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My uncle just died. He had lung cancer and caught the virus. In a way it is probably better for him rather than a few more years of treatment dragging out the inevitable. It's going to be tough not being able to give him a send off though.

Wouldnt normally post around very serious things as this, but my (trusted) friend who is a paramedic took King Kenny back home today. He's all good on the mend.

Seemed as good a place as any to post this

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/04/11/a-national-scandal-a-timeline-of-the-uk-governments-woeful-response-to-the-coronavirus-crisis/ Ian Sinclair and Rupert Read with comprehensive countdown to how Britain came to have one of highest COVID-19 per capita death rates in the world. Share this article Email Twitter Facebook Speaking on BBC Question Time on 26 March 2020, Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal, described the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as “a national scandal”. A look through the key moments in the crisis explains why. October 2016: Exercise Cygnus, a three-day training on how to deal with a pandemic, is carried out, involving all major government departments, the NHS and local authorities. “It showed gaping holes in Britain’s Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response plan.” A report on the exercise has never been published, with a senior former government source with direct involvement saying the findings were deemed “too terrifying” to be revealed. A senior academic directly involved in Exercise Cygnus and the current pandemic said: “These exercises are supposed to prepare government for something like this – but it appears they were aware of the problem but didn’t do much about it.” (Sunday Telegraph) 14 September 2017: National Risk Register Of Civil Emergencies published by the Cabinet Office. The report notes “there is a high probability of a flu pandemic occurring” with “up to 50% of the UK population experiencing symptoms, potentially leading to between 20,000 and 750,000 fatalities and high levels of absence from work.” (Cabinet Office) 30 July 2018: UK biological security strategy published, addressing the threat of pandemics. It “was not properly implemented, according to a former government chief scientific advisor… Prof Sir Ian Boyd, who advised the environment department for seven years until last August and was involved in writing the strategy, said a lack of resources was to blame.” (Guardian) 2 January 2020: “Chinese authorities have launched an investigation into a mysterious viral pneumonia which has infected dozens of people in the central city of Wuhan.” (BBC News) Mid-January 2020: “From about mid-January onwards, it was absolutely obvious that this was serious, very serious”, notes John Edmunds, a professor of infectious disease modelling and a key adviser to the government. (Reuters) 21 January 2020: “China’s health ministry has confirmed human-to-human transmission of a mysterious Sars-like virus that has spread across the country and fuelled anxiety about the prospect of a major outbreak as millions begin travelling for lunar new year celebrations.” (Guardian) 23 January 2020: China implements a lockdown in Wuhan province, the centre of the outbreak. All transport into and out of the city is stopped (with no exceptions even for personal and medical emergencies), shops, schools and universities are closed, public transport halted, and private vehicles barred from the roads without special permission. (Guardian) 24 January 2020: A group of Chinese doctors and scientists publish an article in the Lancet medical journal titled ‘Clinical Features of Patients Infected With 2019 Novel Coronavirus in Wuhan, China’ (Lancet). According to Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, the study showed “that a third of patients require admission to intensive care, and 29% get so bad that they need ventilation.” (Guardian) 26 January 2020: Nassim Taleb and two colleagues publish a note with the New England Complex Systems Institute urging a robust precautionary response to the outbreak. “Policy- and decision-makers must act swiftly and avoid the fallacy that to have an appropriate respect for uncertainty in the face of possible irreversible catastrophe amounts to ‘paranoia,’ or the converse a belief that nothing can be done”, they conclude. (New England Complex Systems Institute) Are Uyghur Muslims’ Organs Being Illegally Removed to Save China’s Coronavirus Patients? CJ Werleman 30 January 2020: The World Health Organisation (WHO) declares coronavirus a “public health emergency of international concern”. (Guardian) 31 January 2020: Professor Joseph Wu, from the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong, co-authors an article in the Lancet medical journal about the coronavirus outbreak in China. The authors note “Independent self-sustaining outbreaks in major cities globally could become inevitable because of substantial exportation of presymptomatic cases and in the absence of large-scale public health interventions. Preparedness plans and mitigation interventions should be readied for quick deployment globally” (Lancet). “British officials took part in four meetings where EU projects to bulk-buy medical kit were discussed – the earliest in January, according to official minutes … At this [31 January 2020] meeting, four EU member states said the virus could require increased stocks in Europe of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves, masks and goggles, and the commission said it was ready to help if asked… the UK had decided not to participate in any of four EU procurement schemes to buy medical equipment in response to the coronavirus crisis.” (Guardian) 13 February 2020: Between 13 February and 30 March the UK misses a total of eight conference calls or meetings about coronavirus between EU heads of state or health ministers. (Reuters) 24 February 2020: At a press conference in Beijing the WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19 highlights how China “rolled out probably the most ambitious, and I would say, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history” to fight the spread of coronavirus (WHO). Rupert Read sends a briefing to a senior member of the Government, urging the adoption of the kind of strong precautionary measures laid out in Taleb et al’s 24 January note. The government response to Read is non-committal. 