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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Saving lives and protecting the NHS

SystemSystem Posts: 11,683
edited May 2020 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Saving lives and protecting the NHS

In Lord Denning’s 1980 judgement preventing the Birmingham Six from suing the police for injuries while in custody, he stated: 

Read the full story here


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Comments

  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,190
    First.
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,897
    edited May 2020
    Second.

    Good piece as ever from Ms Cyclefree. Treating a healthcare system as if it were a religion inevitably leads to them thinking they are invincible - as we've seen with many religions in recent times. No institution should ever be beyond criticism.
  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,953
    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813
  • Options
    another_richardanother_richard Posts: 25,082
    Thanks and very good.
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,897
    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    ttps://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    ttps://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    Newspapers print unannounced bollocks and have to be corrected by No. 10.

    Same sh!t, diff'rent day.
  • Options
    NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,347
    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    You only had to listen to the PM's broadcast to know there will be no summer holidays this year. Most kids will not be at school, do you really think that they will let kids loose in a Haven Holiday Park? Just get real.

  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,999
    geoffw said:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-are-some-pretending-to-be-baffled-by-boris-s-announcement-
    This board does not lack disingenuous naysayers. It's quite transparent that for them the virus crisis is no reason to suspend partisan politics.


    Politics is bloodsport for vegans. The fat lying useless sack of shit deserves and will get no quarter.
  • Options
    Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,983
    I am not a number!
  • Options
    JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Britain’s broke
    V
    Take the risk
    V
    Go back to work
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Good article.
  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,953

    You only had to listen to the PM's broadcast to know there will be no summer holidays this year.

    I know

    You know it

    But BoZo wants to be loved. He wanted to be the guy that saved the summer hollibobs. So he spaffed it.

    And now they have to clean up his shit, again.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,005
    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    France has not yet announced foreign holidaymakers can return, by August that might have changed
  • Options
    squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,353
    Is it just ne or are these ytreads just toooooooooooo long?
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,005

    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    You only had to listen to the PM's broadcast to know there will be no summer holidays this year. Most kids will not be at school, do you really think that they will let kids loose in a Haven Holiday Park? Just get real.

    Primary schools will be back next month, I suspect most people will try and have a holiday in England or a non quarantined country like France or Ireland
  • Options
    Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,790
    I have felt very uncomfortable about the further veneration of the NHS. Applaud the NHS, save the NHS, etc. etc. Why not applaud healthcare workers? We don't say "applaud your local authority" when asked to appreciate the hard working bin men. Or "applaud Amazon" or "applaud Tesco". The NHS has some great people working in it, but essentially it is a nationalised industry that should be valued, but also held to account.
  • Options
    JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    You only had to listen to the PM's broadcast to know there will be no summer holidays this year. Most kids will not be at school, do you really think that they will let kids loose in a Haven Holiday Park? Just get real.

    Primary schools will be back next month, I suspect most people will try and have a holiday in England or a non quarantined country like France or Ireland
    Lockdown someplace else? Meet in another park? Sounds amazing.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Dura_Ace said:

    geoffw said:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-are-some-pretending-to-be-baffled-by-boris-s-announcement-
    This board does not lack disingenuous naysayers. It's quite transparent that for them the virus crisis is no reason to suspend partisan politics.


    Politics is bloodsport for vegans. The fat lying useless sack of shit deserves and will get no quarter.
    Thanks for sharing Geoff's link on this thread. It is truly an excellent article too.
  • Options
    RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,229
    Scott_xP said:
    "So it will have very little credibility". Outrageous! Its perfectly credible!

    We need you to self isolate after flying home. Upon arrival please collect your bags. Get some snacks from the shop. Get on the train. Go to the loo. Get in the taxi. Then upon arrival at home stay there for 2 weeks. Its very important that all arrivals from abroad* do not interact with anyone for two weeks

    *OK when we say abroad we don't mean Ireland. No virus there. Or France. No virus there either. Or Belgium or the Netherlands by boat. No virus there. The countries you can travel into before getting to France Belgium the Netherlands? They're fine too.
  • Options
    IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    France has not yet announced foreign holidaymakers can return, by August that might have changed
    The fantasy which is keeping me go is that of walking the Haute Route Pyrénées this summer. The problem is that this ducks into Spain and back again dozens of times. Perhaps I should opt for the lower GR10 on the French side. Or go to Corsica.

    Fun fact: Martinique is part of metropolitan France. It's not great but it is Caribbean...
  • Options
    OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,990

    Good article.

    It is indeed. As I read somewhere recently, one of the worst things that happened to Care Homes was their almost complete removal from Local Authority control, and consequent association with the NHS as a consequence of first the 1990 Act and secondly the Lansley reforms which were enacted in the 2014 Act. Unquestionably conditions in some Local Authority Homes were poor, but so were some private ones. Sadly the principle of Private Good, Public Bad was held to be sacrosanct.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,306
    I agree with the thread header. The disaster in our care homes has not arisen in isolation but is the inevitable consequence of the neglect of the care system for decades where everything was done on the cheap, staffing is kept to a minimum, training is an extra, equipment is basic and standards are inevitably low. When Hunt had the Health Department expanded to include Social Care I had hopes that a more integrated service would follow. It may be that he was not in that post long enough to make a difference but the focus seemed to be on bed blocking in the NHS and trying to get oldies off the wards and away from sight. His successors seem to have gone back to ignoring the problem until CV meant moving the oldies on became a priority.

    My researches the other day indicated that in normal times 50% of those who go to a care home die within 482 days. Some, of course, live for years, probably those who go into the home in better health in the first place. For many it is a sad and somewhat bewildering end of life when their family is no longer able to cope with dementia or illness.

    We need to do better than this but it is absurd to think that can be done without significant new money at a time when the public finances are going to be in a near catastrophic state. We need to go back to May's plans at the 2017 election. The priority is not the inheritance or keeping the family home. The priority is ensuring that those who need care get what they deserve. The State cannot provide this unaided. It needs to come from the estate of those receiving it whether before or after death.

