Boris Johnson- Prime Minister (Vol. 4)

[anonymous-user]

bhstewie said:

Tuna said:

Don't be obtuse. I'm all for questions being asked, but the questions being asked on here by laymen are more insightful than the vacuous nonsense we have seen from much of the media over the pandemic. They are meant to be eliciting and examining the government's strategy so we can all understand it (and understand where it is severely lacking) - I don't believe they've done that job very well.

Or is it all Boris fault?

Definitely not.

He's only the Prime Minister and you can't expect him to be accountable or take any responsibility for the Government's handling of this pandemic.

Even when he said "I take full responsibility for everything this government has been doing in tackling coronavirus and I am very proud of our record".

Plus it’s actually in his job description




https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/prime-mini...

If it was going well it would definitely be all his doing and nothing to do with the media then.

[Tuna]

Dog whistle..

It is valid to criticise the media, and doing so does not mean you're supporting Boris and the wider government, or even absolving them. If you guys can get your head around that simple idea (it's not one or the other - it can be both), then these discussions could be so much easier.

And seriously? The Pandemic is a complex issue, so yes, it is absolutely the Media's job to understand it and communicate it to the public - warts and all. They are not in opposition to the government (and those that think they should be should give their heads a wobble).

[bitchstewie]

Tuna said:

Dog whistle..

It is valid to criticise the media, and doing so does not mean you're supporting Boris and the wider government, or even absolving them. If you guys can get your head around that simple idea (it's not one or the other - it can be both), then these discussions could be so much easier.

And seriously? The Pandemic is a complex issue, so yes, it is absolutely the Media's job to understand it and communicate it to the public - warts and all. They are not in opposition to the government (and those that think they should be should give their heads a wobble).

I've criticised the media lots as some of their questioning and handling has been shameful.

That doesn't absolve the Governments handling of things like PPE.

And I do appreciate that you're not supporting Boris.

You go to great efforts to point it out every time that you absolutely definitely don't defend him.

[anonymous-user]

bhstewie said:

Tuna said:

Dog whistle..

It is valid to criticise the media, and doing so does not mean you're supporting Boris and the wider government, or even absolving them. If you guys can get your head around that simple idea (it's not one or the other - it can be both), then these discussions could be so much easier.

And seriously? The Pandemic is a complex issue, so yes, it is absolutely the Media's job to understand it and communicate it to the public - warts and all. They are not in opposition to the government (and those that think they should be should give their heads a wobble).

I've criticised the media some of their questioning and handling has been shameful.

That doesn't absolve the Governments handling of things like PPE.

And I do appreciate that you're not supporting Boris.

You go to great efforts to point it out every time that you absolutely definitely don't defend him.

[Red 4]

CrutyRammers said:

Red 4 said:

The questions concerning PPE were justified. The fact is that government chose not to procure lots of PPE when they had the chance. Apparently they didn't see the email inviting them to be part of the European procurement plan.

How did that EU plan go?

Better than ours.

I didn't see any European countries sending a Herc over to Greece and then watching it sit on the tarmac for days in yet another government embarassment.

[s2art]

Red 4 said:

CrutyRammers said:

Red 4 said:

The questions concerning PPE were justified. The fact is that government chose not to procure lots of PPE when they had the chance. Apparently they didn't see the email inviting them to be part of the European procurement plan.

How did that EU plan go?

Better than ours.

I didn't see any European countries sending a Herc over to Greece and then watching it sit on the tarmac for days in yet another government embarassment.

Think you may have forgotten thr clusterfeck in Italy.

[Slagathore]

Red 4 said:

CrutyRammers said:

Red 4 said:

The questions concerning PPE were justified. The fact is that government chose not to procure lots of PPE when they had the chance. Apparently they didn't see the email inviting them to be part of the European procurement plan.

How did that EU plan go?

Better than ours.

I didn't see any European countries sending a Herc over to Greece and then watching it sit on the tarmac for days in yet another government embarassment.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/europe-halts-delivery-10-million-poor-quality-chinese-masks-200514132353534.html

Yes, it went really well.

When you have dozens of countries fighting over a limited pile of PPE, no one is going to do well. Especially not when most were reliant on China supplying it!

[anonymous-user]

s2art said:

Red 4 said:

CrutyRammers said:

Red 4 said:

The questions concerning PPE were justified. The fact is that government chose not to procure lots of PPE when they had the chance. Apparently they didn't see the email inviting them to be part of the European procurement plan.

