In practice you can't come up with an exhaustive list of what is essential. There needs to be some discretion and the exercise of common sense when you undertake enforcement activity.

What you see with that Derbyshire police drone stuff and that other clip that went viral of the officer who issued a ticket for "criminal damage" to a woman who was marking lines with chalk in the pavement at 2m distances for people queuing to come in to her shop, that some enforcers aren't exercising their powers in the public interest.

This once in a generation arguement you use is a straw man.

Sars 2003

H1 N1. 2009


Mers. 2012


Now these once in A generation Incidents you talk about occur every 6 or 7 years So unless you are a forest elephant they occur a lot more often than once in a human generation.


The US system of poor national health services , approximately 20% of the population with no free health care, poor levels of social security, etc is one of the worlds countries most unlikely to be able to cope in a First world country. Although the size of it.s economy means it can then mobilise lots of resources to deal with things after the event.


Countries that can cope are those with more national systems of organisation.

The NHS failed a government test of its ability to handle a pandemic. Exercise Cygnus, a three-day dry run for a pandemic carried out in October 2016, examined how hospitals and other services would cope in a flu outbreak with a similar mortality rate to coronavirus. Results were never made public.

a 2019 parliamentary inquiry into biological security was postponed and then cancelled because MPs were focused on Brexit.


Your arguement about not maintaining extra resources just in case is a justification for cutting all public services to the bone the problem is when this is done across all services you end up leaving all services unable to cope .

So when the grenfell fire breaks out the fire service has problems getting enough fire engines of the right type to attend quickly.
In the health service every year for 3 or 4 months in the year at winter the health service has a crisis which means it cannot cope and ends up cancelling 1000s of operations. This does not happen in many other countries that invest more in their services.


None of this is rocket science. None of this is unexpected . None of this could not be foretold. None of this could not have been better prepared for .

The responsibility for this does lie with tHe government who has been in charge of all of this for the last 10 years.

It has happened on their watch and they should be held to account.


Let me give you one further example of where the government is failing.

Floods

These are now not one in 100 year events.

They are likely to be 1 in 3 year events or twice in one year events.

Yet the government has not banned building in flood plains.

When these new houses get flooded who is responsible ?


Much of this is due to the fact that the government in the UK for the last 40 years has been focused on one thing only short term decisions and actions to remain in power. There is no long term planning or strategy to manage any of these things. All governments have been culpable in respect of this BUT it is the Tories in the last 10 years who have taken it to this to its s denouement and left the public services cut to the bone and unable to effectively respond to any crisis.

With regards to JCB, there are over 10 million reasons why they'd be favoured over anyone else.



They've got to get that money back somehow.

[url=https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-deadly-is-the-coronavirus-compared-to-past-outbreaks#2009-(H1N1)-flu-pandemica few facts for the hard of thinking[/url

but it wont make any difference to the lunatic left, it is all Boris' fault, Labour would have waved a magic wand and ended HIV, Inluenza, Meningitis, Cholera, Hepititis, you name it, at the same time. All by waving a magic cheque book.

For the sake of balance - the GTECH story has now been resolved; the Govt didn't 'snub' their offer of ventilators in favour of a company owned by donors - they had actually submitted a spec for a very basic ventilator that they admitted didn't meet the medical grade requirements in the UK, and would only be used in extreme emergencies. The ventilators offered by Dyson, JCB and McLaren F1 meet the spec, so they're the ones that will be used.

It's important to be factual.

Isn't that exactly what Boris Johnson is doing?

It's a strange new reality, where Labour can be criticised for what they *might* have done, whilst the Tories do the self-same thing. It's another example of not politicising an issue, which only applies in one direction.

But whatever gets you through lockdown I suppose

This will be the last time I respond to you, you are clearly a waste of time and effort and cannot see beyond the myopia of your ideals.

Yes, currently, the Government (you know, the people elected by the to runthe country) have fiscal measures in place to deal with a very unusual set of circumstances., they had to embark on a period of austerity ro redress theprofligate spending of the previous Labour government, who'sparting message was "no money left, sorry about that".

Stay safe.

SARS - killed 774 people
H1N1 - was a variant of normal flu - death count very low
MERS - Death toll minimal

No of the above come close to death toll that Covid 19 will deliver - so yes it is a once in a generation virus and the fact that originated from another animal is also a diffentiating factor. The other cases you identified are just variants that we get every year. Normal flu kills c10,000 a year every year so 774 SARS is hardly remarkable.

