This is from Politico's morning email, which is worth subscribing to:
PM direct: No doubt warned of the incoming volley of abuse, Johnson tried to get ahead of things last night with another homemade video on Twitter. From his quarantined office in No. 11, the PM assured viewers that the government is “massively increasing testing.” He went on: “It is so important, and as I've said for weeks and weeks, this is the way through. This is how we will unlock the coronavirus puzzle. This is how we will defeat it in the end.”
Reminder: Three weeks ago the U.K. stopped the mass testing of people with COVID-19 symptoms, telling them to stay home and isolate instead. POLITICO's Ashleigh Furlong has the background on that decision.
It really is time Johnson stopped lying. No one is taken in any more.
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At what point to we declare no confidence in government?
Deputy CMO stated only about 4 days ago that there was no need for testing – that the WHO guidance applied to countries that didn’t have advanced health care systems. CSO has also stated that large scale testing was of no use.
They don’t have anyone in their entourage that has a plan for exiting lockdown. They don’t understand the concept of large scale testing/identifying/quarantining/tracing and containing works. They don’t have supply chains set up. They are relying on herd immunity with no knowledge of how long immunity lasts or how to know when herd immunity is reached.
How can they possibly stay in government if they don’t know how to manage this?
At what point do we declare no confidence in Government?
About 40 years ago?
Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 !
1. Tory revolt and motion of no confidence – likelihood ~0%
2. Motion to hold an early election passed by two-thirds of MPs – likelihood ~0%
3. Fixed term Act abolished as per tory manifesto – likelihood ?
Any alternative suggestions besides a military coup?
Well mass riots, could do it, i am not advocating it of course. The daily mail forecasted 4 million out of work by may, could t this push the tories over the edge, it could but
i doubt it. So you have mass riots, people ignoring the govt advice after spending weeks holed up in their homes and going out. Also mass unemployment and very poor funding of the nhs with mass deaths from covid 19. That could do it and it looks like it is on track to happen. Events will dictate the government survival not the tory backbenchers. Of course the Queen could sack the PM as she did with the australian PM in 1975/6, but i doubt that. I have never seen this kind of economic shutdown in my life and the closest i can think of in historical terms was the bubonic plague in the 13th century. Overall it is a close call the tories could survive this mess they created and move on . I think that is likely as the population is very pro right wing at the moment. Yeah i know people are saying things will change, but i will believe that when i see it. WW2 caused a sea change in public attitudes but slowly it went back to the hard right, and the atomisation of society. I think the tories will use the public right wing’s sympathies to impost mass austerity when it is over and try to repeat what Thatcher did in the late 70s and early 80s. After it worked then, so why not now!.
In fact, I am sure most people will be taken in. By the time the statistics come in we will be doing Brexit and that will distract them.
He has lied throughout his entire career, and several times he has been sacked when caught out. His serially incontinent private life tells its own story: he has repeatedly cheated on his nearest and dearest, if he wanted to. Anyone with eyes to see knew just how flawed he was before he became prime minister. The contrast with Theresa May (with her personal diligence, but lack of humour and charisma) just makes it clearer. It got him where he is today and I can’t see him stopping now.
People are taken in because the media is propagandising.
The message that the masses are taking on is :
“I’m sure there will be a full review once it’s over. In the meantime, is it not better to support the government’s efforts and stick together through the crisis?”
That is from a friend who has bought into the whole austerity driven narrative, brexit narrative, anti-Corbyn narrative, Russian interference and poisoning narrative and the Chinese bat eating and lying about the virus narrative.
The media mouthpieces are spreading these lies! There is no way of stopping them.
If people of standing like you and other known experts can barge into the tv and radio broadcasts and get past the state controlled editors in the papers then the countering truth may break through – but for the moment the populace has been expertly gaslighted & herded into the mindset of the above quote!
Social media is the only way to fight this
I am waiting for the gagging order…
“Gagging order”? Not yet! That will be the option when they think control of the media is being lost. But circumstances are rapidly changing and even the huge resources of this Govt and its allies might falter soon. “First question, Laura K…….” and “Robert” can’t cover up all the problems.
I do know food warehouses are emptying.
NHS frontline staff are increasingly agitated over uncertain leadership and lack of essential protective equipment with no chance of a CoVid test. Fragmentation of NHS England, with privatisation and outsourcing exacerbating the NHS’s ability to act in a co-ordinated fashion, hence why the PM and ministers are scrambling and not answering and bluffing on the simplest questions.
In the meantime https://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-independent-daily-cartoon-a8575981.html
Thanks
Chinese bat eating is true but not the whole population. Most of the chinese population do not eat exocting animals, or dogs for that matter. One i suspect because it is i too expensive and culture. It is the elite who go for the exoctic animal eating as they can afford to employ to catch them or just buy the food. Also we have applauding treatment of muslims in china and they certainly would not go for bat eating et al.i am
Shameful attempt to respin the past. I suspect his own conversion to the importance of testing only dates from last week, when he himself jumped the NHS queue to be tested.
Johnson has no reason to stop lying. Media are still not prepared to call out obvious lies (look how Peston dealt with the chemicals not available issue) right in front of them.
I think it wll take a significant body count before anyone will really start to question both the politicians and the media.
That body count is coming, very, very soon….
What does it tell you when two apparently opposing political ideologies (British Conservatism and Russian Soviet Communism) resort to re-writing history to defend themselves?
Again, my main man Milan Kundera comes to mind:
‘The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting’.
I mention this because people will forget because they will want to put behind them. Progressives everywhere need to take up this cudgel and help voters to remember.
@ Pilgrim
I always liked the phrase “the forgotten past is full of memory”
This is written outside Villa Grimaldi, the former torture centre, where hundreds of people were murdered and disappeared for opposing the fascism that General Augusto Pinochet.
Those were dark days in Chile. Awful. Pregnant women too. Maggie T. didn’t seem to care though did she?
@ Pilgrim
No, I don’t think Mrs T cares about what was happening in Chile. Another interesting topic of that time which happened in Chile – the neoliberal experiment with its economy (the Chicago Boys) and constitution. Still causing serious issues in Chile.
Where in the world do the reagents come from?
How are they allocating them to their customers?
Why is no one asking these questions?
Mass testing only works for the anti-body. There is a good article in the economist (behind a paywall unfortunately) about how this should be available soon but is still being tested for accuracy. This testing hasn’t been done en mass anywhere in the world. Testing for the virus itself is only of limited use as it only shows positive for a very short window. There are examples of people really suffering with the virus and are on ventilators where the reading shows up negative. Inaccurate testing is worse than no testing regardless of what social media says!!
With respect, I’ll trust the WHO on this
Ocado didn’t have any problems acquiring anti-virus test for its staff.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52108654
What a great pity that we don’t have a UK equivalent to Rachel Maddow in the US – or indeed a whole swathe of current affairs commentators that you find on MSNBC (Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Mathews, etc) in the US.
Maddow has been on Trump’c case – and that of the federal government more generally – for weeks. And yes, while Johnson is more intelligent than Trump, given their other similarities (arrogance, lying, laziness, narcissism) it’s no surprise they are singing very much from the same ‘shifting the blame’ playbook.
Anyway, here’s an example of Rachel Maddow from yesterday evening:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
(And for anyone looking for a good read while we’re all stuck at home her book, ‘Blowout’, is an excellent read.)
Thanks Ivan
I watched – very good
I liked the repetition of ‘insane’