and on we go with this thing. the government always have said they are guided by the science. yet. SAGE the government science advisory body said that they objected indeed were horrified by the government 'eat out to help out' scheme . after so many people had made sacrifices to lower the rate of transmission , the 'R' rate we were told by Boris was so important. the government had a scheme to get people to mix. now we are told that 2 weeks ago they said the country needed a new brief 2 week lockdown to stem the rise of the 'R' number or the infection rate would be in danger of overwhelming the NHS.
so fair enough the government only said 'GUIDED' by the science and not 'ADHERE' to it. but maybe they should have said 'IGNORE' the science. we are not in the grip of the new ideology. 'POPULISM' and ideology that believes experts are not best places to make decisions and a ' seat of the pants' Prime minister, a 'common sense' Prime minister can ignore all the advice.
lets just have a review.
They stopped flights from countries with COVID too late. They allowed the Cheltenham racing festival to go ahead , 250,000 people not socially distancing. they have given us stay at home advice and immediately replaced it with get out to the pub and restaurants . they ignored the scientific advice to bring in a circuit breaker lockdown. their own cautions about the 'R' number they ignored and now as the experts predicted we have high infection rates.
This relying on populist leaders has a tendency to end badly.
stjohn

Boris has changed the local lockdown restrictions which nobody ( especially him ) understood for a simple 3 tier plan. hmmm. areas that had ( and have ) high instances of covid and were under strict local lockdown rules have been placed into tier 2 and therefore the restrictions on them have actually been eased. does that make sense ? no. but what does with this seat of the pants circus government.
lets examine some areas under lockdown and those not under lockdown. what do you think is the criteria for being placed in lockdown. high infection rates ?? guess again.
read on.
In August, the government issued local lockdowns where an area's coronavirus infection rate exceeded 60 cases per 100,000 people.

Meanwhile several “red wall” seats that voted Tory at the last election have managed to avoid restrictions, including Barrow-in-Furness, where the infection rate is 112 cases per 100,000 population, Darlington where it is 110 per 100,000 and Wakefield where the infection rate is 73 per 100,000.

In fact, of all the areas where infections exceed 70 cases per 100,000 but lockdown has been avoided, the majority are represented by Tory MPs, The Times reports.


Richmondshire in North Yorkshire - one of the least deprived areas in Britain and home to Rishi Sunak’s constituency - has 73 new cases for every 100,000 people.

Newark and Sherwood, represented by Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick and Mark Spencer, the chief whip, stands at 84.

Both areas have avoided lockdown.

In contrast, Wolverhampton, another poorer area, has 56 cases per 100,000 but remains in lockdown.

Chorley, at 72, Lancaster, at 66, and Oadby and Wigston, at 63, are also all subject to lockdowns.

so, clearly one of the main criterias for an area to be placed in lockdown and have the local businesses suffer financial hardship is not the number of infections but whether it is a tory or labour seat. surely this is corruption. companies to receive preferential treatment resulting in financial benefit in return for political support, and with peoples lives at risk. peoples jobs at risk this is corrutption of the worst sort, lets chase this charlatan out of office.
stjohn

did everyone wait for Boris' announcement yesterday ? it was supposed to be at 4. then 5 then 6 then 6;30. anyone wonder why that was. were they delaying it to work out the details ? hardly all the papers knew about it the day before. maybe Boris was watching the rugby . or maybe he wanted it to co-incide with strictly come dancing to boost his viewing figures.
and what an announcement it was. we are going into lockdown . just like france and germany did weeks before. anyone get the idea this government is not exactly on the ball. Raab was on the radio friday morning saying we would not be going into national lockdown. the interviewer pointed out france and germany had and they were just late in reacting exactly like they were in march. HIS ANSWER ? France and Germany had also used local lockdowns. yes Dom. but they did not work. so they went to the national one. our local lockdowns were a joke where even the PM did not know the rules. and ours did not work. we have 3 tiers in england 4 tiers in Nireland adn 5 tiers in scotland. and some tier 3 regions have different rules to other tier 3 regions. how did anyone ever expect that to work .
stjohn

oh and what else. we have an extension to the furlough scheme. to save jobs . brilliant. well it might have been if the furlough scheme actually kicked in a few weeks before the old scheme expired , the new lockdown was announced and companies could have planned for it with their workers. this scheme was announced late. too late for those at waitrose and john lewis 25oo job cuts and sainsburys 3500 job cuts. which obviously were planned before today's announcement of the extension of furlough. why would these companies have made them redundant when they could have carried on employing them without it costing them a penny until march. the government are slow. behind the curve. in effective, inept and it is costing jobs. the economy and lives.
stjohn

and Oh how the ministers love the new vaccine. they are buying it up in its millions, faster than you can say the word THALIDOMIDE. are they really going to put something into the entire country that is as yet almost untested ? how much rick are they willing to take with the publics lives to keep the economy going just a little bit longer.
stjohn

Amazing how you 'free thinkers' all seem to read from the exact same list of topics.