  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,611
    That is a very good article, Cyclefree.
    I was contemplating writing something along the same lines myself, but my head has not been in the right place for setting out anything coherent enough to form a header.

    Why are social care and NHS not integrated?
    This is a question that cries out for an answer, but I'd go further. Under the existing system, it's not just a lack of integration, it's also that over the last few years increasing hurdles have been erected for individuals seeking to navigate between the two systems.
    When someone goes into care, the responsibility of the NHS for their healthcare does not end. Under the rather misleadingly named "Continuing Healthcare Framework", the NHS is still responsible for funding the healthcare of those who have been assessed and found to have a "primary health need" as set out in the National Framework.
    As the language suggests, this process is bureaucratic, difficult to navigate for individuals (some might say deliberately so), time consuming, and increasingly likely over the last few years to end in disappointment, unless the healthcare needs are absolutely undeniable.

    One might argue that Covid patients discharged into care homes fall into the category of those who should be assessed as having a "primary health need", and should remain the responsibility of the NHS. Quite how this system has operated on the last couple of months, I do not know, but I'd be interested to find out - and it ought to be asked in any enquiry.
  • Options
    AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    One can presume that common sense is not enough, since the Health Secretary, the Health Minister and the Prime Minister all caught Covid-19. Or is the government saying that they all lack common sense?
  • Options
    CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,205
    I should have also mentioned that care home workers are dying at twice the rate of NHS workers. It is a scandal. Some of the people doing the most valuable work, poorly paid and little valued are being denied the PPE they need and are dying because of this. They are also a vector for retransmission into the wider community.

    The whole purpose of lockdown was to protect the vulnerable. If we can’t even do that, really what is the point of it all?
  • Options
    GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,079
    IshmaelZ said:
    Just shows that “staying home” is not the saviour people seem to think it is.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,981
    DavidL said:

    I agree with the thread header. The disaster in our care homes has not arisen in isolation but is the inevitable consequence of the neglect of the care system for decades where everything was done on the cheap, staffing is kept to a minimum, training is an extra, equipment is basic and standards are inevitably low. When Hunt had the Health Department expanded to include Social Care I had hopes that a more integrated service would follow. It may be that he was not in that post long enough to make a difference but the focus seemed to be on bed blocking in the NHS and trying to get oldies off the wards and away from sight. His successors seem to have gone back to ignoring the problem until CV meant moving the oldies on became a priority.

    My researches the other day indicated that in normal times 50% of those who go to a care home die within 482 days. Some, of course, live for years, probably those who go into the home in better health in the first place. For many it is a sad and somewhat bewildering end of life when their family is no longer able to cope with dementia or illness.

    We need to do better than this but it is absurd to think that can be done without significant new money at a time when the public finances are going to be in a near catastrophic state. We need to go back to May's plans at the 2017 election. The priority is not the inheritance or keeping the family home. The priority is ensuring that those who need care get what they deserve. The State cannot provide this unaided. It needs to come from the estate of those receiving it whether before or after death.

    And in your last sentence is the problem - it needs to be paid for so do you do it as a lottery (those who are unlucky and get dementia pay) or do you tax everyone.

    Both solutions have been proposed and both attacked because No one was brave enough to say the options are X or Y take your pick.

    It's actually one of the few things I would use a referendum on the options - this problem isn't nice, none of the options are liked so take your pick.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,611

    Good article.

    It is indeed. As I read somewhere recently, one of the worst things that happened to Care Homes was their almost complete removal from Local Authority control, and consequent association with the NHS as a consequence of first the 1990 Act and secondly the Lansley reforms which were enacted in the 2014 Act. Unquestionably conditions in some Local Authority Homes were poor, but so were some private ones. Sadly the principle of Private Good, Public Bad was held to be sacrosanct.
    Local authorities retain a significant amount of influence, though, as they fund a very large number of the residents of private care homes. In many (most ?) cases they pay considerably less per head than self funders for the same provision, so are effectively subsidised by those who don't qualify for LA support.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,548
    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    France has not yet announced foreign holidaymakers can return, by August that might have changed
    The fantasy which is keeping me go is that of walking the Haute Route Pyrénées this summer. The problem is that this ducks into Spain and back again dozens of times. Perhaps I should opt for the lower GR10 on the French side. Or go to Corsica.

    Fun fact: Martinique is part of metropolitan France. It's not great but it is Caribbean...
    Hmmm. 60,000ft elevation gain for the bike version.

    What's the story of France getting Martinique back - I thought we took it from Napoleon. What did we trade it for?
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,405
    One area that needs looking at is GPs -

    Mine has been great - she organised getting every vulnerable person on the books onto the government list, redeployed staff to deliver medicine to elderly/shielding. She even arranged a system for calling people who were due for (vital) hospital appointments to encourage them to go.

    Next one over (as it were) shut up shop and barely answers the phone.
  • Options
    AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    On topic, Britain has succeeded in making sure its horrific death toll was achieved in an orderly fashion.
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,113
    Surely all healthcare systems ration healthcare, not just state run systems. In a private system the rationing is based on how rich you are.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,125
    IshmaelZ said:
    That Israeli epidemiologist who reckons it would just vanish after x weeks may have some explaining to do...
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,405
    IshmaelZ said:
    The Chinese attempt to eliminate the virus with lockdowns won't.... eliminate it.

    There seem to be a high enough proportion of asymptomatic carriers that it can survive in a chain of asymptomic cases until it re-emerges.
  • Options
    GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,079
    edited May 2020
    MattW said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    France has not yet announced foreign holidaymakers can return, by August that might have changed
    The fantasy which is keeping me go is that of walking the Haute Route Pyrénées this summer. The problem is that this ducks into Spain and back again dozens of times. Perhaps I should opt for the lower GR10 on the French side. Or go to Corsica.

    Fun fact: Martinique is part of metropolitan France. It's not great but it is Caribbean...
    Hmmm. 60,000ft elevation gain for the bike version.

