Brexit, for once some facts.

[RossG]

Neil Ferguson: he sent in his report advocating early lockdown 16-March.

“We knew the epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced.

“So had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half."

Johnson's hesitation killed 25,000 more people.

Johnson will fumble and bumble his way around all this in the same way as Blair did over WMD's.
He [Blair] said he saw the documentation that pointed to WMD's stored in Iraq but it all turned out to be nonsense.
BJ will always maintain he acted on the best scientific advice available at the time and get away with it.

 

[Woosh]

he may not get away with it this time.
it's not the bus anymore. A very large percentage of Covid victims are tory voters.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

I believe the script is, “We took the correct decisions at the at the right time.” Which leads us back to the Eric Morcombe gag, they took all the right decisions, but not necessarily in the correct order.

I think the New Zealand quarantine situation provides a perfect example of this government’s chaotic and directionless handling of Coronavirus. If you fly from New Zealand, a country free from Coronavirus, into the the U.K., a country riddled with Coronavirus, you must isolate for 14 days in case you bring Coronavirus from a country that has non, into a country that has a lot.

Or "doing the right thing after trying everything else" which sounds ore appropriate than "dieu et mon droit" (and may resonate with brexit boris voting brits in due course)

 

[RossG]

Who's got the most fans..

 

[RossG]

Find out what deserves pushing over in your area then go out and have fun...
I believe some are way off base, recognise any ?

Topple the Racists

Map of UK statues that celebrate slavery and racism

www.toppletheracists.org

 

[Woosh]

I am surprised to see some names on the map such as Nelson, Drake, Gladstone, Cook, Baden Powell, Peel.

 

[Barry Shittpeas]

I am surprised to see some names on the map such as Nelson, Drake, Gladstone, Cook, Baden Powell, Peel.

This has become like Pol Pot’s Year Zero. I hope these protesters are given a good coating of boot & truncheon if they turn out again. They are filth and require a sound beating and then washing from our streets with a high pressure hose. The pictures of these low-life animals attacking the police is sickening.

Soon, this will blow over and because of their stupidity, some will become seriously ill with coronavirus (already rioters are testing positive). The remaining scum will go back to their life of petty crime, jealousy and impotent grumbling about their own failures and inadequacies. The statues will remain standing, hopefully with additional information about the lives of those they represent.

 

[sjpt]

ripping out a police fence at a demo is criminal damage.
ripping out a statue of someone who committed crimes against humanity isn't.

It is technically criminal damage whether we like it or not. It is not morally unjustified damage; which is very different.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

This has become like Pol Pot’s Year Zero. I hope these protesters are given a good coating of boot & truncheon if they turn out again. They are filth and require a sound beating and then washing from our streets with a high pressure hose. The pictures of these low-life animals attacking the police is sickening.

Soon, this will blow over and because of their stupidity, some will become seriously ill with coronavirus (already rioters are testing positive). The remaining scum will go back to their life of petty crime, jealousy and impotent grumbling about their own failures and inadequacies. The statues will remain standing, hopefully with additional information about the lives of those they represent.

Look on the bright side. Any (debatable) acts of "vandalism" they commit are utterly insignificant in scale compared to acts of national self annihilation such as voting for Brexit, or boris (or the "service" based economy thatcheriteTories represent and established that's being annihilated by covid)

 

[flecc]

I am surprised to see some names on the map such as Nelson, Drake, Gladstone, Cook, Baden Powell, Peel.

Drake was a pirate employed by the crown to raid other nations pirate ships to kill and steal their booty, so of necessity racist. Stories around him like defeating the Armada were apochryphal with him the author. He never did a worthwhile thing in his life and eventually lost his own life and those of three whole crews due to his incompetence as a sailor.

Baden Powell was known to be notoriously racist during his own lifetime, being of the Empire kind, the British racially superior to all others. The fact that we were made up of all the others never seemed to occur to him.

And the times that Gladstone and Peel lived in included the fundamentally racist Victorian era of Empire, so as men of great influence they were tarred with the same brush.

The Inclusion of James Cook is a puzzle. It's probably due to his last voyage when he did end up in a warring relationship with the native tribes and was killed by one of the natives stabbing him in consequence as he tried to kidnap their king to ransom him. That last attempt of his was clearly racist in nature.

About Nelson I've no idea why.
.

 

[Danidl]

Drake was a pirate employed by the crown to raid other nations pirate ships to kill and steal their booty, so of necessity racist. Stories around him like defeating the Armada were apochryphal with him the author. He never did a worthwhile thing in his life and eventually lost his own life and that of three whole crews due to his incompetence as a sailor.

Baden Powell was known to be notoriously racist during his own lifetime, being of the Empire kind, the British racially superior to all others. The fact that we were made up of all the others never seemed to occur to him.

And the times that Gladstone and Peel lived in included the fundamentally racist Victorian era of Empire, so as men of great influence they were tarred with the same brush.

The Inclusion of James Cook is a puzzle. It's probably due to his last voyage when he did end up in a warring relationship with the native tribes and was killed by one of the natives stabbing him in consequence as he tried to kidnap their king to ransom him. That last attempt of his was clearly racist in nature.

About Nelson I've no idea why.
.

