clangers

Raab until the Tories can manage to get a new leadership contest underway. How long that would be under the current circumstances is any ones guess? What would be interesting to see is how long potential Tory runners would hold off manoeuvring or throwing their hats in the ring? I'm assuming they've started already?

That doesn't sound good. Downing Street constantly playing this down, being admitted into hospital as a precaution, now intensive care as a precaution. Still in full control, ahem, as Raab disclosed earlier he hasn't spoken to him since Saturday.

Hold that thought, they mentioned on the news that there are less officials working over the weekend, that 403 figure is for Sunday, it was lower for Saturday as well. It's been lower for most weekends. Tomorrow we'll know a bit more as they'll register extra deaths today. Don't be surprised if there's a leap tomorrow, if there isn't then it's a positive sign.

He'll be held up as a hero and a saint by the Tories if he goes. I'm hoping for an unusual permanent side effect of the virus of incontinence and chronic diarrhea.

Gove will be rubbing his hands with glee, one down just one more to go.

Wonder which hospital? NHS Nightingale? I thought not.

Yep, they're more irrelevant than usual if that's possible? They have to be seen to be doing something though to justify their position in society. If they were really bothered perhaps they could choose to forgo the tens of millions we have to spend on them each year or even better how about they hand back a few billion they've stolen from the state over the last 150+ years? The argument that they more than pay for themselves with all that tourism they bring in is looking a bit hollow at the moment and will do for the foreseeable future.

As horrendous as it is in Italy, Spain, France, UK etc this is all going to be dwarfed by the US. A fragmented government and health care system led by a deranged, overwhelmed dimwit.

They stopped community testing weeks ago as part of their original discredited strategy. PHE want all testing to be centrally controlled and ideally done through their new lab in Milton Keynes which isn't up and running. There are dozens of labs around the UK which could be doing testing but Public Health England is bureaucratic and very centrally controlled. They've only managed to test 2,000 out of 500,000 front line NHS staff so far but hey ho let's get this testing done just as PHE want even it if takes several months to get it right..... Add to that because we headed off in the direction of herd immunity we didn't order the reagents needed for testing until it was too late and we're now at the back of the queue.

Apologies if this has already been posted. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/absolutely-wrong-how-uk-coronavirus-test-strategy-unravelled It rather nicely outlines the scale of the cock up by the UK government where we've ended up at the back of the queue for testing. We wasted the first two weeks of March ignoring clinical science going for a controlled epidemic, it wasn't until they realised we'd end up with 250,000+ dead and 20% of the population would contract a severe illness that they changed track. Personally I think this will haunt them for several generations.

You could do something far more 'personal' in the ladies surely?

I'm not sure that will last, it's easy at the moment for the majority to clap along to their 'stoic' government. Too many difficult questions for them to answer. When the majority are directly affected by this opinion will change. What were Boris and Co doing throughout February when this was heading our way? As I recall he disappeared for 10 days?

Because it will just be a modified hairdryer with an LCD display promoting the Dyson product range. Our government is becoming not unsurprisingly more slippery and evasive by the day as they try to field difficult questions. They just can't stop themselves.

Public transport free for all key workers only. Passes for key workers, everyone else stay at home. Furlough the population with a decent living wage.

He must be delighted, he's getting a chance to put his herd immunity theory into practice.