On 3 February 2020 Boris Johnson said this in his triumphalist post-Brexit speech at Lancaster House:
Trade used to grow at roughly double global GDP — from 1987 to 2007.
Now it barely keeps pace and global growth is itself anaemic and the decline in global poverty is beginning to slow.
And in that context, we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other.
And here in Greenwich in the first week of February 2020, I can tell you in all humility that the UK is ready for that role.
Yesterday we learned that more than 100,000 people have died, some as a result of that dogmatic folly. We lead only in our Covid death rate.
And Johnson is still there.
Let's never forget those who have died unnecessarily.
And hold to account those responsible.
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This article in the Guardian last March by Devi Sridhar sounded alarm bells.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/15/britain-goes-it-alone-over-coronavirus-we-can-only-hope-the-gamble-pays-off
She has consistently called this right
Yes – we must struggle to remember with this lot – even when they distract us.
The mannish boy himself – Labour’s Ashworth was on this morning – he had a good go at criticising the Government only to be asked where he could evidence that Labour had fought for better. His answers were a bit thin on the ground – a mixture of half hearted talks punctuated by a lack of parliamentary sittings. To be honest even Justin ‘sosuperior’ on R4 found it hard to treat him as a credible politician from a credible political party.
At almost every stage, the government has taken action too slowly or inadequately or both, and these choices have increased infections and deaths and other adverse health outcomes substantially. They could have locked down in March a week or so earlier. I can understand mistakes being made the first time, but not similar mistakes made for a second or third time. They could have locked down in late September or October when the increase in cases (over the low numbers in the summer) became apparent but waited until November. They unlocked in early December and cases rocketed again. They like to blame the new variant, but they failed to take sufficient action straight away, and it only become the dominant version a few weeks later. There really was no compelling case to unlock in early December. Tiers were ineffective. Christmas was cancelled in London and the south east but not elsewhere. Cases continued to rise for well over a week before we locked down again in early January, although with more exceptions each time. We are taking a great gamble with delivering single shot vaccinations to elderly people, with a long gap to the second dose. And so it goes on. In all likelihood, given where we are, several tens of thousands of deaths are already locked in. And that is without considering the failure to get track and race working, failures with PPE, flip-flopping on schools and exams, slow movement on masks and borders. Lazy, complacent, incompetent, corrupt, negligent.
That those deaths are locked in. is certain
And remember, 100,000 Covid death certificates actually happened on 7 Jnauray. The figures are way bigger than the government admits
As I have said before; it takes grade ‘A’ incompetence to explain this disaster.
Unfortunately, none of the govt are that stupid or incompetent, they just act like they are.
Over one thousand NHS staff have died in this pandemic, the same NHS that this govt has kept on the back burner, simmering-along, since 2010. A look at the history of NHS costs reveals that every single time the Conservatives came to power, they reduced the amounts going to the health service, and staff.
Contemplate the massive amounts of stuff-that-doesn’t-grow-on-trees given to fly-by-night donors to obtain the wrong PPE and to construct massive temporary hospitals, even after the entire health service was asking: “so you’ve got another few thousand beds: Where are you going to get the trained staff”. There not even enough trained staff to cope with the beds we have in the hospitals, never mind the tent-city-hospitals.
Tell me again, do you seriously think these people are incompetent, or malign?
Which fits the bill best?
Just google who got the money? a finer bunch of tory donors and tory relatives you couldn’t find anywhere else.
Someone, who will doubtless remain anonymous, made the decision that people mattered less than money.
Add to that 100,000 admitted deaths another 20% unadmitted, and the tens of thousands who died from untreated disease.
Oh, and I just received my vitamin D tablets, from the govt. Who used an ebay outfit to purchase them from. Pharmacists are swimming in vitamin tablets, yet they buy them from a company that changes its name and company officials frequently…hmmm….
Saw a printed newspaper headline this morning with a picture of Boris looking doleful, seeming to be sorry for what has happened. So for that moment when Boris faced the country, perhaps even he believed it.
BUT, lack of: isolation payments, localised tracing, community engagement, effective checks and controls at border and, well, fill the blanks.
And, yet we can get hugely significant EU trade agreement through Parliament in a very short sitting despite very few MPs having read more than a very little of it.
What is telling, to me, is that despite COP26 coming up we continue to kick the can of environmental / climate bill way down the road. Shiny repaint of an aircraft and contracts for mates all sorted in an instant. There is an obvious thread in all of this: bankrupt right wing ideology Trumps science and evidence all the way.
When Boris Johnson includes “humility” in a sentence, you just know that it will be followed by a whopper of a lie. Two months later Patrick Vallance said 20000 deaths would be a “good outcome”.
We are now past 100,000 deaths, and rising, and Johnson is still humble in his self-proclaimed success. Heaven help us.
Winston Churchill was responsible for millions of civilian deaths across the world through his tenure
Winnie also oversaw and allowed 70,000 civilian deaths in the WHOLE of WW2 by nazi bombing of inner cities sitting targets. Most of these in the first 7 months.
Mini Me wannabe Winnie – with his jaunty name promoted by the media -, Bozo – has surpassed that heinous record in less than a year
There were 70k Excess Deaths in just the spring of last year.
