Covid-19 and UK politics

[some_username1]

On 5/25/2020 at 11:19 AM, Libby1 said:

Did you see the "can you imagine what it's like to work with these truthtwisters" Civil Service tweet that was released almost straight after his speech?  It was deleted after about 10 minutes, but not before being circulated by major influencers (leading me to think the person behind the tweet was probably somebody a bit higher up than just some hot headed junior).  Funny how quickly the Govt announced they would be investigating that tweet - yet there's no proper, impartial investigation into Dominic Cummings for an alleged breach of guidelines he helped create.  Just a chat with Boris, who decides he's happy that his friend did nothing wrong and was just being a good dad.     I mean seriously.  Maybe there are reasons underlying that journey that, if shared, would entirely exonerate him...I don't know.  But if there are, they should emerge as part of a proper investigation and not in this "he's a good dad and as far as I'm concerned he did nothing wrong - so that's the end of that,, leave my friend alone, he's going nowhwere..." attitude Boris seems to have.

The UK govt is this little in crowd who expects everybody else to sit by grinning fondly as they slap eachother on the back, treat governing a country like the latest jape dreamed up by the the Bullingdon Club and seeing no need to subject themselves to the sort of regulations and formalities others are expected to abide by.  And unfortunately some people in the UK do in fact react in that prescribed way like dogs sniffing around the masters' table for crumbs.  But I think there will be rather less of them today than there were a week ago.

Have you seen that Jenrick has been caught giving out a housing contract on the isle of dogs that was deemed not in the public interest and then timing a rule change so that it saved a Tory donor involved in the project 40 million?

 

They aren’t even trying to be “straight” anymore, and what’s worse is the BBC have let this story fall off the front page after only being on there a matter of hours. A truly shameful government that thinks it is beyond scrutiny

Edited May 28, 2020 by some_username1
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[some_username1]

On 5/25/2020 at 7:07 PM, elaine567 said:

I think he did pretty well at the beginning and almost had me with his rehearsed written script but as soon as he got to the questions, he lost me.
That stammering and that eh ..eh... eh.. broken speech is what politicians do when they get asked difficult questions and they have to lie or make up something to avoid the question.
He was pretty controlled and was playing the nice guy, but at a point or two I could see behind the mask.
He showed no contrition whatsoever and that may be his ultimate downfall.
No-one wanted him to be in a sobbing apologetic heap but some genuine acknowledgement of a level of wrong doing may have helped quell pubic anger over this.
BUT I guess he is going nowhere anytime soon... unless some other more damning evidence shows up

He said he went to the castle to test his eyesight! That’s the talk of a man who knows his job is safe and is now just laughing at the plebs to our faces because he knows he is beyond any accountability. His boss thinks “the Great British public” just want to move on.

We do, once Cummings has been sacked for taking the piss whilst the rest of us obeyed lockdown.

[some_username1]

On 5/26/2020 at 9:25 AM, Libby1 said:

Yep. The Government ought to have insisted that Cummings be sacked. It's perfectly possible to have some understanding of why he did what he did and still maintain that he has to be dismissed. Instead, key Government figures went so far as to praise his actions...which was a thoroughly arrogant and obnoxious thing to do in light of the sacrifices others have made. 

I know a lot of people are of the view that Boris & co need to stay in power to get Brexit done, but surely at the end of the day the skills required to manage that transition lie with the Civil Service rather than with the Govt of the day.  Whatever benefits there are to having a Government who has had time to form relationships with and derive knowledge from the Civil Service departments, might they be outweighed by the very evident animosity that exists between the current UK Government and the Civil Service?  I know there's bound to always be some degree of conflict and tension between a Govt and the Civil Service, but it seems to have got out of control with the current Govt, resulting in extreme toxicity.