26 February 2020: A memo from the Government’s National Security Communications Team warns that in a worst-case-scenario half a million Britons could die from coronavirus. (Mirror) Late February 2020: According to a Sunday Times report, at a private event Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s Chief Advisor, outlined the government’s strategy at the time in a way that was summarised by someone present as “herd immunity, protect the economy, and if that means some pensioners die, too bad.” (Guardian) 29 February 2020: First recorded case of local transmission in the UK. (BBC News) 2 March 2020: The SPI-M committee, an official committee set up to model the spread of pandemic flu, publishes a report noting up to four-fifths of the population could be infected and one in a hundred might die – “that was a prediction of over 500,000 deaths in this nation of nearly 70 million” (Reuters). The government holds its first emergency COBRA meeting (the government’s emergency response committee) on coronavirus. Prime Minister Boris Johnson states the country is “very, very well-prepared”. (Sky News) 3 March 2020: “Prime Minister Boris Johnson said… that coronavirus would not stop him greeting people with a handshake, adding that he had shaken the hands of everyone at a hospital where infected patients were being treated” (Reuters). During the press conference the Prime Minister said “Our country remains extremely well prepared. We already have a fantastic NHS, fantastic testing systems and fantastic surveillance of the spread of disease.” However, “the upbeat tone of that briefing stood in sharp contrast with the growing unease of many of the government’s scientific advisers behind the scenes. They were already convinced that Britain was on the brink of a disastrous outbreak”. (Reuters) 4 March 2020: “The government has been accused of withholding information about the spread of Coronavirus after a 70% increase in confirmed cases prompted health officials to stop providing daily updates on the location of new infections.” (Guardian) Herd Immunity – Timeline of a Climb-Down Stefan Simanowitz 5 March 2020: The Prime Minister floats the idea of “herd immunity” on ITV’s This Morning, saying “one of the theories is, that perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures” (This Morning). Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, tells the Commons Health Committee “One of the things which is clear, if you model out the epidemic, is you will get 50% of all the cases over a three-week period and 95% of the cases over a nine-week period, if it follows the trajectory we think it’s likely to.” One scenario could involve a “huge number” of cases “overtopping the ability of the NHS realistically to put everybody in beds”. (Guardian) 7 March 2020: Rupert Read publishes a briefing setting out what a precautionary approach to the outbreak would look like, having sent it to a senior member of the government on 24 February. The briefing urges immediate implementation of measures such as shutting down of most air travel, treating cold and flu symptoms presumptively as coronavirus symptoms and shutting down places where the old or medically-vulnerable are likely to exposed to the virus. (Rupert Read) Early-mid March 2020: In the face of government inaction, large numbers of institutions, organisations and individuals across the UK move to cancel or postpone public events, or hold them remotely, including the Six Nations Championship and the Premier League. (Independent) 9 March 2020: A report from the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, SAGE, recommends, with no dissension recorded in its summary, that the UK reject a China-style lockdown. (Reuters) 10-13 March 2020: The government allows the Cheltenham Festival to take place, with over 60,000 people attending each day. Since then a number of racegoers have been diagnosed with coronavirus. (Guardian) The fateful legacy of the Atlético Madrid-Liverpool football match and the Cheltenham races John Ashton 10 March 2020: “The government was accused of playing roulette with the public by the editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal. Dr Richard Horton called for the ‘urgent implementation of social distancing and closure policies’.” (Guardian) 11 March 2020: WHO declares a coronavirus pandemic. The government allows the UEFA Champions League football match between Liverpool and Atlético Madrid to go ahead at Anfield stadium in Liverpool. 54,000 people attend the game, including 3,000 fans from Spain. Spain closed its schools on 10 March 2020 (Guardian). NHS England says there are plans to increase coronavirus testing to 10,000 a day (NHS England). Dr David Halpern, the Head of the Number 10 ‘Nudge Unit’, tells the BBC “There is going to be a point, assuming the epidemic flows and grows as we think it probably will do, where you’ll want to cocoon, you’ll want to protect those at-risk group so that they basically don’t catch the disease and by the time they come out of their cocooning herd immunity has been achieved in the rest of the population” (Guardian). “The [unpublished] modelling from Imperial College that underpinned the government’s belief that the nation could ride out the epidemic by letting the infection sweep through, creating ‘herd immunity’ on the way, was… troubling”, the Guardian’s Science Editor noted. “The model, based on 13-year-old code for a long-feared influenza pandemic, assumed that the demand for intensive care units would be the same for both infections. Data from China soon showed this to be dangerously wrong, but the model was only updated when more data poured out of Italy, where intensive care was swiftly overwhelmed and deaths shot up”. (Guardian) 12 March 2020: Addressing the “question of banning major public events such as sporting fixtures” the Prime Minister says “The scientific advice as we’ve said over the last couple of weeks is that banning such events will have little effect on the spread” (Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street). The government announces it will “no longer try to ‘track and trace’ everyone suspected of having the virus. Instead, under plans outlined by the Prime Minister and his medical and scientific advisers, testing would be limited to patients in hospital with serious breathing problems” (Guardian). The WHO’s director-general makes his opening remarks at the mission briefing on COVID-19: “We are deeply concerned that some countries are not approaching this threat with the level of political commitment needed to control it. Let me be clear: describing this as a pandemic does not mean that countries should give up. The idea that countries should shift from containment to mitigation is wrong and dangerous” (WHO). The Guardian reports that as of 12 March “almost every country [in Europe] had deployed nationwide or regional school closures”. The UK’s schools remain open. (Guardian) 13 March 2020: “Mass gatherings are to be banned across the UK from next weekend, the government has announced after Boris Johnson’s cautious approach to the coronavirus outbreak was overtaken by care homes, sporting bodies and even the Queen taking matters into their own hands” (Guardian). The government’s chief science adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, tells BBC Radio 4 Today programme that one of “the key things we need to do” is to “build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission” (Vox). Interviewing Sir Patrick on Sky News about the herd immunity strategy, presenter Stephen Dixon says “even looking at the best case scenario… 0.5-1 percent fatality in something like this, that’s an awful lot of people dying in this country” (Sky News). Professor Graham Medley, who leads the government’s disease modelling team, tells BBC Newsnight “We are going to have to generate what is called herd immunity… and the only way of developing that in the absence of infection is for the majority of the population to become infected” (BBC Newsnight). The WHO’s director general says all possible action should be taken: “Not testing alone. Not contact tracing alone. Not quarantine alone. Not social distancing alone. Do it all” (Guardian). “Anthony Costello, a paediatrician and former World Health Organization director, said that the UK government was out of kilter with other countries in looking to herd immunity as the answer. It could conflict with WHO policy, he said in a series of Twitter posts, which is to contain the virus by tracking and tracing all cases” (Guardian). BBC News reports on a new study of more than 44,000 cases of Covid-19, based on data