How is the Tory Government Doing?

I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re seeing the end of Boris over this. He’s struggled to convince that these gatherings were in any way within the guidelines. I personally think this whole exercise is a complete waste of time and money. I’d much rather the money and effort was used to investigate the need for shutdowns at all given that we knew from early on who was vulnerable and who wasn’t. Also, why were world renowned medics with differing views to Sage completely ignored and even ridiculed by government officials and some in the media? The devastation caused by the way the whole Covid outbreak was handled and the lasting damage resulting needs an answer now.

Question Time audience asked: Was Boris Johnson telling truth?

NOTE - This was filmed at Newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire (not the Newcastle on Tyneside).

Whitesince63 wrote:I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re seeing the end of Boris over this. He’s struggled to convince that these gatherings were in any way within the guidelines. I personally think this whole exercise is a complete waste of time and money. I’d much rather the money and effort was used to investigate the need for shutdowns at all given that we knew from early on who was vulnerable and who wasn’t. Also, why were world renowned medics with differing views to Sage completely ignored and even ridiculed by government officials and some in the media? The devastation caused by the way the whole Covid outbreak was handled and the lasting damage resulting needs an answer now.

You have to have the inquiry because if you can't trust what anyone say's Parliament (which sets the laws for the country) then you may as well not have a Parliament or a democracy (see Russia and China for instance).

The lockdowns were necessary to stop the health service being overwhelmed (look at India for instance when theirs was).

There were no world renowned/reputable medics who spoke against lockdowns who didn't have personal agendas - many being pecuniary and/or political.

Perhaps the lockdowns became less necessary when Covid diluted itself to the Omicron variant, but although Omicron was not the killer as it predecessors were, it was more contagious meaning it still was thought capable of overwhelming the NHS.

Fwiw the Labour party supported all lockdowns too, so did the regional governments of Scotland and Wales.

The investigation into all of Covid decisions made are ongoing at present.

Fine, I agree on BoJo having to be proved one way or the other Sluffy but the rest of your post is complete bollocks. There was never a need for shutdowns. We had a fully outlined policy on the pandemic which Sweden actually maintained whilst we threw ours out of the window by listening to the so called experts. I don’t know where you get your “personal agenda” rubbish from perhaps you can advise but if you mean that they were aware of the damage being done to cancer, stroke, heart and other patients and voiced it, they said it and they were right. The average age of death with Covid is higher than from all causes so what does that say? I’m surprised at your attitude on this Sluffy now that the true facts are coming out, which many of the more enlightened stated at the time, by continuing to spout the same garbage that we were being fed by a now disgraced government. I know you never like to accept when you’re wrong but even you need to fess up and see we were misled.

I have to go out shortly but I'll give you these comments about Sweden's so called policy - and what was said after the experience of having no lockdown.


But by winter 2020 a second wave with the new alpha variant brought a spike in cases.2 In the six months between October 2020 and March 2021, the country saw 657 309 positive cases and 12 826 deaths.

The government’s measures were sharply criticised in an 800 page report (the second of this sort) published in October 2021 by the Swedish Corona Commission3—the government commissioned inquiry into the pandemic response—which it noted were both late and insufficient, and called preparedness “non-existing.”

This was followed in November 2021 by a report from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences,4 proposing the establishment of an independent expert unit for future pandemics, stating that authorities were “inadequately prepared” in terms of knowledge as well as equipment such as face masks, and that high mortality during the first two waves of the pandemic was because of “mild and tardy” measures to prevent the initial spread of infection.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf labelled Sweden’s handling of the pandemic a “failure” in his end of 2020 TV speech. Then prime minister Stefan Lofven agreed. “The fact that so many have died can’t be considered as anything other than a failure,” he said.

Anders Vahlne, a professor of virology at the Karolinska Institute and one of the scientists critical of the Swedish response, told The BMJ that it was shameful that the whole pandemic had been in the hands of a few civil servants who acted and reacted slowly, lacking flexibility and still not clearly acknowledging that the virus was airborne.

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n3081


Tell me again what a wonderful job Sweden did - because no one there would say that.

In fact they have officially said the exact opposite!!!

Those loony lefty leaning idiots "Led By Donkeys" trying to cause trouble again.

Surely we must be able to get some sort of legislation passed to shut these twats up.

Hip Priest wrote:Those loony lefty leaning idiots "Led By Donkeys" trying to cause trouble again.

Surely we must be able to get some sort of legislation passed to shut these twats up.

Hi Hip Priest.

Now don't go straight off the deep end with my reply and hear me out.

