Brexit, for once some facts.

Zlatan

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We have loads of problems that's for sure but I still think I was extremely lucky to have been born and brought up here in the UK. I like most of us posting on this thread have done reasonably well out of the system here in the UK, own house, no debt, index linked pensions etc. Now some of that is down to my hard work, but the vast majority was down to being lucky what country I was born in and having parents that looked after me.

There are dozens of countries in the world that you have virtually no chance of getting out of absolute poverty no matter how bright you are or how hard you work. Health systems in these countries are non existent for the poor and life expectancy is lower than what it was in the UK over 100 years ago.

Our NHS system is far from perfect but there are billions of people in the world would love to have access to it. I think we just need to forget about once being a world power and having lots of influence in the world, we are now just a middle tier military entity being lead by a bunch of shysters but I still think its a good country to live in and there are far more countries in the world that are much worse.
Well said.
Totally agreed. It's why I came back.
 
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oldgroaner

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Well said.
Totally agreed. It's why I came back.
Interesting, as some of us were born into an utterly devastated land and fortunate to arrive despite the constant air raids.
You wouldn't have wanted to come back to that.
What we have is what we all worked for despite most of the the Governments we have had, not because of them.
Remember that, and here we are throwing it all away for a stupid semi religious sect who utterly fail to understand what our world was like before huge efforts changed it,
without the Attlee Government things would have been worse, in fact if the Conservatives had had their way at the start of the war we would be speaking German now, and this government is the same party behind Brexit
 

oyster

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They NEEDED to die?

But ministers are responding to some of Cummings’ allegations and Jenrick said he did not believe probably the most damning one of all - that “tens of thousands of people died who didn’t need to die”. Asked if Cummings was wrong to make this claim, Jenrick replied:

"Yes, I think it is because you have to remember that we didn’t have all of the facts at the time that the decisions were being taken. Nobody could doubt for one moment that the prime minister was doing anything other than acting with the best of motives, with the information and the advice that was available to him ... At the very beginning of the pandemic we didn’t know much about this new virus."
 

flecc

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Oct 25, 2006
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I think we just need to forget about once being a world power and having lots of influence in the world, we are now just a middle tier military entity being lead by a bunch of shysters but I still think its a good country to live in and there are far more countries in the world that are much worse.
If we could just drop all aspects of that military pretence and stop being the USA's servile servant, we would be far better yet.
.
 

Zlatan

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If they get rid of Johnson, there will be many questions as to why they chose, and put up with, him in the first place. That might splatter back at Gove and Sunak.
They won't get rid of Boris. Ride this out, it's hardly going to force a GE and if it did with state Labour are in Tories would probably increase their majority.. In fact, I suspect once this is yesterday's news Tories will call an election.
 
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Zlatan

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Before an inquiry... Of course.
I, m not so sure. What will inquiry say? They should/could have locked down earlier? PPE should have been ordered earlier? Boris says innappripriate things?? Messaging could/should have been clearer?? Contingency planning was terrible... But that's hardly this government's fault? Goes back decades.
UK now around 18th World wide in death rate, yep we got things wrong... What's new? So did most the world.
This might bring Boris down (doubtful though) but certainly won't bring government down.
 

Danidl

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I, m not so sure. What will inquiry say? They should/could have locked down earlier? PPE should have been ordered earlier? Boris says innappripriate things?? Messaging could/should have been clearer?? Contingency planning was terrible... But that's hardly this government's fault? Goes back decades.
UK now around 18th World wide in death rate, yep we got things wrong... What's new? So did most the world.
This might bring Boris down (doubtful though) but certainly won't bring government down.
No Zlatan, there were contingency plans in existence, and it is the PRIME responsibility that of the Government,to direct the resources of the State. If you go back to our musings of mid March , we were very clear of the failings. And yes We in Ireland have skin in this game. Our infections came from the UK. In particular the supine response of the DUP Leadership kowtowing to Westminster AGAINST all the advice from half their own NI Cabinet which doubled ,at least our all Ireland death rate.
The real immediate things crying out to be done, were . Cancel Cheltenham , Cancel Association Football from early March. .. The only British organisation showing leadership at that critical time was the Welsh Rugby Union.
 

Nev

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In fact, I suspect once this is yesterday's news Tories will call an election.
I think you could well be right, if we do not get a really bad winter re the corona virus and the economy is doing reasonably well next spring then I can see BJ calling an election around April or May time next year prior to any major investigation into how the virus was handled.