from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. The study puts “the overall death rate of the Covid-19 virus at 2.3%.” (BBC News) 14 March 2020: WHO spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, questions the UK government’s decision to follow a herd immunity response to the outbreak, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We don’t know enough about the science of this virus, it hasn’t been in our population for long enough for us to know what it does in immunological terms” (Guardian). More than 200 scientists sign an open letter to the government urging them to introduce tougher measures to tackle the spread of Covid-19, noting the UK’s current approach will put the NHS under additional stress and “risk many more lives than necessary” (BBC News). Six senior health experts, including Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet, and Devi Shridhar, professor public health at the University of Edinburgh, publish a letter in the Times, noting there is “no clear indication that the UK’s response is being informed by experiences of other countries”. The letter urges the government to share the scientific evidence being used to inform policy, rather than acting on the basis of modelling that is being kept secret (Times). The British Society for Immunology publishes an open letter to the government with “significant questions” about the herd immunity plan: “this strategy only works to reduce serious disease if, when building that immunity, vulnerable individuals are protected from becoming ill, for example through social distancing… we don’t yet know if this novel virus will induce long-term immunity in those affected as other related viruses do not”. (British Society for Immunology) 15 March 2020: “When I first heard about this, I could not believe it… my colleagues here in the US… assumed that reports of the UK policy were satire”, notes William Hanage, a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard University, writing in the Guardian about the UK government’s herd immunity plan. “The UK should not be trying to create herd immunity, that will take care of itself. Policy should be directed at slowing the outbreak to a (more) manageable rate. What this looks like is strong social distancing… All this and more should have started weeks ago.” (Guardian) EXCLUSIVE COVID-19 SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Part One – The Politicised Science that Nudged the Johnson Government to Safeguard the Economy over British Lives Nafeez Ahmed Mid-March 2020: A Reuters investigation into the government’s response notes that “Interviews and records published so far suggest that the scientific committees that advised [Prime Minister] Johnson didn’t study, until mid-March, the option of the kind of stringent lockdown adopted early on in China”. (Reuters) 16 March 2020: The Imperial College team advising the government publishes a report that predicts “unconstrained, the virus could kill 510,000 people” and “even the government’s ‘mitigation’ approach could lead to 250,000 deaths and intensive care units being overwhelmed at least eight times over”, Reuters reports. “Imperial’s prediction of over half a million deaths was no different from the report by the government’s own pandemic modelling committee two weeks earlier” (Reuters). The Prime Minister urges the public to avoid all unnecessary contact and travel and to not visit pubs and theatres, “following expert modelling which suggests the approach could cut the estimated coronavirus death toll from 260,000 to 20,000” (Guardian). The Guardian reports on the government’s partial U-turn: “What changed was new data on the impact of Italy’s out-of-control epidemic on its health service. Basically, it is catastrophic, with 30% of hospitalised patients having to be admitted to intensive care” (Guardian). “We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. Test every suspected case” and “if they test positive, isolate them and find out who they have been in close contact with… and test those people too”, says the WHO Director General. (BBC News). “While the UK has carried out about 44,000 tests, South Korea had by Saturday tested more than 248,647 people – one in every 200 citizens – and Italy 86,011, including anyone who might have been exposed to the virus, as well as those with symptoms.” (Guardian) 17 March 2020: As of 17 March the Guardian reports “only the UK and Belarus [in the whole of Europe] had held off implementing full or partial closures” of schools. The UK’s schools remain open (Guardian). An open letter organised by Rupert Read is published in the Daily Mail, co-signed by 26 people including former House of Commons Select Committee Chair Ian Gibson, George Monbiot, Chris Packham and Peter Tatchell, urging the government forthwith to institute quarantining policies, compel most firms to ensure workers work from home, introduce physical distancing policies, roll out mass testing and give sick pay to those on zero hours contracts. (Daily Mail) 18 March 2020: “Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, has again called on every country to adopt its recommended strategy. The only way to slow the pandemic sufficiently to give time for treatments and a vaccine to become available is to test everyone who has symptoms and track and isolate their contacts, he said” (Guardian). “The UK’s best scientists have known since that first report from China that Covid-19 was a lethal illness. Yet they did too little, too late”, Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the Lancet, writes in the Guardian. “Something has gone badly wrong in the way the UK has handled Covid-19… there was a collective failure among politicians and perhaps even government experts to recognise the signals that Chinese and Italian scientists were sending” (Guardian). The Prime Minister announces the ambition of carrying out 25,000 tests per day. 5,779 tests are carried out on 18 March. (Guardian) 20 March 2020: All schools are closed by the government (Guardian). The Prime Minister announces all cafes, pubs, bars, clubs, restaurants, gyms, leisure centres, nightclubs, theatres and cinemas must close tonight (Guardian). Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries says “The country has a perfectly adequate supply of PPE [Personal Protective Equipment]” and that supply pressures had now been “completely resolved”. (Pulse) 23 March 2020: The Prime Minister announces a strict national lockdown, with people ordered to stay at home, except for shopping for basic necessities, one form of exercise a day, medical need, to provide care or travelling to and from work if it is absolutely necessary. (Guardian) 24 March 2020: BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire speaks to the director of a UK company that makes protective equipment who said they’re exporting all over the world but haven’t had orders from the UK government. “We actually offered our services [to the UK government] when this first happened and unfortunately our services wasn’t taken up, but the rest of the world did take it up”, the director notes. (Stefan Simanowitz) The Coronavirus Crisis: Mistake Over ‘Herd Immunity’ Has Cost Us Vital Time Mike Buckley, 17 March 2020 25 March 2020: BBC Newsnight interviews Andrew Raynor, CEO of a ventilator manufacturer. “You got in touch with the government as soon as they put out the call for help a few weeks ago. What happened then?”, asks presenter Emily Maitlis. “Nothing quite honestly”, the CEO replies (Stefan Simanowitz). The Prime Minister states “we are going up from 5,000 