I guess people are just going to stick with a "better the devil you know" philosophy for the time being, and a general election in the midst of a pandemic would only add further turmoil.  I find myself wondering how a Thatcher govt would have handled the current situation.  I do think she'd almost certainly have put the economy before people's lives, but on the other hand she was a scientist and a planner. I think she'd have started putting robust measures in place from January and would have been pretty authoritarian about it.  I know she was very hard, but she was an excellent leader.  The Conservative Party pretty much feeds off the memory of her - and though a big part of their arrogance comes from the wealthy Etonian/Oxbridge background many of them have, I think a fair bit of that arrogance also comes from being in the party that Thatcher led.  So they bring the arrogance to the table, but without the competence, conviction and leadership she brought.

Thatcher surrounded herself with paedophiles she gave knighthoods to. A strong leader perhaps but she lived in a moral vacuum that would give Johnson a run for it’s money....

[some_username1]

13 hours ago, Philosopher said:

The news about this seems to be quietening down over the past couple of days and I think only a couple more Conservative MPs today have asked for his resignation. Therefore it seems like he has managed to hang on to his job.

I do wonder what the damage to the UK and Conservative party from all this will be. I just hope the public health message has not been too undermined.

It will be massive. At the next election if Labour have any sense they will promote the “One rule for the elite and another rule for the rest of us” message and that will ruin the Tories because it’s one of the hardest messages there is and the Tories can’t even deny it Because the evidence is there for all to see.

Starmer just has to not be as objectionable as Corbyn and give the Tories excuses to fallback on the Marxist rhetoric.

[some_username1]

11 hours ago, elaine567 said:

I think the test track and trace actually saved him as now people's attention has been transferred to what that will mean for them.
Potential 14 day strict isolation even with no symptoms....OMG.
... and the localised lockdowns idea pricked their ears up too.
Some are railing against the Govt. and blaming Cummings, but some are just using him as an excuse to behave badly by breaking the lockdown...
I am not sure if there is enough vigour in an campaign to call for a resignation.
OK the opposition is baying for blood but they are easily dismissed as being the opposition and of course they want him gone...
40 Tory MPs are upset but they need at least 80 to get anyone in Govt. to sit up and notice.

Boris is going nowhere, but he isn't' really helping fight the virus IMO. 
Seems to me Boris comes on and emphasises the good news and gets everyone excited.
Then along comes the rest pf the team with the bad news and it is all just confusing... 
A bit like Dad comes home and suggests taking the kids to the a park for an ice-cream and then Mom has to remind the kids that they need to do their homework...
 

Sorry, but I’m going to be thinking very carefully about 14 days isolation with no symptoms especially after Cummings example. That would be a tough message to follow any way but when the elite openly flout the rules and get away with them why should I bother to comply? Hit me with the fines, see if I care.

[Libby1]

31 minutes ago, some_username1 said:

Thatcher surrounded herself with paedophiles she gave knighthoods to. A strong leader perhaps but she lived in a moral vacuum that would give Johnson a run for it’s money....

The grim reality is that paedophiles have long been part of, and protected by, establishments and institutions both at home and abroad.  It's still going on of course - but back in the '70s and into the early '80s, we were still very much in an era where children who tried to make disclosures of having been abused would potentially be punished for it. 

My mother was a teacher in the '60s.  One time she found a girl crying in the cloakrooms and sat down with her to find out what was wrong.  The girl made a disclosure.   My mum, who was a very young teacher at the time, went to what would have been her line manager (don't know what the hierarchy was, exactly, but it was a Catholic school - though my mum herself wasn't Catholic) who told the child that she was a wicked girl to say such terrible things about her father.  And my mum found herself facing a stone wall, because that was absolutely the common response back then if any child dared to speak up.

It's easy to forget how things were, not so long ago.  We take it for granted now that children who make disclosures will be listened to with care, by people who are trained to handle such disclosures.  But it was very, very different just a few decades ago.  Children who were abused had little choice but to develop various coping mechanisms (often very destructive) to manage it.  Which still happens, of course, but a few decades ago it was more or less an unwritten rule that they should handle such things privately, on their own, as best as they could.  Society was not sympathetic. 

