O/T Prince Charles Tests Positive

[ramAnag]

FFS it was a J.O.K.E

Personally, I don't want his letter, about as much as I wanted Camerons propaganda.

I could detract onto the BBC, who in the current climate want the tv license added to your household bills, but that's another story.

I have a question on the testing situation.
I was under the illusion, that only vulnerable people and the otherwise ill, were being tested at the moment?
How come all these "celebrities" and "important" people can say they have tested positive?
Today bloody "Dynamo" has told us to be brave as he comes out as positive?

However, I will say RA that surely you wasn't so naive as to believe that things wouldn't go tits up in some form or another?
A country can get invaded, drop one clanger after another, before it gets it's act together and wins the war.
Bit of history there for you,

Not sure which ‘bit of history’ you’re referring to Tricky...to the best of my knowledge - skirmishes apart - we haven’t been successfully invaded since 1066. Not sure what relevance that has anyway.

My one and only point is that - Party Politics aside - we should all be standing together and, to an extent, the Government’s economic response may be worthy of applause, but in terms of the practical response to the current pandemic we are being found as wanting each day.

It is the job of Government and the role of the PM to lead us through this crisis and protect the people by taking the appropriate steps. From what I hear - no more than anyone else - despite having been granted the advantage of time they are failing in virtually every way, from the production of ventilators to the provision of testing and appropriate protective equipment.

Assuming we make it through this crisis I feel it will be despite the actions of this Government rather than because of them, and I hope people remember that!

[Geoff Parkstone]

You know, I'm getting a bit sick of your negativity and constant criticism from the sidelines rA. You are becoming the forum Jeremy Corbyn - quick to slag off every initiative, yet contributing nothing positive towards the solution.

As Alison Krauss once beautifully sang "You say it best when you say nothing at all"

I cant even attribute it to lockdown boredom and no job to do, since you have retired!

[MadAmster]

Yes, rA, get off Johnson's back. He's doing the best he can.
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that that turns out, apart from the financial packages to try to rescue the economy, is, at every twist and every turn, to be too little, too late and from the very start when Cummings told him to ignore the experts, when he decided it was OK to shake hands with all and sundry in a hospital with COVID-19 patients which is probably where ho got it (if he actually got it at all), totally wrong and not beneficial to the populace....... yes, I believe he is working very hard and doing his very best. Unfortunately, it just aint cuttin' it.

Not a party political rant, merely an honest view of the situation thus far. In business he'd have been sacked by now.

[ramAnag]

You know, I'm getting a bit sick of your negativity and constant criticism from the sidelines rA. You are becoming the forum Jeremy Corbyn - quick to slag off every initiative, yet contributing nothing positive towards the solution.

As Alison Krauss once beautifully sang "You say it best when you say nothing at all"

I cant even attribute it to lockdown boredom and no job to do, since you have retired!

Thanks for that, Parky.

1) I’m not ‘slagging off every initiative’. I’ve actually been supportive of both the Chancellor and the police. I’m criticising specific inadequate responses all relating to the medical aspects and muddled advice. How’s that wrong?
2) You have no idea what I’m ‘contributing’ to the situation.
3) Retirement doesn’t mean you stop going out...far from it.
4) My view is the same as the one expressed by MA (above), though perhaps less kind.
5) I share your respect for Alison Krauss but the sentiment is a bit daft on a forum.

[Geoff Parkstone]

OK Jezzer!

Not planning to fall out over it, but I feel we need to praise the positives and accept that noone is going to get it right first time on some of the things more medical. Its not like they have a model to follow: its all, to use a well overused expression - unprecedented. So perhaps Korea and Germany were better positioned to respond, but who was to know that at the time that their chosen response was to prove more effective. Wisdom after the event is a sort of wisdom much to be despised.

To somehow make it Boris' fault, or those of the current Tory leadership, is disingenuous in the least. Do you really think BJ and the others personally had a clue how to respond? Only been in office a few months, or in the CoE's case, a few days. This strategy was developed by the backroom teams and announced by the political figures. Dont let your own partisanship colour your reaction to something that they just announced. I know we live in a world of celebrities, but its the backroom that work it out.