Countries that look to have coped well are smaller and have used differing strategies - Korea has tested a lot as have Germany - this seems like a good strategy. Italy and Spain have been in lockdown for weeks doesn't appear to be working at the moment?

I would accept your point about lack of investment but where do you stop - once you get the NHS as efficient as it can be and its customers treat it with the respect it deserves then might be a good time to invest. Whilst ever it is 10-20% inefficient 10-20% of your investment is wasted.

You can blame the government for everything but sometimes we have to take responsibility for our own actions - if we decide to by a house in Hebden Bridge we know there is a chance of flooding - the government cannot provide arrangements for every single eventuality its impossible. Perhaps if we drove with more care there wouldn't be as many accidents and the investment in the fire brigade would be sufficient. Perhaps if we didn't take illegal drugs and overdose or get drunk and fight then A&E would be able to focus on people who really do need specialist care etc.

You are delusional - you clearly have little to zero knowledge of self-employment - it would be funny if it were so sad - have you thought about self isolation in an appropriate institution?

Ah, the benefit of hindsight. Nobody knew at the start the potential outcomes of SARS, H1N1 and MERS.

Answer me this... When will the Global Financial Crisis, Labour circa 2008, and Coronavirus no longer be the fall guys? At what point do the Tories say "this is a problem of our own making" with regards to any future crises in Britain? For a party who preach 'personal repsonsibility', they're bloody terrible at accepting any themselves. Why is it always someone else's fault?

I see the right wing rags are already lining up China as the new 'enemy of the people', and Michel Barnier has been targetted as the UK government's 'patient zero'.

The whole point about mers etc was that drs scientists etc we re very clear that anyone of those viruses could mutate and be much more serious. That is why the 2016 nhs test was based on one of those viruses but with the level of infection and death rate of covid. It was not a case of IF there would be an outbreak but WHEN . The NHS failed that test spectacularly. The government were warned of this and DiD nothing to prepare any contingency plans.

As for the issue if floods. The Government sets standards and guidelines on building. By allowing the building in flood areas they are saying to builders it is Ok to keep building there. Big builders see that as a green light to continue. Then when they flood the government has to then spend a fortune with taxpayers money to increase flood defences.

You me and the rest of the taxpayers are paying a blank cheque in terms of flood defences so builders can make profits.

The government has the ability to control that but is choosing not too. Is it because many building companies fund the Tory party ?

As I mentioned before if the NHS took measure to ensure it was ready for every eventuality you would need to dump the whole GDP of the UK into the NHS every year. Its a judgement call about how you use resources - sometimes you win sometimes you don't. Hindsight is a great thing. The outbreak could have been another SARS with very limited impact.

So if the construction businesses cannot get planning permission then the risk of flooding is negated to zero - so whilst council a big chunk of which will be Labour allow building in flood plains then you can hardly blame the builders from doing just that. Then you have the consumers who buy these houses - surely they also have a responsibility for their actions too? In your eyes only the builders are to blame - big business its all their fault - easy to blame them!!

So when the incumbents do it, it's appropriate "fiscal measures," but when your fantasy Labour government do it - it's a magic money tree?

As for the GLOBAL financial crash of 2008 - you know, as does everyone else, that Labour had similar "fiscal measures" to take when that "very unusual set of circumstances" landed; and Alistair Darling is widely recognised as having done a pretty decent of job of getting the big international banks round the table and forcing them to accept measures to mitigate the damage.

You knew all that though - you just insist on behaving like an idiot.

But you are correct about British innovation



Who else would come up with receipt swopping as a practical ruse to dodge taxes, where they band together to swop receipts around to each other.

You do make me laugh tho, I been in amongst it for 40 years, I can name names, what’s your experience of it?