I can well believe that Thatcher would have heard phrases like "predilection for small boys" made some gesture of disgust but then brushed that away very quickly without even beginning to consider the reality of what those phrases meant.  That's how a lot of people were back then, and I would guess particularly so in an establishment which would consider small people's problems as a distraction away from the global events they were more interested in focusing on.  So yeah, very strong and effective leadership on the global stage...but not the style of leadership that does much to protect the vulnerable.

I'm not sure Boris is so different in his approach.  Only last year he said that funding was being "spaffed up against a wall" in being used to investigate "historic offences and all this malarkey".

Edited May 28, 2020 by Libby1

[some_username1]

34 minutes ago, Libby1 said:

The grim reality is that paedophiles have long been part of, and protected by, establishments and institutions both at home and abroad.  It's still going on of course - but back in the '70s and into the early '80s, we were still very much in an era where children who tried to make disclosures of having been abused would potentially be punished for it. 

My mother was a teacher in the '60s.  One time she found a girl crying in the cloakrooms and sat down with her to find out what was wrong.  The girl made a disclosure.   My mum, who was a very young teacher at the time, went to what would have been her line manager (don't know what the hierarchy was, exactly, but it was a Catholic school - though my mum herself wasn't Catholic) who told the child that she was a wicked girl to say such terrible things about her father.  And my mum found herself facing a stone wall, because that was absolutely the common response back then if any child dared to speak up.

It's easy to forget how things were, not so long ago.  We take it for granted now that children who make disclosures will be listened to with care, by people who are trained to handle such disclosures.  But it was very, very different just a few decades ago.  Children who were abused had little choice but to develop various coping mechanisms (often very destructive) to manage it.  Which still happens, of course, but a few decades ago it was more or less an unwritten rule that they should handle such things privately, on their own, as best as they could.  Society was not sympathetic. 

I can well believe that Thatcher would have heard phrases like "predilection for small boys" made some gesture of disgust but then brushed that away very quickly without even beginning to consider the reality of what those phrases meant.  That's how a lot of people were back then, and I would guess particularly so in an establishment which would consider small people's problems as a distraction away from the global events they were more interested in focusing on.  So yeah, very strong and effective leadership on the global stage...but not the style of leadership that does much to protect the vulnerable.

I'm not sure Boris is so different in his approach.  Only last year he said that funding was being "spaffed up against a wall" in being used to investigate "historic offences and all this malarkey".

It’s all just brutally sad. I don’t know if you have any interest in it as a subject but there is a fair bit of information out there in the form of books and podcasts on the Playland scandal and in this day and age it seems almost unfathomable that there was a very very visible rent boy scheme going on in Piccadilly Circus throughout the 70’s and 80’s. Given how seriously we take child abuse these days it feels like a different world back then that children could be openly being picked up for sex in this way. As you say we just had a totally different attitude to kids as a society- it’s disgusting.

So without trying to take this thread off track I have so little respect for pretty much every government we have ever had from the 70’s onwards. Mostly a collection of immoral, self serving chancers...and then you have Johnson himself who is the very epitome of the self serving chancer. A hell of a specimen for Britain to be holding up to the world as the best it has got in terms of political nous. In fact, for me, Johnson really does sum up why as a society we are so divided at the moment- he represents the interests and well being of the elite at the expense of the many and his attempt to tackle Covid reeks of this. The U.K. has gone badly wrong somewhere to end up with a government like this.

[elaine567]

I know we all look back at the 70-80s with horror but child abuse is still happening, child pornography and child prostitution are big business. 
Children are being used by gangs to deal in drugs, the county lines.
Young white girls were being sexually abused, a few years ago by gangs of Asian men in cities up and down the country with it all being covered up by the authorities for years and if you believe the people on the ground it is still going on.
OK we hope Jimmy Saville may have been outed a bit earlier had he been living today but perhaps not.
I cannot honestly say the people who protected him and looked the other way would act any differently today.
People protect their own asses, they do not want to get involved.
 

[Ollie180]

2 hours ago, some_username1 said:

That would be a tough message to follow any way but when the elite openly flout the rules and get away with them why should I bother to comply? Hit me with the fines, see if I care.