to 10,000 tests per day, to 25,000, hopefully very soon up to 250,000 per day.” 6,583 tests are carried out on 25 March 2020. (Guardian) 26 March 2020: Speaking about why the government has eased up on what initially seemed to be a concerted contact tracing and quarantining effort, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jenny Harries tells reporters “There comes a point in a pandemic where that is not an appropriate intervention”, and that the testing focus would shift to patients and health workers (Financial Times). Responding to the WHO’s “message for all countries: test, test, test”, Harries says “We need to realise the clue for WHO is in its title. It is a world health organisation. And it is addressing all countries across the world with entirely different health infrastructures, and particularly public health infrastructures. We have an extremely well-developed public health system… the point there is they are addressing every country, including low and middle income countries.” (BBC News) 1 April 2020: Speaking from isolation in 11 Downing Street, the Prime Minister says “I want to say a special word about testing, because it is so important, and as I have said for weeks and weeks, this is the way through. This is how we will unlock the coronavirus puzzle. This is how we will defeat it in the end” (BBC News). Interviewed on ITV News Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van Tam says that testing “is a bit of a side issue to be truthful with you” (ITV News). The government confirms that only 2,000 people out of 500,000 frontline NHS England workers had been tested for coronavirus so far – 0.4 percent. 9,793 tests are carried out on 1 April 2020. (Guardian) 2 April 2020: “Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of council at the British Medical Association, said the doctors’ union had heard concerns from physicians in more than 30 hospital trusts about [Personal Protective Equipment] shortages… Reports have been rife of shortages and large variations in the level of PPE available. Pictures of healthcare workers who have created their own makeshift protective equipment out of bin bags and other materials have proved embarrassing for the government and NHS leaders. Staff have also improvised masks out of snorkels, bought kit from hardware stores, and used school science goggles to protect themselves” (Guardian). Admitting the government has made mistakes on testing, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announces the government is aiming to carry out 100,000 coronavirus tests a day in England by the end of April (BBC News). “It is good to finally hear the explanation from the minister of health about the difficulties in scaling up testing. This is down to a lack of preparedness in advance of a pandemic, which then impacts upon the ability to greatly and rapidly increase a national response”, notes Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at University of Southampton. (Guardian) 3 April 2020: “Hospitals could be left without enough medical ventilators at the height of the UK coronavirus outbreak, with manufacturers struggling to build thousands of new machines in time for the likely mid-April peak in cases.” A source tells the Guardian that it was impossible to “produce into the peak… we should have started doing this weeks ago” (Guardian). In a joint press release from the British Medical Association, Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Unite and UNISON, RCN chief executive and general secretary Dame Donna Kinnair notes “Weeks into this crisis, it is completely unacceptable that nursing staff, wherever they work, have not been provided with PPE. I am hearing from nurses who are treating patients in Covid-19 wards without any protection at all. This cannot continue.” (BMA) Life on the Covid-19 Frontline: Only the Brave Mark Conrad 5 April 2020: 13,069 tests are carried out in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland) on 5 April (Department of Health and Social Care). The UK has carried out 195,524 tests, in contrast to at least 918,000 completed a week earlier in Germany. (Reuters) 6 April 2020: “The government has been accused of missing an opportunity after it failed to deploy 5,000 contact tracing experts employed by councils to help limit the spread of coronavirus. Environmental health workers in local government have wide experience in contact tracing, a process used to prevent infections spreading and routinely carried out in outbreaks such as of norovirus, salmonella or legionnaires’ disease… PHE’s [Pubic Health England] contact tracing response team was boosted to just under 300 staff, deemed adequate for the containment phase of handling the Covid-19 virus up to mid-March… tracing was scaled back when the UK moved to the delay phase of tackling coronavirus in mid-March… in Germany, thousands of contact tracers are still working – with more being recruited”. (Guardian) 7 April 2020: “Lack of personal protective equipment continues to be a critical issue. It is heartbreaking to hear that some staff have been told to simply ‘hold their breath’ due to lack of masks”, says Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, president of the Doctors’ Association UK (Guardian). “World-leading disease data analysts have projected that the UK will become the country worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic in Europe, accounting for more than 40% of total deaths across the continent. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle predicts 66,000 UK deaths from Covid-19 by August, with a peak of nearly 3,000 a day, based on a steep climb in daily deaths early in the outbreak” (Guardian). “Leaked recordings of a Home Office conference… reveal that the Government has all but given up in its fight against the Coronavirus and is intent on simply finding ‘a method of managing it within the population’. The recordings show Home Office Deputy Science Advisor Rupert Shute stating repeatedly that the Government believes ‘we will all get’ COVID-19 eventually. The call further implied that the Government now considers hundreds of thousands of deaths unavoidable over a long-term period consisting of multiple peaks of the disease.” (Byline Times) 8 April 2020: The UK reaches the highest number of recorded daily deaths from coronavirus: 938 (Guardian). The government’s published figures are certainly an underestimate, as they exclude those dying at home and in care homes (Times), as well as the likely large increase in indirect deaths (“excess mortality”) resulting from a significant drop in the number of people attending A&E (Independent) and the unavailability of doctors, beds and vital treatment for those suffering from other conditions besides coronavirus (Guardian). The UK media coverage of the crisis however is dominated by none of this but rather by the Prime Minister’s own hospitalisation. (ITV News) 10 April 2020: The U.K. reaches a new record high, of 980 recorded daily deaths from coronavirus from those tested and dying in hospitals. This number is higher than any daily maximum recorded in Italy (or any other European country) during the entire pandemic to date, and places the UK’s per capita death rate from coronavirus as probably the highest in the world (European CDC/Twitter). The BBC news coverage leads with Boris Johnson sitting up in bed and taking short walks, and on the Government’s alleged “Herculean” efforts to secure enough PPE for the NHS frontline staff who are becoming infected with COVID-19 in record numbers (BBC/Twitter).

