The Politics Thread 2020

[Bob The Badger]

38 minutes ago, alexxxxx said:

UK now got the worst outcome in Europe after getting a head start over Italy, Spain and France. 

I'm sure it's a coincidence that the US under Trump and the UK under Johnson are about the two worst countries on earth at managing this.

I'd have asked 6-months ago, 'Ok, there's going to be an international pandemic and one country will manage it really well and the other one badly. And those countries are, the UK and Germany'

Who would have said I'll bet my house on the UK?

If you remove dress sense, music and comedy from the equation and maybe winning world wars, the Germans just kick our ass at most things.

 

[GboroRam]

2 minutes ago, Bob The Badger said:

I'm sure it's a coincidence that the US under Trump and the UK under Johnson are about the two worst countries on earth at managing this.

I'd have asked 6-months ago, 'Ok, there's going to be an international pandemic and one country will manage it really well and the other one badly. And those countries are, the UK and Germany'

Who would have said I'll bet my house on the UK?

If you remove dress sense, music and comedy from the equation and maybe winning world wars, the Germans just kick our ass at most things.

 

I was reading a lot of people outside of the UK are astonished that the UK has handled this so badly. Like it's almost a parody, or it's Russian propaganda they're looking at. Yet we're banging our pots and pans in support of Boris here.

[G STAR RAM]

11 minutes ago, Bob The Badger said:

Snopes has been around since the mid/late 90s and has built a solid reputation for investigating and either confirming or denying media/conspiracy type claims.

It started by looking at urban myths and now is just an excellent fact checking service. I gather you're not familiar with it.

It has stopped me mindlessly passing on anti-Trump memes 3 or 4 times because I get as pizzed with the left doing that stuff as the right.

I really don't have a theory other than the US intelligence agencies (all 17 of them) say it wasn't developed in a lab and Trump's right hand man, Fauci, came out and said it showed every trait of bat to human transition and you wouldn't see that from a lab, so I'm going to go with them.

Trump is in trouble and he'd like nothing more to prove the Chinese made it and shift all the attention on the them in the run up to the election. But even his own team aren't playing ball with him.

Thanks for the non-aggressive response and I apologise for mocking last night.

I just thought the example you used regarding the origin of the virus was bizarre.

Hopefully the truth will come out eventually but it looks like China have gone to great lengths to cover up the origin of the virus.

[i-Ram]

31 minutes ago, ramesses said:

I’m sure the present government is perfectly capable of making poor decisions without ever thinking of consulting experts. I’m equally sure that even when they do take expert advice they are still perfectly capable of making poor decisions and then blaming their advisors.

A lazy slur, because the same could be said about all past Governments too. The last Labour administration were no doubt briefed that selling gold at the bottom of the market and supporting a war on the basis of non-existent WMD was not a great idea (by way of example).

[GboroRam]

2 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

A lazy slur, because the same could be said about all past Governments too. The last Labour administration were no doubt briefed that selling gold at the bottom of the market and supporting a war on the basis of non-existent WMD was not a great idea (by way of example).

Oh, Labour are far more culpable in making up information in order to justify a war. You may not like what this government has done with their response to the virus but I wouldn't want to see them put on trial for it. On the other hand, Blair can spend the rest of his life in incarceration for me.

[Bob The Badger]

5 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Thanks for the non-aggressive response and I apologise for mocking last night.

I just thought the example you used regarding the origin of the virus was bizarre.

Hopefully the truth will come out eventually but it looks like China have gone to great lengths to cover up the origin of the virus.

I don't think there's any doubt that China are complicit and have lied about the timings and figures.

But, I have no clue how countries like the US and UK can hit back without causing as much damage on ourselves with trade wars and the like.

It's messy now but it's going to get a lot messier. And that's without the virus storming back for an encore along with it's bro 'the flu' in the autumn which pretty much every expert I have read about of heard, seems to think will happen.

I think we all want the people at Oxford Uni to play a blinder and have a vaccine ready to go.

[Bob The Badger]

1 minute ago, GboroRam said:

Oh, Labour are far more culpable in making up information in order to justify a war. You may not like what this government has done with their response to the virus but I wouldn't want to see them put on trial for it. On the other hand, Blair can spend the rest of his life in incarceration for me.

He'll have to have the Ghost of Thatcher with him because the way she lied about The Falklands was equally disgraceful.

And btw, I agree with you. Blair sold the country down the river.

Not sure about putting the Government on trial. If it's just incompetence and stupidity, then no, I don't think you can.

OTOH, if they broke protocol or were knowingly reckless, then that's a different matter.

[Stive Pesley]

20 minutes ago, Bob The Badger said:

I'm sure it's a coincidence that the US under Trump and the UK under Johnson are about the two worst countries on earth at managing this.

Because they both thought they could bluff their way through it, like they have their entire lives - and bad stuff is just what happens to other people.

Hopelessly exposed as useless, because they don't realise that leadership requires leading, not just saying that you leading but actually doing nothing

I saw someone point out the other day that you can't compare the fantastic performance of the New Zealand government with the shameful performance that has happened here, because New Zealand has the advantage of being an island ?

[Van der MoodHoover]

4 minutes ago, Bob The Badger said:

He'll have to have the Ghost of Thatcher with him because the way she lied about The Falklands was equally disgraceful.

And btw, I agree with you. Blair sold the country down the river.

Not sure about putting the Government on trial. If it's just incompetence and stupidity, then no, I don't think you can.

OTOH, if they broke protocol or were knowingly reckless, then that's a different matter.

Oh I don't think we could accuse this government of "knowingly" doing much if anything.......

