronavirus - the new strain XV

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More word salad from Jenrick on the rounds this morning. Does anyone else here feel uncomfortable about the trend for government ministers to put up Union Jacks in their spare rooms, with the option of the red box in the background. Does that stuff have an effect?
 
mandryka said:
The government response would be: "We had the old variant under adequate control with T3. As soon as we saw T3 was not working and saw that the cause was a new variant which behaves in importantly different ways from the old one, we introduced additional measures, i.e. this lockdown."
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You've posted that for a reason, I suspect, as that has been your MO throughout this pandemic, in defence of the government, you left out that despite being well flagged and forcast, the slaughter that followed Christmas relaxation.
 
cooky1257 said:
You've posted that for a reason, I suspect in defence of the government, you left out that despite being well flagged and forcast, the slaughter that followed Christmas relaxation.
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I was adding some more ideas to that post as you were typing that. There were deaths, and they were flagged and forecast, but they would say, I think, that they were an unavoidable consequence of their strategy in the crisis, or at least unavoidable without the benefit of hindsight. They would defend their strategy of balancing economic and health objectives.
 
droodzilla said:
Good stuff from The Daily Mirror:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/fifteen-ways-boris-johnson-didnt-23391080

The corresponding article in The Guardian is feeble in comparison.
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The quote from Ferguson yesterday was on the money:

"Had we acted both earlier and with greater stringency back in September when we first saw case numbers going up, and had a policy of keeping case numbers at reasonably low levels, then I think a lot of the deaths we’ve seen - not all by any means, but a lot of the deaths we’ve seen in the last four or five months - could have been avoided.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-...1058fe424aad02ec84de2f&pinned_post_type=share
 
Nero said:
More word salad from Jenrick on the rounds this morning. Does anyone else here feel uncomfortable about the trend for government ministers to put up Union Jacks in their spare rooms, with the option of the red box in the background. Does that stuff have an effect?
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As ever, just ask what would Trump do, and that’s precisely what our alt-right tribute clown-troupe does. Far-right ethnic nationalism and a rose-tinted sense of English exceptionalism is the key sales point since the Conservative Party stole UKIP’s clothes (obviously including the stained and filthy undergarments).
 
stephen bennett said:
‘I take full responsibility’.

Johnson’s biggest lie so far.

Stephen
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I haven't seen the footage, but did any journalist ask him when he would be resigning in light of his "full responsibility"?

Starmer should throw that quote back at him and ask him the same, if only to highlight how meaningless those words are from Johnson.
 
I'm reminded of the song I wrote back in April during the lockdown - 'The Boxer' - Boris Johnson remix.

I am such a rich kid,
spoilt rotten to the core
They all squandered their resistance
for a pocketful of bullshit,
Such are promises.

All lies and smears,
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
Until it ends in tears

Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm
Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm


Then after the election, a break,
And my partner’s got a ‘boy’
In the company of yes men,
In the quiet of 10 Downing Street,
with Carrie, laying low.

Seeking out the help of bigots,
and others, all in tow
Listenin’ just to those,
only they would know.

It’s all a lie, lie la lie la lie la lie
la la lie, la, lie, lie lie la lie lie, la la lie la lie

Then I went into a hospital,
shakin’ everybody’s hands,
Only for the tv,
A small token you understand,
I do declare, there were times I was invincible
I felt self-righteous there

lalalalalalala

Now the facts have just caught up with me
And I’m lying on the ward
Those nurses who I’d criticised
No masks, no PPE;
That's not unusual
Nor is it strange
After cut back, upon cut back
I realise were all the same
Nothing changes
We are more or less the same

It’s all a lie, lie la lie la lie la lie
la la lie, la, lie, lie lie la lie lie, la la lie la lie

I went for herd immunity
So very cleverly
Just sick folk
If some pensioners paid the price,
Then that was alright by me
Cheap you see
Nothin’ else

Now I’m holed up here in chequers,
just counting all the numbers,
Wondering when to call it off
Thinking of the economy.
Never mind the second wave then
'Til I cried out in my anger, got no shame
"I’m not leaving, I’m not leaving",

and the arsehole still remains...


It's all lie etc...
 
mandryka said:
They would defend their strategy of balancing economic and health objectives.
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And they would be wrong - as this chart from the FT illustrates - (unsurprisingly) the countries that have done better at controlling covid have taken the smallest economic hit.

ouNJ7D1.png


Source: https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-global-data/
 
gavreid said:
I'm reminded of the song I wrote back in April during the lockdown - 'The Boxer' - Boris Johnson remix.

I am such a rich kid,
spoilt rotten to the core
They all squandered their resistance
for a pocketful of bullshit,
Such are promises.

All lies and smears,
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
Until it ends in tears

Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm
Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm


Then after the election, a break,
And my partner’s got a ‘boy’
In the company of yes men,
In the quiet of 10 Downing Street,
with Carrie, laying low.

Seeking out the help of bigots,
and others, all in tow
Listenin’ just to those,
only they would know.