    What's the story of France getting Martinique back - I thought we took it from Napoleon. What did we trade it for?
    Treaty of Paris 1763, we traded it back to France in return for their recognition of the sovereignty of Britain over Canada, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Tobago, as well as the eastern half of the Louisiana territory.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,611
    Cyclefree said:

    I should have also mentioned that care home workers are dying at twice the rate of NHS workers. It is a scandal. Some of the people doing the most valuable work, poorly paid and little valued are being denied the PPE they need and are dying because of this. They are also a vector for retransmission into the wider community.

    The whole purpose of lockdown was to protect the vulnerable. If we can’t even do that, really what is the point of it all?

    That is an absolutely key point.
    It should have been blatantly obvious that discharging Covid patients into care homes would present them with the same challenge as the Covid wards in hospitals, but without the trained staff, equipment, or dedicates premises to deal with the challenge.
    I think that something in the order of fifteen thousand patients were discharged either into care or back into the community without any real consideration of the consequences.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,405
    edited May 2020

    I have felt very uncomfortable about the further veneration of the NHS. Applaud the NHS, save the NHS, etc. etc. Why not applaud healthcare workers? We don't say "applaud your local authority" when asked to appreciate the hard working bin men. Or "applaud Amazon" or "applaud Tesco". The NHS has some great people working in it, but essentially it is a nationalised industry that should be valued, but also held to account.

    True to a point - there have been cases of whistleblowers being attacked, on the basis that their whistleblowing "damages the NHS".

    I would say, just as exposing police corruption is a pro-police activity, exposing problems in the NHS is a pro-NHS activity.
  • Options
    AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    On the last point, I expect there will be just talk. The frail elderly are too weak and have too few speaking for them to get any changes made for them. Not enough people really care.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,611

    IshmaelZ said:
    The Chinese attempt to eliminate the virus with lockdowns won't.... eliminate it.

    There seem to be a high enough proportion of asymptomatic carriers that it can survive in a chain of asymptomic cases until it re-emerges.
    I don't think anyone really believes it will be eliminated in such a manner. Certainly not in any large economy open to trade with the rest of the world.
    It might be kept sufficiently under control for track and trace to keep it that way until a vaccine can eliminate it.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,125
    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I should have also mentioned that care home workers are dying at twice the rate of NHS workers. It is a scandal. Some of the people doing the most valuable work, poorly paid and little valued are being denied the PPE they need and are dying because of this. They are also a vector for retransmission into the wider community.

    The whole purpose of lockdown was to protect the vulnerable. If we can’t even do that, really what is the point of it all?

    That is an absolutely key point.
    It should have been blatantly obvious that discharging Covid patients into care homes would present them with the same challenge as the Covid wards in hospitals, but without the trained staff, equipment, or dedicates premises to deal with the challenge.
    I think that something in the order of fifteen thousand patients were discharged either into care or back into the community without any real consideration of the consequences.
    They should have gone to the Nightingale hospitals until released with a "Covid-free" chit. Those Nightingale Hospitals that had nothing else to do.

    The monomania of protecting the NHS at all costs has undoubtedly cost many thousand lives.
  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,953
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,306
    eek said:

    DavidL said:

    I agree with the thread header. The disaster in our care homes has not arisen in isolation but is the inevitable consequence of the neglect of the care system for decades where everything was done on the cheap, staffing is kept to a minimum, training is an extra, equipment is basic and standards are inevitably low. When Hunt had the Health Department expanded to include Social Care I had hopes that a more integrated service would follow. It may be that he was not in that post long enough to make a difference but the focus seemed to be on bed blocking in the NHS and trying to get oldies off the wards and away from sight. His successors seem to have gone back to ignoring the problem until CV meant moving the oldies on became a priority.

    My researches the other day indicated that in normal times 50% of those who go to a care home die within 482 days. Some, of course, live for years, probably those who go into the home in better health in the first place. For many it is a sad and somewhat bewildering end of life when their family is no longer able to cope with dementia or illness.

    We need to do better than this but it is absurd to think that can be done without significant new money at a time when the public finances are going to be in a near catastrophic state. We need to go back to May's plans at the 2017 election. The priority is not the inheritance or keeping the family home. The priority is ensuring that those who need care get what they deserve. The State cannot provide this unaided. It needs to come from the estate of those receiving it whether before or after death.

    And in your last sentence is the problem - it needs to be paid for so do you do it as a lottery (those who are unlucky and get dementia pay) or do you tax everyone.

    Both solutions have been proposed and both attacked because No one was brave enough to say the options are X or Y take your pick.

    It's actually one of the few things I would use a referendum on the options - this problem isn't nice, none of the options are liked so take your pick.
    Personally, I find the argument that the State should pick up tens of thousands of costs so that the kids can enjoy a good inheritance bewildering. Care costs money. It is provided (in part) to people with assets. Those assets need to be used to pay for it. We have looked at insurance but couldn't make it work. We could do it through general taxation but there are going to be an infinite number of demands on that. The argument is why should the family pay for dementia but not for cancer? The answer, imperfect though it is, is that care is a living cost and cancer treatment is a medical one.
  • Options
    CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,205
    Nigelb said:

    That is a very good article, Cyclefree.
    I was contemplating writing something along the same lines myself, but my head has not been in the right place for setting out anything coherent enough to form a header.

    Why are social care and NHS not integrated?
    This is a question that cries out for an answer, but I'd go further. Under the existing system, it's not just a lack of integration, it's also that over the last few years increasing hurdles have been erected for individuals seeking to navigate between the two systems.
    When someone goes into care, the responsibility of the NHS for their healthcare does not end. Under the rather misleadingly named "Continuing Healthcare Framework", the NHS is still responsible for funding the healthcare of those who have been assessed and found to have a "primary health need" as set out in the National Framework.
    As the language suggests, this process is bureaucratic, difficult to navigate for individuals (some might say deliberately so), time consuming, and increasingly likely over the last few years to end in disappointment, unless the healthcare needs are absolutely undeniable.

    One might argue that Covid patients discharged into care homes fall into the category of those who should be assessed as having a "primary health need", and should remain the responsibility of the NHS. Quite how this system has operated on the last couple of months, I do not know, but I'd be interested to find out - and it ought to be asked in any enquiry.