How did that EU plan go?

Better than ours.

I didn't see any European countries sending a Herc over to Greece and then watching it sit on the tarmac for days in yet another government embarassment.

Think you may have forgotten thr clusterfeck in Italy.

Sure but they had much less notice than us.

[don'tbesilly]

Red 4 said:

CrutyRammers said:

Red 4 said:

The questions concerning PPE were justified. The fact is that government chose not to procure lots of PPE when they had the chance. Apparently they didn't see the email inviting them to be part of the European procurement plan.

How did that EU plan go?

Better than ours.

I didn't see any European countries sending a Herc over to Greece and then watching it sit on the tarmac for days in yet another government embarassment.

Just as a matter of interest what was the reason/s behind the delays in the aircraft not leaving the runway in Turkey which led to the delayed departure?

No-one has as far as I'm aware stated a verifiable reason behind the delay, lots of conjecture, little to give the conjecture any credence, so I'd be interested to know exactly why the Govt in your opinion should be embarrassed.

[anonymous-user]

don'tbesilly said:

Just as a matter of interest what was the reason/s behind the delays in the aircraft not leaving the runway in Turkey which led to the delayed departure?

No-one has as far as I'm aware stated a verifiable reason behind the delay, lots of conjecture, little to give the conjecture any credence, so I'd be interested to know exactly why the Govt in your opinion should be embarrassed.

Because they’re in charge and didn’t take it seriously at the start until it was too late. Restaurants and pubs all open but urged not to go there, abandoned testing and tracing, not enough PPE, not protecting care homes, open borders etc etc

Like with care homes, it’s easy with PPE to say “yeah but x and y also made the same mistakes”, it’s just that our government made all the mistakes and as a result ended up with all the worst outcome of (high death tolls by all metrics) lockdowns and large economic damage and on going extra and hidden deaths from lack of things like cancer screening etc

Plus we had weeks to watch what was happening to countries ahead of us.

[Red 4]

don'tbesilly said:

Red 4 said:

CrutyRammers said:

Red 4 said:

The questions concerning PPE were justified. The fact is that government chose not to procure lots of PPE when they had the chance. Apparently they didn't see the email inviting them to be part of the European procurement plan.

How did that EU plan go?

Better than ours.

I didn't see any European countries sending a Herc over to Greece and then watching it sit on the tarmac for days in yet another government embarassment.

Just as a matter of interest what was the reason/s behind the delays in the aircraft not leaving the runway in Turkey which led to the delayed departure?

No-one has as far as I'm aware stated a verifiable reason behind the delay, lots of conjecture, little to give the conjecture any credence, so I'd be interested to know exactly why the Govt in your opinion should be embarrassed.

Why ? It was a publicity stunt which backfired. The PPE was not ready for delivery and the paperwork was not completed. Some fault on the part of the Greek authorities but also due to UK government incompetence.

The government needed to do "something" due to the flack they were receiving due to the lack of PPE.

If you want an example of how it's done properly then look at the Czech Republic who were sending Air Force transports to China for kit at THE START of the pandemic.
In fact, if you want an example of how to do lots of things properly then look at The Czech Republic.
I said they'd come out of this well back in March and they have.

[bitchstewie]

I was just reading about how Singapore are looking at wearables to complement their app.

Coronavirus: Why Singapore turned to wearable contact-tracing tech

Meanwhile given the head-start from looking at other countries and the toolset from Apple and Google what do we have?

Post-it notes in hair salons pubs and restaurants and people making telephone calls.

Still mustn't ask any awkward questions of the Government.

[anonymous-user]

bhstewie said:

I was just reading about how Singapore are looking at wearables to complement their app.

Coronavirus: Why Singapore turned to wearable contact-tracing tech

Meanwhile given the head-start from looking at other countries and the toolset from Apple and Google what do we have?

Post-it notes in hair salons pubs and restaurants and people making telephone calls.

Still mustn't ask any awkward questions of the Government.

I think it’s our (and the media’s) fault (not Boris’s) for not asking the right questions to explain their strategy.

Anyway we’ve already got world beating test track and trace app system and it’s only half time and the government are going to learn some lessons about handling the pandemic after it’s all finished.

[Red 4]

El stovey said:

I think it’s our (and the media’s) fault (not Boris’s) for not asking the right questions to explain their strategy.