Roast forerib of beef today.

Unless the media is onside you're fucked. Boris is a lying, cheating, deceitful bastard, he is self serving, arrogant and elitist beyond belief. He is bullingdon through and through. To the media he is jack the lad, gets things done, integrity. He does it for us, he fights for us. I hate this we will beat this bollocks, we will win shite. Of course were going to get past this the only other scenario is every fucker dies. When the dust settles nothing has been won, we've all lost. The only way we gain anything from this is if we learn from it, we change. The biggest thing that could happen in my opinion is we find community again. I miss my family, my friends and my colleagues. I took it all for granted.

The way I see it, the S*n doesn't exist to make money (it's been losing money for years). It's there to influence it's readership into voting the way Murdoch wants them to. I reckon he'll happily continue to take big losses as long as it's doing the job he wants it to.

I'm truly amazed how many people have the energy to discuss something so trivial and ephemeral as an expense allowance for MP's offices for 2 (or is it 3 already?) days now in the middle of the biggest health crisis in the last 100 years. Impressive level of pettiness.

And absolute cunts like Rachel Riley helped in that. I hope she is dragged through the shit too on this. I’m not British, so your politics, while somewhat important to me in a historical sense, and with the British border on my island from a current sense, is more of an interested bystander view. But the treatment of a fundamentally decent man in Corbyn to ensure he didn’t get in Number 10 is horrific. Even for the people that hate him and his party and for the ones who are rampant Tories that are delighted he lost, they should be terrified how the press could smear him to this level and control who runs the country. They can do it to anyone. Disgusting, and utterly terrifying.

When Italy was at its worst we were shown how terrible it was and the suffering and trauma. Now everyday we are given a terrible number but told its all OK boris is on the mend

The King. The Fucking King. Best player Ive ever seen, bar none And a great man. Im privileged that Kenny Dalglish played for my team. If this is mawkish or emotional, I dont care, because its true.

You and me both. I've only scanned through one page of this thread as someone needed a double post deleted, and it's already ruined my day as I'm angry as fuck at some of the shit I've seen. I negged Bjornebye for his terrible Take on Me shout, but it's not enough. I'm seriously thinking of going through a load of his other posts and negging them to. Outrageously bad opinion that.

Reminded me of this.

As someone else said. All we'll get is people being outraged on the internet. It'll take for people to lose the roofs over their heads and we might get a bit of a murmur. That's the line they want you to believe and that's how it'll be spun. This whole fucking thing has been handled shambolicly since day one. As Mook (I think) said, they were warned about the consequences of not being prepared for a pandemic over three years ago. They could have acted then but chose to ignore and bury it. It wouldn't have prevented the pandemic from happening but had they chose to heed the warnings, we would have been better prepared to deal with it. Lives would have been saved. Ventilators ready to go with the expertise in using them. But nar, we'll just ask a fucking hoover manufacturer or F1 racing team to come up with a makeshift alternative. A fully staffed, trained NHS. But nar, we'll be OK. We'll just put a call out for ex NHS staff to return and put themselves at risk. We'll just expect our front line workers to put their lives on the line because we know they're so passionate about their jobs, it's not in the nature to say no. Proper PPE ready to go if needed. But nar, we'll be OK. We'll just scramble around and grab what we can here and there. The cottage industry can chip in a bit too. But no, it's not be our fault. Remember that Borris got i'll and the Queen made a speech. We did our bit. Blame Joe Public. They'll fall for it.

Some good news for @Jennings I made some incredible scalloped potatoes for Easter dinner, the best I have ever made. I fried six strips of stripey bacon and put a sharp old cheddar cheddar cheese (is there any other kind) into the roux. Heavy cream as well. Take solace that miracles can happen as i have fucked them up before. Also hand cut the spuds, I am anti-mandolin.

