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Lockdowns

I’m not saying the state hasn’t intervened. Clearly they have with schemes such as furlough and various support for the self employed and businesses.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on who is culpable for our large death toll. I accept that rule breakers and people not social distancing has contributed, but then so has government policy. Your argument is rather like saying people who are poor bring it on themselves and the government have no responsibility.

On another note, travellers arriving into England who lie on their passenger locator forms about visiting a red list country face a fine of £10,000 or up to 10 years in jail. Thoughts?
 
I’m not saying the state hasn’t intervened. Clearly they have with schemes such as furlough and various support for the self employed and businesses.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on who is culpable for our large death toll. I accept that rule breakers and people not social distancing has contributed, but then so has government policy. Your argument is rather like saying people who are poor bring it on themselves and the government have no responsibility.

On another note, travellers arriving into England who lie on their passenger locator forms about visiting a red list country face a fine of £10,000 or up to 10 years in jail. Thoughts?
Will agree to disagree on the 2nd para

People who travel in a pandemic without it being a matter of utmost urgency (eg dying parent) should be thrown in jail anyway
 
Will agree to disagree on the 2nd para

People who travel in a pandemic without it being a matter of utmost urgency (eg dying parent) should be thrown in jail anyway
10 years though. Excessive?
By all means fine them but this.
This demonstrates my wider point of this being operation blame the public. Where are the jail sentences for government incompetence?
 
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You can hardly say that the state has failed to intervene when spending £300 billion supporting families and businesses alike. If that isn't large scale state intervention, I don't know what is. At the same time they have developed testing systems with a capacity of 1 million tests per day, built a new PPE industry from scratch, put vast resources into the development of new vaccines and got them rolled out to 13m people in just over a month. I don't think when all this is said and done that the British public will be as severe with this government as you would like them to be. Yes mistakes made, but also fantastic efforts to bring this country back from the brink.

I disagree with the assertion about repeated poor policy decisions and the public enquiry will tell a different story I am sure. Inn any event time will tell when the enquiry takes place and I think the government has adopted tyhe right approach by refusing to get involved in the tittle tattle over over who could have done what differently and when.

It is inescapable that people transmit covid to other people and that the people in this country have let themselves down in this pandemic. A failure to grasp that nettle really does tell you all you need to know about many people in this country
Johnson missed the first 5 Cobra meetings re Covid. Went to Kettering hospital and played it all down. Didn’t take proactive action when we could see every day what
was happening in Spain and Italy. NHS woefully underprepared for such an event despite the recommendations of Cygnus. Seeding of Covid into care homes and then abandoning them to their fate, despite Half-cocks empty promises and rhetoric. PPE procurement scandals. The ‘World Beating’ Serco T&T system lead by the renowned expert Dido Harding. School meals scandal.

The list of achievements of this rancid, despotic bunch of egotistical, Uber-right wing, jingoistic bunch of flag-shaggers never ceases to amaze me ??
 
Johnson missed the first 5 Cobra meetings re Covid. Went to Kettering hospital and played it all down. Didn’t take proactive action when we could see every day what
was happening in Spain and Italy. NHS woefully underprepared for such an event despite the recommendations of Cygnus. Seeding of Covid into care homes and then abandoning them to their fate, despite Half-cocks empty promises and rhetoric. PPE procurement scandals. The ‘World Beating’ Serco T&T system lead by the renowned expert Dido Harding. School meals scandal.

The list of achievements of this rancid, despotic bunch of egotistical, Uber-right wing, jingoistic bunch of flag-shaggers never ceases to amaze me ??
There you go again James perpetuating the care home myth along with a series of other rants (School meals ???) fuelled by your unbalanced view of what was really do-able when this pandemic started along side your hatred of the government.

The point I would agree with you on is there was an element of complacency when this virus first emerged, along with trying to play the whole thing down.