Anyway we’ve already got world beating test track and trace app system and it’s only half time and the government are going to learn some lessons about handling the pandemic after it’s all finished.

I think Boris will go much further than that and proclaim that UK government has done a wonderful job of managing the crisis.
In other words he will lie. Again.

[anonymous-user]

Red 4 said:

El stovey said:

I think it’s our (and the media’s) fault (not Boris’s) for not asking the right questions to explain their strategy.

Anyway we’ve already got world beating test track and trace app system and it’s only half time and the government are going to learn some lessons about handling the pandemic after it’s all finished.

I think Boris will go much further than that and proclaim that UK government has done a wonderful job of managing the crisis.
In other words he will lie. Again.

The medical experts ‘led by the science’ are being lined up to take the blame of course.

Luckily the public are not that stupid.

[Tuna]

bhstewie said:

I was just reading about how Singapore are looking at wearables to complement their app.

Coronavirus: Why Singapore turned to wearable contact-tracing tech

Meanwhile given the head-start from looking at other countries and the toolset from Apple and Google what do we have?.

Ok, so here's a case in point. What didn't that article mention?

Singapore - population 5m
UK - population 66m

More importantly

Singapore - population density 8300 people per square kilometre
UK - population density 275 people per square kilometre

There is a reason why Singapore can go for a different solution - they're solving for a different problem..

[bitchstewie]

Tuna said:

Ok, so here's a case in point. What didn't that article mention?

Singapore - population 5m
UK - population 66m

More importantly

Singapore - population density 8300 people per square kilometre
UK - population density 275 people per square kilometre

There is a reason why Singapore can go for a different solution - they're solving for a different problem..

Absolutely right the population and density is different.

What difference does that make on why we don't have a working app?

Please note not a perfect app just a working and available one.

Like Germany for example.

[Red 4]

Jimboka said:

Red 4 said:

El stovey said:

I think it’s our (and the media’s) fault (not Boris’s) for not asking the right questions to explain their strategy.

Anyway we’ve already got world beating test track and trace app system and it’s only half time and the government are going to learn some lessons about handling the pandemic after it’s all finished.

I think Boris will go much further than that and proclaim that UK government has done a wonderful job of managing the crisis.
In other words he will lie. Again.

The medical experts ‘led by the science’ are being lined up to take the blame of course.

Luckily the public are not that stupid.

Anyone seen Van Tam lately ?

Maybe his very public criticism of Cummings was a strategic move on his part to distance himself from government/ be kept out of the limelight because he knows what is coming.

[anonymous-user]

Red 4 said:

Anyone seen Van Tam lately ?

Maybe his very public criticism of Cummings was a strategic move on his part to distance himself from government/ be kept out of the limelight because he knows what is coming.

He seems quite principled. Maybe he got fed up of the dishonesty and lack of accountability going on in government regarding the Cummings issue.

It must have been a bit much for him to sit in a briefing about how to respond to questions about Cummings not following the rules they’d all been promoting and stressing the importance of . . . by Cummings himself.

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 5th July 13:27

[Tuna]

bhstewie said:

You go to great efforts to point it out every time that you absolutely definitely don't defend him.

A significant portion of the regular posters on this thread are critics of Boris, and quite rightly, a significant portion of the posts on here are critical of Boris. What do you want me to do, chime in with "good post" whenever anyone says he's done a bad job?

As far as I'm concerned, he's been missing in action for the last six months. Some of that may be down to the pandemic overriding pretty much everything else, and him being ill - but it's concerning. I'm more concerned about his actions over the next six months - or lack of them. I'm broadly happy with the handling of the Brexit negotiations so far, but we're a long way from the finish line yet. The jury remains out.

What you won't find me doing is cheering or deriding every last speech and fart he makes. Partly because he's shambolic and I expect an inconsistent performance, but equally because I've no desire to join the peanut gallery. The weekly review of how PMQs went is utterly pointless from my point of view.

That does tend to mean I have very little patience for the posts on here that fret about every little detail as though the shocking revelation that his hair's a mess is cause for a snap general election. We knew what we were getting into when he was elected, none of this should be news. What should be news is how well his strategy pans out for Brexit, reform of the civil service, provision of government services and infrastructure investment, but this is a long game and whilst I am concerned, I've not got the evidence yet for where this is all going.