[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...

[Machiavelli]

What is essential about gossip?

The last three days only highlighted how nobody really knew what to do.

Other countries have already wrapped it all up

From the little I've followed it, the last three days have indicated that these were very fine judgments that the scientific community had to make, in a rapidly evolving situation, in which key figures (eg CSA, CMO) had different areas of expertise and specialisms, which prompted to emphasise certain thing over others, or be somewhat unaligned in what needed to happen when.
Sounds like a decent, critical process to me. Then again, there's always certainty.

 

[Is it PotG?]

The whole point of an enquiry is to hear all evidence, not just the bits you want to hear.
i hope you’re never called on jury duty.

You DO understand the difference between a court of law and an enquiry?

We can help.

 

[Baldseagull]

No.
I mean stopping boats.
Are you trying to change my words?

Not trying to change your words, just looking for clarification, my last few responses to you have been mostly questions, because your posts are short and not really clear what you are driving at. Even now, I have to ask, is stopping boats at a cost to your human rights acceptable?

 

[Machiavelli]

As in football, I'm a results person.

Economic growth and a curb on the boats, they are the scores on the teleprinter I'll be watching for.

If it's those two you're after, you haven't been paying attention. Utterly dreadful performance and results on both counts.

 

[abc]

The whole point of an enquiry is to hear all evidence, not just the bits you want to hear.

Shouldn’t the point of the enquiry be how we learn lessons so next time we will be prepared and know how to manage a pandemic better? All we are getting is he said this/he said that. May help fill pages on nsc and confirm our views and prejudices but not going to save lives in the future

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Shouldn’t the point of the enquiry be how we learn lessons so next time we will be prepared and know how to manage a pandemic better? All we are getting is he said this/he said that. May help fill pages on nsc and confirm our views and prejudices but not going to save lives in the future

We haven’t got to the end of the enquiry yet to draw conclusions.
That doesn’t stop people drawing their own conclusions as shown on this thread.
Preparing for epidemics and pandemics does have planning but it appears Operation Cygnus was totally ignored. Perhaps legislation, with legal consequences is needed in future?

 

[Lever]

By confusion in the Government I am assuming you mean in Sage as well, as we have had three of the main players interviewed over the last few days who have answered the same questions differently in regards to what they thought should have happened and when.

We also had Whitty confirm he saw no reason to cancel Cheltenham etc.

Children's education and impact - how will it be made up
The State of the NHS and what needs fixing (its not just money) and how it will be done
Current death rate and should we have shut the NHS for everything other than Covid
The general health of Britain's
PPE Fraud
Debt levels and how will it be paid back and honesty on how it was spent/how much
What are we putting in place for future pandemics
Why out of date modelling was used (was confirmed) and why was worst case seen as the go to at the time (now admitted as an error)
Why did people get shipped off to care homes, what was the thinking and why did the experts not understand how care homes work in regards to staff, why was testing not in place.

As a start.

All of the above are important issues for scrutiny and debate; hopefully they will be. In terms of 'confusion'

I mean communication and decision making at the level of government and its advisors.

'we have had three of the main players interviewed over the last few days who have answered the same questions differently in regards to what they thought should have happened and when'. Does this not indicate a high level of confusion at the highest level? Can we not expect better communication outcomes from the country's decision makers?

 

[Lever]

Should 100% stuck with Boris...

Have you just made @WATFORD zero's point for him?

Reminder: 'Of course everyone who had read anything about Johnson knew. We all know what the issue is, but I'm not sure how you address the fact that 50% of the electorate are more stupid than the average person but still have a vote'

 

[BLOCK F]

Yup, we have heard what the boffins and the politicos have been saying and although I haven’t been following the enquiry as closely as some on here ( other more important personal matters to attend to), it does seem that there is a wonderful array of arse covering and hind sighting going on on all sides.
Basically, the boffins say ‘should have gone harder and earlier re lockdowns etc.’ and the politicos say,’ yes, but we had to make unprecedented decisions and weigh up scientific advice against other factors…..social and mental well-being, economics, jobs etc.’
All true and can be justified by both ‘teams’. An impossible situation in which the boffins would have us locked up for ever and a day and the politicos not so. As Whitty et al said at the time, we give our view and advice, which is a relatively straightforward thing to do, but the politicos have to make the hard decisions.

 

[Bob!]

So the HS2 alternative, funded by the levelling up fund.
Upgraded signalling on a 5 mile Heritage Railway!