I'm actually quite surprised that your anger seems to be at 'Led by Donkeys' and not at the highly relevant subject they are focusing on, namely second jobs for MP's - which really is a 'cover' term and what the true description should be is something like 'being paid a huge amount of money to, in effect, influence government decisions in favour of those that are paying them - even though it might be against the best interest of the country'.

What they've done is essentially a 'sting' job and have netted Brady, the most powerful backbench MP in Parliament and longstanding Chair of the Tory (king making) 1922 Committee, Kwarteng, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer (and Truss's ideological best buddy), and that idiot Hancock.

The toxic Gavin Williamson was also on the 'hook' but got off it - I wouldn't be surprised in the least if he was tipped off it was a sting job.

If anything Led by Donkey's should be applauded for their sting imo.

I believe all MP's should not have second jobs, nor act in anyway after after leaving Parliament, in influencing the running of the government.

Easier said than done but it needs to be done.

Anyway the public media are now quite rightly reporting the story -

Matt Hancock and Kwasi Kwarteng discussed fees with fake firm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65077273

Led by Donkey's did a very revealing video some months back in respect of the 'loony' right's political ideology that created Truss and Kwarteng - and look at how they wrecked the economy following this mantra in less than 50 days.

If you've not seen it before it really is worth a watch.

I read HP's post as sarcasm, I can't imagine he's become a Tory in his absence from the site.

Good to see you back HP, I hope you spent your downtime sorting out your terrible record collection.

Natasha Whittam wrote:I read HP's post as sarcasm, I can't imagine he's become a Tory in his absence from the site.

Good to see you back HP, I hope you spent your downtime sorting out your terrible record collection.

I read it similarly. Nice to see you back HP.

Sarcasm indeed it was. There's no way I could ever turn Tory overnight.
Thanks for folks's warm wishes although Nat's comment about sorting my record collection out really cut me to the quick.
I thought she liked Dire Straits.

Hi, HP. Good to hear from you again. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist having a sarcastic swipe at those bright, compassionate, selfless Tories.....Bet you were sad about David Crosby though.....

Sluffy wrote:I have to go out shortly but I'll give you these comments about Sweden's so called policy - and what was said after the experience of having no lockdown.


But by winter 2020 a second wave with the new alpha variant brought a spike in cases.2 In the six months between October 2020 and March 2021, the country saw 657 309 positive cases and 12 826 deaths.

The government’s measures were sharply criticised in an 800 page report (the second of this sort) published in October 2021 by the Swedish Corona Commission3—the government commissioned inquiry into the pandemic response—which it noted were both late and insufficient, and called preparedness “non-existing.”

This was followed in November 2021 by a report from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences,4 proposing the establishment of an independent expert unit for future pandemics, stating that authorities were “inadequately prepared” in terms of knowledge as well as equipment such as face masks, and that high mortality during the first two waves of the pandemic was because of “mild and tardy” measures to prevent the initial spread of infection.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf labelled Sweden’s handling of the pandemic a “failure” in his end of 2020 TV speech. Then prime minister Stefan Lofven agreed. “The fact that so many have died can’t be considered as anything other than a failure,” he said.

Anders Vahlne, a professor of virology at the Karolinska Institute and one of the scientists critical of the Swedish response, told The BMJ that it was shameful that the whole pandemic had been in the hands of a few civil servants who acted and reacted slowly, lacking flexibility and still not clearly acknowledging that the virus was airborne.

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n3081


Tell me again what a wonderful job Sweden did - because no one there would say that.

In fact they have officially said the exact opposite!!!

Oh dear, the same useless “experts” spouting the same utter drivel as we had here. Sweden haven’t got the backlog of cases through their health service that we have, nor have their kids education suffered, nor do they have the debt around their necks nor have their workers not returned to work. It’s the secondary damage done by lockdown that’s our problem not the number of deaths which is broadly the same and with the same generational split. Just face it Sluffy you’re wrong on this whether you want to admit it or not.

Whitesince63 wrote:

Sluffy wrote:I have to go out shortly but I'll give you these comments about Sweden's so called policy - and what was said after the experience of having no lockdown.


But by winter 2020 a second wave with the new alpha variant brought a spike in cases.2 In the six months between October 2020 and March 2021, the country saw 657 309 positive cases and 12 826 deaths.

The government’s measures were sharply criticised in an 800 page report (the second of this sort) published in October 2021 by the Swedish Corona Commission3—the government commissioned inquiry into the pandemic response—which it noted were both late and insufficient, and called preparedness “non-existing.”

This was followed in November 2021 by a report from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences,4 proposing the establishment of an independent expert unit for future pandemics, stating that authorities were “inadequately prepared” in terms of knowledge as well as equipment such as face masks, and that high mortality during the first two waves of the pandemic was because of “mild and tardy” measures to prevent the initial spread of infection.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf labelled Sweden’s handling of the pandemic a “failure” in his end of 2020 TV speech. Then prime minister Stefan Lofven agreed. “The fact that so many have died can’t be considered as anything other than a failure,” he said.

