Cummings and goings...
Discussion
Tuna said:
Electro1980 said:
So what if they provided data to others? That doesn’t mean Cummings trying to bypass controls on public money is acceptable. Controls exist for a reason. This current government seem to think rules don’t apply to them and it is leading to corruption right at the heart of our government.
That's deeply disingenuous. The procurement process does indeed exist for a reason, but it is singularly ill suited to unexpected and emergency situations.Remember that the official procurement process meant that the government cancelled orders for ventilators in the middle of the pandemic.
Remember that the official procurement process meant that vital PPE was shipped from China with a three month lead time.
It's a lazy narrative that the government doesn't think rules apply to them - that just avoids examining those rules to see if they still make sense in the current environment. That doesn't absolve them of proper oversight and attention, but the automatic assumption that the accumulated cruft of rules should be sacrosanct, particularly in an emergency is false.
andy_s said:
Electro1980 said:
I’m talking about PPE, because the f
kups with companies that provide stuff that was unusable was because they were not vetted.
As for crisis, that’s exactly when you need solid processes. This isn’t about going to tender etc. This is about doing due diligence. Tender exemption rules and processes exist for a reason. You are adding silly examples to try to prove your point, but you clearly don’t understand crisis management or the processes that Cummings was trying to ignore.
Yes, PPE can be argued over if you like, but that isn't what's being argued about here.kups with companies that provide stuff that was unusable was because they were not vetted.As for crisis, that’s exactly when you need solid processes. This isn’t about going to tender etc. This is about doing due diligence. Tender exemption rules and processes exist for a reason. You are adding silly examples to try to prove your point, but you clearly don’t understand crisis management or the processes that Cummings was trying to ignore.
No, I don't understand crisis management despite a degree in it and 20 years as a practitioner.
If you are such an expert you should recognise the danger of the kind of behaviour involved here.
Edited by Electro1980 on Wednesday 23 June 09:50
Memes are good fun aren't they, even if they tend to the superficial.
Has anyone considered the reverse, that overly castigating breaches in law [set up to deal with mode 1 'normal' situations] out of context and post-hoc may lead to slower reaction times in the next crisis, where people will stay in mode 1 'method' orientation rather than mode 2 'mission' orientation to cover arse? It's a real phenomenon/point of interest and partly why 'blame culture' [seeking blame rather than seeking truth] is no longer the start point of incident inquiries - this doesn't preclude blame being apportioned once analysed though of course...
'Seeking blame', or rather presuming blame then trying to match incoming data to that, seems to be the predominant way to be looking at these things by the commentariat and some here, it's just [counter-productive] business models and monkey brain* stuff though. I'd suggest reading books rather than newspapers to orientate yourself.
This is why the Courts so far have accepted the dynamics of what was going on - this gives large leeway of course, but doesn't prevent any egregious excesses to be swept under the carpet either...
"The whole story is that Cummings tried to demand rules were completely ignored."; see 'mode 1 vs mode 2'. He was right, imo, to do so, whether that allowed him to line his or pals pockets deliberately or not is another matter.
The root cause, of course, being lack of proper contingency planning in depth, which would formalise mode 2 rather than just having to 'make it up as you go along' and end up in this PR pickle. NB - nowhere have I said that there wasn't grift or the possibility of it, nor that attitudes and decision making process weren't flawed in general.
[* This isn't pejorative, it's reality].
No, I don't understand crisis management despite a degree in it and 20 years as a practitioner.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
If you are such an expert you should recognise the danger of the kind of behaviour involved here.
Has anyone considered the reverse, that overly castigating breaches in law [set up to deal with mode 1 'normal' situations] out of context and post-hoc may lead to slower reaction times in the next crisis, where people will stay in mode 1 'method' orientation rather than mode 2 'mission' orientation to cover arse? It's a real phenomenon/point of interest and partly why 'blame culture' [seeking blame rather than seeking truth] is no longer the start point of incident inquiries - this doesn't preclude blame being apportioned once analysed though of course...
'Seeking blame', or rather presuming blame then trying to match incoming data to that, seems to be the predominant way to be looking at these things by the commentariat and some here, it's just [counter-productive] business models and monkey brain* stuff though. I'd suggest reading books rather than newspapers to orientate yourself.
This is why the Courts so far have accepted the dynamics of what was going on - this gives large leeway of course, but doesn't prevent any egregious excesses to be swept under the carpet either...
"The whole story is that Cummings tried to demand rules were completely ignored."; see 'mode 1 vs mode 2'. He was right, imo, to do so, whether that allowed him to line his or pals pockets deliberately or not is another matter.
The root cause, of course, being lack of proper contingency planning in depth, which would formalise mode 2 rather than just having to 'make it up as you go along' and end up in this PR pickle. NB - nowhere have I said that there wasn't grift or the possibility of it, nor that attitudes and decision making process weren't flawed in general.
[* This isn't pejorative, it's reality].