The 100k admitted to is likely to be a lot higher because of the moving feast definition of Covid Deaths the government has been using and the Media have happily echoed and propagandised by shoving the fake numbers down our ears and into our eyeballs without ever doubting. A simple example is of restricting Covid Deaths to these who died of it within 28 days of testing positive. Excluding all these that die on day 29 or after many weeks in ICU’s.
The civilian carnage is therefore a lot worse than WW2.
The media, all of it, and the official Opposition iand almost all public Commentators are IGNORING the mass murder and are therefore in Joint Enterprise with the Tory Govt and Bozo the killer Clown.
To know that Germany has just surpassed 50,000 such deaths (they had less than 20k last year because of acting swiftly) shows how woeful Mini Wannabe Winnie and our Establishment really is.
They DON’T care – they have never cared about mass casualties of the minions from Slavery to the Trenches to the Cities to the starving famine stricken millions who they lauded over.
Nothing has changed in their ancient mindsets and we are nearly back to where we were a century ago – with the loss of rights, loss of mobility and jingoistic button pushing acquiescence to the same old toffs and Robber Barons that Mini Winnie Bozo The Granny Killing Clown and the great Knight Hope Starmer and his now back to fully controlled, Loyal Opposition are in cahoots to deliver.
Hell they’ll be wanting to erect a Statue to Bozo to lurk on some public space to CELEBRATE his deadly achievements.
The “28 days after positive test” number fails in a number of ways – it undercounts if (particularly in the early weeks last spring) someone was not tested, or if they died of a coronavirus related reason *after* 28 days, but it also overcounts those who died of some other reason within 28 days. It does have the advantage of being clear and consistent, and relatively simple to report daily.
The ONS numbers, based on death certificates, should be more robust, but they are always several weeks behind. As things stand, on 15 January (two weeks ago) they said 107,907. At a weekly rate of 6,000 or more, it must be over 120,000 already, and I suspect we have at least another week or two of daily deaths averaging over 1,000, and then a long tail of a month or two. The toll of excess deaths could easily reach 150,000 without a third peak.
Agreed
The problem with most politics (& not just in the UK) is that all decisions taken have zero consequences for those that make them. The very worst that can happen is to lose an election. Going back a 170 years – 1 million dead in the Irish famine – consequences – zero for the ruling classes.
120,000 dead now, consequences for morons like “Door-Mat Hand-to-knob” the health secretary, zero. I used to be a power engineer issuing permit-to-works to linesmen and jointers. The P-t-W is an interesting piece of paper since it makes the issuer personally, fully and legally liable. It certainly focused my mind (negligent & someboyd dies? that’s manslaughter and jail). Oddly, our politicos have no liability. Kill through negligence 120,000 people? – its no biggie – still get the salary etc, parts of the meeja still think they are doing OK – pat on the head – nice job later with a toryscum supporting company that got a fat contract. Which leaves me wondering for how long UK serfs will take this kind of thing? Or like the poor Irish of 170 years ago – they will passively go to their deaths? Or watch somebody close to them needlessly die, wring their hands & put it all down to fate (the tory killers in the Irish famine put it down to providence).
“Lazy, complacent, incompetent, corrupt, negligent”. And yet Mike, a significant number of the English, at least, will still vote for them. Serfs is a good description of too many of the English electorate. You make an excellent point about the lack of accountability of politicians, and how the Tories get away with it….in England, at least.
however, I think there will be a price to pay for this Covid disaster, and the accompanying Brexit one. The end of g the UK. The idiot Johnson seems to be finally waking up to this, hence, I suppose, his trip to Scotland today. And whilst wee Nicola is publicly condemning it, secretly she must be delighted. What better recruiting sergeant for Independence could she have than Johnson and his appalling record over Covid and Brexit? I bet the Scottish fishermen are regretting their vote now.
Incidentally, I was on a work training course about the implications Brexit for VAT. And while a lot of the changes aren’t that significant, one thing is clear; trade between NI and GB is a lot more complicated and difficult than before………..as we’ve already seen. NI will be trading more and more with the EU via Ireland and less and less with GB; which, by the way, is now seen by HMRC as England, Wales and Scotland.
So this jingoistic, John Bull, Rule Britannia, global Britain government is doing more than the IRA ever managed to promote a united Ireland. And the end of the UK. And the end of that union flag they’re all so keen to wave. What magnificent irony.
And if there was a general election today, I think a significant number would still vote Tory even amongst those worst hit either by the virus itself or its impact on their financial health or both.
Craig
I missed the interview with Labour’s Ashworth on the Today programme this morning but later on Justin Webb did a good job challenging Robert jenrick Tory housing and Communitei minister on the government’s responsibility for the 100.000 covid deaths. Jenrick started off all cocky and complacent saying how it was due to the Kent vartiant and how marvellous the vaccine programme will be. but when challenged he became flustered and did not recognise that all the delays in lockdowns was a major contributory factor. Natasha Walter also did a good job in ridiculing Caroline Noakes a Tory spokesperson for women and equalities about Chancellor Sunak’s patronising comments about women’s role in coping with the pandemic in the commons yesterday and the lack of government support for women due to their kuche kinder womens place in the home attitudes.
Looking at @toadmeister on twitter is certainly ‘illuminating’…..excess-ego, comes to mind..