Governments can only base advice to the public and responses on the advice that they receive from the experts. That expert advice would doubtless have been just the same whichever politician "fronted the announcements" be they blue, red, or, as unlikely as it seems, yellow..

I could sit and pick holes in the details of the financial reliefs for businesses until the cows come home, should I want to, but overall they seem fair and proportionate. So why bother getting aerated.

Its best to see the bigger picture - I'm already more worried about tomorrow's recovery post lockdown than I am about today.

[swaledale]

You know, I'm getting a bit sick of your negativity and constant criticism from the sidelines rA. You are becoming the forum Jeremy Corbyn - quick to slag off every initiative, yet contributing nothing positive towards the solution.

As Alison Krauss once beautifully sang "You say it best when you say nothing at all"

I cant even attribute it to lockdown boredom and no job to do, since you have retired!

Well if justified criticism of a bunch of wasters who apparently ignored all health experts advice on dealing with pandemics and followed the nudge experts and mathematical modelers, who continue to lie about the number of tests that they can do and will do, whose policies left an NHS under resourced, and disorganised, who ignored a detailed report making recommendations on how the NHS should prepare for a flu pandemic, who are ignoring firms that can actually make ventilators now in favour of one owned by a Tory donor which has never made one, whose communication strategy has been at best muddled and in reality chaotic and confusing.

Then I guess that even if BJ and his useless bunch of lying ****s actually shot themselves in both feet you wouldn't be bothered.

The fact is this Goverment have ****ed up royally, both in how they have responded and in the way they have failed to use the time they had to prepare.

[swaledale]

OK Jezzer!

Not planning to fall out over it, but I feel we need to praise the positives and accept that noone is going to get it right first time on some of the things more medical. Its not like they have a model to follow: its all, to use a well overused expression - unprecedented. So perhaps Korea and Germany were better positioned to respond, but who was to know that at the time that their chosen response was to prove more effective. Wisdom after the event is a sort of wisdom much to be despised.

To somehow make it Boris' fault, or those of the current Tory leadership, is disingenuous in the least. Do you really think BJ and the others personally had a clue how to respond? Only been in office a few months, or in the CoE's case, a few days. This strategy was developed by the backroom teams and announced by the political figures. Dont let your own partisanship colour your reaction to something that they just announced. I know we live in a world of celebrities, but its the backroom that work it out.

Governments can only base advice to the public and responses on the advice that they receive from the experts. That expert advice would doubtless have been just the same whichever politician "fronted the announcements" be they blue, red, or, as unlikely as it seems, yellow..

I could sit and pick holes in the details of the financial reliefs for businesses until the cows come home, should I want to, but overall they seem fair and proportionate. So why bother getting aerated.

Its best to see the bigger picture - I'm already more worried about tomorrow's recovery post lockdown than I am about today.

Eh if the PM does not have a clue how to respond what the **** is he doing as leader?

A truism is that virtually everyone can be a good leader when everything is running smoothly and your dealing with things you have experience of, the really good leaders are those that make a success when dealing with stuff they are not familiar with and there is a crisis. Johnson is not someone who can handle a crisis and clearly has no judgement as to which backroom experts to take notice of!

But its not like BJ and the Government haven't had plenty of advice and over two months to prepare is it? How is it disingenuous to criticise the obvious failings of a bunch of people who are supposed to be able to run thing things?

Its nothing to do with political leanings and everything to do with knowing that Johnson is a proven waffler, liar, disassembler, doesn't do detail and bull****ter and now its obvious, well to those who aren't slavishly blind to this "he is the leader in a crisis and its not the done thing to be negative. I'm sure there were plenty of Germans who were told the same when they tried to point out that maybe Hitler wasn't the right leader for them!

[Geoff Parkstone]

Well, there we must differ.

I would contend that whoever was leader would have received the same advice from the same experts who are effectively the invisible people who are running the anti Corona "battle campaign". Its not the titular head that makes decisions, he just announces them.