[Eddie]

48 minutes ago, ramesses said:

I’m sure the present government is perfectly capable of making poor decisions without ever thinking of consulting experts. I’m equally sure that even when they do take expert advice they are still perfectly capable of making poor decisions and then blaming their advisors.

Well, they have a history of doing just that. It's called "Goving"

[G STAR RAM]

10 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

Because they both thought they could bluff their way through it, like they have their entire lives - and bad stuff is just what happens to other people.

Hopelessly exposed as useless, because they don't realise that leadership requires leading, not just saying that you leading but actually doing nothing

I saw someone point out the other day that you can't compare the fantastic performance of the New Zealand government with the shameful performance that has happened here, because New Zealand has the advantage of being an island ?

Just out of interest, what measure will you use for assessing how well or badly the Government have handled the crisis, and why?

[Uptherams]

34 minutes ago, Bob The Badger said:

I'm sure it's a coincidence that the US under Trump and the UK under Johnson are about the two worst countries on earth at managing this.

I'd have asked 6-months ago, 'Ok, there's going to be an international pandemic and one country will manage it really well and the other one badly. And those countries are, the UK and Germany'

Who would have said I'll bet my house on the UK?

If you remove dress sense, music and comedy from the equation and maybe winning world wars, the Germans just kick our ass at most things.

 

Just do one thing and one thing only. Measure this via deaths per capita and the picture changes. Nevermind the endless other variables people can argue over, back on forth. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

[ramesses]

35 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

A lazy slur, because the same could be said about all past Governments too. The last Labour administration were no doubt briefed that selling gold at the bottom of the market and supporting a war on the basis of non-existent WMD was not a great idea (by way of example).

Yes, whatabout that? Meanwhile time moves on. I was expressing an opinion about the overuse of the phrase ‘expert advice’ by current government ministers to avoid answering questions about their lack of strategy and my suspicion that real experts might become disposal casualties in the future when the current government are trying to avoid taking responsibility for poor strategic decisions.

As for the phrase ‘lazy slur’? It’s a bit pompous but please yourself.

[Uptherams]

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-rival-states-targeted-uk-and-us-coronavirus-labs-with-malicious-cyber-campaigns-11983517

[i-Ram]

2 minutes ago, ramesses said:

Yes, whatabout that? Meanwhile time moves on. I was expressing an opinion about the overuse of the phrase ‘expert advice’ by current government ministers to avoid answering questions about their lack of strategy and my suspicion that real experts might become disposal casualties in the future when the current government are trying to avoid taking responsibility for poor strategic decisions.

As for the phrase ‘lazy slur’? It’s a bit pompous but please yourself.

I apologise if I came over as pompous; wasn’t my intention. Your comment I read in isolation, as it wasn’t linked to another post (re. ‘expert advice’) so I thought it just a cheap shot.  

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

49 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Thanks for the non-aggressive response and I apologise for mocking last night.

I just thought the example you used regarding the origin of the virus was bizarre.

Hopefully the truth will come out eventually but it looks like China have gone to great lengths to cover up the origin of the virus.

They go to great length to cover everything, and the globe.

[ilkleyram]

30 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

Because they both thought they could bluff their way through it, like they have their entire lives - and bad stuff is just what happens to other people.

Hopelessly exposed as useless, because they don't realise that leadership requires leading, not just saying that you leading but actually doing nothing

I saw someone point out the other day that you can't compare the fantastic performance of the New Zealand government with the shameful performance that has happened here, because New Zealand has the advantage of being an island ?

No, you can't (or shouldn't) compare New Zealand directly with the UK because they have 5m people in a country larger than the UK, located on the edge of the world and with its only neighbours several hours away with a population of 26m.  The scale of the challenge is altogether different.

If sheep can catch Covid19, you would have a point. You might also have a point if you were comparing the communication skills of the respective PMs, but then the NZ PM didn't have to spend several days in ICU with the blooming thing. 

[Stive Pesley]

19 minutes ago, Uptherams said:

Just do one thing and one thing only. Measure this via deaths per capita and the picture changes. Nevermind the endless other variables people can argue over, back on forth. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/

So if I'm reading that correctly, the UK is the 4th worst deaths per capita with 432 deaths per million people

Similar sized and larger developed countries like Japan, South Africa, South Korea - all have deaths per million in the low single figures

There is no arguing that we've made a mess of this

 

[Stive Pesley]

31 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Just out of interest, what measure will you use for assessing how well or badly the Government have handled the crisis, and why?

I dunno - so many to consider...

Did we start testing early enough?

Did we test enough people?

Did we do enough contact tracing?

Did we stop flights early enough?

Did we test people coming in on those flights?

Did we have enough PPE for frontline staff?

Did we close the schools early enough?

Did we go into lockdown early enough?

How many people have caught it?

How many people have died from it?

To be honest I'm struggling to think of a single meaningful measure where our government didn't royally balls it up

And I'm not asking you to critique my choice of suggested measures by the way (but I know you will)

 

[Uptherams]

Just now, SchtivePesley said:

So if I'm reading that correctly, the UK is the 4th worst deaths per capita with 432 deaths per million people

Similar sized and larger developed countries like Japan, South Africa, South Korea - all have deaths per million in the low single figures

There is no arguing that we've made a mess of this

 

A person could also look at that and ask why the EU is handling this so badly, bar the former Soviet states..

People can pick apart things all day long if they like. The worst hit nations appear to have had higher infection rates, denser populations, have major global transport hubs and or high levels of internal and external international travel.

Every nation has their own method for citing Covid-19, etc. 

But as a starting point, we tend to make comparisons based on per capita. 

There is plenty of arguing that we haven't made a mess of this. Hindsight is such a wonderful tool isn't it. 

Bottom of the list of 140 nations is Ethiopia. Are we to now praise their government. Blindly follow their lead in future pandemics?