It’s all a lie, lie la lie la lie la lie
la la lie, la, lie, lie lie la lie lie, la la lie la lie

Then I went into a hospital,
shakin’ everybody’s hands,
Only for the tv,
A small token you understand,
I do declare, there were times I was invincible
I felt self-righteous there

lalalalalalala

Now the facts have just caught up with me
And I’m lying on the ward
Those nurses who I’d criticised
No masks, no PPE;
That's not unusual
Nor is it strange
After cut back, upon cut back
I realise were all the same
Nothing changes
We are more or less the same

It’s all a lie, lie la lie la lie la lie
la la lie, la, lie, lie lie la lie lie, la la lie la lie

I went for herd immunity
So very cleverly
Just sick folk
If some pensioners paid the price,
Then that was alright by me
Cheap you see
Nothin’ else

Now I’m holed up here in chequers,
just counting all the numbers,
Wondering when to call it off
Thinking of the economy.
Never mind the second wave then
'Til I cried out in my anger, got no shame
"I’m not leaving, I’m not leaving",

and the arsehole still remains...


It's all lie etc...
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Johnson’s inheritance must be very different from what he assumed. It’s going to be a hellish epitaph.
 
Monitor Gold 10 said:
Their approach seems to echo the way a lot of companies are run; Management with no experience of the industry they are in charge of, etc...
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If Johnson was a CEO failing this badly I think there's a strong chance shareholders would have forced him out by now.

Sadly as voters we'll have to wait a few years. Let's hope UK PLC doesn't go bust before then.
 
Nero said:
More word salad from Jenrick on the rounds this morning. Does anyone else here feel uncomfortable about the trend for government ministers to put up Union Jacks in their spare rooms, with the option of the red box in the background. Does that stuff have an effect?
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The creepiest is Al Zahawi- looking like Ming the Merciless with only a photo booth curtain and a flag behind him. The setting reminded me of Saddam’s later public announcements from makeshift studios while on the run.

KSsDC3M.jpg
 
 
gavreid said:
I disagree. Ferguson's paper was being discussed at that time in 2020. It was Johnson who had failed to grasp the seriousness if you remember, failing to attend meetings, shaking hands in the hospital, etc etc. Herd immunity had only ever been a thing with a vaccination strategies, these were extreme right wing ideas that were being tested, it wasn't the consensus at all

This is dated 11 Feb from Imerial college, a whole month before Peston and Kuenssberg were fawing over Johson above.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/195217/coronavirus-fatality-rate-estimated-imperial-scientists/
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Yes but how many other papers were also doing the rounds? And really, how many countries did get things right in the early days? A few did but they were outliers: there was a kind of international consensus and the UK gvt wasn't really outside it for a long time, and when it was it was from acting too late, and initially that could be put down to noisy science, and - more culpably - groupthink, arrogance, institutional failings and the straightforward lack of ability in the cabinet. I'm not really excusing those things. What I'm saying is some of the early poor decisions were excusable, anyone could have made them; some were less excusable, but can still be put down to error and ideology. But from the summer on, all the really disastrous decisions have been made more or less deliberately. It's not incompetence, it's not misguidedness, it's not Boris' dithering - it's strategic. It's the Tories doing what they wanted to do, and getting what they wanted to get.
 
You’re all wasting your time. The government are broadly unaccountable in real terms and that is despite the absolutely piss poor way they’ve handled it with mistake after mistake. None of them should still be in a job, but instead every single one of them is still there. We’d be far better off discussing other aspects of the pandemic as no amount of whinging on the Internet is going to change this situation. I fully expect another 100K dead by this time next year and Johnson will still be there being false and waffling on like a Spitting Image puppet.
 
Seanm said:
Yes but how many other papers were also doing the rounds? And really, how many countries did get things right in the early days? A few did but they were outliers: there was a kind of international consensus and the UK gvt wasn't really outside it for a long time, and when it was it was from acting too late, and initially that could be put down to noisy science, and - more culpably - groupthink, arrogance, institutional failings and the straightforward lack of ability in the cabinet. I'm not really excusing those things. What I'm saying is some of the early poor decisions were excusable, anyone could have made them; some were less excusable, but can still be put down to error and ideology. But from the summer on, all the really disastrous decisions have been made more or less deliberately. It's not incompetence, it's not misguidedness, it's not Boris' dithering - it's strategic. It's the Tories doing what they wanted to do, and getting what they wanted to get.
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We collated most of it in the early threads. They took a political decision to ignore the overwhelming scientific consensus...
 
gavreid said:
We collated most of it in the early threads...
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We didn't also collate all the evidence and argument to the contrary, of which there was a lot. Easy for us to say "Shut everything down!" I just think we shouldn't pretend there was a consensus in the early days about what needed to be done. Mostly so that we don't confuse mistakes and incompetence with what happened later - which was basically deliberate.

I'm not sure it's actually sunk in yet with a lot of people that this is basically the outcome the Tories wanted and that if they had to do it all over again, with complete knowledge, more competent players and more resources, they'd do everything the same. And not because they can't learn anything, either. I think the temptation here is to dwell on the obvious incompetence of Boris and as I say, put a totally bland Tory technocrat in there and I believe you'd get the same result.

They really haven't made any mistakes!
 
It is very similar to Brexit: the UK is now a one party state. No point debating this stuff in our little PFM bubble is there ?
 
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