As you like world war 2 analogies you might just as well hold Churchill personally responsible for Dunkirk or Arnhem, when in reality it was behind the scenes armed forces personnel that planned that campaign

I get that BJ is not a "man for the people" and commands little respect from many of the electorate, but what is to be gained by criticising the mouth, when its the brain that may have made the mistakes. We all know BJ in not the brain, but the mouth. I would contend that criticism should be laid at the feet of the civil service: but equally commendation should belong there too, not with BJ, if the virus is defeated - I'd like to think he would attribute the praise to the backroom, rather than take it for himself, but I suspect we all accept that he won't!.

[Geoff Parkstone]

In short, criticise the decision by all means, but not the mouthpiece

[ramAnag]

OK Jezzer!

Not planning to fall out over it, but I feel we need to praise the positives and accept that noone is going to get it right first time on some of the things more medical. Its not like they have a model to follow: its all, to use a well overused expression - unprecedented. So perhaps Korea and Germany were better positioned to respond, but who was to know that at the time that their chosen response was to prove more effective. Wisdom after the event is a sort of wisdom much to be despised.

To somehow make it Boris' fault, or those of the current Tory leadership, is disingenuous in the least. Do you really think BJ and the others personally had a clue how to respond? Only been in office a few months, or in the CoE's case, a few days. This strategy was developed by the backroom teams and announced by the political figures. Dont let your own partisanship colour your reaction to something that they just announced. I know we live in a world of celebrities, but its the backroom that work it out.

Governments can only base advice to the public and responses on the advice that they receive from the experts. That expert advice would doubtless have been just the same whichever politician "fronted the announcements" be they blue, red, or, as unlikely as it seems, yellow..

I could sit and pick holes in the details of the financial reliefs for businesses until the cows come home, should I want to, but overall they seem fair and proportionate. So why bother getting aerated.

Its best to see the bigger picture - I'm already more worried about tomorrow's recovery post lockdown than I am about today.

I’m not aiming or looking to ‘fall out’ over it and I’m really not sure what that last sentence means.

You could, I’m sure, pick holes in the financial package. I wouldn’t because I don’t know enough about that side of things.

As for the rest and why bother getting ‘aerated’?

Because this matters more than anything that has happened in our lifetimes. Because this is about our ability to survive both individually and collectively.

I could bang on about the irresponsibility of and misinformation provided by the Chinese but it would make not a jot of difference to a regime which is thousands of miles away and over which we have no control.

The reaction of our leader/s is actually what matters now. I obviously don’t blame Johnson for the Coronavirus pandemic however the time that he/they have been in office is largely irrelevant. The pandemic is unprecedented in living memory so how does whether they’ve been in power for months or years make a meaningful difference?

What matters is that those who went to such lengths to achieve power now show themselves capable of handling it and communicating what needs to be done to the people.

On the evidence so far I don’t believe that to be the case.

We’ve had the hopeless delay in reaction, the shambolic guidance on hand shaking, the frankly pathetic initial ‘advice’ to avoid clubs, pubs and theatres, the contradictory and confusing advice on when, where and for how long people may leave home.

There is disagreement on how long people should self isolate for. My cousin has recently returned from abroad and has been definitively told to self isolate for four**** days, but apparently for Johnson and Hancock, who’ve actually had it, they only need to self isolate for a week. Why?
We know from the German and Korean examples that testing is crucial and yet, unlike them, we remain woefully short of testing kits. Why?
The targets for the supply of ventilators and protective equipment have been missed time and time again. Why?

I’m sorry...I genuinely don’t like being negative and I’m not being politically partisan at all...but I am mightily pissed off with the apparent ineptitude of our Government in terms of providing leadersyhip and communication.

Epidemiologists and WHO - no, not Roger and Pete before you say it - are who we should ALL be listening to now. The Government should understand, follow and enforce their advice while making sure the people understand the consequences of their behaviour. It is not happening at the moment and no amount of you hand wringing and saying ‘you’re just being negative’ will alter that.