https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53315178

Oh look, he’s lying and trying to shift blame again! There really is no hole too low for him to sink into is there?! It’s getting more like Trump every day. Things that would previously have been resignation material are now just accepted as “oh well, here we go again”.

Johnson is of course wrong on that and clearly is attempting to shift blame ( note the bollox “clarification ” issued by Cummings)

However where the blame lies is actually IMO rather complex. Early on in the crisis IIRC the science advice was that transmission in care homes was unlikely to be an issue because the scientists did not understand the differences between care homes and NHS.

Later on in the crisis there was advice issued that was not acted upon – but that advice to go into a very extreme lockdown would have presented enormous logistical challenges.

So on the care homes IMO there is no simple analysis that can lay blame. Its the old Switz cheese model of error – a series of small errors that multiply together ie all the holes line up and then you get disaster.

A mix of poor information and lack of understanding, poor advice, and outright mistakes. The same issues in care homes happened in Scotland despite a very different attitude from our government

No, the advice from government may have been that “transmission in care homes was unlikely to be an issue”… but that was not based on ‘science’. Many UK care homes acted fast and early, went into lockdown, and kept their people safe… based on what had been observed in other countries. Those that tried to follow government guidance (ever changing and often contradictory) sadly paid the price.

Oh look, he’s lying and trying to shift blame again!

He’s just following the science and demonstrating how important it is to wash your hands of any responsibility.

Many UK care homes acted fast and early, went into lockdown, and kept their people safe… based on what had been observed in other countries.

its easy to forget how behind the government were in acting – before the government had announced any lockdown strategy care homes had already locked down. The lockdown started on the 23rd or March…. I haven’t seen my mum since the 8th of March – the home was already locked down. The goverment were ignoring advice to act swiftly and sectors like care had to lead – the pre-empted the measures the government would later put in place. To quote Rupert Reid ‘we the people have lead in this country and dragged a reluctant government behind us’.

He’s just following the science and demonstrating how important it is to wash your hands of any responsibility.

Well said.

What a scumbag. His dithering and unwillingness to even demand a cessation of non-essential visiting as the number of cases rose was a significant factor in the seeding of care homes with Covid cases. Who would have thought that a respiratory virus that causes significant mortality in the over 70s and those with pre-existing conditions would be a major threat to residents?

The decision to empty untested bed-blockers into the care sector, fuelled partly by a lack of testing (and acute NHS) capacity, was an even more significant factor. The shambolic fragmentation of the care sector itself, which contributed to some of the poor practice that he is trying to blame, is another issue that falls into the remit of government.

Blame the people, blame the scientific advice, blame the care professionals, blame the NHS. Blame everyone except those with their hands on the levers of policy and national guidance.

Interestingly, BBC Breakfast visited a care home this morning which locked down entirely for the duration. Staff living on site, the manager not seeing his four year old kid for months. This was a decision they took, alongside many others, in the absence of proper guidance from the the government.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/52674073

Still ahead in the polls! Somebody nuke us ffs

My wife keeps showing me posts from friends on Facebook with people feeling sorry for him and saying how well he is doing. If I was on Facebook I would be blocking those ****.

Who would have thought that a respiratory virus that causes significant mortality in the over 70s and those with pre-existing conditions would be a major threat to residents?

At the time Boris and his keepers were testing the mood – words like ‘Take it on the chin’ ‘Let it wash over us’ (all back in the days when the government was still communicating public health strategy in in leaks and off-the-record briefings rather than standing behind a lecturn) were all about seeing how the public felt about the worth of the people most likely to suffer. Back in the early pages of the Corona Virus thread you’d read sentiments that the economy might benefit as the virus would be effectively ridding the country of burdensome citizens. It plays to a capitalist notion of natural selection ‘survival of the fittest’ of there being people who are natural deserving winners and people who are natural deserving losers.

While its true that mortality from this disease is more likely amongst people who are older or have other health conditions its not the case that those people  are somehow pretty much at deaths door and were about to kick the bucket anyway. The average life expectancy at 80 is ten years, even with underlying health conditions. People over 70 are not nearly dead.

Those early moves along with the announcing first that the old should just lock themselves indoors and let the rest of us get on with life just demonstrate the low regard for life that underlies this particular Tory philosophy – which seeks to appeal to a voter that can’t see beyond his or her immediate wants and needs – someone who can’t even empathise with their own future self.

ctk
Subscriber

Still ahead in the polls! Somebody nuke us ffs

Seriously?!?!

Link?

One in every thousand people died because of how this has been handled by our “I shook hands with everybody” PM and his team… and half of them were elderly… there is no way he’ll be offering up any mea culpa anytime soon for letting down our older generation so badly… it’ll be the fault of those calling for action when he was trying to avoid it. He’ll be “photoshopping history” at every opportunity. I suspect he will be successful as well, as long as he has the help of his disinformation “advisor”… you can see why he can’t let that man be pushed out of his role.