Urm... so that people’s family and friends don’t die? 🤔

 

I could not give two hoots if some bloke in a high job went to a bladdy castle! It’s not ‘miss he hit me first’ in a school playground! It’s peoples lives! It’s peoples mums, and dads, and nans, and friends that are dying! ...That’s why we’re doing this whole thing in the first place!!

[Emilie Jolie]

57 minutes ago, some_username1 said:

The U.K. has gone badly wrong somewhere to end up with a government like this.

Yep.

It's not just the UK, as is clear from looking at how other world leaders are dealing with a world health crisis which is, by its definition, affecting the whole world, though not sure it's any comfort...

Listening to BJ, you'd think it's a minor inconvenience that will go by simply being 'alert' (wtf does that even mean?) and clapping for health care professionals. How many other PMs have caught the virus by shaking hands with known covid-19 carriers with a 7-month pregnant mistress at home, then going off radar for 6 whole weeks while the country is in shambles?

But, you know, we had an idea how that was going to play out back in december when we voted.

Well, Team Cummings did not disappoint, and they're bringing the BBC down with them.

The next few months will be....interesting...😬

 

 

[schlumpy]

2 hours ago, Libby1 said:

It's easy to forget how things were, not so long ago.  We take it for granted now that children who make disclosures will be listened to with care, by people who are trained to handle such disclosures.  But it was very, very different just a few decades ago.  Children who were abused had little choice but to develop various coping mechanisms (often very destructive) to manage it.  Which still happens, of course, but a few decades ago it was more or less an unwritten rule that they should handle such things privately, on their own, as best as they could.  Society was not sympathetic.

What's a good solution? You speak the truth about sexual abuse but it's also just as true that women lie with frequency about rape and children are easily coached by disgruntled parents to say and remember things that aren't true. 

If you believe everyone that has a complaint about sexual abuse and convict the perps, then I guarantee you will sacrifice many innocent people to the prison system. If you do not believe people who claim sexual abuse you are possibly sacrificing innocent people to the future avarice of the suspected perps.

I prefer a strict adherence to the law. The complaint is made. An impartial confidential investigation is conducted. The perp is indicted or exonerated. If indicted the evidence is presented in a court of law. If the verdict is not guilty then every effort must be made to restore the reputation and financial situation of the perp.

Most remedies work on paper but not in reality. Newspapers will run with the story for weeks because of the human races tendency to perk up over stories of prurient interest. They will quote people with obvious outside agendas. By the time the trial arrives the jury pool is most likely poisoned. It makes a difference if the alleged crime takes place in a large city or small rural town. It's an act that stirs emotions which is difficult to weed out.

Many different variables to consider including the victims own ability to minimize the trauma of the event. 

[Libby1]

1 hour ago, schlumpy said:

What's a good solution? You speak the truth about sexual abuse but it's also just as true that women lie with frequency about rape and children are easily coached by disgruntled parents to say and remember things that aren't true. 

If you believe everyone that has a complaint about sexual abuse and convict the perps, then I guarantee you will sacrifice many innocent people to the prison system. If you do not believe people who claim sexual abuse you are possibly sacrificing innocent people to the future avarice of the suspected perps.

 

I was answering a point in an earlier post about a previous UK PM protecting paedophiles, and pointing out societal factors that existed that time.  Although procedural systems surrounding sexual abuse disclosures are an important topic, I fear that answering your post in any depths would continue down a very off topic path on this particular thread.

[some_username1]

10 hours ago, Ollie180 said:

Urm... so that people’s family and friends don’t die? 🤔

 

I could not give two hoots if some bloke in a high job went to a bladdy castle! It’s not ‘miss he hit me first’ in a school playground! It’s peoples lives! It’s peoples mums, and dads, and nans, and friends that are dying! ...That’s why we’re doing this whole thing in the first place!!

