On Sat, 9 May 2020 09:46:48 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Yes, and the testing saga in similar. We clearly were testing far too few
people, not even front-line NHS staff or elderly people turned out of
hospitals into care homes. So Matt Hancock rashly promises to be testing
100,000 a day by the end of April, which was a dreamed-up and, as it turns
out, unachievable, target.

But he changed the definition of 'testing' just before the target date, so
he could claim to have met it. But it was a lie: the actual number of
*tests* being conducted by then (which is itself a higher number than the
number of people being tested) was actually about 80,000 per day.

The actual number of *people* being tested per day is around 60-70k. That's
certainly a very big improvement, but he's lost a lot of his already weak
credibility by first dreaming up an impossible target, then missing it,
then lying about supposedly achieving it. Why should anyone believe him the
next time?

Unfortunately Boris is proving to be just as useless ineffectual procrastinator
as PM as he was as London mayor. No surprise to me frankly, but he's chosen
an equally useless bunch of yes-men and women as his cabinet which is just
what the UK doesn't need right now. Plus with the lot of them worshipping a
fraud like Ferguson (google how many duff past predictions he's made in the past
on various diseases like Sars that have born little resemblance to reality) and
who clearly doesn't even believe his own advice and we're royally screwed as
none of them have the balls to make the harsh political choices required wrt
restarting the economy.

In message , Roland Perry
writes
In message , at 15:03:55 on Fri, 8 May 2020,
Roland Perry remarked:
In message , at 14:47:15 on Fri, 8 May
2020, Bryan Morris remarked:

millions of people who were children during WW II would remember what
it was all about, who lost fathers and mothers, who had members of
their families in the armed forces, who remember VE day celebrations,
who remember being bombed or spending nights in shelters.

Anyone who was 12 in 1945 would be fully up to speed with the
situation. So that's 87 or older. Many who were younger than that.

BBC's poster child on the evening news was a lady who was 8yrs old on
VE day.

I know people in their eighties who recall crying, being scared, when at
seven or eight they first saw their fathers returning from active duty
and wondered who that strange man was.
And a moron on here still says "reflected glory" of that generation and
brings Brexit into the thread.

No doubt someone can look up how many people are 87+

Who were in some cases evacuated from Continental Europe where their
parents have no known graves

Or Brits evacuated *to* villages around England.


--
Bryan Morris

wrote:
On Sat, 9 May 2020 09:46:48 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Yes, and the testing saga in similar. We clearly were testing far too few
people, not even front-line NHS staff or elderly people turned out of
hospitals into care homes. So Matt Hancock rashly promises to be testing
100,000 a day by the end of April, which was a dreamed-up and, as it turns
out, unachievable, target.

But he changed the definition of 'testing' just before the target date, so
he could claim to have met it. But it was a lie: the actual number of
*tests* being conducted by then (which is itself a higher number than the
number of people being tested) was actually about 80,000 per day.

The actual number of *people* being tested per day is around 60-70k. That's
certainly a very big improvement, but he's lost a lot of his already weak
credibility by first dreaming up an impossible target, then missing it,
then lying about supposedly achieving it. Why should anyone believe him the
next time?

Unfortunately Boris is proving to be just as useless ineffectual procrastinator
as PM as he was as London mayor. No surprise to me frankly, but he's chosen
an equally useless bunch of yes-men and women as his cabinet which is just
what the UK doesn't need right now. Plus with the lot of them worshipping a
fraud like Ferguson (google how many duff past predictions he's made in the past
on various diseases like Sars that have born little resemblance to reality) and
who clearly doesn't even believe his own advice and we're royally screwed as
none of them have the balls to make the harsh political choices required wrt
restarting the economy.


Yes, Boris chose a real second-fifteen Cabinet, based on their loyalty to
him, not their competence. And when he was off sick, he chose nonentity
Raab rather than Gove (who is one of the few competent members of the
cabinet) as his stand-in, just to make sure there wasn't a coup.

Some, like Raab and Hancock, are simply over-promoted, but might grow into
the job; others, like Patel and Williamson, shouldn't be in the Cabinet at
all. He got lucky with Sunak, who's turned out to be much better than
expected. So Boris will probably want to get rid of him at the first
opportunity, as he doesn't want such strong competition in his team.

