How do you think Boris has handled it so far ?

[Swansman]

From The Sunday Times...

View attachment 122431

Anonymous talk is cheap.

 

[clapham_gull]

Anonymous talk is cheap.

Ha, ha. What a plum. Thankfully they changed the whistle blowing laws because of people like you.

The government getting an absolute battering in the right wing Sunday Times today. Ignored scientific advise and Boris couldn't be arsed to at attend Cobra meetings. I repeat Cobra meetings.

 

[Klaas]

"we were doomed by our incompetence, our hubris and our austerity."

https://archive.is/20200418182037/h...isaster-hq3b9tlgh#selection-2003.260-2003.325

 

[CHAPPERS]

Has Gove seen an opportunity?


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[Perfidious Albion]

There is too much of the blame game going on right now. It does not matter what happen in February and March . The fact is that we are where we are and have to fight on. We are fighting a war. Governments are making decisions as they go and we are uncharted territory. Where would we have got in WW2 if they had kept looking backwards at things that could have been done better?
Get the P M back at the helm and I believe that the presentation of it all will improve.

 

[CheeseRolls]

There is too much of the blame game going on right now. It does not matter what happen in February and March . The fact is that we are where we are and have to fight on. We are fighting a war. Governments are making decisions as they go and we are uncharted territory. Where would we have got in WW2 if they had kept looking backwards at things that could have been done better?
Get the P M back at the helm and I believe that the presentation of it all will improve.

That is your opinion, I think you are wrong.

Focussing on the here and now. Someone has to make a decision to start using the Nightingale hospitals. At the moment it seems PR is driving policy rather than the science and a fear of these hospitals being seen as a policy failure if they are associated with many deaths.

Why is this important?

All non-emergency treatment has been postponed. This is not a free hit, people don't go into hospital for a bit of a break, there is a backlog of operations and investigations, which is causing a huge workload for GPs and community care, managing conditions, pain relief etc. As soon as COVID numbers fall to manageable numbers, the traditional hospitals need to work flat out to clear the backlog. Once the pressure is off GPs and community care, they can start to gear up for the testing and tracing required to prevent another major outbreak.

In amongst all the working around the clock, is anyone in government able to make these decisions?

 

[The Lemming Stomper]

There is too much of the blame game going on right now. It does not matter what happen in February and March . The fact is that we are where we are and have to fight on. We are fighting a war. Governments are making decisions as they go and we are uncharted territory. Where would we have got in WW2 if they had kept looking backwards at things that could have been done better?
Get the P M back at the helm and I believe that the presentation of it all will improve.

Morning Boris...Looks like you're feeling better

 

[A1X]

Where would we have got in WW2 if they had kept looking backwards at things that could have been done better?

We'd have got to the success of Operation Overlord after the lessons learned in the failures of the Dieppe Raids and Dunkirk, plus learning the lessons of the successes (and failures) of Operation Husky.

Because you should always be looking to what has happened and trying to learn lessons from it. Anything else is hubris.

 

[Bold Seagull]

There is too much of the blame game going on right now. It does not matter what happen in February and March . The fact is that we are where we are and have to fight on. We are fighting a war. Governments are making decisions as they go and we are uncharted territory. Where would we have got in WW2 if they had kept looking backwards at things that could have been done better?
Get the P M back at the helm and I believe that the presentation of it all will improve.

What [MENTION=35904]A1X[/MENTION] said. Surely in your own analogy every mistake and error in WWII was scrutinised and gone over to ensure it didn’t happened again. Tactics evolved BECAUSE lessons were learned. There seems to be people quite content to let this government make mistake after mistake and they should be completely free of criticism and scrutiny to keep on making them. It’s not about blame, it’s about getting it right.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Has Gove seen an opportunity?

When Mr Johnson went into ICU, it’s quite clear by the number of similar stories popping up that a number of journalists were privately briefed about Gove & Hancock wanting an earlier lock-down but Mr Johnson overruled them and the scientists because of his anti-authoritarian and libertarian instincts - he simply hates a lockdown and having to tell people things they don’t want to hear. That decision is probably going to be the difference between 20,000 deaths and 40,000 deaths from this awful thing, Gove is going to use that against him (to get the PM job) very soon one would imagine. I can see a Tory coup once the popularist Mail & Sun turn on the PM.