Electro1980 said:
andy_s said:
Electro1980 said:
I’m talking about PPE, because the fkups with companies that provide stuff that was unusable was because they were not vetted.
As for crisis, that’s exactly when you need solid processes. This isn’t about going to tender etc. This is about doing due diligence. Tender exemption rules and processes exist for a reason. You are adding silly examples to try to prove your point, but you clearly don’t understand crisis management or the processes that Cummings was trying to ignore.
Yes, PPE can be argued over if you like, but that isn't what's being argued about here.kups with companies that provide stuff that was unusable was because they were not vetted.As for crisis, that’s exactly when you need solid processes. This isn’t about going to tender etc. This is about doing due diligence. Tender exemption rules and processes exist for a reason. You are adding silly examples to try to prove your point, but you clearly don’t understand crisis management or the processes that Cummings was trying to ignore.
No, I don't understand crisis management despite a degree in it and 20 years as a practitioner.
If you are such an expert you should recognise the danger of the kind of behaviour involved here.
Edited by Electro1980 on Wednesday 23 June 09:50
Electro1980 said:
... but you clearly don’t understand crisis management ...
You're the one that questioned my lack of knowledge, to which I expanded. It was no appeal to authority. Electro1980 said:
I’M being disingenuous? You are the one ignoring the fact that the issue at hand is where the rules WERE ignored. Not reviewed or examined. The whole story is that Cummings tried to demand rules were completely ignored.
No, that's not true is it? I'm explicitly acknowledging that rules were ignored, and (like andy_s and Isaac) pointing out that there are reasons why they were ignored that were completely valid in the circumstances. That doesn't mean procurement was perfect - and conflating the two is again deeply disingenuous."we should follow the rules" is perhaps the worst lesson you could get from the pandemic. The rules were inadequate, and reviewing them would neither be quick nor necessarily deliver the new rules you need in a rapidly changing environment.
Rules are merely formalised guidance created (normally) in the best of times. If the consequences of following the rules is worse than breaking them then you break them. Laws are merely rules with the weight of the judicial system behind them - but the above still applies.
There would have been severe consequences for following the normal procurement procedures during an emergency and as ultimately the government sets the rules for procurement it is entirely in its remit to set aside the normal procedures during non-normal situations. And it is entirely fair to then question whether or not the pandemic was such a situation and slap wrists accordingly.
What should happen is then the rules are updated to cover such situations. No rule or laws are set in stone (anymore - sit down Moses) and are constantly tested against reality and updated if necessary.
There would have been severe consequences for following the normal procurement procedures during an emergency and as ultimately the government sets the rules for procurement it is entirely in its remit to set aside the normal procedures during non-normal situations. And it is entirely fair to then question whether or not the pandemic was such a situation and slap wrists accordingly.
What should happen is then the rules are updated to cover such situations. No rule or laws are set in stone (anymore - sit down Moses) and are constantly tested against reality and updated if necessary.
andy_s said:
You're the one that questioned my lack of knowledge, to which I expanded. It was no appeal to authority.
“I do understand! Here’s my (totally unverifiable) qualifications, so I’m right” is an appeal to authority. You are using your qualifications rather than facts and arguments to prove you are right.
Electro1980 said:
andy_s said:
You're the one that questioned my lack of knowledge, to which I expanded. It was no appeal to authority.
“I do understand! Here’s my (totally unverifiable) qualifications, so I’m right” is an appeal to authority. You are using your qualifications rather than facts and arguments to prove you are right.I'll let the readership judge who is sober.
APontus said:
The man loves the sound of his own voice. Good job he's out of government.
He does, he's clearly a self centered prick and it's important to remember that he's a lying sack of st but he's not actually wrong in this instance. At that point in time what was badly needed was data which was actually useful for making decisions with, and quickly throwing 500k at it regardless of red tape wasn't a bad call. Crucially I also don't think there's any suggestion that his mates, family members etc coincidentally got a benefit out of it. Clearly in an emergency you have to act accordingly. Equally, it's clear Cummings has contempt for any kind of scrutiny if he believes he's right (which, conveniently, is always). His attitude is why we have such a numpty in number 10 and that numpty believes he can get away with everything.
APontus said:
Clearly in an emergency you have to act accordingly. Equally, it's clear Cummings has contempt for any kind of scrutiny if he believes he's right (which, conveniently, is always). His attitude is why we have such a numpty in number 10 and that numpty believes he can get away with everything.
That would be the same numpty that disbanded the Cabinet Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee (THRCC) six months prior to the pandemic hitting - a pandemic widely predicted, & the third one this century. All debate around the need to ignore rules in an emergency should take into consideration that the only reason we "didn't see this coming" was because Johnson chose to turn off the surveillance system designed to prepare for it. https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/thrcc...TL:DR - of course process went out the window. That was the correct decision.
You gotta love those defending procurement processes on here. Convenient failure of memory.
Does anyone remember what those days in early March were like? How fast things were moving? In the space of c10 days went from mass gatherings and free-flowing international travel to lockdown, empty supermarket shelves and rumours of roadblocks in/out of London.
