UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[EastAnglianLefty]

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1265394364936839169

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1265394364936839169

Boris may as well email his 50 most marginal MPs & tell them that losing their job is a sacrifice worth making to keep Cummings in place.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Mark Drakeford and Llafur Cymru may as well be the captain and crew of the Special Boat Squadron as far as the UK (indeed much of the Welsh) electorate are concerned. The Welsh Parliament is essentially a minuscule dot on the face of UK political reporting, the focus of which will very much be on Johnson and the government getting their nuts roasted by Keir Starmer and feet shot by... themselves. Regardless of the performance of the devolved governments in this crisis (and they will, as always, seek to nationalise their failures whilst localising their, few, successes), the focus in the media will be very much on the UK government’s handling of the pandemic.

There's also the reality that it is very difficult for public health policy in Wales to be that different to England for reasons beyond even Scotland: the border is porous (because it is not a historical border at all) and a large proportion of people in Mid Wales and also on Deeside use hospitals on the English side of it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Mark Drakeford and Llafur Cymru may as well be the captain and crew of the Special Boat Squadron as far as the UK (indeed much of the Welsh) electorate are concerned. The Welsh Parliament is essentially a minuscule dot on the face of UK political reporting, the focus of which will very much be on Johnson and the government getting their nuts roasted by Keir Starmer and feet shot by... themselves. Regardless of the performance of the devolved governments in this crisis (and they will, as always, seek to nationalise their failures whilst localising their, few, successes), the focus in the media will be very much on the UK government’s handling of the pandemic.

There's also the reality that it is very difficult for public health policy in Wales to be that different to England for reasons beyond even Scotland: the border is porous (because it is not a historical border at all) and a large proportion of people in Mid Wales and also on Deeside use hospitals on the English side of it.

I believe you've mentioned before that quite a bit of the population of Mid Wales, including people who if asked would say they're as Welsh as Dylan Thomas, was actually born in Shropshire or Herefordshire because that's where the maternity wards are; am I remembering that right?

[Cassius]

Yeah, and it’s not just the hospitals - given the enormous number of people who live along the Welsh M4 corridor and would normally commute every week to work in England (sometimes as far afield as London and often by train) and vice versa, a separate policy regarding when the big return to work is authorised is not really feasible for the Welsh government either.

[CumbrianLefty]

There is also a survey in the Daily Mail with damning findings for the government over Cummings. Don't appear to be any VI figures though.

[DaWN]

There is also a survey in the Daily Mail with damning findings for the government over Cummings. Don't appear to be any VI figures though.

I suspect you've answered your own question there, presuming they're similar to the YouGuv ones from last night.

[CumbrianLefty]

Maybe, though it seems to be by a polling company not much heard of before.

[Blair]

I've become the very thing I hate in that I'm waiting for tomorrow's newspaper headlines & any polling figures to get a sense of Cummings. In an ominous sign we've reached the stage where Government Ministers & whips are saying Cummings was in the wrong... but of course they can't say he'd quit unless they quit.

The Prime Minister's liason committee performance didn't help but it never would do; the most hilarous thing was him having no knowledge of the fact that some people in the UK can't access benefits through the 'no-recourse to public funds'- I'm too lazy to get the clip but he was genuinely (in a sincere way) baffled why someone couldn't get access to benefits.

Again the fact that someone who has been an MP since 2005 & is the Prime Minister has no knowledge of something that virtually every caseworker, researcher, local councillor & others in politics know about is worrying- but it's nothing new.

With Brexit, the Election & Covid we very rarely get a chance to remember that Bojo isn't very good at the day-to-day details

[Blair]

It's rather much a catch 22 that the Government is rolling out a 'test and trace' program tomorrow; yet beyond the press conference it's getting virtually no coverage, scrunity or understanding compared to the issues facing PPE, care homes & testing in the previous weeks.

So far the scheme appears to be a joke- the app was ditched & it's instead relying on volunteers to phone people up- these volunteers are trained by TURDEXCO or some strange firm who usually do private security/school dinners/baliff work & reports appear to suggest it's a farce waiting to happen.