BBC News - Levelling up funding to help Keighley heritage railway become commuter route

Levelling up funding to help Keighley heritage railway become commuter route

More than £115m of Levelling Up Fund cash has been awarded to projects in West Yorkshire.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Pavilionaire]

Shouldn’t the point of the enquiry be how we learn lessons so next time we will be prepared and know how to manage a pandemic better? All we are getting is he said this/he said that. May help fill pages on nsc and confirm our views and prejudices but not going to save lives in the future

In 2016 the government and civil service carried out a 3-day 'war game' exercise known as Operation Cygnus to simulate a pandemic atrocity with the express aim of preparing the UK for such an attack. Yet a mere 4 years later - and still with the same Government and civil servants in place - everything gleaned from that exercise appears to have been forgotten.

We had a similar but bigger simulation in 2007 named 'Winter Willow'.

So who is "learning the lessons" from these exercises?

For me, the enquiry so far has not revealed anything that we couldn't see with our own eyes at the time. What we should be doing is drawing up a process manual with contingency planning and have free vote on it so it gets cross-party agreement, so that when the next pandemic strikes - as far as possible - we take it out of the hands of politicians and let the civil service implement measures.

For all the war gaming and preparation, if you are still going to be reliant on whoever is Prime Minister - and they (like Boris) judge it acceptable to miss 5 COBRA meetings over 5 weeks - then you are stuffed.

 

[CHAPPERS]

I see James Cleverly had come up with a lie about what he said yesterday. Apparently didn’t call Stockton and shithole, just said Cunningham is a ‘shit MP’. f***ing Tories eh?

 

[Bodian]

I see James Cleverly had come up with a lie about what he said yesterday. Apparently didn’t call Stockton and shithole, just said Cunningham is a ‘shit MP’. f***ing Tories eh?

Took him quite a long time to think of that defence.

So, now he has admitted to the 'shit' bit - it's clearly him on the recording. Must say that the following syllable doesn't sound like 'MP' to me....

 

[BLOCK F]

In 2016 the government and civil service carried out a 3-day 'war game' exercise known as Operation Cygnus to simulate a pandemic atrocity with the express aim of preparing the UK for such an attack. Yet a mere 4 years later - and still with the same Government and civil servants in place - everything gleaned from that exercise appears to have been forgotten.

We had a similar but bigger simulation in 2007 named 'Winter Willow'.

So who is "learning the lessons" from these exercises?

For me, the enquiry so far has not revealed anything that we couldn't see with our own eyes at the time. What we should be doing is drawing up a process manual with contingency planning and have free vote on it so it gets cross-party agreement, so that when the next pandemic strikes - as far as possible - we take it out of the hands of politicians and let the civil service implement measures.

For all the war gaming and preparation, if you are still going to be reliant on whoever is Prime Minister - and they (like Boris) judge it acceptable to miss 5 COBRA meetings over 5 weeks - then you are stuffed.

One would hope that ‘lessons are being learnt’ by politicians, boffins, NHS and civil servants. If not, what is the point of an enquiry taking up God knows how much time, except to point the fingers of blame?
I don’t think you can remove the decision making process from the politicians. As our elected representatives, it is their job to make these decisions. Thankfully, (or hopefully), we won’t see the likes of another Boris Johnson in the top seat for the foreseeable!

 

[clapham_gull]

Took him quite a long time to think of that defence.

So, now he has admitted to the 'shit' bit - it's clearly him on the recording. Must say that the following syllable doesn't sound like 'MP' to me....

I think it's much clearer now that he probably responded with

because he's a shit MP

 

[Tubby Mondays]

I think it's much clearer now that he probably responded with

because he's a shit MP

How can that not be a sackable offence?!

 

[Bob!]

How can that not be a sackable offence?!

Because spineless Sunak has no talent left in the party

 

[Bodian]

How can that not be a sackable offence?!

Because spineless Sunak has no talent left in the party

And Sunak doesn't do 'sackings' - he does 'reshuffles'. And he's just done one, so can't lose face by doing another one immediately.

 

[ManOfSussex]

How can that not be a sackable offence?!

To be fair to Mr Cleverley it's been a very low threshold on standards of decency required to be Home Secretary for quite a while now, so he's fine with this one.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

Took him quite a long time to think of that defence.

So, now he has admitted to the 'shit' bit - it's clearly him on the recording. Must say that the following syllable doesn't sound like 'MP' to me....

I've just listened to that again about 40 times and it's a bit like the equivalent of that blue and black/white and gold dress thing that went around a while ago (I think there's an audio equivalent meme, but I can't recall it). Sometimes it sounds like "shithole", but other times it is "shit MP". However, given that Alex Cunningham was closer to it – and members of the Government have a 'difficult relationship' with the truth, I'd go with the former.

Not very Clever(ly) from James, either way...