PPE and ventilator shipments were getting intercepted by other countries at transit airports. NHS staff were wearing bin bags as protection. Schools were diverting DT machines to making visors for doctors.
Has anyone had the joy of actually going through government procurement? I did one recently - a few hundred £k. We had to submit >30 different documents. Only one of which was “here is what we will provide”, and a second “we will charge £x”. The rest were versions of “we’re kosher, honest”. Took 4 months.
Forget 4 months - in the early stages of COVID the government needed stuff in 4 hours.
In that period the only thing that mattered was speed.
Price? Irrelevant.
Slight chance it doesn’t turn up? Better that than ensuring it doesn’t turn up by not placing the order.
Happens to be Hancock’s mate? I don’t give a flying fk if it’s Matt’s mate, Osama Bin Laden, or Donald Duck - if he’s can give me what I need, right now, I’ll take it.
So of course the rules were thrown out. Of course normal processes went out the window. Of course dodgy things slipped through as a result. Money got spaffed up the wall. It it didn’t matter. That was the right choice to make - to prioritise speed over all other things.
The £530k to Our World In Data is a prime example.
1. It was the best open source of internationally comparable data on CV19. A scarce thing, and exceptionally useful.
2. It’s a non-profit, run out of Oxford Uni. It’s a kosher outfit.
3. Skyrocketing demand for its services and data meant it was about to run out of money and would need to shut.
Faced with the above 3 pieces of information, can anyone say the correct response *in March 2020* is “please provide a business case, we’ll evaluate it in a committee, and get back to you?”
No - the obvious answer is to just wire the money. Normal “process” would have got to exactly the same outcome, but with a 2 week delay, having diverted the attention of people who had much more important things to do than evaluate a business case.
Faced with the same choice, I would hope any government would make the same decision again.
You gotta love those defending procurement processes on here. Convenient failure of memory.
Does anyone remember what those days in early March were like? How fast things were moving? In the space of c10 days went from mass gatherings and free-flowing international travel to lockdown, empty supermarket shelves and rumours of roadblocks in/out of London.
PPE and ventilator shipments were getting intercepted by other countries at transit airports. NHS staff were wearing bin bags as protection. Schools were diverting DT machines to making visors for doctors.
Has anyone had the joy of actually going through government procurement? I did one recently - a few hundred £k. We had to submit >30 different documents. Only one of which was “here is what we will provide”, and a second “we will charge £x”. The rest were versions of “we’re kosher, honest”. Took 4 months.
Forget 4 months - in the early stages of COVID the government needed stuff in 4 hours.
In that period the only thing that mattered was speed.
Price? Irrelevant.
Slight chance it doesn’t turn up? Better that than ensuring it doesn’t turn up by not placing the order.
Happens to be Hancock’s mate? I don’t give a flying f
k if it’s Matt’s mate, Osama Bin Laden, or Donald Duck - if he’s can give me what I need, right now, I’ll take it.So of course the rules were thrown out. Of course normal processes went out the window. Of course dodgy things slipped through as a result. Money got spaffed up the wall. It it didn’t matter. That was the right choice to make - to prioritise speed over all other things.
The £530k to Our World In Data is a prime example.
1. It was the best open source of internationally comparable data on CV19. A scarce thing, and exceptionally useful.
2. It’s a non-profit, run out of Oxford Uni. It’s a kosher outfit.
3. Skyrocketing demand for its services and data meant it was about to run out of money and would need to shut.
Faced with the above 3 pieces of information, can anyone say the correct response *in March 2020* is “please provide a business case, we’ll evaluate it in a committee, and get back to you?”
No - the obvious answer is to just wire the money. Normal “process” would have got to exactly the same outcome, but with a 2 week delay, having diverted the attention of people who had much more important things to do than evaluate a business case.
Faced with the same choice, I would hope any government would make the same decision again.
brickwall said:
TL:DR - of course process went out the window. That was the correct decision.
You gotta love those defending procurement processes on here. Convenient failure of memory.
Does anyone remember what those days in early March were like? How fast things were moving? In the space of c10 days went from mass gatherings and free-flowing international travel to lockdown, empty supermarket shelves and rumours of roadblocks in/out of London.
PPE and ventilator shipments were getting intercepted by other countries at transit airports. NHS staff were wearing bin bags as protection. Schools were diverting DT machines to making visors for doctors.
Has anyone had the joy of actually going through government procurement? I did one recently - a few hundred £k. We had to submit >30 different documents. Only one of which was “here is what we will provide”, and a second “we will charge £x”. The rest were versions of “we’re kosher, honest”. Took 4 months.
Forget 4 months - in the early stages of COVID the government needed stuff in 4 hours.
In that period the only thing that mattered was speed.
Price? Irrelevant.
Slight chance it doesn’t turn up? Better that than ensuring it doesn’t turn up by not placing the order.