He really is as absolutely despicable Human being. After his latest comments about care homes, he’s proved that there really is no level to which he won’t stoop.

He really will do anything to absolve himself from any blame for his government’s callous ineptitude.

Care home chief denounces ‘clumsy and cowardly’ Boris Johnson comments

He’s never taken responsibility for anything in his life, and he’s certainly not about to start now.

“But to be honest with you, if this is genuinely his view, I think we’re almost entering a Kafkaesque alternative reality where the government sets the rules, we follow them, they don’t like the results, they then deny setting the rules and blame the people that were trying to do their best.”

From that link, thought it bore quoting.

My wife keeps showing me posts from friends on Facebook with people feeling sorry for him and saying how well he is doing.

Eye Test Bummings, the Minister for Public Enlightenment, will certainly be aiding the disinformation on what and how the government acted, and firing off the botfarms to report on how hard Bozo is working and what a great job he is doing .

What’s funny is for a couple of weeks while brave old Bozza was singlehandedly fighting the foreign enemy of the Coronavirus scourge, people thought that he might actually change & we might see a different leader once he was recovered…..pah, obviously not.

People knew he was a lying scumbag when they voted for him in droves, so why would they change their minds now and decide that it matters?

By the way, anyone remember the Adam Curtis Power of Nightmares stuff about Putin’s propaganda chief who had a background in conceptual art and as well as base populism tried to sow maximum confusion and division amongst Putin’s enemies – I think Dominic Cummings saw it and thought ‘cool!’.

Standard propaganda practice, fear/uncertainty/doubt misinformation about the opposition or competing product, plus lionising of the protagonist.

Bozo will never change, and will never go willingly. He will have to be removed.

I think Johnson will go fairly soon – once he is sure of his aim of no deal brexit. thats all he is there for. He will need to reap the rewards coming his way for doing the bidding of his paymasters.

The man disgusts me.

Everyone who voted for the **** should be ashamed.

He’s never taken responsibility for anything in his life, and he’s certainly not about to start now.

^^His default position,the useless sack of shite.

someone who can’t even empathise with their own future self.

brilliant!

I think Johnson will go fairly soon

I used to think that… and assumed that someone else would fight the next general election for the Conservatives. I no longer think that… he’ll want 9 years of sitting ‘at the top’ and for vanity reasons want to prove he can win again.

+kelvin

Nothing is more important to Boris Johnson than Boris Johnson.

I’d go as far as to say nothing else at all is important to him in any way shape or form.

I repeat, he will have to be removed.

By the way, anyone remember the Adam Curtis Power of Nightmares stuff about Putin’s propaganda chief who had a background in conceptual art and as well as base populism tried to sow maximum confusion and division amongst Putin’s enemies – I think Dominic Cummings saw it and thought ‘cool!’.

The problem is.. if you look at what Surkov has done – what he’s achieving and how he’s done it and think ‘cool – I can play that game too’ then you’re not playing that game too – you’re being played. The various populist and isolationist regimes that have a Cummings or a Bannon or whoever behind them maybe successful in achieving their own short term goals but they are much more successful in achieving Surkov and Putin’s agenda.

Surkov has provided a template than anyone can pick up and play. Its all about amplifying the narcissism of small differences.  The more chaotic, divided and insular we become – for instance through Brexit in itself, but also the break up of the UK it may well trigger and the hope that the EU itself will crumble* and Bannon’s America-First withdrawal from International affairs and attempts to undermine NATO and WHO etc as a matter of national pride – but in doing so dividing America so irreparably that it doesn’t seem unlikely it could descend into civil war. These are all actions of people who feel like they can be bigger fish if they are in a smaller pond and in the moment if feels like success for them. But it all seems to play much better for Russia than anyone else.

*although we’ve not really managed to be the poster boy for leaving the EU that would have been hoped – we seem to have made it look like a bad idea.

When the time is right, he won’t be given a choice. Remember how Thatcher was shown the door.

feels like success for them

It is success for them, just not for the countries they claim to be empowering or “making great again”.

Anyway, “stop talking the country* down, why to you hate it so much?”

[ *choose your country ]

Remember how Thatcher was shown the door.

This time, the rebels have mostly been chucked out of parliament already… and even wanting to appoint your own advisors gets you chucked out of the cabinet. Who exactly is going to show Johnson the door, before we get to the next election?

You’d have to find someone in possession of both a spine and more than two brain cells. Looking at the present Tory party, I think you’d struggle there.

We are effectively living in a dictatorship with a man who nobody even voted for calling all the shots via a puppet PM who is a moral vacuum and doesn’t give a flying **** about anything or anybody other than himself.

Having got himself into the position of de facto PM, Cummings is going nowhere. And Barnard Castle proved that he’s got free rein to do whatever the **** he likes. He basically ordered the PM and the entire cabinet out to defend his (Indefensible) behaviour.