Bryan Morris wrote:
In message , Roland Perry
writes
In message , at 15:03:55 on Fri, 8 May 2020,
Roland Perry remarked:
In message , at 14:47:15 on Fri, 8 May
2020, Bryan Morris remarked:

millions of people who were children during WW II would remember what
it was all about, who lost fathers and mothers, who had members of
their families in the armed forces, who remember VE day celebrations,
who remember being bombed or spending nights in shelters.

Anyone who was 12 in 1945 would be fully up to speed with the
situation. So that's 87 or older. Many who were younger than that.

BBC's poster child on the evening news was a lady who was 8yrs old on
VE day.

I know people in their eighties who recall crying, being scared, when at
seven or eight they first saw their fathers returning from active duty
and wondered who that strange man was.
And a moron on here still says "reflected glory" of that generation and
brings Brexit into the thread.

*You* were the moron who brought Brexit and politics into this apoltical
thread. But at least you do have the decency to describe yourself as a
moron.

In message , at 09:46:48 on Sat, 9 May 2020,
Recliner remarked:

We clearly were testing far too few people, not even front-line NHS
staff or elderly people turned out of hospitals into care homes. So
Matt Hancock rashly promises to be testing 100,000 a day by the end of
April, which was a dreamed-up and, as it turns out, unachievable, target.

But he changed the definition of 'testing' just before the target date, so
he could claim to have met it. But it was a lie: the actual number of
*tests* being conducted by then (which is itself a higher number than the
number of people being tested) was actually about 80,000 per day.

The actual number of *people* being tested per day is around 60-70k. That's
certainly a very big improvement, but he's lost a lot of his already weak
credibility by first dreaming up an impossible target, then missing it,
then lying about supposedly achieving it. Why should anyone believe him the
next time?

I don't think many people did believe him. Apart from anything else from
the start - when he took over from Jeremy Hunt - he's been completely
out of his depth.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 09:46:48 on Sat, 9 May 2020,
Recliner remarked:

We clearly were testing far too few people, not even front-line NHS
staff or elderly people turned out of hospitals into care homes. So
Matt Hancock rashly promises to be testing 100,000 a day by the end of
April, which was a dreamed-up and, as it turns out, unachievable, target.

But he changed the definition of 'testing' just before the target date, so
he could claim to have met it. But it was a lie: the actual number of
*tests* being conducted by then (which is itself a higher number than the
number of people being tested) was actually about 80,000 per day.

The actual number of *people* being tested per day is around 60-70k. That's
certainly a very big improvement, but he's lost a lot of his already weak
credibility by first dreaming up an impossible target, then missing it,
then lying about supposedly achieving it. Why should anyone believe him the
next time?

I don't think many people did believe him. Apart from anything else from
the start - when he took over from Jeremy Hunt - he's been completely
out of his depth.

Yes, very much so. And when the media want to interview a Tory politician
who can speak sense on health issues, it's still Hunt they turn to. Hancock
is one of the most obvious examples of over-promotion, though of course
no-one knew at the time how he would later be tested.

On Sat, 9 May 2020 10:18:50 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Some, like Raab and Hancock, are simply over-promoted, but might grow into
the job; others, like Patel and Williamson, shouldn't be in the Cabinet at

Patel shouldn't even be an MP, never mind home secretary with her temperament
and lack of ability.

wrote:
On Sat, 9 May 2020 10:18:50 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Some, like Raab and Hancock, are simply over-promoted, but might grow into
the job; others, like Patel and Williamson, shouldn't be in the Cabinet at all.

Patel shouldn't even be an MP, never mind home secretary with her temperament
and lack of ability.

100% agreed.

"Bryan Morris" wrote in message
...
In message , Recliner
writes
Bryan Morris wrote:
In message , Recliner
writes
Bryan Morris wrote:
In message , Recliner
writes
Bryan Morris wrote:
In message , Recliner
writes
Marland wrote:
Recliner wrote:

Have they taped off any seats, as seems to have happened in
foreign
metros? Any police asking if your journey is strictly necessary?


I’m surprised with a good part of the country getting all
nostalgic for an
event that for most was really their parents and grandparents
party that
the posters from that era bearing that question haven’t been
reprinted
with figure of a solder replaced by a nurse.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/26111


Yes, a very good idea.

There can't be many people left who have personal memories of
VE-Day. After
the care homes crisis, their number has probably halved in the last
couple
of months. Not a great way of celebrating them.