Of course the big problem is that people are a lot less likely to follow the advice after the last week- I'm also baffled how it's going to work without the prestige of the police/NHS or even a local authority strapline

[Silent Hunter]

Johnson wasn't an MP between 2008 and 2016, he was the Mayor of London...

Also, isn't the app just delayed?

[Blair]

Johnson wasn't an MP between 2008 and 2016, he was the Mayor of London...

Also, isn't the app just delayed?

I had the joy of living through his reign so yeah I know- my point was that it's not as if he has the excuse of being a new MP.

I thought the app had been ditched into the long grass; the Department of Health have said it's 'coming in the next few weeks'.

[CumbrianLefty]

I thought the app had been ditched into the long grass; the Department of Health have said it's 'coming in the next few weeks'

Shaping up to be a(nother) shambles already.......

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I thought the app had been ditched into the long grass; the Department of Health have said it's 'coming in the next few weeks'

Shaping up to be a(nother) shambles already.......

With how inept the Gov. response has been, we may have been better off pursuing herd immunity to begin with. It would have been a terrible strategy if the government had basic competence, but what we seem to be heading towards is a situation where the same number of people die and we also get massive economic turmoil and authoritarian reforms.

[CumbrianLefty]

Herd immunity is still a terrible policy, if that just means "letting things take their course".

[Silent Hunter]

On a different topic, the National Theatre at Home YouTube channel is showing the excellent play This House covering the 1974-79 Parliaments as this week's stream; it is available until Thursday.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Herd immunity is still a terrible policy, if that just means "letting things take their course".

I agree, but what I meant was that the government response was proving so inept that it might do little other than let the virus take its course while simultaneously putting massive stress on livelihoods. Flattening the curve to keep hospital capacity up is of little benefit if most of the spare capacity has gone unused while victims have been left to die in locked down care homes.

The hands off approach might be the only one they don't bugger up the implementation of, though it would be pretty terrible even if it was done "correctly".

[Silent Hunter]

The victims in care homes wouldn't have been saved in the hospitals in many cases; they're in too frail a shape already. The average life expectancy on entering one was is 23 months before all this.

The fact that the most vulnerable were not effectively shielded is a scandal.

[Blair]

I mean I always assumed that 'herd immunity' is about the pace of it; if the virus doesn't mutate & if you remain immune to it forever (two things that are very unlikely) then eventually under any approach the population would as I understand slowly become immune.

The problem with it is that it would rip through your ICU capacity so quickly; I assumed the reason we had such a high number of deaths was because A.) We took too long to lockdown B.) There was a lack of PPE for keyworkers in high risk settings C.) Too slow to take action on BAME impact D.) No testing for care homes patients or staff.

[Silent Hunter]

E) We have a highly unfit population that is very vulnerable to this sort of thing.

[Blair]

I would add that everyone should watch This House . I saw it live when it was on & it's the best piece of drama I've seen about politics.

E) We have a highly unfit population that is very vulnerable to this sort of thing.

It is fun seeing the people smoking on my street during the clap for carers...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The main issue seems to be a failure to maintain correct quarantine procedures; in particular the decision to send patients back to care homes, rather than to consider using the 'Nightingales' as isolation hospitals, as should have been done, as I presumed was the point. This is a rare example of a decision that must have been made by a government minister, that will certainly be minuted, that has led directly to the otherwise preventable deaths of a significant number of people. This is all extremely important because mostly this virus has been spreading through the healthcare system, rather than through 'the community'.

So far, so bad. But there has also been a spike in dementia-related mortality in care homes since the crisis began. Once again, we may observe a decision taken by the government: to allow for the relaxation of standards of care in residential care homes for the duration of the crisis, in order to ease pressure.

Right now, of course, the public is not exactly aware of this; it is a nasty rumour floating around, rather than common knowledge. One way or another this will change and I think people will be less than amused.

[EastAnglianLefty]

In general, it's fair to say that people have been worrying more about R increasing as lockdown is relaxed, and less about why the number of cases remains stubbornly high. This is almost certainly a mistake.

[Silent Hunter]

The thing is that many of those cases will be of minimal or no risk to the person with... it's who they may pass it onto that is the thing.

Also, the cases do seem to be slowly coming down.

[CumbrianLefty]

Oh dear, looks like Rosie Duffield did a Cummings.