    @Nigelb: it was inspired by your article which as one of our posters put it was Zola-esque in its righteous anger (a point I picked up in the introduction). And I have been reading some other stuff about how patients have been treated.

    It is a difficult bureaucratic system because as a society we don’t really value old people enough as a group, whatever we may think of our own individual elders.

    I really hope there is a proper inquiry into this and real effective changes made for the sake of all those like you who have lost a loved parent or grand-parent or friend.
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,113
    This "common sense" rubbish fails to acknowledge how unequal the employer-employee relationship is, especially for vulnerable workers - the low paid, casual, zero hour contracts, the young etc. Very revealing that Hancock couldn't say whether you could be forced to go back to work or not. It's obvious that none of the posh boys in government have ever had those kind of jobs. I remember when I worked in a restaurant, we were frequently compelled to stay late to clean up and wouldn't be paid beyond a certain time. Over the course of the week you'd be working for free for five or six hours. When I asked the manager if I'd be paid beyond 11pm if I stayed, he physically ejected me from his office. I guess that was just an example of good old British common sense in action.
  • Options
    TGOHF666TGOHF666 Posts: 2,052
    Surely the solution is to rebrand all care homes as “NHS Care Homes”

    At which point they will be the envy of the world.
  • Options
    TGOHF666TGOHF666 Posts: 2,052
    Irony of a Nat tweeting about ferry contracts not registered with Scott.

    He needs to “stay alert”
  • Options
    JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I should have also mentioned that care home workers are dying at twice the rate of NHS workers. It is a scandal. Some of the people doing the most valuable work, poorly paid and little valued are being denied the PPE they need and are dying because of this. They are also a vector for retransmission into the wider community.

    The whole purpose of lockdown was to protect the vulnerable. If we can’t even do that, really what is the point of it all?

    That is an absolutely key point.
    It should have been blatantly obvious that discharging Covid patients into care homes would present them with the same challenge as the Covid wards in hospitals, but without the trained staff, equipment, or dedicates premises to deal with the challenge.
    I think that something in the order of fifteen thousand patients were discharged either into care or back into the community without any real consideration of the consequences.
    They should have gone to the Nightingale hospitals until released with a "Covid-free" chit. Those Nightingale Hospitals that had nothing else to do.

    The monomania of protecting the NHS at all costs has undoubtedly cost many thousand lives.
    Do you think the government’s advice to protect the NHS has cost lives?
  • Options
    Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,983
    Mr. Flashman (deceased), a foolish idea.

    Call them NHS Care Homes and any proposal to change them for the better will be derided and castigated as blasphemy. Only more money will be accepted.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,611

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I should have also mentioned that care home workers are dying at twice the rate of NHS workers. It is a scandal. Some of the people doing the most valuable work, poorly paid and little valued are being denied the PPE they need and are dying because of this. They are also a vector for retransmission into the wider community.

    The whole purpose of lockdown was to protect the vulnerable. If we can’t even do that, really what is the point of it all?

    That is an absolutely key point.
    It should have been blatantly obvious that discharging Covid patients into care homes would present them with the same challenge as the Covid wards in hospitals, but without the trained staff, equipment, or dedicates premises to deal with the challenge.
    I think that something in the order of fifteen thousand patients were discharged either into care or back into the community without any real consideration of the consequences.
    They should have gone to the Nightingale hospitals until released with a "Covid-free" chit. Those Nightingale Hospitals that had nothing else to do.

    The monomania of protecting the NHS at all costs has undoubtedly cost many thousand lives.
    I think most of the discharges predated the availability of the various Nightingale hospitals.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,405
    Nigelb said:

    IshmaelZ said:
    The Chinese attempt to eliminate the virus with lockdowns won't.... eliminate it.

    There seem to be a high enough proportion of asymptomatic carriers that it can survive in a chain of asymptomic cases until it re-emerges.
    I don't think anyone really believes it will be eliminated in such a manner. Certainly not in any large economy open to trade with the rest of the world.
    It might be kept sufficiently under control for track and trace to keep it that way until a vaccine can eliminate it.
    I'm not sure the Chinese authorities think that way. Remember they have large resources and almost unlimited freedom (ha!) to use them as they feel fit.

    "Eliminate X!" is a tempting move in that position.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4a7BrhlMTg
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,190

    On topic, Britain has succeeded in making sure its horrific death toll was achieved in an orderly fashion.

    At the start of this, I'm sure I read you say something like this disease will touch all of us in some way. Apologies if I've got that wrong, but what's changed your mind?
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,005
    Jonathan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    You only had to listen to the PM's broadcast to know there will be no summer holidays this year. Most kids will not be at school, do you really think that they will let kids loose in a Haven Holiday Park? Just get real.

    Primary schools will be back next month, I suspect most people will try and have a holiday in England or a non quarantined country like France or Ireland
    Lockdown someplace else? Meet in another park? Sounds amazing.
    Restaurants, cafes, hotels, shops, cathedrals and churches are also due to have reopened by mid July
  • Options
    TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,388
    HYUFD said:
    God I hate the American practice of putting the difference in brackets and not the change. I want changes dammit.
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    CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,205

    On the last point, I expect there will be just talk. The frail elderly are too weak and have too few speaking for them to get any changes made for them. Not enough people really care.

    If we want to be a decent society then we should give a voice and speak up for those who don’t have a voice or a friend. I don’t suppose anything will change because of one or two articles. But we should still speak up when and where we can.
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    SlackbladderSlackbladder Posts: 9,704

    This "common sense" rubbish fails to acknowledge how unequal the employer-employee relationship is, especially for vulnerable workers - the low paid, casual, zero hour contracts, the young etc. Very revealing that Hancock couldn't say whether you could be forced to go back to work or not. It's obvious that none of the posh boys in government have ever had those kind of jobs. I remember when I worked in a restaurant, we were frequently compelled to stay late to clean up and wouldn't be paid beyond a certain time. Over the course of the week you'd be working for free for five or six hours. When I asked the manager if I'd be paid beyond 11pm if I stayed, he physically ejected me from his office. I guess that was just an example of good old British common sense in action.