Happens to be Hancock’s mate? I don’t give a flying fk if it’s Matt’s mate, Osama Bin Laden, or Donald Duck - if he’s can give me what I need, right now, I’ll take it.
So of course the rules were thrown out. Of course normal processes went out the window. Of course dodgy things slipped through as a result. Money got spaffed up the wall. It it didn’t matter. That was the right choice to make - to prioritise speed over all other things.
The £530k to Our World In Data is a prime example.
1. It was the best open source of internationally comparable data on CV19. A scarce thing, and exceptionally useful.
2. It’s a non-profit, run out of Oxford Uni. It’s a kosher outfit.
3. Skyrocketing demand for its services and data meant it was about to run out of money and would need to shut.
Faced with the above 3 pieces of information, can anyone say the correct response *in March 2020* is “please provide a business case, we’ll evaluate it in a committee, and get back to you?”
No - the obvious answer is to just wire the money. Normal “process” would have got to exactly the same outcome, but with a 2 week delay, having diverted the attention of people who had much more important things to do than evaluate a business case.
Faced with the same choice, I would hope any government would make the same decision again.
Except it didn't have to be that way at all, which is why it wasn't that way for the governments in many other countries - the UK is amongst the worst on the planet for Covid deaths, that's not an accident. Good sound emergency planning should be at the core of the governments responsibilities to the people who elect it - sadly lacking on this occasion, since Johnson removed it. Blaming the rules that he ignored is crass - he wouldn't have followed them anyway, not his style, but in ignoring them, he bears responsibility for the outcome he gets.You gotta love those defending procurement processes on here. Convenient failure of memory.
Does anyone remember what those days in early March were like? How fast things were moving? In the space of c10 days went from mass gatherings and free-flowing international travel to lockdown, empty supermarket shelves and rumours of roadblocks in/out of London.
PPE and ventilator shipments were getting intercepted by other countries at transit airports. NHS staff were wearing bin bags as protection. Schools were diverting DT machines to making visors for doctors.
Has anyone had the joy of actually going through government procurement? I did one recently - a few hundred £k. We had to submit >30 different documents. Only one of which was “here is what we will provide”, and a second “we will charge £x”. The rest were versions of “we’re kosher, honest”. Took 4 months.
Forget 4 months - in the early stages of COVID the government needed stuff in 4 hours.
In that period the only thing that mattered was speed.
Price? Irrelevant.
Slight chance it doesn’t turn up? Better that than ensuring it doesn’t turn up by not placing the order.
Happens to be Hancock’s mate? I don’t give a flying f
k if it’s Matt’s mate, Osama Bin Laden, or Donald Duck - if he’s can give me what I need, right now, I’ll take it.So of course the rules were thrown out. Of course normal processes went out the window. Of course dodgy things slipped through as a result. Money got spaffed up the wall. It it didn’t matter. That was the right choice to make - to prioritise speed over all other things.
The £530k to Our World In Data is a prime example.
1. It was the best open source of internationally comparable data on CV19. A scarce thing, and exceptionally useful.
2. It’s a non-profit, run out of Oxford Uni. It’s a kosher outfit.
3. Skyrocketing demand for its services and data meant it was about to run out of money and would need to shut.
Faced with the above 3 pieces of information, can anyone say the correct response *in March 2020* is “please provide a business case, we’ll evaluate it in a committee, and get back to you?”
No - the obvious answer is to just wire the money. Normal “process” would have got to exactly the same outcome, but with a 2 week delay, having diverted the attention of people who had much more important things to do than evaluate a business case.
Faced with the same choice, I would hope any government would make the same decision again.
Johnson has said how he admired the Mayor of Amity for not closing the beaches as the shark attacks continued; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/europe/co... ; he then shook hands with Covid doctors & patients, giving himself the infection, how ironic & idiotic. In contrast, my former company was triggering contingency plans put in place for just a scenario, back in February - which means the decisions were being taken in January to bring our people back from the Far East & from Continental Europe - no mean feat & at considerable expense, but that's how seriously we took it, having watched the effect of SARS & Bird flu previously. We ran stress tests in the company IT to check it could manage WFH tfn, & those that could, were wfh from early March. Consequently our Covid rates were negligible during the first lockdown, meaning we were able to provide the services needed with no need to panic - I take no credit for that, I only played a very small part, but if we were, why wasn't the government?
They were left to panic because they ignored all the warning signs they were given. Stupid debates about herd immunity, how the UK could "take advantage of the opportunities the pandemic may bring", then the Cheltenham races, & Liverpool vs Madrid, both were warned about, both continued against common sense & consequently brought infected people into the UK, heaping pressure on the NHS. The desperate need for PPE & Covid data was driven by their stupidity, not by bad luck. There's no excuse for that, & no credit for trying to create order from that chaos - they created it in the first place. I'd like to think any government would learn from this & never let it happen again, but I have my doubts. Any government that behaves that way again should be charged with genocide.