Anders Vahlne, a professor of virology at the Karolinska Institute and one of the scientists critical of the Swedish response, told The BMJ that it was shameful that the whole pandemic had been in the hands of a few civil servants who acted and reacted slowly, lacking flexibility and still not clearly acknowledging that the virus was airborne.

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n3081


Tell me again what a wonderful job Sweden did - because no one there would say that.

In fact they have officially said the exact opposite!!!

Oh dear, the same useless “experts” spouting the same utter drivel as we had here. Sweden haven’t got the backlog of cases through their health service that we have, nor have their kids education suffered, nor do they have the debt around their necks nor have their workers not returned to work. It’s the secondary damage done by lockdown that’s our problem not the number of deaths which is broadly the same and with the same generational split. Just face it Sluffy you’re wrong on this whether you want to admit it or not.

Which "same useless 'experts' spouting the same utter drivel" did I refer to in my post above.

To save you looking, I didn't quote ANY experts at all!

Who I did quote was the King of Sweden who said that how Sweden dealt with Covid was "a failure".

I quoted the Prime Minister at the time, who said looking back his government FAILED the country in the way it dealt with Covid.

I quoted Sweden's Public Inquiry (usually led by an eminent judge) into Covid, whose report slammed the governments dealing of Covid.

To be correct I did actually quote one medical expert but not in a medical way as such, but in order to point out that because the Swedish government didn't listen to their experts, that's why everybody in Sweden now wishes that they had gone into lockdown like the rest of the world - bar barking mad political country's such as Bolsonaro's Brazil.

Mate I'm not as you believe, obsessed about being right.

What I am obsessed about is the truth.

Are you disbelieving the evidence I've shown you above about Sweden where the King, the Prime Mister during Covid, and their own Public Inquiry into Covid all now say their handling of it was a disaster?

Look it up for yourself if you do - because you will find that is indeed what they've said.

Or do you know better than all of them?

okocha wrote:Hi, HP. Good to hear from you again. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist having a sarcastic swipe at those bright, compassionate, selfless Tories.....Bet you were sad about David Crosby though.....

Hi Okocha mate, good to speak to you again. Loveable old scamps and rogues those Tory boys aren't they? Hancock just has no shame whatsoever has he? His next rehabilitation/money making scheme is to co-write and perform the UK's Eurovision Song entry for 2024 with the very affable and talented "Mr 1922" himself Graham Brady.

You just have to laugh at them and take the piss don't you because that's what they are doing to the likes of me and you, taking the piss but all the while being handsomely financially rewarded for it.

Yes I was really sad about Croz. He was mouthy, awkward, a troublemaker and frequently drug addled but he couldn't half sing and wrote some fantastic songs, both for CSNY and The Byrds.
RIP David Crosby

Sluffy, there is not one shred of evidence that locking down saved any lives. Are you denying that many of the problems we have now such as a huge NHS backlog, severe increase in suicides and mental health, increased cancer deaths stroke and heart disease deaths due to lack of medical treatment as facilities were closed, children denied an education as schools were closed despite the fact that we knew all along that children were neither at risk of catching or passing on the virus. We have a financial penalty that will take decades to pay and again it’s our kids and grandkids who will pay it. There is no difference between countries who shut down and those that didn’t, the facts tell you that. Yes certain ethnicities seem to have been more vulnerable than others and probably needed more protection but the act of locking down every single person was pure madness, totally unnecessary and has been proved so. The people responsible for that (politicians and idiots like the so called Professor Ferguson) should never be in a position to decide anything ever again. If you choose not to ignore the doctored and over exaggerated figures used to scare the public into submission then more fool you but just leave the rest of us to deal with the actual facts we can now see clearly and which were also available at the time.

The lockdowns were to prevent the health services from collapsing - don't you understand that?

People with life threating conditions and other with life changing incidents, Accident and Emergency, etc, still had to be treated during the Covid pandemic and that could only be done by ensuring the NHS's in all the various countries throughout the world didn't get swamped with Covid cases.

Yes the implications of lockdown are similar to most of the things you've said (children can and do catch Covid and are in the categories that spread it the most - although most were symptomatic and their death rate was virtually zero).

Both Italy's and India's health care systems collapsed at one point during Covid, resulting in bodies piling up (in India's case - in the streets!!!).

Sweden who were once held up high as the country to lead the way by having no lockdown relied entirely by on people obeying social distancing rules - do you honestly think that would have worked here???

Did you even know that Sweden in fact brought in legislation for lockdowns in January 2021 because even the Swede's had had enough of following the rules by then...

