Everyone is Captain Hindsight afterwards.
But we did seem to spend a long time in a casual period of the government giving "advice" rather than ordering us what to do.
The fact we are looking likely to be the worst affected country in Europe, despite having advance warning from events Italy and Spain, suggests to me that the government has failed. Sure, its a difficult job, but they could have done better and failing to do so has literally led to unnecessary deaths.
Two things that should be taken into account here:
1) we live on an overcrowded island where space is at a premium.Our population of 66 million is roughly the same as Italy and France and greater than that of Spain, all vastly bigger countries where social distancing measures were/are easier to implement.
2) The government formulated a plan in line with the advice given to them by scientists and medical experts. Had they ignored that advice they would rightly have been criticised. They didn’t ignore it.
@Malone said:
Everyone is Captain Hindsight afterwards.
But we did seem to spend a long time in a casual period of the government giving "advice" rather than ordering us what to do.
And at the start following the advice of our own medical and scientific experts much of which was at variance with the views of the WHO advisors. Not giving priority to testing is the biggest error as evidenced by for instance the German figures.
However you cannot pin any blame on Boris, any shortcomings are due to his advisors and/or civil servants.
Interesting. A lot of "could" and "if" to it, of course.
It says games would start BCD, and would help lower league teams.
Is there much prize money for position in league 1 and 2? As if games would potentially not be able to move off BCD, then how does paying players for another month after their contract ends actually help clubs? They're making no more income, but with a bit of extra expense?
Presumably TV type pots have already come our way? Or are in the figures Rob Couhig mentioned as being paid early?
@Malone said:
Everyone is Captain Hindsight afterwards.
But we did seem to spend a long time in a casual period of the government giving "advice" rather than ordering us what to do.
And at the start following the advice of our own medical and scientific experts much of which was at variance with the views of the WHO advisors. Not giving priority to testing is the biggest error as evidenced by for instance the German figures.
However you cannot pin any blame on Boris, any shortcomings are due to his advisors and/or civil servants.
Perhaps his bombastic boasts about still shaking hands with everyone way past that being sensible are on him.
While many are involved in policy and decision-making, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the literal Prime Minister is the person to ultimately pin blame on for shortcomings in this kind of situation.
That’s what the job is - appointing the right people and listening to their advice at the right time. You can’t just say it is the fault of the civil service, or there is little point having elected officials at all.
At no stage did I say that Boris Johnson had made all the right decisions. In fact, I said that the time to apportion any blame is when the crisis is over and an exhaustive inquiry is held into how it was handled. What I called disgraceful was the original tweet by Alastair Campbell whose record suggests that he’s in no position to throw stones.
Quite hard not to politicise current events against the backdrop of a xenophobic campaign to leave the EU (coupled with the lie of an extra £350M a week to the NHS led by the current PM) and the poisonous rhetoric about low skilled foreign workers (several of whom saved the Prime Minister's life last week) spouted by the current right wing Home Secretary
They've been lying for years about immigration and about how much money is available for public services. They've been caught in that lie in spectacular fashion in unimaginably horrific circumstances. Holding an elected government to account is not "playing politics". It's what we're supposed to do
Can anyone seriously imagine that with Corbyn & Abbot at the helm, we would be better off? Don't doubt that Boris has made mistakes but as @glasshalffull has already stated, until we know most of the facts, trying to apportion blame any sooner is pointless or criticising as he/she not your chosen candidate. Appointing the right people at the right time is always going to be a bit of a gamble. Until the chips are down, you can't be 100% sure they will perform under pressure. All most can do is look at the track record & select the best of the options available. Using a football analogy, Stockdale had a great "track record" & for all perceptions was going to be miles better than Allsop. Most of the fans were delighted, but look how that turned out. If his two performances were the first we knew of him, I doubt many would have signed him?
FWIW, I am a political atheist. I have voted for three different parties in my years, so I have no bias whatsoever.
I don’t see the relevance of using words like ‘xenophobic’, ‘poisonous rhetoric’, ‘lying for years’ to describe the government’s response to a pandemic that’s affected the entire planet.
@Chris said:
If anything, politics is more important in a crisis.
Really?
I'd have thought pretty obviously yes. The role of the government is much increased during a crisis, so scrutiny of the government has a higher level of importance.
@Chris said:
If anything, politics is more important in a crisis.
Really?
I'd have thought pretty obviously yes. The role of the government is much increased during a crisis, so scrutiny of the government has a higher level of importance.
Ok. I thought you were talking about politics and now you are talking about Government. Are they interchangeable terms for you because they are different things to me.
I think all elements of our infrastructure have higher importance in a crisis. Seems one part gets more blame than others.
I am in no way a fan of Johnson but I have played the sliding doors ‘game’ of imagining if we still had May and Hammond. That thought experiment did not end well...
When we do come to analyse the results I do hope people take a nuanced view. Clearly the government could have handled it differently to reduce deaths if they had ordered a lockdown earlier but that more authoritarian approach could have backfired with more civil disobedience than we are seeing.
I do think they will look back with regret at the herd immunity briefings early on and I do wish they were honest about not being on top of the testing and PPE rather than saying it’s all under control. Most of us are sensible enough to understand the difficulties but more honesty about these problems could help with solutions.
The more awkward questions will rightly be about the decade of underinvestment in our ‘key services’ that have (what a surprise) suddenly turned out to actually be key!
Comments
Everyone is Captain Hindsight afterwards.
But we did seem to spend a long time in a casual period of the government giving "advice" rather than ordering us what to do.