Edited by MarkwG on Thursday 24th June 00:56
MarkwG said:
brickwall said:
TL:DR - of course process went out the window. That was the correct decision.
You gotta love those defending procurement processes on here. Convenient failure of memory.
Does anyone remember what those days in early March were like? How fast things were moving? In the space of c10 days went from mass gatherings and free-flowing international travel to lockdown, empty supermarket shelves and rumours of roadblocks in/out of London.
PPE and ventilator shipments were getting intercepted by other countries at transit airports. NHS staff were wearing bin bags as protection. Schools were diverting DT machines to making visors for doctors.
Has anyone had the joy of actually going through government procurement? I did one recently - a few hundred £k. We had to submit >30 different documents. Only one of which was “here is what we will provide”, and a second “we will charge £x”. The rest were versions of “we’re kosher, honest”. Took 4 months.
Forget 4 months - in the early stages of COVID the government needed stuff in 4 hours.
In that period the only thing that mattered was speed.
Price? Irrelevant.
Slight chance it doesn’t turn up? Better that than ensuring it doesn’t turn up by not placing the order.
Happens to be Hancock’s mate? I don’t give a flying fk if it’s Matt’s mate, Osama Bin Laden, or Donald Duck - if he’s can give me what I need, right now, I’ll take it.
So of course the rules were thrown out. Of course normal processes went out the window. Of course dodgy things slipped through as a result. Money got spaffed up the wall. It it didn’t matter. That was the right choice to make - to prioritise speed over all other things.
The £530k to Our World In Data is a prime example.
1. It was the best open source of internationally comparable data on CV19. A scarce thing, and exceptionally useful.
2. It’s a non-profit, run out of Oxford Uni. It’s a kosher outfit.
3. Skyrocketing demand for its services and data meant it was about to run out of money and would need to shut.
Faced with the above 3 pieces of information, can anyone say the correct response *in March 2020* is “please provide a business case, we’ll evaluate it in a committee, and get back to you?”
No - the obvious answer is to just wire the money. Normal “process” would have got to exactly the same outcome, but with a 2 week delay, having diverted the attention of people who had much more important things to do than evaluate a business case.
Faced with the same choice, I would hope any government would make the same decision again.
Except it didn't have to be that way at all, which is why it wasn't that way for the governments in many other countries - the UK is amongst the worst on the planet for Covid deaths, that's not an accident. Good sound emergency planning should be at the core of the governments responsibilities to the people who elect it - sadly lacking on this occasion, since Johnson removed it. Blaming the rules that he ignored is crass - he wouldn't have followed them anyway, not his style, but in ignoring them, he bears responsibility for the outcome he gets.You gotta love those defending procurement processes on here. Convenient failure of memory.
Does anyone remember what those days in early March were like? How fast things were moving? In the space of c10 days went from mass gatherings and free-flowing international travel to lockdown, empty supermarket shelves and rumours of roadblocks in/out of London.
PPE and ventilator shipments were getting intercepted by other countries at transit airports. NHS staff were wearing bin bags as protection. Schools were diverting DT machines to making visors for doctors.
Has anyone had the joy of actually going through government procurement? I did one recently - a few hundred £k. We had to submit >30 different documents. Only one of which was “here is what we will provide”, and a second “we will charge £x”. The rest were versions of “we’re kosher, honest”. Took 4 months.
Forget 4 months - in the early stages of COVID the government needed stuff in 4 hours.
In that period the only thing that mattered was speed.
Price? Irrelevant.
Slight chance it doesn’t turn up? Better that than ensuring it doesn’t turn up by not placing the order.
Happens to be Hancock’s mate? I don’t give a flying f
k if it’s Matt’s mate, Osama Bin Laden, or Donald Duck - if he’s can give me what I need, right now, I’ll take it.So of course the rules were thrown out. Of course normal processes went out the window. Of course dodgy things slipped through as a result. Money got spaffed up the wall. It it didn’t matter. That was the right choice to make - to prioritise speed over all other things.
The £530k to Our World In Data is a prime example.
1. It was the best open source of internationally comparable data on CV19. A scarce thing, and exceptionally useful.
2. It’s a non-profit, run out of Oxford Uni. It’s a kosher outfit.
3. Skyrocketing demand for its services and data meant it was about to run out of money and would need to shut.
Faced with the above 3 pieces of information, can anyone say the correct response *in March 2020* is “please provide a business case, we’ll evaluate it in a committee, and get back to you?”
No - the obvious answer is to just wire the money. Normal “process” would have got to exactly the same outcome, but with a 2 week delay, having diverted the attention of people who had much more important things to do than evaluate a business case.
Faced with the same choice, I would hope any government would make the same decision again.