    On the other hand, if employees could refuse to go back to work until it is some 'nebulous' version of safe, they might never go back to work, and rely on the government effectively paying wages until the end of days.

    This is actually a position where Unions work, as if the union is a reasonable one, they can collectively make sure, in partnership with employers than sensible rules are in place to make the workplace reasonable.



  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,125
    Jonathan said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I should have also mentioned that care home workers are dying at twice the rate of NHS workers. It is a scandal. Some of the people doing the most valuable work, poorly paid and little valued are being denied the PPE they need and are dying because of this. They are also a vector for retransmission into the wider community.

    The whole purpose of lockdown was to protect the vulnerable. If we can’t even do that, really what is the point of it all?

    That is an absolutely key point.
    It should have been blatantly obvious that discharging Covid patients into care homes would present them with the same challenge as the Covid wards in hospitals, but without the trained staff, equipment, or dedicates premises to deal with the challenge.
    I think that something in the order of fifteen thousand patients were discharged either into care or back into the community without any real consideration of the consequences.
    They should have gone to the Nightingale hospitals until released with a "Covid-free" chit. Those Nightingale Hospitals that had nothing else to do.

    The monomania of protecting the NHS at all costs has undoubtedly cost many thousand lives.
    Do you think the government’s advice to protect the NHS has cost lives?
    I think that there was a loss of perspective. The Nightingale Hospitals were there ONLY as an NHS resource, not a national one. As a national resource, they should have been a bridge to care homes. Leaving the care homes to fend for themselves was always a very bad idea.

    I have criticised the Govt. for this in the past.
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    AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    tlg86 said:

    On topic, Britain has succeeded in making sure its horrific death toll was achieved in an orderly fashion.

    At the start of this, I'm sure I read you say something like this disease will touch all of us in some way. Apologies if I've got that wrong, but what's changed your mind?
    It will and nothing has changed my mind. There will be no shortage of retrofitting of rationalisations afterwards, just as there was with the Second World War. Many, indeed most, things will stay the same even as we claim to have changed.
  • Options
    Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,298
    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    You only had to listen to the PM's broadcast to know there will be no summer holidays this year. Most kids will not be at school, do you really think that they will let kids loose in a Haven Holiday Park? Just get real.

    Primary schools will be back next month, I suspect most people will try and have a holiday in England or a non quarantined country like France or Ireland
    Primary schools will not be back next months.

    A limited number of primary school children may go back but they will not be fully functioning primary schools

    Furthermore, secondary schools look as if they are off until September term
  • Options
    GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,079
    HYUFD said:

    Jonathan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    You only had to listen to the PM's broadcast to know there will be no summer holidays this year. Most kids will not be at school, do you really think that they will let kids loose in a Haven Holiday Park? Just get real.

    Primary schools will be back next month, I suspect most people will try and have a holiday in England or a non quarantined country like France or Ireland
    Lockdown someplace else? Meet in another park? Sounds amazing.
    Restaurants, cafes, hotels, shops, cathedrals and churches are also due to have reopened by mid July
    Incorrect. They are not “due” to open by mid July, they “may” be allowed to open in mid July if it is “safe to do so”.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    You only had to listen to the PM's broadcast to know there will be no summer holidays this year. Most kids will not be at school, do you really think that they will let kids loose in a Haven Holiday Park? Just get real.

    Primary schools will be back next month, I suspect most people will try and have a holiday in England or a non quarantined country like France or Ireland
    Primary schools will not be back next months.

    A limited number of primary school children may go back but they will not be fully functioning primary schools

    Furthermore, secondary schools look as if they are off until September term
    Starting off limited (R, Y1 and Y6) but the PM said yesterday the ambition is for all primary school children to get at least a month before the summer holidays. Which means not long a gap between those 3 years going back and the other 4 doing so.
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    MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688

    tlg86 said:

    On topic, Britain has succeeded in making sure its horrific death toll was achieved in an orderly fashion.

    At the start of this, I'm sure I read you say something like this disease will touch all of us in some way. Apologies if I've got that wrong, but what's changed your mind?
    nothing has changed my mind.
    Your greatest fault
  • Options
    MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    I have a bad feeling about these polls from the U.S.

    It looks to me like Trump may be re-elected.
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,190

    tlg86 said:

    On topic, Britain has succeeded in making sure its horrific death toll was achieved in an orderly fashion.

    At the start of this, I'm sure I read you say something like this disease will touch all of us in some way. Apologies if I've got that wrong, but what's changed your mind?
    It will and nothing has changed my mind. There will be no shortage of retrofitting of rationalisations afterwards, just as there was with the Second World War. Many, indeed most, things will stay the same even as we claim to have changed.
    I see, you meant changes to life rather than it being inevitable that we'd all know someone who died from the virus?
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    HYUFD said:
    God I hate the American practice of putting the difference in brackets and not the change. I want changes dammit.
    Absolutely! Are Americans so thick they can't think for themselves what the net difference is between 40 and 53?
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,225
    https://twitter.com/edmorrish/status/1259813875987419136

    I guess a few us can offer thinking Clinton was going to win last time. Although not my worst prediction.

    Not quite a prediction, but I did once (back in 1983) turn down a ticket to see U2 at a small venue saying I'd never heard of them and so wasn't interested.
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    AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340

    tlg86 said:

    On topic, Britain has succeeded in making sure its horrific death toll was achieved in an orderly fashion.

    At the start of this, I'm sure I read you say something like this disease will touch all of us in some way. Apologies if I've got that wrong, but what's changed your mind?
    nothing has changed my mind.
    Your greatest fault
    Casually wafting aside thousands of avoidable deaths certainly doesn’t change my mind, except to regard you with complete contempt.
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    coachcoach Posts: 250
    Cyclefree said:

    I should have also mentioned that care home workers are dying at twice the rate of NHS workers. It is a scandal. Some of the people doing the most valuable work, poorly paid and little valued are being denied the PPE they need and are dying because of this. They are also a vector for retransmission into the wider community.

