Should he stay...or should he go now?

[Geoff Parkstone]

you wont find me arguing with you on the matter of behaviour, from Cummings and other politicians of varying hues in the early days to Johnson most recently. Mostly unforgiveable, certainly all inexcusable and doubtless disrespectful to those unable to attend the funerals of loved ones whilst the elite have what might kindly be described as work related jollies and less kindly as rule defying piss ups.

[Ramshank72]

Giving definitive figures is difficult. Total deaths will include some who would have died anyway from pre existing conditions. Totally correct. It will also include some who had pre existing conditions who had those conditions under total control thanks to medicine that enabled them to cycle thousands of miles a year and referee football matches who would not have died for years had it not been for Covid. It will also include some who only had Covid.

There are, to the best of my knowledge, no figures available of how many fall into each of the categories. There, like as not, never will be.

I would like to suggest we all stop being right fighters in this and accept that the UK has a high rate, whichever "explanation" you choose to use and that the total could have been lower if different decisions had been made and/or those decisions had been made earlier/later.

The reverse is also true.

We can't bring any of the dead back. All we can do is focus on making tomorrow and every day after that, that little bit better.

Well said.

[ramAnag]

you wont find me arguing with you on the matter of behaviour, from Cummings and other politicians of varying hues in the early days to Johnson most recently. Mostly unforgiveable, certainly all inexcusable and doubtless disrespectful to those unable to attend the funerals of loved ones whilst the elite have what might kindly be described as work related jollies and less kindly as rule defying piss ups.

Good.

[Andy_Faber]

Im not sure quite how "economic giant status" - sarcasm noted - is relevant to covid death rates since low per capita death rates also occur in less economically advantaged places such as Namibia, Lebanon and Kosovo.

Yes we could have done better, others did. We made mistakes, in some cases acted too late, and arguably could have sustained lower death totals perhaps. But also bear in mind we have an average older population as well which will spike our numbers upwards.

My point is that you simply picked a number to support your argument, which is no way to win the debate, even in rArA Land. You have to test your argument against a statistical data set, not just leap on the first number that matches your desired outcome.

IMHO no-one can get an A rating in fighting an unknown pandemic, there were no rules to follow. No matter how much you think other major economic powers did better than us, no-one really did significantly better, nor adopted much different policies. So I'm sorry I cannot and will not accept the "Boris done bad" argument other than in a very minimal way.

I'd rate us maybe a B-/C+ overall on a scale of A to E where no-one gets an A. But that's using a measured data analytics approach rather than an emotional based politically driven motive!

Pretty much my view, and the last part of the last sentence sums up the reason why there is conflict on this and many other issues on this forum - GP and I coming from a Richard Curtice perspective and rA and Swale adopting an Emily Maitless approach

[swaledale]

I'm adopting an approach of using the evidence of whats happened to realise that
a) Johnson hadn't a ****ing clue what to do
b) It didn't stop him and his fellow politico's throwing money at firms that in most cases happened to be run by or associated with relatives or friends or members of the Tory party.
c) Partygate has just exposed what we all knew anyway, this "government of the people" who were supposedly giving people what they wanted, which the so called metropolitan elites wouldn't , were in fact lying, cheating and doing what the **** they liked whilst ordering the "people" to do different things.

Incompetence ruled and Johnson is top of the league in incompetence, probity and straight dealings.

[ramAnag]

Pretty much my view, and the last part of the last sentence sums up the reason why there is conflict on this and many other issues on this forum - GP and I coming from a Richard Cutice perspective and rA and Swale adopting an Emily Maitless approach

I have absolutely no idea what that means.
No idea why me criticising Johnson should be ‘emotion based politically driven’, but you and GP defending him/his government somehow isn’t. Why you agreeing with GP is fine...but me agreeing with Swale somehow makes me his ‘rear gunner’...and wth has it got to do with Emily Maitless?
Imo the reason there is ‘conflict on this’ is because the two of you consistently seek to defend the indefensible.

[Andy_Faber]

I have absolutely no idea what that means.
No idea why me criticising Johnson should be ‘emotion based politically driven’, but you and GP defending him/his government somehow isn’t. Why you agreeing with GP is fine...but me agreeing with Swale somehow makes me his ‘rear gunner’...and wth has it got to do with Emily Maitless?
Imo the reason there is ‘conflict on this’ is because the two of you consistently seek to defend the indefensible.

The Richard Curtice/Emily Maitless comment was an attempt to inject a bit of humour into the discussion, I'm no longer bothered if my brand of humour (which is usually well received elsewhere) passes folk on here by

I'm not attempting to defend the indefensible but I'll never tire of calling out badly thought through or innocently/deliberately misleading interpretation of open source data, or of unverified/unsubstantiated claims to support a line of argument. I'm not repeating historical or recent examples but they crop up regularly

[Trickytreesreds]

I didn’t in any way ‘pick a number’. The numbers are out there...157,730 was the total number of Covid related UK deaths earlier this afternoon...Fact. That was the highest number of such nation defined deaths reported throughout Europe also earlier this afternoon...Fact. It is higher than all the comparable EU/Western European nations...Fact.

RA, you keep saying FACT, when " in fact" it isn't
Firstly there is no across the table rule, for recording COVID deaths- they vary country by country.

The way we do it, very wrongly in my opinion. Is that anyone dying with a positive COVID test inside the the 30 days of point of death, is being recorded as a COVID related death. That is purely to inflate figures and justify actions.
You are using that as a weapon in the same way it was designed, to create a reactive fear.

Now I'd love to see a country by country report on this, as in no way am I convinced 157, 000 people were killed by COVID by a long shot.

that's the crux of it for me.
The press has grabbed this for sensationalism head lines as well. In fact they twist it, every time a mention of easing restrictions is mentioned.

[ramAnag]

The Richard Curtice/Emily Maitless comment was an attempt to inject a bit of humour into the discussion, I'm no longer bothered if my brand of humour (which is usually well received elsewhere) passes folk on here by

I'm not attempting to defend the indefensible but I'll never tire of calling out badly thought through or innocently/deliberately misleading interpretation of open source data, or of unverified/unsubstantiated claims to support a line of argument. I'm not repeating historical or recent examples but they crop up regularly

Nothing to do with your sense of humour, Andy. I just genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.

[ramAnag]

RA, you keep saying FACT, when " in fact" it isn't
Firstly there is no across the table rule, for recording COVID deaths- they vary country by country.

The way we do it, very wrongly in my opinion. Is that anyone dying with a positive COVID test inside the the 30 days of point of death, is being recorded as a COVID related death. That is purely to inflate figures and justify actions.
You are using that as a weapon in the same way it was designed, to create a reactive fear.

Now I'd love to see a country by country report on this, as in no way am I convinced 157, 000 people were killed by COVID by a long shot.

that's the crux of it for me.
The press has grabbed this for sensationalism head lines as well. In fact they twist it, every time a mention of easing restrictions is mentioned.

Okay...you know better than all the statisticians. I know they don’t fit your ‘agenda’ and I understand your point, but the figures I’ve quoted are neither made up or ‘mine’ and you can reference any set of figures you like...we don’t come out of it all well.