Fuck off Momo.

Neither cos both have massive toes

It is fucking bollocks isn’t it. Every answer drags on and on to the point nobody gives a shit what is being said, although it’ll be shite anyway. I’m sick of hearing “If we keep lockdown / practising social distancing, it’s the public’s responsibility and it’s up to them to get us through this quicker”. While true, just fuck off. IMO, it just a smacks of blaming the public if death tolls are beyond excessively excessive. Lockdown etc isn’t perfect but where I live, I think people are doing the best they can. There will be some not adhering to it but I’m sure that’s the same everywhere, it’s never going to be 100% perfect. How about the government sorts out it’s fucking testing, so like Germany, those who are clear start going on with the rest of their lives and those with the virus can continue to isolate. This isn’t the public’s fault, it’s the governments bullshit response.

Again though, one has absolutely zero to do with the other and if you're pushing that narrative it's simply because you can't be arsed reading up. Again, PPE is nothing to do with money or not being able to afford it as a country, and that somehow by withdrawing that overdraft we can now afford it. It's come about due to a lack of planning/organising. Ask yourself why the papers that constantly push this 'snouts in the trough' narrative like the Mail and the Express, are the papers which are least likely to criticize the government itself, or Johnson, hedge fund managers, oligarchs, or social and financial injustice in general. How come they crusade against 'MPs' as a profession? Or seek to sow mistrust between voters and elected representatives? There is, and has been for ages, a concerted drive to create the feeling that they're 'all the same', 'all in it for what they can get'. It works especially well with the working class and essentially stops them taking part in the political process, or often even voting altogether.

No, he's absolutely shite as well. Music for middle aged women who need a good ride.

I'm still in shock that there are grown men with ears who think Mel C has been involved in anything that isn't absolutely atrocious.

She's a S*n-advertising Wool who can go fuck herself.

The the title of this thread makes me want to scream. It's either the weirdest or the most weird.

You would think so. But unless people see it and demand action it won’t get widely reported. You’ve already seen the shit the BBC, Mail and Telegraph are pumping out. Out of the mainstream, only the Guardian and CH4 appear to have asked questions. You’d really need that printed out with the link and sent to every household in Britain, but you’d still get a significant number of cap-doffers buying Johnson cufflinks and defending the government.

I’ve upped my game.

The funds are already there for PPE, it's not there because the operation of ordering and producing them is a shambles. That's like when people say we should stop spending money on foreign aid and spend it on the homeless, one's got nothing to do with the other, it's just a deliberately emotive comparison people are using (350 million for the NHS). The relaxation of scrutiny is because there's hardly anyone around to process any of the paperwork. I don't think people realise sometimes that this is basically Poland 1939 style shit, there's hardly anyone down there, those that are are holed up, sick, or working from home themselves getting their ears bent by white van man about gravy trains.

Thanks everyone.

Was this the clip you were after, Lario?

I know if I did get on Id probably get 0 points, whereas stood in my kitchen shouting at the radio Im usually good for 20 or so

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. what are the Drs names? You’ve had a shocker this week. Put this in the bin with Corbyn’s £10k donation.