Johnson has said how he admired the Mayor of Amity for not closing the beaches as the shark attacks continued; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/europe/co... ; he then shook hands with Covid doctors & patients, giving himself the infection, how ironic & idiotic. In contrast, my former company was triggering contingency plans put in place for just a scenario, back in February - which means the decisions were being taken in January to bring our people back from the Far East & from Continental Europe - no mean feat & at considerable expense, but that's how seriously we took it, having watched the effect of SARS & Bird flu previously. We ran stress tests in the company IT to check it could manage WFH tfn, & those that could, were wfh from early March. Consequently our Covid rates were negligible during the first lockdown, meaning we were able to provide the services needed with no need to panic - I take no credit for that, I only played a very small part, but if we were, why wasn't the government?
They were left to panic because they ignored all the warning signs they were given. Stupid debates about herd immunity, how the UK could "take advantage of the opportunities the pandemic may bring", then the Cheltenham races, & Liverpool vs Madrid, both were warned about, both continued against common sense & consequently brought infected people into the UK, heaping pressure on the NHS. The desperate need for PPE & Covid data was driven by their stupidity, not by bad luck. There's no excuse for that, & no credit for trying to create order from that chaos - they created it in the first place. I'd like to think any government would learn from this & never let it happen again, but I have my doubts. Any government that behaves that way again should be charged with genocide.
Edited by MarkwG on Thursday 24th June 00:56
Its this we need to remember in my view.
Vaccine creation and rollout was world beating in the credit column
The rest was an embarrasment
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Because the same people who criticize everything the Gov. does would complain with hindsight that it was not better and -insert country- did it better/ faster/ slower/ longer/ with more forethought/ planning... anything other than what was actually done ... see posts above. When you are faced with this mind set especially from the media who are constantly ignoring the good things you do the natural reaction is to point out when you actually were world beating as at least it gets reported and the general public hear and understand the point.MarkwG said:
Except it didn't have to be that way at all, which is why it wasn't that way for the governments in many other countries - the UK is amongst the worst on the planet for Covid deaths, that's not an accident. Good sound emergency planning should be at the core of the governments responsibilities to the people who elect it - sadly lacking on this occasion, since Johnson removed it. Blaming the rules that he ignored is crass - he wouldn't have followed them anyway, not his style, but in ignoring them, he bears responsibility for the outcome he gets.
Johnson has said how he admired the Mayor of Amity for not closing the beaches as the shark attacks continued; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/europe/co... ; he then shook hands with Covid doctors & patients, giving himself the infection, how ironic & idiotic. In contrast, my former company was triggering contingency plans put in place for just a scenario, back in February - which means the decisions were being taken in January to bring our people back from the Far East & from Continental Europe - no mean feat & at considerable expense, but that's how seriously we took it, having watched the effect of SARS & Bird flu previously. We ran stress tests in the company IT to check it could manage WFH tfn, & those that could, were wfh from early March. Consequently our Covid rates were negligible during the first lockdown, meaning we were able to provide the services needed with no need to panic - I take no credit for that, I only played a very small part, but if we were, why wasn't the government?
They were left to panic because they ignored all the warning signs they were given. Stupid debates about herd immunity, how the UK could "take advantage of the opportunities the pandemic may bring", then the Cheltenham races, & Liverpool vs Madrid, both were warned about, both continued against common sense & consequently brought infected people into the UK, heaping pressure on the NHS. The desperate need for PPE & Covid data was driven by their stupidity, not by bad luck. There's no excuse for that, & no credit for trying to create order from that chaos - they created it in the first place. I'd like to think any government would learn from this & never let it happen again, but I have my doubts. Any government that behaves that way again should be charged with genocide.
You're conflating two separate things there - one is the advice Sage and the civil service were giving at the time, and the decisions that were made on the back of that; the other is the issue of procurement and spending.Johnson has said how he admired the Mayor of Amity for not closing the beaches as the shark attacks continued; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/europe/co... ; he then shook hands with Covid doctors & patients, giving himself the infection, how ironic & idiotic. In contrast, my former company was triggering contingency plans put in place for just a scenario, back in February - which means the decisions were being taken in January to bring our people back from the Far East & from Continental Europe - no mean feat & at considerable expense, but that's how seriously we took it, having watched the effect of SARS & Bird flu previously. We ran stress tests in the company IT to check it could manage WFH tfn, & those that could, were wfh from early March. Consequently our Covid rates were negligible during the first lockdown, meaning we were able to provide the services needed with no need to panic - I take no credit for that, I only played a very small part, but if we were, why wasn't the government?
They were left to panic because they ignored all the warning signs they were given. Stupid debates about herd immunity, how the UK could "take advantage of the opportunities the pandemic may bring", then the Cheltenham races, & Liverpool vs Madrid, both were warned about, both continued against common sense & consequently brought infected people into the UK, heaping pressure on the NHS. The desperate need for PPE & Covid data was driven by their stupidity, not by bad luck. There's no excuse for that, & no credit for trying to create order from that chaos - they created it in the first place. I'd like to think any government would learn from this & never let it happen again, but I have my doubts. Any government that behaves that way again should be charged with genocide.