It's a long'un, but I'd recommend reading this on the UK's response: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-path-speci/special-report-johnson-listened-to-his-scientists-about-coronavirus-but-they-were-slow-to-sound-the-alarm-idUSKBN21P1VF
The fact we are looking likely to be the worst affected country in Europe, despite having advance warning from events Italy and Spain, suggests to me that the government has failed. Sure, its a difficult job, but they could have done better and failing to do so has literally led to unnecessary deaths.
English football looking to return on 06 June. https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/english-football-return-june-6-21858489
Two things that should be taken into account here:
1) we live on an overcrowded island where space is at a premium.Our population of 66 million is roughly the same as Italy and France and greater than that of Spain, all vastly bigger countries where social distancing measures were/are easier to implement.
2) The government formulated a plan in line with the advice given to them by scientists and medical experts. Had they ignored that advice they would rightly have been criticised. They didn’t ignore it.
And at the start following the advice of our own medical and scientific experts much of which was at variance with the views of the WHO advisors. Not giving priority to testing is the biggest error as evidenced by for instance the German figures.
However you cannot pin any blame on Boris, any shortcomings are due to his advisors and/or civil servants.
I agree with Nick.
Interesting. A lot of "could" and "if" to it, of course.
It says games would start BCD, and would help lower league teams.
Is there much prize money for position in league 1 and 2? As if games would potentially not be able to move off BCD, then how does paying players for another month after their contract ends actually help clubs? They're making no more income, but with a bit of extra expense?
Presumably TV type pots have already come our way? Or are in the figures Rob Couhig mentioned as being paid early?
Perhaps his bombastic boasts about still shaking hands with everyone way past that being sensible are on him.
While many are involved in policy and decision-making, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the literal Prime Minister is the person to ultimately pin blame on for shortcomings in this kind of situation.
That’s what the job is - appointing the right people and listening to their advice at the right time. You can’t just say it is the fault of the civil service, or there is little point having elected officials at all.
As that Reuters says, his advisers were slow to sound the alarm, but he still played down the situation once they started playing it up.
@glasshalffull claims the "politicising of this crisis is disgraceful" and then goes on to make political arguments in defence of the Government.
This was the approach of the Prime Minster less than six weeks ago.
https://news.sky.com/video/coronavirus-i-shook-hands-with-everybody-11948548
At no stage did I say that Boris Johnson had made all the right decisions. In fact, I said that the time to apportion any blame is when the crisis is over and an exhaustive inquiry is held into how it was handled. What I called disgraceful was the original tweet by Alastair Campbell whose record suggests that he’s in no position to throw stones.
Quite hard not to politicise current events against the backdrop of a xenophobic campaign to leave the EU (coupled with the lie of an extra £350M a week to the NHS led by the current PM) and the poisonous rhetoric about low skilled foreign workers (several of whom saved the Prime Minister's life last week) spouted by the current right wing Home Secretary
They've been lying for years about immigration and about how much money is available for public services. They've been caught in that lie in spectacular fashion in unimaginably horrific circumstances. Holding an elected government to account is not "playing politics". It's what we're supposed to do
If anything, politics is more important in a crisis.
Can anyone seriously imagine that with Corbyn & Abbot at the helm, we would be better off? Don't doubt that Boris has made mistakes but as @glasshalffull has already stated, until we know most of the facts, trying to apportion blame any sooner is pointless or criticising as he/she not your chosen candidate. Appointing the right people at the right time is always going to be a bit of a gamble. Until the chips are down, you can't be 100% sure they will perform under pressure. All most can do is look at the track record & select the best of the options available. Using a football analogy, Stockdale had a great "track record" & for all perceptions was going to be miles better than Allsop. Most of the fans were delighted, but look how that turned out. If his two performances were the first we knew of him, I doubt many would have signed him?
FWIW, I am a political atheist. I have voted for three different parties in my years, so I have no bias whatsoever.
Really?
I wondered who’d be the first to mention Brexit!
You don't see the relevance Alan?
I don’t see the relevance of using words like ‘xenophobic’, ‘poisonous rhetoric’, ‘lying for years’ to describe the government’s response to a pandemic that’s affected the entire planet.
Fair play, discussion over then. Hope you're keeping well and we can all get back to watching football soon
I'd have thought pretty obviously yes. The role of the government is much increased during a crisis, so scrutiny of the government has a higher level of importance.
You should get a lot of PPE for £350 million a week...
Ok. I thought you were talking about politics and now you are talking about Government. Are they interchangeable terms for you because they are different things to me.
I think all elements of our infrastructure have higher importance in a crisis. Seems one part gets more blame than others.
Government, and the scrutiny of government. Yes, these are elements of politics.
"with Corbyn & Abbot at the helm"..... makes me shudder at the thought
I am in no way a fan of Johnson but I have played the sliding doors ‘game’ of imagining if we still had May and Hammond. That thought experiment did not end well...
Agreed, but it looks like a long way off I’m afraid. Keep safe.
When we do come to analyse the results I do hope people take a nuanced view. Clearly the government could have handled it differently to reduce deaths if they had ordered a lockdown earlier but that more authoritarian approach could have backfired with more civil disobedience than we are seeing.
I do think they will look back with regret at the herd immunity briefings early on and I do wish they were honest about not being on top of the testing and PPE rather than saying it’s all under control. Most of us are sensible enough to understand the difficulties but more honesty about these problems could help with solutions.
The more awkward questions will rightly be about the decade of underinvestment in our ‘key services’ that have (what a surprise) suddenly turned out to actually be key!