Times piece behind the paywall. They’re going to open the schools again soon aren’t they and cause absolute chaos. There was that ‘report’ recently about schools closing having little effect on the spread of the disease and I noted the children’s commissioner said yesterday schools should reopen all through the summer holidays so the children can socialise. Coronavirus: Boris Johnson’s aides were told his survival chances were ‘50-50’ The PM left hospital this weekend, marking his most astonishing comeback yet — but for Britain the crisis goes on When a senior figure in the government contacted a member of Boris Johnson’s family on Thursday to celebrate the prime minister’s release from intensive care, they responded with an affectionate joke about his timely resurrection: “He is risen.” A week earlier, when cabinet ministers first predicted that Easter would be the crunch time for the coronavirus crisis, they had no idea that Johnson’s own life would be on the line as well as the future of the country. The prime minister is keeping his mind occupied with sudoku number puzzles, preparation perhaps for what lies ahead. This weekend his government is engaged in a gigantic data-gathering exercise in an effort to work out when and how Britain can move from the lockdown to something resemblingnormal life. Just days earlier it was not even clear Johnson would have a role to play in that decision. At 8pm on Monday, as his health went downhill fast, he was moved to an intensive care unit at St Thomas’ Hospital, over the river from parliament, and fitted with an oxygen mask. The “golden triangle” of Sir Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, and Sir Edward Young, the Queen’s private secretary, went into action to ensure continuity of government and that the monarch was informed. Sedwill hastily convened a conference call with the cabinet. “Everyone was shell-shocked,” said one cabinet source. “You’ll do all these meetings and you see staggering statistics, but when the PM is shot down, it just brings it home.” When he had been admitted to hospital a day earlier, Johnson had confirmed that Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, would deputise for him where necessary. But it was Michael Gove who said on the video-call: “I think I speak for everyone when I say our thoughts and prayers are with the prime minister.” On Monday night, aides and ministers exchanged bleak phone calls and messages about Covid-19 survival rates. “It’s 50-50,” was the common refrain. For a tight-knit group who see Johnson as their talisman as well as their boss, it was a shattering experience. One aide said: “I’m going to pray.” Yet, in a comeback that his political opponents will recognise, by Thursday Johnson was chatting happily with his nurses and by Friday he was taking tentative steps. Aides had loaded his secure iPad with favourite films such as Withnail & I and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. His fiancée, Carrie Symonds, had been sending him scan pictures of their unborn child, due in early summer. The prime minister himself was clear that his revival was not the result of divine intervention. “The NHS has saved my life,” he told those who cared for him. “The treatment has been exemplary.” In his first public statement since leaving intensive care, Mr Johnson paid tribute to the staff at St Thomas’ Hospital. He said: “I can’t thank them enough. I owe them my life.” The prime minister who risked becoming a statistic is under pressure from aides to take weeks, not days, to fully recover. “I don’t think he should be coming back to work any time soon,” one said. “It will have been a shock and hopefully enough to convince him that he needs to take it easy.” Raab, who chaired the key 9.15am video conference calls of the Covid-19 war cabinet last week, was equally clear that he was just minding the shop for Johnson’s return. One minister recalled him saying, “We’ve all got our jobs to do,” then adding: “Let’s get on and do them and make sure when the boss gets back that we’ve got on with the plan.” Colleagues say that Raab has “not tried to stand on other people’s toes”. But a source said his fellow ministers were “pointedly referring to him in meetings as ‘foreign secretary’ rather than ‘first secretary of state’”, the title that gives him seniority. The big question is how quickly ministers will move to enact Johnson’s stated wish before he fell ill, to ease lockdown, an issue on which he is the biggest hawk in government. “More a golden eagle,” as a source who was in close contact with ministers last week put it. Johnson, like Treasury ministers, had been alarmed that so many people had listened to instructions to “stay at home” and stopped working, threatening a 15% fall in economic output. “We have all been surprised how obedient the public has been,” said one cabinet minister, “because, to be frank, initial compliance was terrible.” The doves include Matt Hancock, the health secretary, whose priority is the NHS and saving lives. Hawks talk about beginning to lift the restrictions after the first May bank holiday on Friday, May 8, which was brought forward to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE Day. The doves believe any changes should wait until after the second May bank holiday on Monday 25, with some restrictions continuing for months. Ministers and advisers insist that Hancock and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, have not fallen out. “Departments institutionally have different priorities,” a source said. “But Rishi cares about protecting lives and Matt doesn’t want the economy to tank.” An attempt is being made to square the circle by comparing the number of people who are likely to die from the virus with those who might succumb to heart problems, cancer or mental health problems caused by the lockdown. “There is an impact on mental health and suicide attempts, and a fall in GDP leads to an increase in ill health through poverty,” said a cabinet source. “You have the issue of operations being cancelled and that has an impact too. When you talk about health, it’s not just people dying in hospital from the coronavirus. You need to look at it in the round.” At a meeting of the Cobra emergency meeting on Thursday, ministers were presented with a 60-page document put together by “scientists and data geeks” featuring modelling on this issue. But at this point there is not enough data to make the decision. “People know there’s a trade-off between ‘x’ and ‘y’ but we don’t yet know what ‘x’ is or what ‘y’ is,” said one government aide. The scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage) will meet on Thursday to try to determine the effect the lockdown has had on infections and deaths. Ministers expect it will then take a further week or 10 days for the cabinet to come up with a plan. The number of indirect deaths from the continuing lockdown will be more difficult to prove. One document passed around Whitehall last week concluded that the avoidable deaths could hit 150,000, dwarfing the 20,000-plus likely victims of the coronavirus. However, one of those who read it said: “That briefing was predicated on all NHS activity stopping, which it hasn’t. Lifesaving operations continue.” Others believe attempts to use projections for other deaths to justify an end to the lockdown is politically flawed. A cabinet minister said: “Real deaths happening now are more politically powerful than projections from a model.” Nonetheless, outside the Department of Health, cabinet ministers are receiving real-time information from their own departments that is increasing pressure for a change. “I can’t think of many people outside health who want things to stay the same,” a Tory adviser said. “The Treasury is getting jittery because they can see what is happening to GDP, what’s happening to businesses and growth.” Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, has been shown data on the impact of empty social housing and rising domestic violence. Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, wants the schools to reopen sooner rather than later. Ministers expected them to operate at 20% capacity during lockdown. Instead, just 2% of pupils have turned up. “There are social housing properties lying empty. If you’re Jenrick, you know there are a whole load of people sitting in hostels who can’t move into a house, people cooped up in homes where kids have bad lives, families with an abusive parent,” a source said. “If you’re Gavin, you know there are a load of kids not getting free school meals, [suffering] malnutrition or suffering child abuse.” The problem is that even if the lockdown is eased, ministers are not confident people would go back to work. A cabinet minister said: “The fear factor is the issue we need to overcome soon.” Another source said: “Even if you reopen schools, you can’t force parents to put their kids in.” Yet that is seen as an essential step to encourage parents back to work amid clear warnings that unemployment is set to rise beyond the levels last seen under Margaret Thatcher almost 40 years ago. More than 1.2 million people have already made a new claim for universal credit since the crisis began. Not all of those will be out of work, but two senior sources have said that the government’s central estimate is between three million and four million people unemployed as a direct result of the crisis. Some in the Department for Business fear that the figure over the next 12 months could be even worse when the government’s scheme to pay the salaries of furloughed workers ends. “People will come off furloughing and find out they are being made redundant,” said a source who has been working with ministers on how to help business. “You could see four million to six million people lose their jobs over the next 12 months.” What will the plan to lift the lockdown look like? In the past week, suggestions have been floated that young people, or those in least affected regions, could see the lockdown restrictions lifted first. But cabinet ministers say Johnson has repeatedly insisted the whole country should be treated the same. “Boris has previously said that it would be ‘ridiculous’ to have the pubs closed in Uxbridge but people could get in a car and have a drink in Epsom,” a cabinet minister said. “I would expect all actions to be at a national level.” Instead, ministers and aides say there will be a “sectoral approach”, where more jobs are given key worker status. “Government agencies that deal with those issues like housing and child neglect, which are getting worse, will be moved into the key worker category,” a source said. Opticians, hairdressers and support workers such as cleaners, who are needed to help big companies function, might be in the first wave. “There are some very delicate chats going on with the trade unions,” a Whitehall source said. “If you can get some of these support services back, you can start to get businesses working again.” George Eustice, the environment secretary, wants help to mobilise an “army” of agricultural workers to pick crops. “It’s a critical time for the food economy,” an adviser said. “Once the crops are gone, they are gone. They will just rot. It’s easier to space people out in the fields.” A source who was in contact with a Premier League chairman last week said the football season will be finished but behind closed doors: “By June or July they will be playing games solely as TV events. If they have to play four games a day at Wembley to get it done, they will do that.” Before he fell ill, Johnson also wanted to see construction work accelerated. A cabinet minister said: “Boris wanted to use this opportunity to get loads of these difficult projects done — HS2, the repair work that is usually difficult.” Ministers expect the “peak” of the disease over the coming week in London, later elsewhere. The worst-hit area could be the Midlands, which has a higher proportion of multigenerational households. One source compared it to Italy: “The virus spreads among young people but it kills old people. It was so bad in Italy because you had a lot of carriers living in the same home as those who were most likely to die.” Insiders caution that, even once the peak has passed, normal life will have to wait for a vaccine and that the notion of “ending” the lockdown now is misplaced. “Some people are acting as if this is a storm that needs to be weathered and if we hold tight for long enough it will go away,” a source said. “We are going to have to learn to manage this and live with it.” Even when they return, big firms are expected to encourage staff to work more at home, stagger their start times and work different days so they do not all need to travel at rush hour. As for Johnson, efforts to keep him resting may prove fruitless. “I suspect by the end of this coming week he will be seeing some papers,” one cabinet minister said. With the lockdown decision approaching like an Exocet, there is one role that colleagues feel only he can perform. Whatever the government decides to do, the new policy will need a salesman. “Who is going to make the speeches conditioning the nation for the big decisions and lifting national morale, if not Boris?” one Tory asked last week. There will be many unpleasant jobs in the weeks ahead. One of the most difficult might be that of the person who tries to stop Johnson rising again.