    The whole purpose of lockdown was to protect the vulnerable. If we can’t even do that, really what is the point of it all?

    If anything positive comes out of this it may be that people think twice about sending Mum off to a care home where greedy owners and (some) negligent staff are paid to see her through her dying days
  • Options
    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,196
    Scott_xP said:
    Matt Hancock genuinely appears to be on the verge of a mental health episode. He seems to have been cut adrift by the rest of the A Team, and can see he has been lined up as the fall guy.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 24,981

    Jonathan said:

    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I should have also mentioned that care home workers are dying at twice the rate of NHS workers. It is a scandal. Some of the people doing the most valuable work, poorly paid and little valued are being denied the PPE they need and are dying because of this. They are also a vector for retransmission into the wider community.

    The whole purpose of lockdown was to protect the vulnerable. If we can’t even do that, really what is the point of it all?

    That is an absolutely key point.
    It should have been blatantly obvious that discharging Covid patients into care homes would present them with the same challenge as the Covid wards in hospitals, but without the trained staff, equipment, or dedicates premises to deal with the challenge.
    I think that something in the order of fifteen thousand patients were discharged either into care or back into the community without any real consideration of the consequences.
    They should have gone to the Nightingale hospitals until released with a "Covid-free" chit. Those Nightingale Hospitals that had nothing else to do.

    The monomania of protecting the NHS at all costs has undoubtedly cost many thousand lives.
    Do you think the government’s advice to protect the NHS has cost lives?
    I think that there was a loss of perspective. The Nightingale Hospitals were there ONLY as an NHS resource, not a national one. As a national resource, they should have been a bridge to care homes. Leaving the care homes to fend for themselves was always a very bad idea.

    I have criticised the Govt. for this in the past.
    The Nightingale hospitals aren't suitable for treating active patients - they are there for people who don't need to access toilets or food / drink as the facilities aren't there for that.

    The big question is how could you use empty hotels for looking after people who are ill but not ill enough to need hospital care. And we need to answer that question before wave 2 arrives.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,225
    edited May 2020

    HYUFD said:
    God I hate the American practice of putting the difference in brackets and not the change. I want changes dammit.
    Absolutely! Are Americans so thick they can't think for themselves what the net difference is between 40 and 53?
    Hilariously bonkers for voters to sour on an alleged sexual encounter by Biden, which he absolutely denies, and a self-confessed serial pest, who is on tape talking about his attitude to women.
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    JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    coach said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I should have also mentioned that care home workers are dying at twice the rate of NHS workers. It is a scandal. Some of the people doing the most valuable work, poorly paid and little valued are being denied the PPE they need and are dying because of this. They are also a vector for retransmission into the wider community.

    The whole purpose of lockdown was to protect the vulnerable. If we can’t even do that, really what is the point of it all?

    If anything positive comes out of this it may be that people think twice about sending Mum off to a care home where greedy owners and (some) negligent staff are paid to see her through her dying days
    What on Earth are you talking about?
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,306

    This "common sense" rubbish fails to acknowledge how unequal the employer-employee relationship is, especially for vulnerable workers - the low paid, casual, zero hour contracts, the young etc. Very revealing that Hancock couldn't say whether you could be forced to go back to work or not. It's obvious that none of the posh boys in government have ever had those kind of jobs. I remember when I worked in a restaurant, we were frequently compelled to stay late to clean up and wouldn't be paid beyond a certain time. Over the course of the week you'd be working for free for five or six hours. When I asked the manager if I'd be paid beyond 11pm if I stayed, he physically ejected me from his office. I guess that was just an example of good old British common sense in action.

    This is indeed a problem. I am due to give a talk on this (from the employers' perspective) in a couple of weeks. How does an employer decide it is safe to return to work? What responsibility does he have for the fact that this might involve the use of public transport? How can social distancing be enforced on a building site, in an office or call centre? What steps need to be taken to sterilise equipment and common surfaces? Can they provide canteen facilities? I honestly don't know the answer to much of this yet.
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    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Scott_xP said:
    That's not what he said and what he said is correct.
  • Options
    AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    On topic, Britain has succeeded in making sure its horrific death toll was achieved in an orderly fashion.

    At the start of this, I'm sure I read you say something like this disease will touch all of us in some way. Apologies if I've got that wrong, but what's changed your mind?
    It will and nothing has changed my mind. There will be no shortage of retrofitting of rationalisations afterwards, just as there was with the Second World War. Many, indeed most, things will stay the same even as we claim to have changed.
    I see, you meant changes to life rather than it being inevitable that we'd all know someone who died from the virus?
    There will be changes to life. And I’m afraid I do still expect that most of us will know someone who died of the disease.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,125

    I have a bad feeling about these polls from the U.S.

    It looks to me like Trump may be re-elected.

    Against Biden, yes.
  • Options
    NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,336

    https://twitter.com/edmorrish/status/1259813875987419136

    I guess a few us can offer thinking Clinton was going to win last time. Although not my worst prediction.

    Not quite a prediction, but I did once (back in 1983) turn down a ticket to see U2 at a small venue saying I'd never heard of them and so wasn't interested.

    I initially thought the internet was a niche thing mainly of interest to academics and not likely to have wider impact. (A few years later, I was running a million-pound corporate internet service - that's how fast things changed.)
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    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,225

    I have a bad feeling about these polls from the U.S.

    It looks to me like Trump may be re-elected.

    I travel in hope, but I am fully prepared for Trump to be re-elected. Although whether I will cope psychologically when it happens is another matter.

    This election is going to be utterly brutal and bat shit crazy.

    Just hope Biden is listening to Bill Clinton and not his wife when it comes to reaching out to the rural whites he needs to turn around.
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    geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,156
    Powerful header by Cyclefree. The rationing of health care discussed under "Staying at home when ill" is in retrospect (already!) something to be concerned about as it is a likely factor in our poor performance in comparison with Germany. The overriding policy objective was to protect the NHS which was done by making it less accessible to ill people! Our centralised health system doesn't score well against Germany's decentralised one.
  • Options

    https://twitter.com/edmorrish/status/1259813875987419136

    I guess a few us can offer thinking Clinton was going to win last time. Although not my worst prediction.