I also think if there was an early election next year then the Tories are very likely to win it, in fact unless they were likely to win it, BJ would not call it in the first place.
 

oyster

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I, m not so sure. What will inquiry say? They should/could have locked down earlier? PPE should have been ordered earlier? Boris says innappripriate things?? Messaging could/should have been clearer?? Contingency planning was terrible... But that's hardly this government's fault? Goes back decades.
UK now around 18th World wide in death rate, yep we got things wrong... What's new? So did most the world.
This might bring Boris down (doubtful though) but certainly won't bring government down.
I hope that the inquiry will ensure a future in which things like emergency planning, PPE stockpiling and acquisition, etc., are not able to be treated as political baubles. Cast aside if the current incumbents don't have the attention span to understand them. Ignored. Used as ways of reducing spending.

I don't want the tories to do what tories do (cut, ignore, assume they will always be able to escape). Nor the leftwing to do what the leftwing do (ensure a PPE makers union has more say than experts, or whatever). These are things which need to be established and rollover from government to government regardless their colour.

And to get started on changes asap. Not many years down the line.
 

Zlatan

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No Zlatan, there were contingency plans in existence, and it is the PRIME responsibility that of the Government,to direct the resources of the State. If you go back to our musings of mid March , we were very clear of the failings. And yes We in Ireland have skin in this game. Our infections came from the UK. In particular the supine response of the DUP Leadership kowtowing to Westminster AGAINST all the advice from half their own NI Cabinet which doubled ,at least our all Ireland death rate.
The real immediate things crying out to be done, were . Cancel Cheltenham , Cancel Association Football from early March. .. The only British organisation showing leadership at that critical time was the Welsh Rugby Union.
All rather subjective Danidl..
Throughout this entire episode there has been contradictory opinions and desires of way forward. People were not forced to attend Cheltenham, they went there knowing full well we were at start of an epidemic, business leaders were saying one thing, some MPs another. Examine the response of many on first advice from Government. I, m not social distancing, I, ll still be going to pub etc etc.
Today has been quite typical. Folk up in arms about Cummings and his outpourings then others moaning that some areas might not be leaving lockdown quick enough.
Yep, we all know now what we should or could have done... Son in law attended Cheltenham against my advice, do we really need Boris to pass a law for public to be sensible. He went, and like you is now blaming Boris for letting him.
Corbyn at that time was telling us all he wouldn't be changing his behaviour.
Its not just the government that needs investigating, it's stupid people aswell. From folk refusing to do anything different, refusing jab, sending kids to school after positive results, folk putting business before their own and families safety... Then blame somebody else...
 
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Danidl

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All rather subjective Danidl..
Throughout this entire episode there has been contradictory opinions and desires of way forward. People were not forced to attend Cheltenham, they went there knowing full well we were at start of an epidemic, business leaders were saying one thing, some MPs another. Examine the response of many on first advice from Government. I, m not social distancing, I, ll still be going to pub etc etc.
Today has been quite typical. Folk up in arms about Cummings and his outpourings then others moaning that some areas might not be leaving lockdown quick enough.
Yep, we all know now what we should or could have done... Son in law attended Cheltenham against my advice, do we really need Boris to pass a law for public to be sensible. He went, and like you is now blaming Boris for letting him.
Corbyn at that time was telling us all he wouldn't be changing his behaviour.
Its not just the government that needs investigating, it's stupid people aswell. From folk refusing to do anything different, refusing jab, sending kids to school after positive results, folk putting business before their own and families safety... Then blame somebody else...
Not very subjective. The figures are there in the tables dates of initial infections.. . Contrast that if you will with our acting Taoiseach who was on the annual junket to Washington , who two days previously held an utterly unprecedented press conference on the steps of the Observatory in Washington, saying exactly what was needed and saying he couldn't even delay for the next day to fly home . The Italian Ireland Rugby international was cancelled immediately. But we could not at that stage ban people traveling , ..so a fraction of the Italian supporters who had prior booked hotels came over on 19th. March for the fun weekend.
So absolutely yes had Johnson had the guts to do what our Leo did, the initial hit in the UK ..and Ireland would have been blunted. It means that the Contact tracing would have been more successful and longer and the mitigation phase might even have been avoided. We wanted Cheltenham cancelled.
If you don't think a PM is an influencer you are in cloud cuckoo land. His prevarication gave cover to all the idiots who wanted business as usual.
 

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