Of course it does. A drill was carried out saying the NHS would not be able to cope in a pandemic, including a shortage of PPE. You carry out drills to find and fix weak points. They found weak points, one of which was a predicted shortage of availability of face masks. Not only did they decide to completely ignore the recommendations of the report, they buried the report. It was a deliberate decision not to stock pile face masks, as recommended, hence the current shortage is a direct result of this inaction.

Yes. Hence the reason people are talking about the last 10 years of under funding being relevant. At the time of last election 100000 vacancies in the NHS. Maybe if it had not been attacked, public sector pay frozen, junior doctors having to go on strike there might not be as under staffed as they are now. Again the staff shortage was predicted in the drill but ignored/buried. The predicted shortage of PPE would have been the easiest to overcome, but the government made a political choice not to stock pile to the levels recommend by the drill.

It's the 1st time in a few days I've watched this government propaganda show. Hancock would be the easiest bloke in the world to play poker against as the cunt is a terrible liar. I don't know why I've put this on today, I just get wound up as I don't believe what him or the scientists say.

House Of The Rising Sun is fucking great. How Dare You! On the other hand UB40 absolutely blow. They suck Satans cock.

This means nothing to me

I'm amazed that people had the energy to discuss making sure MPs had printers when NHS staff don't have PPE

The easiest answer to this is basically anything by Ed Sheeran, but with a special shout out to anything he does with some other cunt who is stupid enough to collaborate with him. Pretty sure there's one with him and Bieber (which would automatically trump anything he's done solo), but I only ever listen to the radio when I'm in the car and I have a short list of rules that include "No Ed Sheeran under any circumstances". Another rule is a ban on switching the channel if there's a Madonna song on. It's about respect. Same thing goes for Bon Jovi, but that almost goes without saying.

Fucking hell, TK. Have a day off.

Can you copy it onto betamax for Tony Moanero

Really baffled as to what people's beef is with this other than the way it's been spun. It's basically like the bank raising your credit limit to get you through a difficult time. MP staff might have to work for months to a year remotely, so it's to cover any possible fallout from that, that work is basically to serve the public, many of whom now need help more than they've ever needed it before. Say you take that 10k then and give it to a small business (as I've seen some suggesting), one small business in that whole constituency to pay half a dozen staff or whatever for three months at best. The money gone, you furlough the MP staff instead. They get to spend the next six months furloughed, watching telly and not having a nervous breakdown, but then when anyone rings for anything - because they need directing to grants, need someone to arrange a food parcel, need someone to get a women's refuge or social services or age UK to get involved and help someone, nobody picks up the phone. Just can't win. Can't imagine any other line of work being begrudge some gear to do their fucking job in the middle of a motherfucking pandemic. Buy your own laptops DWP and passport staff and all the rest of you public sector service twats, you should have been set up to work from home anyway, cunts.

Damned by their own actions and words.

You snooze, you lose, bitch.

Suzanne Collins, ex Brookside and permanent resident in Scouse plays at the Royal Court.