Well Nelson hated the French..and as Barry will testify they also are a different race. .White of course but a different race
. Now I picked up today that Christopher Columbus statue destroyed in the USA yesterday..by First Nation Americans. Soon we will need to destroy those statues of Alfred the Great, .. he was racist, having a dislike for Welsh and Danes.
Unfortunately yet again Barry is right. Rightous always , never correct but right. Going down the statue knocking route is as vandalism as Pol Pot or Thomas Cromwells dissolution of the monasteries.. not as extreme yet

 

[Woosh]

I can tolerate a bit of racism but stop at slave traders/human traffickers.

 

[oyster]

Going down the statue knocking route is as vandalism as Pol Pot or Thomas Cromwells dissolution of the monasteries.. not as extreme yet

There are just a few fairly unpolitical statues/sculptures around. Triggered by the King Alfred comment:

Description	English: William Walker's Statue in the Cathedral grounds
Date	2012
Source	http://www.wyrdlight.com Author: Antony McCallum
Author	Antony McCallum

 

[flecc]

Now I picked up today that Christopher Columbus statue destroyed in the USA yesterday..by First Nation Americans.

Well the "discovery" of North America did indeed lead to the very real miseries ever since of the First Nation Americans, but they hit the wrong target. It was Leif Eriksson who first entered North America from Europe and founded the first European settlement there, so they need to find a statue of him.*


Cristofoli Colombo to give him his correct name only discovered the Lesser Antilles and the Carribean Islands, while Amerigo Vespucci "discovered" South America, his Christian name giving America its name.

* Found the first US one:

Leif Eriksson is an outdoor statue by Anne Whitney at the west end of the Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Installed in 1887, it was the first public sculpture to honor the Norse explorer in the New World.
.

 

[oldgroaner]

I have been debating the late lockdown decision with a chap on twitter who insist that the delay was caused by the Government following the Sage group scientific advice, and that this advice was against the idea of a lockdown
These are the sage notes for the 13th March
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/888783/S0383_Fifteenth_SAGE_meeting_on_Wuhan_Coronavirus__Covid-19__.pdf

The first thing that jumps out is that the names of Government officials are not recorded bar one
Ben Warner (No. 10). ( Warner previously worked with Cummings on the Vote Leave campaign for Brexit. )

Cummings name does not appear, however, there is a caveat
Participants who were Observers and Government Officials were not consistently recorded therefore this may not be a complete list.

But the most striking thing about the minutes is that the content seems to be about three weeks out of date
And there are statements like this
8. Office for National Statistics (ONS) is gathering data on a) availability and prices of key ("anxiety") goods b) labour market trends c) consumer spending across key sectors d) and business behaviour (e.g. home working).
14. There are no strong scientific grounds to hasten or delay implementation of either household isolation or social distancing of the elderly or the vulnerable
16. SAGE therefore thinks there is scientific evidence to support household isolation being implemented as soon as practically possible.

And then this
24. SAGE was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid19 will cause a second peak. SAGE advises that it is a near certainty that countries such as China, where heavy suppression is underway, will experience a second peak once measures are relaxed.

And these are the best brains we can bring to this problem?
New Zealanders are unlikely to agree
And frankly para 24 looks like pure Cummings interference to me, not science

Now according to these so called scientists trying to resist the virus will guarantee a second peak, and here we are attempting to relax lockdown?

Ye gods

 

[RossG]

I am surprised to see some names on the map such as Nelson, Drake, Gladstone, Cook, Baden Powell, Peel.

I'm on there somewhere....I'm a lamppost.

 

[RossG]

Well no ones said it yet so I'll be the first. If we are going to pull down statues to wrongdoers of history, who is worst of the worst ? Guilty of every crime known to man & woman, slavery, mass murder even within their own family, theft of land & possessions of their own people, colonialism, imperialism, racism the crimes go on and on.
Who can be so bad and yet so celebrated with statues and works of art ??

The Royals naturally, people once described as " A bunch of brigands quicker on the take than everybody else "
Should we not start at the top with the biggest criminals of all time and work down ?

 

[Barry Shittpeas]

I can tolerate a bit of racism but stop at slave traders/human traffickers.

The slave trading which is currently in the headlines and which is being used to justify acts contrary to The Criminal Damage Act 1971, is what dead people did to other people who are dead.

The statues should remain in place appropriately updated. Colston was an evil man with no regard for human life. In 1875 we celebrated him and his deeds with a statue. In 2020 we should come to recognise his wrongdoing by adding information regarding his terrible deeds to the statue. This would then provide a time-line illustrating changing attitudes across time. Hitting the delete button is a crazy act of vandalism and plays to the mob.

 

[oldgroaner]

The slave trading which is currently in the headlines and which is being used to justify acts contrary to The Criminal Damage Act 1971, is what some dead people did to other people who are now dead.

The statues should remain in place appropriately updated. Colston was an evil man with no regard for human life. In 1875 we celebrated him and his deeds with a statue. In 2020 we come to recognise his wrongdoing by adding information regarding his terrible deeds to the statue. This would then provide a time-line illustrating changing attitudes across time. Hitting the delete button is a crazy act of vandalism and plays to the mob.

I think it should come under the heading of "Fly tipping" and carry an appropriate punishment

 

[RossG]

It's all very tricky though, it's a case of } Here's a wonderful statue to a man who did great things in his time but he was also a nonce who beat all of his wives, but still a great man {