Quote ="IR80"Superblue can get comrades from all other countries with lockdown to start a class action. [url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sued_GodBilly Connolly in lead role again ?[/url'" Good idea , How long till Comrade Suni calls the public sector out on strike then “Volkswagen emissions scandal: class action begins in UK This article is more than 3 months old Class action will focus on whether software fitted to 1.2 million vehicles was designed to defeat clean air laws” https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... gins-in-uk So easy

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Quote ="Superblue"Good idea , How long till Comrade Suni calls the public sector out on strike then “Volkswagen emissions scandal: class action begins in UK This article is more than 3 months old Class action will focus on whether software fitted to 1.2 million vehicles was designed to defeat clean air laws” https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... gins-in-uk So easy '" [url=https://gettingthedealthrough.com/area/82/jurisdiction/22/class-actions-2020-united-kingdom/Not like The Grundian to get it wrong, is it....[/url [url=https://www.slatergordon.co.uk/commercial-and-group-litigation/group-litigation/Group litigation.... maybe?[/url [url=https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/6-618-0351?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true&bhcp=1so easy....![/url

Quote ="Superblue"Good idea , How long till Comrade Suni calls the public sector out on strike then “Volkswagen emissions scandal: class action begins in UK This article is more than 3 months old Class action will focus on whether software fitted to 1.2 million vehicles was designed to defeat clean air laws” https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... gins-in-uk So easy '" [url=https://gettingthedealthrough.com/area/82/jurisdiction/22/class-actions-2020-united-kingdom/Not like The Grundian to get it wrong, is it....[/url [url=https://www.slatergordon.co.uk/commercial-and-group-litigation/group-litigation/Group litigation.... maybe?[/url [url=https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/6-618-0351?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true&bhcp=1so easy....![/url

I completely agree about the way Labour handled the banking crisis - the fall out had to happen at some point. Fortunately for Labour they had gone when the day of reckoning occurred. What I find puzzling is what you expected the coalition to do - carry a huge debt burden indefinitely?

The only good thing about what has happened is that Labour didn't get into power - we would have debt on a scale never seen before. They would have taken this virus scare as an opportunity to re-nationalise as much as possible plus all the other stuff they wanted to do - it would have been eye-watering and it would have had to be paid back at some point and the only realistic way would have been through increased taxation.

Again though - you are describing exactly what the current Govt *are* doing, through the lens of what some scary, dystopic, fantasy Labour Govt *might* do; and I can assure you that private business and the self-employed will, without any shadow of a doubt, see increased taxation to foot the bill for the hard-left socialist interventions of Rishi Sunak. For the next five years at least, the Tories have a baked-in excuse to replace the 'last Labour Government' lie they've been telling about austerity for the previous ten years.

Interesting that you mention "carry a huge debt burden indefinitely? "

The current situation is going to make the crash of 2007 look like a blip, he £billions being used by world governments to try and sure up their economies is just mind boggling.
I wonder whether the front line NHS staff will have their wages frozen or cut, as a reward for literally putting their lives on the line.

Pritti Patel though she was being magnanimous in suggesting that those from outside the UK who are part of the effort to save lives can "stay another 12 months" for being part of the "war" effort.
Those people should, if they want it, be given British citizenship.
The numbers, in the scale of things are miniscule and if anyone has earned the right to live in the UK, those people most certainly have.

It's lucky for her that the opposition is ineffective and that there are more important things for us all to worry about - she's a bloody disgrace to the office that she holds.

No it wont - the 330bn to support business will not cost the government a penny - they are not providing the money just a guarantee to the banks. You try and get one of these loans - unless you are prepared to put your property on the line the banks aren't interested. They will only lend on this scheme if they can't find a way to lend you the money on a different scheme at higher interest rates e.g. increase ID facility.

So we are left with the 80% support which runs for 3 months let's say its 3m at 2,500 a month - £7,500 times 5 million is c£40bn let's say it lasts 6 months and its 10 million c£160bn given Labour were happy to spend c£250bn on its green policy doesn't look crippling to me. There will be delay in meeting VAT and PAYE payments but that will be caught up within 18 months. The challenge in all of this and the unknown is how long it will take for normal business to resume and will the government extend the 80% longer?

I completely agree about the nursing staff - they should be encourage to stay given the heroic efforts they have made.

I cannot see an elongated period of austerity to be an option at the end of this - increased taxation across the board will be needed - CT revenues will be well down as will VAT receipts etc.

People talk about revisionist history, this is revisionist future.

Will Rishi's splurge have to be paid back, and if so, how do you think it will be paid back?

It will but through higher taxation - as would have been the case if Labour would have been in charge.

What, even the swarthy European ones?!

I can see the attraction now: "You know all that hateful, xenophobic stuff we said before? We didn't really mean it - so please stay and risk your lives for another 12 months, then when all this over, we'll go back to all that hostile environment stuff again, and you can feck off back where you came from. Ok?"

Unless they have the relevant 'points'. Don't forget about points based immigration scheme!