On 18 December 2020, Stefan Löfven, the prime minister of Sweden, announced new and tougher restrictions and recommendations including the use of face masks in public transportation and closure of all non-essential public services.[1] In January 2021, a new pandemic law was passed that allows for the use of lockdown measures and legally limited some gatherings.[2] Further measures were introduced in July and December 2021, such as vaccine passports.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_government_response_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic

Anyway it is done now - right or wrongly we can't turn the clock back and change things.

Covid came from China - and China still to this day hides all the facts and figures about how it started - the American government seems to be moving closer and closer to identifying it to have originated from a leak from their bio-lab in Wuhan.

We went into lockdown late remember and only did so when we saw the Italian health service collapse under the deluge of cases turning up at their hospitals.

Nobody really knew at the time what we were up against as we'd never met Covid before.

Sure mistakes were made but they were made honestly to protect people at the time.

Would we do everything the same next time - probably not - but you can't blame what we did in hindsight.

Lockdowns were necessary to save the NHS initially.

The later lockdowns were necessary simply because their were too many people who couldn't be arsed following the rules when at the times when Covid mutations meant it was passed on more quickly - and again threatened overwhelming our health services.

Forget your political dogma and open your eyes as to what people were doing at the time was intended to be the best course of action for everyone, there and then.

Probably Cummings had the right idea from the outset, namely no lockdown, don't worry about the NHS collapsing, but go directly towards herd immunity.

Didn't Boris say something about 'let's have bodies laid on top of each other until we are through this' on something like that?

Yes. that would in all the terms you list above have been the best for those who lived through it - but which civilised country would knowingly and callously let the weak and old die simply because they were viewed as expendable?

I wouldn't bother Sluffy, WS63's tin foil hat has slipped over his eyes and ears.

Sluffy, unless you can enlighten me and provide with one, I’m not aware of one proven case anywhere in the world of a child passing Covid to any adult, either teacher or relative. I fully accept that at the outset there was little or no information on the severity of Covid but it very quickly became clear who was at risk and who wasn’t. Children and healthy working age people were never at risk of death or serious illness from Covid and so facts have proved. Had we followed the Swedish path and used recommendations instead of instructions the country wouldn’t be in the shambles it is now. It’s not a case of hindsight it’s common sense from what we knew at the time. We listened and acted on worst case scenarios from one group of clinicians and ignored other world renowned specialists in order to push through their own personal political agendas. As for the NHS, yes of course initially there was a problem as all those vulnerable spiked the numbers but that quickly subsided. However you look at it lockdowns were a disaster for this country and a totally unnecessary and damaging action.

I can only think you're in some sort of denial 63?

My nephew and his wife caught covid from their child, who almost certainly caught it at school.

His wife had previous health issues to Covid and up to her catching it (she was and still is ok, after having had it) so the whole family had to take great care not to catch covid for fear of how she might have reacted to it.

Didn't Norpig's son pass it on to him and his wife, or maybe I'm misremembering what he told us on here at the time.

There most have been millions and millions worldwide who caught Covid from children.

Fwiw this is from Harvard University medical research team into transmission of Covid from children dated October 2021 (before Omicron became the main variant of Covid) -

Study finds kids to be potential spreaders of COVID-19 and emerging variants

...The researchers at Harvard-affiliated MGH and colleagues from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard then showed that these high levels of virus correspond with live, infectious virus, and that levels are highest early in the illness in both symptomatic and asymptomatic children. They found no correlation between the age of the children and the amount of their viral load.

The researchers published additional data on several features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in children in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

“There had been the question about whether the high viral load in children correlated with the live virus. We’ve been able to provide a definitive answer that these high viral loads are infectious,” says Lael Yonker, pediatric pulmonologist at MGH and co-first author with Julie Boucau, senior research scientist at MGH and the Ragon Institute...

As COVID-19 variants continue to emerge, infected children are potential “reservoirs” for the evolution of new variants as well as potential spreaders of current variants, she says. “Kids with COVID-19, even if asymptomatic, are infectious and can harbor SARS-CoV-2 variants.  Variants could potentially impact both the severity of the disease and the efficacy of vaccines, as we are seeing with the Delta variant. When we cultured the live virus, we found a wide variety of genetic variants,” adds Yonker. “New variants have the potential to be more contagious and also make kids sicker.”

Yonker emphasizes that the group’s findings reinforce the importance of masking for children: “The implications of this study show that masking and other public health measures are needed for everyone — children, adolescents, and adults — to get us out of this pandemic.”

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/10/study-confirms-kids-as-spreaders-of-covid-19-and-emerging-variants/

I think Norpig was right about your tinfoil hat!