With regard to PPE, there's a story yet to come about the part played by the EU in hovering up all the available PPE and not willing to share, which contrasts with their view on vaccines, when they were on the other side of the equation ! One of the reasons why the government opted out of the EU vaccines scheme and we went our own way (more successfully !!) That said we now have a home grown PPE industry supplying equipment to the highest of standards.

regarding Test and Trace, at the beginning of this pandemic there were no tests and ijn March we could only carry out hundreds of tests per day. The whole industry has been developed from the bottom up inside a year and we do now have a world beating system of testing and gnome analysis that can track all the new variants that come out of the mutations of the virus.
 
10 years though. Excessive?
By all means fine them but this.
This demonstrates my wider point of this being operation blame the public. Where are the jail sentences for government incompetence?

Ask yourself this. Why are people bothered about the sentence being UPTO 10 years, rather than the emphasis on WHY are people still travelling on holiday? Despite all the requests for people to stay at home - people are still travelling !! They are ignoring all the rules about not travelling out of your own town, never mind not to go out of the country. Which part of stay at home do people not understand !!!

The basic point is that people have done this to each other, The government hasn't gone out and killed people. When people grasp that point, they may start to grasp social distancing !!
 
There you go again James perpetuating the care home myth along with a series of other rants (School meals ???) fuelled by your unbalanced view of what was really do-able when this pandemic started along side your hatred of the government.

The point I would agree with you on is there was an element of complacency when this virus first emerged, along with trying to play the whole thing down.

With regard to PPE, there's a story yet to come about the part played by the EU in hovering up all the available PPE and not willing to share, which contrasts with their view on vaccines, when they were on the other side of the equation ! One of the reasons why the government opted out of the EU vaccines scheme and we went our own way (more successfully !!) That said we now have a home grown PPE industry supplying equipment to the highest of standards.

regarding Test and Trace, at the beginning of this pandemic there were no tests and ijn March we could only carry out hundreds of tests per day. The whole industry has been developed from the bottom up inside a year and we do now have a world beating system of testing and gnome analysis that can track all the new variants that come out of the mutations of the virus.
I say it how I see it.

As far as T&T is concerned, we were promised a world- beating system by May, not January. More bluster, bragging and lies from Johnson.
 
I say it how I see it.

As far as T&T is concerned, we were promised a world- beating system by May, not January. More bluster, bragging and lies from Johnson.
I think you can justifiably say that at times Boris has been over optimistic, but I don't think there was an intent to deceive, more an attempt to keep people optimistic rather than falling into despair. With the burden on their shoulders the people in the public eye deserve some compassion and our support.
 
Just listening to Knob O'Brien (again I know) and he's on about the £2500 cost added to a holiday for a family of 4 plus the extra weeks holiday! What cloud is he on? Which family of 4 should even be contemplating going abroad til all this is over ???? At what point do people not get the government is saying do not travel - stay at home !!!!

He's bleating on about all sorts of scenarios about "if I woke up in Portugal this morning what would I do " and so on... The real question is why the heck would you be in Portugal this morning, knowing you are travelling during the pandemic !!!!
 
Ask yourself this. Why are people bothered about the sentence being UPTO 10 years, rather than the emphasis on WHY are people still travelling on holiday? Despite all the requests for people to stay at home - people are still travelling !! They are ignoring all the rules about not travelling out of your own town, never mind not to go out of the country. Which part of stay at home do people not understand !!!

The basic point is that people have done this to each other, The government hasn't gone out and killed people. When people grasp that point, they may start to grasp social distancing !!
I understand that people shouldn’t be travelling and action needs to be taken against rule breakers who risk undermining our progress with the lockdown and vaccinations. I’m just highlighting that 10 year jail sentences are excessive. Many Tory MPs and people in the travel industry have voiced concern at these plans and the fact they’ve not gone to parliament to consult on them, as well as lawyers who have said they are illegal. Yes in reality nobody will get 10 years and they’re scare tactics to get people to comply but it’s still very chilling to see!