This country is essentially a banana republic already and post-Brexit that is going to get a lot lot worse.

Cummings has barely started yet. The real fun and games will start in January as he surveys the wreckage of the no deal Brexit he’s masterminded. From that point on, anything goes

Marina Hyde eloquently expresses what we’re all thinking, once again

Welcome to Johnson’s alternative reality – where care home workers get the blame

Tallpaul
Subscriber

You don’t just ‘skip’ Phase I trials… Which vaccines/companies are you referring to?

Good point, my mistake. So the animal testing is being skipped for some candidates; CanSino did 2 weeks(?) of Phase I testing with 100 participants, and hadn’t released data before starting Phase II at the start of April. I think they have now released the Phase I data and they’re not saying there were any significant risk factors from the data.

Tallpaul
Subscriber

You don’t just ‘skip’ Phase I trials… Which vaccines/companies are you referring to?

Was hoping this was about a vaccine for Toryism, rather than just a cross post.

Cummings has barely started yet. The real fun and games will start in January as he surveys the wreckage of the no deal Brexit he’s masterminded. From that point on, anything goes

Under the guise of post-Covid recovery, the environmental regulations and protections will be ripped up. Building on Green Belt land, no EU planning laws to get in the way, minimum standards and climate change stuff binned / ignored to get a whole load of housing estates and roads done, developers trouser the hefty profits.

Worker protection regulations out, things like holiday, maternity leave, employment rights, sick leave get pared to the bone and go the way of the American system.

NHS sold off to America plus private (Tory) interests.

Directed by Cummings, produced by Johnson.

It was the 1922 Committee what did it then…

That’s Tory MPs. They’ve been purged of anyone not backing Johnson.

The nations favourite diminutive Penfold-a-like bell end makes it clear who’s running the shop

*face-palms at the ready, folks*

Tory Mark Francois threatens senior Army General saying Cummings would 'sort you out'https://t.co/3wDQ0mxZfF pic.twitter.com/2E4HYFoc7t

— Mirror Politics (@MirrorPolitics) July 7, 2020

You really couldn’t make it up

Cummings is all about making politics and policy scientific and evidence based – he’s not about smashing things up, just for the sake of it – he could not achieve the level of leverage he has by simply having the policy “smash and reduce”.

He entrances people with his pseudo “politics by science” cow plop.

If “science and evidence” says “smash”, it will be smashed.
If “science and evidence” says “make”, it will be made.
If “science and evidence” says “spend”, it will be spent.

In his tiny, wicked, 14 year-old, arrogant “evidence led policy” **** fantasy of a world, this is how he genuinely believed things will be done. To get there, any means is justified as the evidence will prove the end is worthwhile.

You must understand this to understand how he has “achieved power”.

Evidence led policy. But his evidence, his interpretation. The man’s a ******* narcissistic loony. He’s skimmed over the inevitable outcome of evidence led policy where it always metastasised into policy led evidence.

Johnson knows Cummings is cow plop, he’s just blagged a ride on the magic carpet while Cummings wows the crowd.

Under the guise of post-Covid recovery, the environmental regulations and protections will be ripped up. Building on Green Belt land, no EU planning laws to get in the way, minimum standards and climate change stuff binned / ignored to get a whole load of housing estates and roads done, developers trouser the hefty profits.

Worker protection regulations out, things like holiday, maternity leave, employment rights, sick leave get pared to the bone and go the way of the American system.

NHS sold off to America plus private (Tory) interests.

Directed by Cummings, produced by Johnson.

Yep and both of them will get the mother of all backhanders when they leave politics as the ‘great’ british public work out they’ve been done like a kipper.

There are no consequences for these arsewipes.

The Gammon’s/silent majority have got their man in.

Doesn’t matter what he does. He could gob Covid into a babies mouth (parents probably blagging the sick/benefits) and punt a disabled child from a poor family (made up illness/swinging the lead anyway) over the rugby union goalposts. It’s all fine!

That’s the problem with people like Cummings and Johnson. They’ve lived their whole lives where there are simply no consequences for anything they’ve ever done or said.

They smash the place up, and just shrug and wander off, leaving somebody else to clear up the smouldering wreckage they leave behind.

Brexit will be the same. They’ll cause financial catastrophe for millions and millions of people, then just mosey off to their obscenely paid ‘consultancy’ jobs with the sharks who’ve massively benefitted from the chaos they caused

I was going to post something, but it has already been said a few times.

SO I’ll just say, vote better next time please.

Westminster Voting Intention:

CON: 44% (+1)
LAB: 37% (+1)
LDM: 7% (-1)
GRN: 4% (=)

Via @Survation, 3-6 Jul.
Changes w/ 24-25 Jun.

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) July 7, 2020

@maccruisekeen absolutely right.

I really don’t see how we will ever have anything other than a (terrible) conservative government from now on. A one-party state. 🙁 What would they have to actually do to lose an election?