Edited by MarkwG on Thursday 24th June 00:56
I seriously suggest you spend a little time watching Cummings' answers to the select committee on this. They help understand why the wrong decisions were made early on, and more importantly who was responsible for those decisions. Here, by "responsible", I mean who provided the information and context in which the decisions were made. Cummings is not the most reliable of witnesses, but on these issues his testimony is not being contested, and appears to be accepted as accurate reporting on the early stages of the vaccine response.
The key point here is that SAGE and the civil service believed only two possible scenarios could play out with the pandemic. In March they believed (and had models and data to back up their beliefs) that the virus would either peak much later on in September - like a normal flu season - or that it would peak in June/July. Even their most extreme expectation was that they had three or four months before a peak would occur, and that they therefore had plenty of time to prepare. This is the advice that Johnson, Hancock and all the others were given, and the modelling assumptions throughout Whitehall.
It's easy to point at the top guy and say that clearly they were stupid and made the wrong decisions, but if they are given information that in hindsight is clearly wrong, then what decisions would you have expected them to make?
There was a serious error in analysis and data collection in the early stages of the virus, and it took around another three weeks for the alarm to be picked up that things weren't going according to the predictions. Three weeks! This is not the top level people "ignoring" signs that (in hindsight) showed what was happening - this is that SAGE and others were providing a radically different (and incorrect) analysis.
In that light, the issue of getting better data, expediting PPE and radically changing how the pandemic was managed is better understood - and the reasons for the rules being either ignored or rewritten made clear. Again, this is not to claim the decisions or procurement were always right, but as the saying goes "perfect is the enemy of good enough" - and the government were well below "good enough" when their early assumptions turned out to be wrong.
As for the "other countries" comment in your post - there isn't much evidence that other countries decision making changed the course of the virus as much as some claim. There were structural differences that made a difference to how and when the virus spread (Germany's different care home and healthcare structure, or Sweden's different legal structure for lockdowns), but at this point, we're reporting broadly similar death rates to Italy, Spain, France, the USA. Could we have done better? Yes, of course - in hindsight you can always do better, and yes, some of the decisions we made were wrong even at the time they were made. But the leadership of Scotland, Wales and England did the best they could with broadly similar information and it's resulted in broadly similar outcomes.
So whilst you can (rightly) say some of the decisions were wrong, the difference they made appears to be much less than some would like you to believe. This is perhaps one of the reasons Starmer has been so ineffective in opposition - there wasn't some dramatically better option to choose at the time that would have magically prevented the virus from doing what viruses always do.
It's worth pointing out that there was a huge failure of government to not have a better pandemic preparedness plan, and to be wholly reliant on a small number of data sources that were therefore far more sensitive to errors - these are serious issues that have to be addressed, and that the government should be rightfully criticised for.
It's also true that data collection, analysis and modelling, and the reasoning behind decisions were slow and opaque, and remain so. The government were poor in this area and have taken far too long to make changes. Blame must be laid on them for not upping their game and responding to the early mistakes with a better structure and process for managing the pandemic. Johnson's heavy reliance on the 'feel' for the issue rather than the science has been a consistently weak point.
But we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of just thinking the entire process was mismanaged, "ignored" or botched. When (not if) the next pandemic comes along, there will be different guys in charge, but there is little evidence we'd make hugely different or better decisions. Putting all of the blame on Boris and Hancock is to ignore the (many) problems and mistakes that were encountered throughout government, Whitehall and the NHS - and means we're unlikely to learn the lessons from this pandemic.
It's also true that data collection, analysis and modelling, and the reasoning behind decisions were slow and opaque, and remain so. The government were poor in this area and have taken far too long to make changes. Blame must be laid on them for not upping their game and responding to the early mistakes with a better structure and process for managing the pandemic. Johnson's heavy reliance on the 'feel' for the issue rather than the science has been a consistently weak point.
But we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of just thinking the entire process was mismanaged, "ignored" or botched. When (not if) the next pandemic comes along, there will be different guys in charge, but there is little evidence we'd make hugely different or better decisions. Putting all of the blame on Boris and Hancock is to ignore the (many) problems and mistakes that were encountered throughout government, Whitehall and the NHS - and means we're unlikely to learn the lessons from this pandemic.
Tuna said:
MarkwG said:
Except it didn't have to be that way at all, which is why it wasn't that way for the governments in many other countries - the UK is amongst the worst on the planet for Covid deaths, that's not an accident. Good sound emergency planning should be at the core of the governments responsibilities to the people who elect it - sadly lacking on this occasion, since Johnson removed it. Blaming the rules that he ignored is crass - he wouldn't have followed them anyway, not his style, but in ignoring them, he bears responsibility for the outcome he gets.
Johnson has said how he admired the Mayor of Amity for not closing the beaches as the shark attacks continued; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/europe/co... ; he then shook hands with Covid doctors & patients, giving himself the infection, how ironic & idiotic. In contrast, my former company was triggering contingency plans put in place for just a scenario, back in February - which means the decisions were being taken in January to bring our people back from the Far East & from Continental Europe - no mean feat & at considerable expense, but that's how seriously we took it, having watched the effect of SARS & Bird flu previously. We ran stress tests in the company IT to check it could manage WFH tfn, & those that could, were wfh from early March. Consequently our Covid rates were negligible during the first lockdown, meaning we were able to provide the services needed with no need to panic - I take no credit for that, I only played a very small part, but if we were, why wasn't the government?