    Not quite a prediction, but I did once (back in 1983) turn down a ticket to see U2 at a small venue saying I'd never heard of them and so wasn't interested.

    That one day Political Betting would be free of tribal politics.
  • Options
    coachcoach Posts: 250
    Jonathan said:

    coach said:

    Cyclefree said:

    I should have also mentioned that care home workers are dying at twice the rate of NHS workers. It is a scandal. Some of the people doing the most valuable work, poorly paid and little valued are being denied the PPE they need and are dying because of this. They are also a vector for retransmission into the wider community.

    The whole purpose of lockdown was to protect the vulnerable. If we can’t even do that, really what is the point of it all?

    If anything positive comes out of this it may be that people think twice about sending Mum off to a care home where greedy owners and (some) negligent staff are paid to see her through her dying days
    What on Earth are you talking about?
    I'm talking about more elderly people being cared for at home rather than being abandoned
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    On topic, Britain has succeeded in making sure its horrific death toll was achieved in an orderly fashion.

    At the start of this, I'm sure I read you say something like this disease will touch all of us in some way. Apologies if I've got that wrong, but what's changed your mind?
    It will and nothing has changed my mind. There will be no shortage of retrofitting of rationalisations afterwards, just as there was with the Second World War. Many, indeed most, things will stay the same even as we claim to have changed.
    I see, you meant changes to life rather than it being inevitable that we'd all know someone who died from the virus?
    There will be changes to life. And I’m afraid I do still expect that most of us will know someone who died of the disease.
    That seems unlikely unless the death toll is a tiny fraction of the final death toll. Depending upon how you mean "know".
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,611
    .
    Cyclefree said:

    Nigelb said:

    That is a very good article, Cyclefree.
    I was contemplating writing something along the same lines myself, but my head has not been in the right place for setting out anything coherent enough to form a header.

    Why are social care and NHS not integrated?
    This is a question that cries out for an answer, but I'd go further. Under the existing system, it's not just a lack of integration, it's also that over the last few years increasing hurdles have been erected for individuals seeking to navigate between the two systems.
    When someone goes into care, the responsibility of the NHS for their healthcare does not end. Under the rather misleadingly named "Continuing Healthcare Framework", the NHS is still responsible for funding the healthcare of those who have been assessed and found to have a "primary health need" as set out in the National Framework.
    As the language suggests, this process is bureaucratic, difficult to navigate for individuals (some might say deliberately so), time consuming, and increasingly likely over the last few years to end in disappointment, unless the healthcare needs are absolutely undeniable.

    One might argue that Covid patients discharged into care homes fall into the category of those who should be assessed as having a "primary health need", and should remain the responsibility of the NHS. Quite how this system has operated on the last couple of months, I do not know, but I'd be interested to find out - and it ought to be asked in any enquiry.

    @Nigelb: it was inspired by your article which as one of our posters put it was Zola-esque in its righteous anger (a point I picked up in the introduction). And I have been reading some other stuff about how patients have been treated.

    It is a difficult bureaucratic system because as a society we don’t really value old people enough as a group, whatever we may think of our own individual elders.

    I really hope there is a proper inquiry into this and real effective changes made for the sake of all those like you who have lost a loved parent or grand-parent or friend.
    Thanks, Cyclefree.

    It's also a bureaucratic system which has deliberately been rendered steadily more difficult to navigate over the couple of decades since the Coghlan case -
    https://caretobedifferent.co.uk/the-coughlan-case/
    - in order to limit as much as possible the numbers of those assessed to have a "primary health need".
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,405

    This "common sense" rubbish fails to acknowledge how unequal the employer-employee relationship is, especially for vulnerable workers - the low paid, casual, zero hour contracts, the young etc. Very revealing that Hancock couldn't say whether you could be forced to go back to work or not. It's obvious that none of the posh boys in government have ever had those kind of jobs. I remember when I worked in a restaurant, we were frequently compelled to stay late to clean up and wouldn't be paid beyond a certain time. Over the course of the week you'd be working for free for five or six hours. When I asked the manager if I'd be paid beyond 11pm if I stayed, he physically ejected me from his office. I guess that was just an example of good old British common sense in action.

    On the other hand, if employees could refuse to go back to work until it is some 'nebulous' version of safe, they might never go back to work, and rely on the government effectively paying wages until the end of days.

    This is actually a position where Unions work, as if the union is a reasonable one, they can collectively make sure, in partnership with employers than sensible rules are in place to make the workplace reasonable.



    A friend of a friend is doing exactly that - walking the floor of a factory with the Union rep & HS bods to see how the next stage of bringing *more* people back in will work. Ideas being bounced back and forth etc.
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    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,262

    HYUFD said:
    God I hate the American practice of putting the difference in brackets and not the change. I want changes dammit.
    Absolutely! Are Americans so thick they can't think for themselves what the net difference is between 40 and 53?
    I think it's that because they have a much more entrenched two-party system it is possible to reduce the poll simply to the lead without giving the figures. It's much more usual for a US poll to be reported as "Biden +5", because all the other parameters are known.

    In the UK if you say the Tories are 10 points ahead then there have been times when it wouldn't have been obvious whether Labour were second, or another party was.
  • Options
    Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,298

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    BoZo just can't help himself.

    Brief the spin to the papers

    https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1259941601838800899

    Then spend the next day winding it back and cleaning it up

    https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1260109715322871813

    You only had to listen to the PM's broadcast to know there will be no summer holidays this year. Most kids will not be at school, do you really think that they will let kids loose in a Haven Holiday Park? Just get real.

    Primary schools will be back next month, I suspect most people will try and have a holiday in England or a non quarantined country like France or Ireland
    Primary schools will not be back next months.