Any chance you could do us a quick rendition of 5G masts?

(16/11/2020, 11:25)ScottyRampant Wrote: Amazing how you 'free thinkers' all seem to read from the exact same list of topics.

Any chance you could do us a quick rendition of 5G masts?

i was listening to radio 4 last week ( you know the BBC ) and they has a story about the new vaccine and whether it was thoroughly tested as it usually takes years to ensure a drug or vaccine is safe , yes the BBC would you like to add those to the conspiracy theorists. anyway 2 days later they had a similar item on the news about the Russian SPUTNIK vaccine which the news story claimed had not had enough tests and was being hurried out ( clearly the BBC is growing more paranoid by the day ) and then the next day they carried a whole host of charges against the Oxford vaccine not being what they say it is. and the following day the WHO ( world health organisation ) raised concerns over the oxford vaccine saying they needed to see more than a 'press release'
what you have done is tag a sensible health issue and tag it to some nonsense so that it too becomes dubious. have you learnt nothing about questioning authority ? it i were to make a similar bogus analogy i would compare you to an official on trial after the loss of over 1000 lives on the titanic because they did not have enough lifeboats and saying 'they told me it was unsinkable'
stjohn

and another tier we have now. did anyone notice Chris Whitty's performance tonight. a little shaky ? maybe he was panicking about leaving this too late before christmas. or maybe he was nervous because they had the information about this virulent virus earlier and did not act on it ( "chief Brody i just heard you knew there was a shark out there and you still let people in the water" ) lets look at it. they said they discovered this new strain in London on November 9th . and yet. London was still in tier 2 in December. hmmm. didn't this happen in february. London was bad with the virus but they did not lock down until it had spread to other areas of the country. and this time . again they did not lock London down and have allowed the virus to other parts. The north lockdowned. but not London. it was allowed to stay open while they new about this new strain. how many dead. our dead are directly the result of this government putting the economy before lives.
stjohn

have you noticed we have all these tv shows. cynical, fi;; of irony yet where is the one that shows our prime minister on a 'loop' you know what i mean . when the leader of the oppositon party suggested that we need to tighten up the rules because of the new strain of COVID he laughed at him in parliament. laughed. looked around. played to the crowd and laughed. 'he wants to cancel christmas' he went on and on in his self centred mantra and the media just lapped it up laughing at the labour leader as boris johnson picked on him like he was a 'FAG' at his public school . but 4 days later. 4 days of people making plans, ordering food. he banned them from meeting in more than one household in london and only for one day in the rest of the country ( like the virus is some kind of marxist who let them have one day and then would infect the people on boxing day ) Boris johnson made a big deal of quoting Cicero and his salus publico. the health of the nation is the height of governmentm, someone should point out that other Cicero quote. 'HE WHO DOES NOT HAVE AN ARGUEMENT ABUSES THE PLAINTIFF'. we ought to remember this. Boris Johnson is a bully. he has a history of bullying. and he has let a whole generation die while implying he is the natural successor to churchill. really. the greatest generation. how are they doing ? i heard a cabinet minister trying to justify the covid regulations by saying that the average age for death by covid is 82. is that okay. we let the people who made this country what it is die ? and we abuse those who try to point this out. and the media. the fifth estate just play along. shame on them. shame on them all.
stjohn

Boris Johnson had another of his covid announcements Friday afternoon. he said he could see the gradual reduction in infections. the guy must believe the stuff he makes up. no country has a rate as high as this. sure the US has a higher number of infections and a higher number of deaths but they have 5 times our population it would be higher. their infection rate is 3 times as high as ours not 5 times and their death rate is twice as high as ours not 5 times as high.
Whitty either had his own bit of spin or was revealing something that he hoped a journo would pick up. he said that the infection rate was different in different areas and the peak would be later in some areas because they lockdown later. just turn that upside down,. if the lockdown had come in earlier the peak would have been earlier and lives saved.
about the same time as this was on radio 4 was discussing the same thing with someone called Lucy Yardley a professor of health. she was asked about new restriction. she said the restrictions that were being talked about were reducing the amount of time people could go outside for exercise and the like and they would not work. it is not in the outdoors where the infection is being spread it is indoors of peoples homes and workplaces and people should avoid the workplace if at all possible. a bit different to the goverment line. 'go to work only if you cannot work from home' the office is the risky place. we do not need a long lockdown. the vaccine we have been promised will kick in mid feb and we should see deaths and infections coming down early march. 6 weeks is all. with deaths currently over 1000 a day i think a government has a duty totake measures to protect its citizens.
stjohn