They were left to panic because they ignored all the warning signs they were given. Stupid debates about herd immunity, how the UK could "take advantage of the opportunities the pandemic may bring", then the Cheltenham races, & Liverpool vs Madrid, both were warned about, both continued against common sense & consequently brought infected people into the UK, heaping pressure on the NHS. The desperate need for PPE & Covid data was driven by their stupidity, not by bad luck. There's no excuse for that, & no credit for trying to create order from that chaos - they created it in the first place. I'd like to think any government would learn from this & never let it happen again, but I have my doubts. Any government that behaves that way again should be charged with genocide.
You're conflating two separate things there - one is the advice Sage and the civil service were giving at the time, and the decisions that were made on the back of that; the other is the issue of procurement and spending.Johnson has said how he admired the Mayor of Amity for not closing the beaches as the shark attacks continued; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/europe/co... ; he then shook hands with Covid doctors & patients, giving himself the infection, how ironic & idiotic. In contrast, my former company was triggering contingency plans put in place for just a scenario, back in February - which means the decisions were being taken in January to bring our people back from the Far East & from Continental Europe - no mean feat & at considerable expense, but that's how seriously we took it, having watched the effect of SARS & Bird flu previously. We ran stress tests in the company IT to check it could manage WFH tfn, & those that could, were wfh from early March. Consequently our Covid rates were negligible during the first lockdown, meaning we were able to provide the services needed with no need to panic - I take no credit for that, I only played a very small part, but if we were, why wasn't the government?
They were left to panic because they ignored all the warning signs they were given. Stupid debates about herd immunity, how the UK could "take advantage of the opportunities the pandemic may bring", then the Cheltenham races, & Liverpool vs Madrid, both were warned about, both continued against common sense & consequently brought infected people into the UK, heaping pressure on the NHS. The desperate need for PPE & Covid data was driven by their stupidity, not by bad luck. There's no excuse for that, & no credit for trying to create order from that chaos - they created it in the first place. I'd like to think any government would learn from this & never let it happen again, but I have my doubts. Any government that behaves that way again should be charged with genocide.
Edited by MarkwG on Thursday 24th June 00:56
I seriously suggest you spend a little time watching Cummings' answers to the select committee on this. They help understand why the wrong decisions were made early on, and more importantly who was responsible for those decisions. Here, by "responsible", I mean who provided the information and context in which the decisions were made. Cummings is not the most reliable of witnesses, but on these issues his testimony is not being contested, and appears to be accepted as accurate reporting on the early stages of the vaccine response.
The key point here is that SAGE and the civil service believed only two possible scenarios could play out with the pandemic. In March they believed (and had models and data to back up their beliefs) that the virus would either peak much later on in September - like a normal flu season - or that it would peak in June/July. Even their most extreme expectation was that they had three or four months before a peak would occur, and that they therefore had plenty of time to prepare. This is the advice that Johnson, Hancock and all the others were given, and the modelling assumptions throughout Whitehall.
It's easy to point at the top guy and say that clearly they were stupid and made the wrong decisions, but if they are given information that in hindsight is clearly wrong, then what decisions would you have expected them to make?
There was a serious error in analysis and data collection in the early stages of the virus, and it took around another three weeks for the alarm to be picked up that things weren't going according to the predictions. Three weeks! This is not the top level people "ignoring" signs that (in hindsight) showed what was happening - this is that SAGE and others were providing a radically different (and incorrect) analysis.
In that light, the issue of getting better data, expediting PPE and radically changing how the pandemic was managed is better understood - and the reasons for the rules being either ignored or rewritten made clear. Again, this is not to claim the decisions or procurement were always right, but as the saying goes "perfect is the enemy of good enough" - and the government were well below "good enough" when their early assumptions turned out to be wrong.
As for the "other countries" comment in your post - there isn't much evidence that other countries decision making changed the course of the virus as much as some claim. There were structural differences that made a difference to how and when the virus spread (Germany's different care home and healthcare structure, or Sweden's different legal structure for lockdowns), but at this point, we're reporting broadly similar death rates to Italy, Spain, France, the USA. Could we have done better? Yes, of course - in hindsight you can always do better, and yes, some of the decisions we made were wrong even at the time they were made. But the leadership of Scotland, Wales and England did the best they could with broadly similar information and it's resulted in broadly similar outcomes.
So whilst you can (rightly) say some of the decisions were wrong, the difference they made appears to be much less than some would like you to believe. This is perhaps one of the reasons Starmer has been so ineffective in opposition - there wasn't some dramatically better option to choose at the time that would have magically prevented the virus from doing what viruses always do.
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