And pretty much every other business in the country is finding ways not to have huge numbers of people in close proximity but, Parliament cannot ??
If it wasn't for dinosaurs like Rees Mogg, we could potentially modernise the system a little.

Of course there are laws to pass but, I'm sure that you know that apart from PMQ's, the chamber is usually pretty empty and there ARE ways to "carry on" without moving all of our MP's to Westminster to listen to the argument and use their vote.

It's no wonder that so many of them seem to be struck down with the virus, certainly a greater percentage than the public at large and these people are making the rules and laws and SHOULD know how to conduct themselves and perhaps not be getting too close to one another.

[del[/del
rlthis guy for PMrl give wrencat and his mates someone to cheer for?

It would appear his nanny does most of the work in his household so maybe she should be the PM.

Partridge or, pretty much anyone else probably would do a better job the Boris.
He's so bothered about himself, that he's forgotten to look after the voting public.

The UK has handled the covid virus worse than any other EU nation, with the possible exception of Belgium.
We were so desperate not to lockdown the country early on that, 1000's of people in the UK have paid with their lives.

Given that we had an extra 2/3 weeks (over Italy and Spain) to prepare, our numbers are truly shocking and still not actually under control.

Yup, 100% hindsight, I look forward to your criminal proceedings against the Government, what we really needed was an elderly idealist terrorist sympathiser in charge, that'd show em... oh, and to have ignored a majority vote to leave the EU....

pah, democracy, not for us...

Hindsight????? Despite the fact other countries were racking up deaths weeks before us, and the fact that London is a global hub? Were you expecting this to just blow over?

Now I know you're a wind up merchant. A weapons grade one at that.

We had all the early warnings, wasted them, and now the world's press are pointing and laughing. And all you can do is speculate how bad it would have been under Corbyn.

Weapons grade WUM.

I posted this on a separate thread, unfortunately you didn’t reply. I will give you a second chance because it is clear you believe they have done everything correctly and on time. They did have two weeks warning from how the virus was handled and progressed in Italy but still failed to get it right resulting in one of the highest death rates in the world. To make it worse on Wednesday we had more deaths than the rest of Europe added together.

Sadly, it’s very often the case that people incapable of any foresight or forward planning and making contingency plans will trot out “with the benefit of hindsight”

I see the champagne socialists are out in force in this thread.

As I said earlier, if our fellow eu countries recorded deaths like we do, or we recorded deaths like they do, we would have the lowest death per capita of Europe. We achieved this without the strict lockdown that Spain and Italy implemented. Friends of mine in Spain were allowed to leave the house once a week for food and their kids weren’t allowed to leave the house at all.

They also weren’t paid 80% of their wage for 3 months to sit at home eating junk food and drinking alcohol.

Could you imagine labour being in charge for this? Lmao. Can you imagine Diane Abbott doing the daily press conference “today we can announce that eleven and hundred twenty three percent have died today” followed by Corbyn with “no terrorists died today thankfully but 1000 Jews did, yay!”

This is utterly untrue - and the sad thing is you know it.

The prime example being Spain.

They suddenly changed their reporting method on 27th March. Now, they only report deaths that occurred [iand were registered[/i the previous day. Given the inevitable lag in registering deaths, they suddenly started reporting zero or single-digit figures. Yet on 27th May there were 17 deaths in Madrid and Castile-La Mancha alone that went unreported, and daily deaths are still certainly not at zero. Smell the BS yet?

Most of May: between 300ish and 80ish
May 25: -1,915 (some adjustments)
May 26: 283
May 27: 1
May 28: 1
May 29: 2
May 30: 4
May 31: 2
Jun 01: 0

Italy has also changed their reporting several times. For example they stopped reporting on asymptomatic positively tested cases (40-50% of all tests). Yep - that's precisely what it sounds like. If a person was positive but not displaying symptoms they sent them home to isolate and did not add them to their numbers.

Furthermore, not all countries report deaths in all settings as we do.

Now I ask you - what would your reaction be if our government counted the numbers like Spain and Italy and also ignored some settings?

Fact is, we've been over-reporting deaths directly due to covid. BMA guidance in completing death certificates guarantees that will happen (happy to elaborate), although I appreciate excess deaths are still huge and there are many factors that come in to play, almost certainly associated associated with lockdown.

Have you looked at the excess death totals per country which is the preferred option for the government. It currently shows in Europe we have the highest number of excess deaths so please explain that away. I regret that the only Europe beating system we have is the number of people who have died unnecessarily because of this government’s failures.
If we were doing so well why drop the graph comparing us to several other countries. The one thing this government is good at is burying anything they consider reflects badly on them. The next stage will be an attempt to pass the blame onto the scientists in preparation for the report to come on their failures or the care homes for PPE failures not the fact that they transferred patients out of hospitals without testing in order to clear beds at any costs.

I’d ignore them, as I do anyway, and look at the excess mortality. Then at least you’re looking at differences in circumstances and performance (largely circumstances) rather than differences in counting. Cuts through all the bs and statistical sophistry.

This is a public health emergency more than a political issue. Or it should be.

Our government is much more than its political leadership. Its performance, ours as a nation, has inevitably been mixed. Some very good things, some missteps and sadly a very large death toll during the spring. The eventual inquiry will be most valuable if it is dull, dispassionate, conducted by public health experts and focused on our systems rather than individual decisions at the top, unless they were unusually and highly consequential.

To the extent that it is political, then it has fallen at a bad time, with faux-authentic farcemeister Boris Johnson stumbling through the crisis with even his thin bonhomie evaporating in the face of stress, his own illness and mounting confirmation of his personal unsuitability for leadership. Corbyn would have been near as bad for other reasons, I suspect/acknowledge.

On the other hand, the furlough scheme created by Sunak and the Treasury has been well-directed and effective overall. There’ll be exceptions and inconsistencies and issues with delivery that are unfortunate for individuals but the concept was sound. As I understand it, the US has spent more per capita on domestic economic relief measures, but poured it in mostly at the top where it has largely stayed.