Is anyone entirely convinced that he actually got C-19
I did raise an eyebrow when it was announced.
It was remarkably convenient that it occurred precisely at a time when they were imposing pretty harsh restrictions on the sceptical public's day-to-day lives and claiming we were "all in it together".
I think he probably did get ill, but I suspect that wasn't entirely unintentional.
I thought earlier in this very thread we had debunked this story as he was at a hospital that wasn’t treating Covid-19 folk?
really?
the virus was circulating in the country at the time, there could well have been undetected cases there, even if thy werent treating them- which ive seen no evidence of?, it was known to be incredibly contagious, hed been briefed the very morning of his visit of all of these things(a full month after the WHO declared an international emergency it was famously the first COBRA meeting he'd bothered to turn up to) , in fact he'd been told that the fatality rate was 0.5-1% & that likely 80% of the country would be infected, meaning ~400,000 UK citizens would die
he still gave this speech, where he himself clearly said there were COVID patients & he shook hands with everybody
so was Johnson lying about that as well?
ernie – well said; too much conspiratorial bollocks.
The fake covid as excuse thing is bollocks and a step too far. Crap like this degrades the many, many legitimate complaints about the Tories and their conduct.
The bloke behaved like a dick and, unsurprisingly, got ill.
He behaved like a dick because he is a dick. A bluff, crass oaf who genuinely thinks he is some kind of Churchillian figure.
Let’s hope this brings about a change in his mindset.
It is unlikely to, he's made a career out of insincere opportunism so why would it?
In any case, even if it did, he doesn't get to choose. He nailed his colours to the flagpole of convenience (to mix at least three metaphors). But the people who are really behind it have enough on him, the Tories and the influences and funding behind Leave that they can destroy the Tories anytime they like.
He is just the frontman.
I wonder if he had/ has mental health issues and that the reason for his disappearance. He sounded far too chipper for someone who needed to be in itu in his thank you speech
he was at a hospital that wasn’t treating Covid-19 folk
No covid-19 cases in St Thomas's Hospital? Well **** me, what a schoolboy error - you would expect them to have sent him to a hospital with covid-19!
They're not very good at conspiracies!
No covid-19 cases in St Thomas’s Hospital?
I'm only going by what I read on here. And this place never gets it wrong does it?
Edit: this is what was posted a page or so back:
Yes I think they might have got it wrong. I've just checked and the first death at St Thomas' Hospital from covid-19 was reported on March 15.
So it seems Johnson was just BSing in his press conference
We really shouldnt be amazed that Johnson would lie to the public about something like that!
Sorry Eddie, I see from your edit that you were referring to what hospital he was shaking hands, not were he was being treated. My apologies. This sort of misunderstanding is how false rumours start!
No it's not. Honest... 😉
The key word is '....reportedly'.
This 'story' has no value unless and until it is either verified or denied by the ST.
Just regurgitating random articles without verification adds nothing to the debate.
We need clarity, not confusion.
This ‘story’ has no value unless and until it is either verified or denied by the ST.
Are Channel 4 news kept out? If so, that’s Trump Jr enough for me, ST included or not. Ask awkward questions, get denied access to ask them.
Still no facts; WTF are you on about referring to C4 & trump minor?
Are you a journo with some inside information?
If so, please share with us.
If not, you're just regurgitating unsubstantiated press articles hence my comment about not adding to the confusion.
You appear to be all over every thread with even the slightest relevance to covid-19; are you trying to make a point or do you have too much free time?
Frankconway. I often see you popping up on posts decrying what others have to say whilst having nothing to offer yourself. Epitomise what you despise and all that.
The question isn't wether the government are trying to restrict media access to press briefings....it's wether theyre doing it... AGAIN.
I'm with frankconway on this. I'm pretty sure that if either the ST or Channel 4 had been banned then they would have revealed it.
Was just about to post that eskay, the last time it only turned out to be an accident after the other journos threatened to walk out
Also Radio 4 today programmed Cummings has banned ministers from attending for asking tough questions
It's a creeping Orbanisation and it's really worrying , well it ought to be (genuine q. does it worry you @frankconway ?)
But Boris is a lad & he's 'getting Brexit done' so it's all fine
https://twitter.com/SimonBrodkin/status/1250089798024511493?s=09
Are you a journo with some inside information?