    A limited number of primary school children may go back but they will not be fully functioning primary schools

    Furthermore, secondary schools look as if they are off until September term
    Starting off limited (R, Y1 and Y6) but the PM said yesterday the ambition is for all primary school children to get at least a month before the summer holidays. Which means not long a gap between those 3 years going back and the other 4 doing so.
    Ambition is the caveat to be fair
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,190

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    On topic, Britain has succeeded in making sure its horrific death toll was achieved in an orderly fashion.

    At the start of this, I'm sure I read you say something like this disease will touch all of us in some way. Apologies if I've got that wrong, but what's changed your mind?
    It will and nothing has changed my mind. There will be no shortage of retrofitting of rationalisations afterwards, just as there was with the Second World War. Many, indeed most, things will stay the same even as we claim to have changed.
    I see, you meant changes to life rather than it being inevitable that we'd all know someone who died from the virus?
    There will be changes to life. And I’m afraid I do still expect that most of us will know someone who died of the disease.
    But presumably you think that's partly as a result of the government handling of all this? For what it's worth I think the handling has been poor. What really scares me is that if this was a disease that was killing 20% of those infected, the response might not have been much different.
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,113

    This "common sense" rubbish fails to acknowledge how unequal the employer-employee relationship is, especially for vulnerable workers - the low paid, casual, zero hour contracts, the young etc. Very revealing that Hancock couldn't say whether you could be forced to go back to work or not. It's obvious that none of the posh boys in government have ever had those kind of jobs. I remember when I worked in a restaurant, we were frequently compelled to stay late to clean up and wouldn't be paid beyond a certain time. Over the course of the week you'd be working for free for five or six hours. When I asked the manager if I'd be paid beyond 11pm if I stayed, he physically ejected me from his office. I guess that was just an example of good old British common sense in action.

    On the other hand, if employees could refuse to go back to work until it is some 'nebulous' version of safe, they might never go back to work, and rely on the government effectively paying wages until the end of days.

    This is actually a position where Unions work, as if the union is a reasonable one, they can collectively make sure, in partnership with employers than sensible rules are in place to make the workplace reasonable.



    I doubt it, most people want to get back to work, and don't like relying on handouts. But they need to know they will be as safe as is possible, and just saying that they can rely on "common sense" or their employer's good intentions isn't good enough. Some employers don't care. Some employers who do care will feel that they can't afford expensive safety measures, especially if their competitors are cutting corners. When you see the "advice" on offer from the government it's just obvious that most of them have gone from boarding school to Oxbridge to some cushy job and never had to deal with a shit boss or had to trade off their safety at work versus being skint.
  • Options
    NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,347

    This "common sense" rubbish fails to acknowledge how unequal the employer-employee relationship is, especially for vulnerable workers - the low paid, casual, zero hour contracts, the young etc. Very revealing that Hancock couldn't say whether you could be forced to go back to work or not. It's obvious that none of the posh boys in government have ever had those kind of jobs. I remember when I worked in a restaurant, we were frequently compelled to stay late to clean up and wouldn't be paid beyond a certain time. Over the course of the week you'd be working for free for five or six hours. When I asked the manager if I'd be paid beyond 11pm if I stayed, he physically ejected me from his office. I guess that was just an example of good old British common sense in action.

    On the other hand, if employees could refuse to go back to work until it is some 'nebulous' version of safe, they might never go back to work, and rely on the government effectively paying wages until the end of days.

    This is actually a position where Unions work, as if the union is a reasonable one, they can collectively make sure, in partnership with employers than sensible rules are in place to make the workplace reasonable.



    THis is driving me mad, millions of people are currently working, they followed the Government guidance and using their common sense have insitgated new working practices. I imagine from the lack of press coverage that employees are happy with the new arrangements. Why can't those on Furlough follow this same approach to return to work?
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    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,607
    Can someone explain what Obamagate is about? I feel massively out of the loop.
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    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,262

    https://twitter.com/edmorrish/status/1259813875987419136

    I guess a few us can offer thinking Clinton was going to win last time. Although not my worst prediction.

    Not quite a prediction, but I did once (back in 1983) turn down a ticket to see U2 at a small venue saying I'd never heard of them and so wasn't interested.

    I took out a five year mortgage rate fix in early 2008. Probably cost me at least £10,000.
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    NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,336
    Interesting header - thanks Cyclefree. Clearly wanting to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed shouldn't mean that giving NHS interests priority over, say, social care, shouldn't be questioned. The problem in getting it greater attention is that only 10% of us will end up in care, and people with family networks can predict they probably won't, so not many people feel it's about them.

    By the way, analysis of the US trade talks by Ed Malls and others here:

    https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/publications/awp/awp136

    He's got a webinar with George Osborne at lunchtime:

    https://twitter.com/edballs/status/1260098881599258624

    - whatever you think of them, they're likely to have thoughts worth hearing on this.
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    MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688

    tlg86 said:

    On topic, Britain has succeeded in making sure its horrific death toll was achieved in an orderly fashion.

    At the start of this, I'm sure I read you say something like this disease will touch all of us in some way. Apologies if I've got that wrong, but what's changed your mind?
    nothing has changed my mind.
    Your greatest fault
    Casually wafting aside thousands of avoidable deaths certainly doesn’t change my mind, except to regard you with complete contempt.

    For the record, folks, Mr Meeks thinks that because I agree with Boris and many scientists that we now have to incorporate 'some' risk when we get back into the world, that as a result it's inevitable some people will die, that this is somehow 'casual.' It isn't. I have buried many people close to me so I know death viscerally in a way that Mr Meeks did before he became an extinct and now fossilised ostrich with a head rammed an awful long way down in the sand.

    This virus is pernicious. But I'm afraid it's here. We cannot remain in lockdown in perpetuity. The nation's mental, emotional, physical, domestic and economic wellbeing requires that lockdown now eases. We have to take some of that risk and be as sensible - 'alert' - as we can be whilst getting out. Back on the horse, as it were. Nanny State cannot forever shield us from this. This is the reality.

    But I'm afraid reality is a detached and distant concept to a hardened old socialist like Meeks. He lived and died in a world which no longer exists.
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