But WE’RE not doing this whole thing, that’s the point. SOME of us are, others believe they are too rich and famous for the rules to apply to them. Now most of the country think the rules don’t apply to them too- well at least if you go by Twitter and the response Matt Hancock got when asking everyone to do their “civic duty”. It’s like Fred West asking you not to go murdering people. There will be plenty of people “using their intuition” next time round and driving 50 miles to “test their eyes”.

[Ollie180]

1 minute ago, some_username1 said:

But WE’RE not doing this whole thing, that’s the point. SOME of us are, others believe they are too rich and famous for the rules to apply to them.

So we just shouldn’t bother then?...

 

Other people are gonna do what they’re going to do! Always have, always will! If you can save one life by doing the right thing, then you should, right? No questions!

 

We all have our own choice to make...

[some_username1]

9 hours ago, Emilie Jolie said:

Yep.

It's not just the UK, as is clear from looking at how other world leaders are dealing with a world health crisis which is, by its definition, affecting the whole world, though not sure it's any comfort...

Listening to BJ, you'd think it's a minor inconvenience that will go by simply being 'alert' (wtf does that even mean?) and clapping for health care professionals. How many other PMs have caught the virus by shaking hands with known covid-19 carriers with a 7-month pregnant mistress at home, then going off radar for 6 whole weeks while the country is in shambles?

But, you know, we had an idea how that was going to play out back in december when we voted.

Well, Team Cummings did not disappoint, and they're bringing the BBC down with them.

The next few months will be....interesting...😬

 

 

The country got the government it deserved. 
 

If it wasn’t so tragic it would be somewhat comical that Britain has a worse death per capita rate than a country that didn’t even bother to have a lockdown! The government needs its bloody ass kicked on that alone never mind the other issues such as PPE, care homes and the rest of it.

 

[Ollie180]

(And you’ll tend to hear more about the rich and famous ones only because it sells more papers that what Alex down the road does)

[some_username1]

1 minute ago, Ollie180 said:

So we just shouldn’t bother then?...

 

Other people are gonna do what they’re going to do! Always have, always will! If you can save one life by doing the right thing, then you should, right? No questions!

 

We all have our own choice to make...

Ordinarily, but I think the government have badly mis-judged the public mood on this issue. Boris just wants to move on and part of that strategy has been addressed by allowing groups of 6 to meet from Monday. That seems remarkably soon given the numbers at the moment, one can’t help but think he is trying to cover for Cummings by taking more risks with the lockdown easing so he can get his popularity ratings up. But people won’t forget this and I would put good money on it that come the autumn when a second spike looks likely (early evidence apparently shows the anti-bodies only stay in the body for 6 months so the end of the year could be carnage again with the cold weather) people are going to be bringing Cummings back up and pointing to him as reasons for why they can leave the house. “Exceptional circumstances” will be the buzzword of the day

[some_username1]

4 minutes ago, Ollie180 said:

(And you’ll tend to hear more about the rich and famous ones only because it sells more papers that what Alex down the road does)

Oh totally, people in my area have been flouting lockdown with impunity. My neighbours have been having garden parties etc. 

So again when you say “we’re” it’s nowhere near that from what I see- lockdown has been off the cards since before it was officially eased in early May. Cummings, as the one who devised the rules, has given people an excuse for next time to be even more reckless- that’s why he should have been sacked, to set an example to the country not to mess about with lockdown. Boris thinks it’s fine though, what if everyone applies Boris’s attitude to their own behaviour? We’re in trouble.

[Ollie180]

2 minutes ago, some_username1 said:

Ordinarily, but I think the government have badly mis-judged the public mood on this issue. Boris just wants to move on and part of that strategy has been addressed by allowing groups of 6 to meet from Monday. That seems remarkably soon given the numbers at the moment, one can’t help but think he is trying to cover for Cummings by taking more risks with the lockdown easing so he can get his popularity ratings up. But people won’t forget this and I would put good money on it that come the autumn when a second spike looks likely (early evidence apparently shows the anti-bodies only stay in the body for 6 months so the end of the year could be carnage again with the cold weather) people are going to be bringing Cummings back up and pointing to him as reasons for why they can leave the house. “Exceptional circumstances” will be the buzzword of the day

I think the public mood would of been to “have a good moan” either way! You can’t keep everyone happy and papers love a scandal!

im no Tory, but if it wasn’t this it would be something else! When isn’t there a scandal about a politician in the papers? 
 