Whilst the virus from China hasn’t killed him, not abiding to this particular idiom from China will have killed his political career once this is all done:

“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” Sun Tzu.

 

[sparkie]

There is too much of the blame game going on right now. It does not matter what happen in February and March . The fact is that we are where we are and have to fight on. We are fighting a war. Governments are making decisions as they go and we are uncharted territory. Where would we have got in WW2 if they had kept looking backwards at things that could have been done better?
Get the P M back at the helm and I believe that the presentation of it all will improve.

There is no point in improving the style if the substance is still found wanting.

 

[Bold Seagull]

And anyone thinking about how can you be prepared for this should look up Exercise Cygnus, where in Oct 2016 it set out exactly what would happen if a pandemic were to hit and was largely ignored.

 

[Silverhatch]

We'd have got to the success of Operation Overlord after the lessons learned in the failures of the Dieppe Raids and Dunkirk, plus learning the lessons of the successes (and failures) of Operation Husky.

Because you should always be looking to what has happened and trying to learn lessons from it. Anything else is hubris.

The government will never be held to account because their ideology through the austerity and Brexit years became flat out dogma. And the opposing voices in our politics have been appalling led and organised too.

Will a global pandemic that has the potential to significantly change human behaviour for at least 18-24 months (until a vaccine is found) cause a big enough effect to change ideologies and break dogma. Will Boris Johnson be so changed by facing his own demise that he can change his personal ideological outlook. Could he do that in a right-leaning Tory party?

 

[Baker lite]

Several Governments around the world will be kicking themselves for listening to the World health organisation, they constantly blew smoke up China’s ring, repeatedly reported bullshit from Beijing, no Human to Human transmission of the virus etc, they did not declare a worldwide pandemic till March 11, WHO is now an irrelevance, We should withdraw funding right now.
China has lied, people have died.


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[Solid at the back]

8.55 in

 

[Thunder Bolt]

When Mr Johnson went into ICU, it’s quite clear by the number of similar stories popping up that a number of journalists were privately briefed about Gove & Hancock wanting an earlier lock-down but Mr Johnson overruled them and the scientists because of his anti-authoritarian and libertarian instincts - he simply hates a lockdown and having to tell people things they don’t want to hear. That decision is probably going to be the difference between 20,000 deaths and 40,000 deaths from this awful thing, Gove is going to use that against him (to get the PM job) very soon one would imagine. I can see a Tory coup once the popularist Mail & Sun turn on the PM.

Whilst the virus from China hasn’t killed him, not abiding to this particular idiom from China will have killed his political career once this is all done:

“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” Sun Tzu.

[tweet]1251780661146509312[/tweet]

 

[Billy the Fish]

If we're comparing WW2 you have to stick to the timescale, we're only a month into this. It would be like criticising Chamberlain for underfunding the military and not having enough tanks, despite the same people supporting the League of Nations for the last 20 years.

I've only watched documentaries and never studied it so someone will be able to correct me! Wasn't there similar division and bickering about what to do at the start of WW2?

 

[Jimmy Grimble]

8.55 in

It’s a perfect snapshot of what Johnson’s approach was in early March.

 

[Acker79]

From The Sunday Times...

View attachment 122431

It might be easy to dismiss that single section. But what you don't say is that it comes from a massive piece laying out in much more detail all the ways the government failed to act.

It's a big article behind a paywall. Owen Jones (from the Guardian) has picked out what he thinks are the important bits in a long thread of tweets: https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1251606098974474244

The whole article is here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...n-britain-sleepwalked-into-disaster-hq3b9tlgh if you're a subscriber, or willing to sign up.

 

[Theatre of Trees]

There is too much of the blame game going on right now. It does not matter what happen in February and March . The fact is that we are where we are and have to fight on. We are fighting a war. Governments are making decisions as they go and we are uncharted territory. Where would we have got in WW2 if they had kept looking backwards at things that could have been done better?
Get the P M back at the helm and I believe that the presentation of it all will improve.

We changed PMs in March 1940 due to his abject performance over the preceding 6 months.