No, far from it, just another idiot relying on the journalists… direct your ire at the political editor for the Observer (Toby Helm).
kimbers - I would be very concerned if bona fide journos were banned from news briefings/pressers.
My point was that the New European article contained comments about the ST which had been neither confirmed nor denied by the ST; to me, that means the comments were unsubstantiated.
If the ST or gov have now confirmed, that would be of great concern.
I'm aware the gov has previous but would hope they would have learned from that botched performance; they need as much positive coverage as they can get.
Hope that's clear.
I posted something very similar to this on the Trump thread a couple of days ago. It was an observation of how this government is starting to attack our press more and more when they are criticised (very similar to Trumps administration).
It looks like we are heading a similar way, BBC news reporting on a story and quoting No 10 spokesman attacking the press presumably because they don’t like the criticism directed towards the government.
“He added: “‘Public confidence in the media has collapsed during this emergency partly because of ludicrous stories such as this.””
I think public confidence in the news is higher than public confidence in our politicians!
I’m aware the gov has previous but would hope they would have learned from that botched performance;
is the Today boycott still ongoing though?
The broad issue here, really, is trust.
In times gone by I would have erred on the side of not fully 'believing' the journalist until it has been officially confirmed via a separate source or the government themselves. A sort of GCSE history idealism, looking for corroboration and always assuming the government would behave with more moral rectitude than the journalists.
Well, sorry, but not any more. Not a chance. MPs expenses, Iraq, Hillsborough, Grenfell to name but a few but most of all (of course) Brexit.
is the Today boycott still ongoing though?
No. Jeremy Hunt was appearing on the programme on a near daily basis and making it clear what ministers should be doing, and how they could be communicating… the government then had little choice but to put ministers forward in response.
5ft 9 16st
BMI
Your result suggests you are
obese
33.1
I think he was too hungry to attend SAGE meetings. If you can't look after yourself.....
From Kelvin's link above:
The fact that the Tory administration felt emboldened enough to institute this blackout on such an influential news programme says a lot about its disdain for the proprieties of the democratic process, and borrows much from the Donald Trump playbook. That those who govern us have largely succeeded in discrediting and marginalising those who seek merely to hold them to account is one of the most perverted and distressing aspects of our current political settlement.
really? I think they (the government) concluded the general public (at the time) couldn't careless give a shit about accountability, they just elected, with a whopping majority, a party where their leader hid in a fridge rather than answer questions.
the country gets the government it deserves
hid in a fridge
QED
I can't see the governments previous with this as a botched performance or something they should have learned from. They don't care, they got exactly what they wanted. The strategy is attack the press, they see no downside.
The only thing separating Boris's administration with Trumps is the coarseness of the language. Not only does Boris want to remove us from Europe, he wants to remove us from our own democratic norms. With an opposition as weak as it is Boris has chosen to attack democracy itself.
Remember that he 'forgot' to install a deputy prime minister, he seeks to undermine the remits of his own cabinet offices. Like Trump, he is 'The Man Who Would Be King'. Lets hope it all ends like the film. Peachy (Michael Caine) can narrate it.
The only thing separating Boris’s administration with Trumps is the coarseness of the language.
Not sure Trump is the right yardstick in our current situation. In the US the media actually asks awkward questions of Trump, while we get this..
https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1255010891009085440?s=20
There's a lot of 'political blogs' doing the rounds on things like LinkedIn.
One of my fb friends from school days posted one by someone calling themselves Effie Deans. Cue lots of rage from the 'patriotic hard working upper middle class' types. "Bloody journalists" and "We wouldn't have won the war with journalists like this shouting down the government".
I pointed out a couple of examples of good and bad journalism from recent times and also pointed out that most journalists are held in check to a certain extent by their employers and not wanting to be sued for libel whilst 'bloggers' much less so.
I also pointed out that said blogger had strong links with Russia and had also done a nice line in pro-Trump propaganda under a slightly different name just after the giant skid mark was elected. Turns out this makes me unpatriotic.
The tories are engineering a fair bit of anti-journalism (at least ones they don't like) straight out of the Trump playbook.
So.....
Foreigners.....the judiciary......the press.....
Ring any bells?