There’s never been a pandemic that didn’t have a second spike - it’s worrying - but not unusual! I think our best hope is to get behind this push for a vaccine and cross our fingers that The amazing scientists (who SHOULD be on the front pages of papers) they really do come up with the goods in time!

[Ollie180]

1 minute ago, some_username1 said:

Boris thinks it’s fine though, what if everyone applies Boris’s attitude to their own behaviour? We’re in trouble.

Well I won’t! 
 

And I have faith most people will be sensible. I also have the faith the media will try and over sensationalise and act like everyone is out licking door handles - and that the public will “have a good moan” .....it’s the British way.

But I think most people will attempt to be sensible - and o don’t think they’ll do it because of ‘fines’

 

And the ones who don’t - well they’re the ones who have to sleep at night with the choices they make!

[elaine567]

1 minute ago, some_username1 said:

Boris just wants to move on and part of that strategy has been addressed by allowing groups of 6 to meet from Monday. That seems remarkably soon given the numbers at the moment, one can’t help but think he is trying to cover for Cummings by taking more risks with the lockdown easing so he can get his popularity ratings up

Bingo!
 

 

[Ollie180]

18 minutes ago, some_username1 said:

that Britain has a worse death per capita rate than a country that didn’t even bother to have a lockdown!

But, interestingly marginally better than Spain, Italy, or France (who all had tougher and earlier lockdowns) when you factor in population density..
 

(the site won’t let me post the link but check out a website called ourworldindata)

[elaine567]

We went into lockdown far too late and we are easing up far too early.
Our R number is too close to 1, the number of new infections is about 10000 per day according to the epidemiologists and our deaths/day are still shockingly high and we have  a population that is off down the beach or out shopping or both...
Now after Boris today it is party time this weekend...
FREEDOM!!!!

[Emilie Jolie]

52 minutes ago, some_username1 said:

The country got the government it deserved.

Now the EU has presented its massive rescue package for those most affected by the pandemic  - like, well, us...another lifetime of austerity measures to look forward to, awesome 🙄), my Twitter feed is covered with 'brave' contrite Brexit voters who now regret putting this shower in power. I'm so livid I can't even be bothered to be sympathetic to their change of heart. Too little, too late. It's bigger than what Cummings did or didn't do last month; personally, I don't care that much about what he's done - I know plenty of people who have done worse - it's the next couple of years I'm scared about for the NHS, and I'm looking forward to the effects this series of badly handled clusterf***s will have on the average Joes and Janes.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Emilie Jolie

[some_username1]

11 hours ago, Ollie180 said:

I think the public mood would of been to “have a good moan” either way! You can’t keep everyone happy and papers love a scandal!

im no Tory, but if it wasn’t this it would be something else! When isn’t there a scandal about a politician in the papers? 
 

There’s never been a pandemic that didn’t have a second spike - it’s worrying - but not unusual! I think our best hope is to get behind this push for a vaccine and cross our fingers that The amazing scientists (who SHOULD be on the front pages of papers) they really do come up with the goods in time!

True, but don’t forget that Jenrick broke the lockdown rules perhaps more flagrantly then even Cummings did and yet that got no traction at all and passed relatively unheralded. The Cummings issue has blown up and not just because of the media but because it has genuinely angered people that the guy who is seen to be making the lockdown rules by putting his hand up Boris’s ass and moving his lips has flouted by going on a jolly for a few days to celebrate family birthdays. It is nothing less than a slap in the face to all the parents out there struggling with their kids on their own because they obeyed the rules and also a slap in the face to those that died alone, like that poor 13 year old, because the rules prevented parents from being with him. An issue like that doesn’t need the media to stoke it up at all!