Of course people not social distancing has contribute to the spread of virus and deaths, but then so has government policy. It’s both of these things!

What I don’t understand is we’re making so much progress in driving down case numbers and getting jabs on arms, and all the talk is of borders and new variants!
 
What I don’t understand is we’re making so much progress in driving down case numbers and getting jabs on arms, and all the talk is of borders and new variants!

Because if a new variant as transmittable as the Kent variant, but one that wasn't suppressed by the AZ vaccine, came into the country, work on trying to get us all vaccinated may be set back by years with a lot of consequential deaths. If the country can be vaccinated then there is less room in the population for any new virus to spread and mutate. That's my understanding - happy to be corrected
 
Because if a new variant as transmittable as the Kent variant, but one that wasn't suppressed by the AZ vaccine, came into the country, work on trying to get us all vaccinated may be set back by years with a lot of consequential deaths. If the country can be vaccinated then there is less room in the population for any new virus to spread and mutate. That's my understanding - happy to be corrected
Yes I get that but not the constant focus on this when there are things to be more positive about.
We only seem to have worried about variants since the vaccines come about. Now we’re hearing of new ones all the time!
Just hope it’s not used to keep us in lockdowns .
 
I think you can justifiably say that at times Boris has been over optimistic, but I don't think there was an intent to deceive, more an attempt to keep people optimistic rather than falling into despair. With the burden on their shoulders the people in the public eye deserve some compassion and our support.
If you get ten years for breaking travel quarantine rules, what should the sentence be for taking almost a full year to introduce them? ???
 
Worth a watch this interview with Charles Walker MP on Sky News.

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Daft question James and you know it. The government has been sending out messages about not to travel and people think it doesn't apply to them. Now with a jail sentence of up to 10 years and suddenly people are complaining about the tariff - but still not why people are travelling which is the real problem. Some people need to get real and just understand that no-one but no one should be travelling on holiday
 
Worth a watch this interview with Charles Walker MP on Sky News.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.


I still can't understand why he hasn't come out and condemned people for travelling during the pandemic. That's the real issue and if people did that this measure wouldn't be necessary.
 
I still can't understand why he hasn't come out and condemned people for travelling during the pandemic. That's the real issue and if people did that this measure wouldn't be necessary.
Fair point but I guess ideologically he’s opposed to the lockdown measures so wouldn’t.

He has after all come out today and criticised Grant Shapps for not promising people summer holidays.
 
Fair point but I guess ideologically he’s opposed to the lockdown measures so wouldn’t.

He has after all come out today and criticised Grant Shapps for not promising people summer holidays.
people need to know that isn't/shouldn't happen but the govt is frightened of upsetting the travel industry
 
While hospital numbers and deaths are still high, while there is still uncertainty about whether the vaccines can cope with mutated strains, while people have only been half-vaccinated, there should not be a clamour to be allowed to fly off on holiday. But sadly there are too many me me me people around. I don't understand why people are so keen to fly off to countries where vaccination rates are still low, where there could be mutated strains they could pick up and bring back to the UK. And I suspect there are quite a few countries out there who aren't that keen on welcoming people from a country where the virus is more prevalent than in their own country.

But the 10 year prison sentence is just another example of government by newspaper headline - it's a tactic designed to put people off holidaying rather than a realistic measure which would be enforced in the courts.

One other point from the comments since I last popped in here - the claim that nothing was known about asymptomatic transmission back in March 2020 ... the WHO warned about this at the end of January 2020. But her the govt was too busy underplaying the threat and ignoring what was already happening in Italy, for example, before it really hit home here.
 
Daft question James and you know it. The government has been sending out messages about not to travel and people think it doesn't apply to them. Now with a jail sentence of up to 10 years and suddenly people are complaining about the tariff - but still not why people are travelling which is the real problem. Some people need to get real and just understand that no-one but no one should be travelling on holiday
It was a joke! Lighten up...
 
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