Just to acknowledge that I have been looking at this through a fairly narrow window, and I am just some random on the internet.



I think GP surgeries were nervous about becoming infection hotspots, and that contributed to more remote consultations. I’m not really sure, being honest.

I think you raise a good point about your mother and online services. My parents are around that age, just a little bit younger and I know what you mean. I think the pandemic has accelerated a lot of trends, in an already fast changing world, and it is getting difficult for older people to keep up and access the services they need, in both the public and private sectors.

To ZZB:

I think the pandemic was a metaphorical public health tsunami, rather than creating a bottle neck. Not all problems have solutions that allow optimal care for everyone. Like after a battle or a disaster when doctors have to let some people die who they could maybe otherwise save to focus on others with a better chance, or let somebody lose an eye to save somebody else’s life. It really wasn’t just like a bad flu year. Also it went way beyond ICU, there were plenty of very sick people needing care without being on a ventilator. I am seriously suggesting that COVID-19 required A LOT of extra resource and that inevitably affected other elements of healthcare delivery.

I don’t share your confidence that a private company would necessarily have come with a successful alternative strategy, and haven’t seen one suggested. If anything, I’d suggest that track and trace suggests that directing large amounts of public money to the private sector is not necessarily a universal panacea.

Brexit has been swamped by COVID-19. And in fairness, we did avoid a no deal. I mean, it is poop - but it is done. There’s no political mileage for Labour in it, and even the Tories are on fumes in terms of stoking resentment against the EU for enforcing the agreement they campaigned for and signed up to.

Foreign aid - I’m a sceptic. It is often seems to be more about bribery than a real support for ordinary people. Those bribes sometimes aren’t even well-incentivised.

Labour aren’t saying a great deal of substance, I agree. They need at some point to do more than drawing public attention to Carrie Antoinette, Johnson’s inability to redecorate a flat with a public-funded limit of £30,000 and his solution to funding the outstanding £58,000 to get it to a liveable standard. He obviously should have got Marcus Rashford to start a campaign for him. But it is a start and feels like it has got more of a chance than Corbyn’s approach. A low bar, admittedly.

In a post-Brexit, post-Cummings reality, what do you think are the most important Government messages and policies are?

I'm glad you spotted that - It's not even subtle

Some very good point - I take on board your point about the impact of Covid - but I disagree as to how the NHS reacted - it could have been significantly better - the extended waiting lists across all disciplines is testament to that. Stopping vital cancer care seems ridiculous to me - the oncology units are usually separate entities and cancer care is by no means an isolated case.

For me - finish the vaccination program, get the waiting lists down - throw money at it, get kids back to where they should be in terms of learning - again invest but wisely, return society to some degree of normality - no masks etc., clean up the government's act or the perception. Review taxation if we all need to pay more so be it.

Wonder if he will resign after tonight's result in Hartlepool, momentum will want somebody more hard left making alienating tham even more from the working man

Maybe Labour need a proper hard left, Marxist, Communist in charge? Anti-EU, pro-Brexit, pro-Brexit party, pro-Gilets jaune, condemnation of identity politics including LGBT ideology, opposition to Scottish independence. The hard left sound like a dream for these left-behind, working class heroes in post industrial wastelands. Although the anti-capitalism thing might not go down well. These poor, left behind folk don't half love their capitalism.

Maybe just somebody they can connect with ,you know somebody from outside the London centric bubble,somebody like Caroline flint who respected the brexit vote ,a Democrat if you like

The old working class that formed the bedrock of Labour support for decades no longer exists in the post-industrial age.

The Blairite social democratic wing now seems old fashioned and dull. It asked people to be better without offering many of them much in return.

The Corbynite hard left inspires passion but only in a very narrow constituency, and is alienating to many more.

The Johnson Tories have reframed themselves as the champions of those neglected by a long period of quasi-centrist politics. Labour either has to come up with something new (and I don’t know what it is) or hope that people eventually see through Johnson in a post-Brexit, post-pandemic political environment. It is a poop state of affairs for Labour, and I think they might just have to wait it out.

The only chance labour have got is the 2nd coming of new labour ,ousting momentum and reconnecting with the working man of which there are many and appealing to middle England again

Plus your assumption that the old working class bedrock of support has gone is just wrong ,all the fa Tories, workshops and building sites are full of disgruntled labour voters who saw the last labour cabinet for what it was ,nobody who I spoke to who had been life long labour voted for them ,the vast majority voted Tory with a few that couldn't face the thought voted brexit party

It's all culture war stuff now, rational arguments about policy don't cut it any more. Unfortunately for Labour that's what they were, relatively, good at.

It's not a culture war ,its about listening to the constituents,Mary Creagh being a fine example, opposed the brexit result, she knew better ,got voted out and blamed Jeremy Corbyn ,didn't take responsibility for her own action and words