It's quite easy to be hyperbolic at the moment but the thing I'm genuinely shocked and terrified by right now is the ease with which the general population has slipped into a cult of personality mindset regarding Johnson. Obviously it's helped by a pathetically sycophantic media, but the level of aggression I've seen towards anyone who dares question him is pretty scary. I guess the same happened during WW2 and Churchill? I'm really beginning to understand what it's like to live in a homogenous, unquestioning one party state. Even the bloody labour party are falling for it.
I guess the same happened during WW2 and Churchill
Right war.
Wrong leader.
Try Mussolini or (argh, I've Godwin-ed the thread) that man with the funny moustache.
@ Dannyh "Effie Deans" is the very definition of the phrase "two-bob rocket"
is the Today boycott still ongoing though?
Even him-who-must-be-obeyed Dominic Cummings has had to accept that it might not be a good look to be refusing to co-operate with one of the leading news programmes during a national crisis.
Mainly, as that would appear to most people as the petulant, toys-out-of-the-pram attempt to avoid scrutiny that it obviously is. I find it utterly depressing the totally corrosive effect on our national discourse that that toxic little weasel of a man is having. He's like a ****ing cancer!!
Anyway... Matt Hancock, the regimes chosen fall guy, has been torn to pieces on Today on a number of occasions. Emma Barnett on Five Live has also been bloody effective at holding Tory ministers to account and stopping them just endlessly repeating Cummings dictated soundbites
Mrmonkfinger,
Boris always reminded me of Herman Goering. Gove of Heinrich Himmler and it has been discussed here before how Jacob Lynch Mobb has inherited Joseph Goebells wardrobe.
Dazh + Danny,
This cult of personality thing is taking on scary proportions and as you say, even Labour seem cowered by it. The difference between now and WW2 is that the British public knew Churcill was a wrong un but recognised his usefulness in confronting the Nazis. They voted him out when peace came along. Boris is of no demonstrable use whatsoever in the current situation.
Boris is of no demonstrable use whatsoever in the current situation.
Indeed. But the world he was voted into is now ancient history. There was only one game in town at the time. It completely dominated the national discourse, to the total exclusion of pretty much everything else
When was the last time you heard anyone mention that?
He was also the beneficiary of having an opposition led (apparently) by the most unpopular leader of any political party in this country, ever.
His election campaign basically consisted of repeating three words and seeing if he could keep his dick in his pants for a month or two
Matt Hancock, the regimes chosen fall guy
He's up for taking-another-briefing-for-the-team today.
Note, I see this on the website of the Boris Broadcasting Corporation:
There will also be two questions from the public during the Q&A session with journalists
Good gracious, what a lucky public we are, to be allowed to have two carefully pre-written-by-the-government questions asked for us.
His election campaign basically consisted of repeating three words and seeing if he could keep his dick in his pants for a month or two
I think at the end they even dropped the three word phrase, and just got him to hold up a few bits of cardboard, didn't they?
Try Mussolini or (argh, I’ve Godwin-ed the thread) that man with the funny moustache.
Well, quite, but I didn't want to go there. There are many similarities though, and it's getting worse. FFS we've got people being shamed by their neighbours into clapping on a thursday evening (are they clapping the NHS or Johnson?), people being bullied if they dare to ride a bike or go for a walk for longer than a completely made up period of time, and the BBC and ITV acting like some tinpot communist state tv channels, with simpering journalists grovelling at the feet of the Dear Leader. And then there's the sloganeering. They'll be inventing a new salute next.
There will also be two questions from the public during the Q&A session with journalists
What a waste of time. No way ‘the public’ can ask a follow up question, or in any way challenge the waffle that constitutes an ‘answer’ to their questions. And asking those two questions first pushes more questions from journalists into the dead zone where listeners/viewers have switched off/over once bored (or the broadcasters do so for them). A successful diminution of the role of questioning journalism.
In the end, hiding in a fridge was all he had to do to win the election, slogans and cardboard proved to be surplus to requirements given the job in hand (say nothing, hide away, give Corbyn all the space he needs to defeat himself)
dazh
Subscriber
and the BBC and ITV acting like some tinpot communist state tv channels, with simpering journalists grovelling at the feet of the Dear Leader.
Please don't go on the BBC News pages and look at the HYS bits that only happen on something slightly questioning anything Bozo or his clowns have done!
They come out of the woodwork with their arguments that the BBC is just a commie organisation and only ever make bad news about their beloved Bozo and his troupe of clowns!