Your normal ********

In the UK there are 3.2 million people aged over 80 and 1.6 million
aged
over 85

But then what would I expect from you

As I've already said, I was thinking of people who were old enough to
know
what VE Day was about. That doesn't include children.

That's what you say now but your main aim of course was to talk about
a
"care home crisis" for which , you doubt, you would like to point a
finger at the current government

But millions of people who were children during WW II would remember
what it was all about, who lost fathers and mothers, who had members
of
their families in the armed forces, who remember VE day celebrations,
who remember being bombed or spending nights in shelters. Who were in
some cases evacuated from Continental Europe where their parents have
no
known graves

But of course all you want to do is try to make some cheap political
point.

What political point was I making? It was an entirely non-political
remark. You're the one who's trying to make it political, and being
thoroughly offensive in the process.

I don't recall ever being impolite to you (not that you're a regular
here),
so what's brought this sudden attack on?


I was active on Usenet in the nineties and noughties , largely on
(though not exclusively) uk.*, Demon.*, alt.*, and soc.* newsgroups
which were thriving. Though there were trolls and unnecessary cross
posting things were generally good natured and in fact some ISPs even
suspended users from posting to groups if they proved to be causing
problems.

Those days are long gone.

I sometimes browse some groups (including this one) and found that the
majority of Usenet posters are now the same ones on all. Posting often
just to prove they can, cross posting (WTF has an amateur radio group
got to do with politics) just because they can. I can see why the late
{R} (who I think may have coined the phrase ****wit) formed ULM I popped
into uk.legal recently and saw that the trolls, ****wits, crossposters
were still there.

Then yesterday I saw this row on uk.net.news.management. The same
****wits (tm) again, there, running the uk.* Committee, with nothing
better to do than sit all day on their arses posting nonsense to Usenet.

The same ****wits I see have now latched on to this sub thread. The
"superior beings" who are anti anything this government does, hate
Brexit, hate Tories, full of their own sense of importance. Thinking
that "so what if a few oldies die, I'm young enough not to be affected
by Covid-19, why should I be locked down"

God knows how 75+ years ago , had Usenet been around like it is today,
one could have got on with these ****wits criticising everything that
the UK was doing in W.W.II

So yes, Recliner, I'm ****ed off how Usenet has become and political
point scoring about those cruel Tories not supporting care homes.

Rant over for the moment

You seem to think it's politics to criticise government performance: some
of us feel free to criticise incompetent governments of all flavours. You
seem to think it's OK to be useless as long as they're all Brexiteers. But
you'd be erupting in criticism if it was a Remainer government. Well, I
don't agree. Like most governments, this one has got some things right,
and
some wrong, and it's nothing to do with ideology. I don't think Matt
Hancock is a great health secretary, but most of the problems aren't his
fault.

There is no doubt that there's a care home crisis right now, partly
because
of a long-term failure to reach a political consensus on how to fund them
properly. It wasn't caused by the current government, and May's attempt
to
do something about it was shot down by Labour. Labour didn't fix it
either,
and nor did the Coalition.


In the eighties I was, for a time, opposition spokesman on Social Services
in a loony left London Local Authority and used to spend many weekends
making surprise visits to Council owned residential homes including care
homes (and children in care) and then reported back to the Director of
Social Services and have always felt that care workers are born, not made.
There were good, there were bad, homes.

Unlike Hospitals where most (though not all) are run by the NHS.
Residential Care Homes are run by Local Authorities, by private
individuals, by charities, by religious organisations, In my
professional life I even had a client who had this large house which he
decided to turn into a care home - he then moved to Devon and opened
another care home there (his "day job" was as a jazz musician) yes there
were rules and regulations about running homes but nearly anyone can own a
care home.

Almost by definition, care homes contain people who are vulnerable to
diseases. People who often are even unaware of what is going on around
them. Unlike Hospitals, there is no central reporting where causes of
death can be centrally reported.

National Governments can bring in rules and regulations but they don't
control them. There is no "National Care Service"

Care homes are not hospitals, they are not used to have to use PPE, they
and their owners , whoever they may be, are responsible for purchasing
supplies of whatever they need by way of medical equipment.

It is very easy for those who wish to find fault with a government to
blame them for something they, in fact, have no direct control over.

but by funding councils to less than what a commercial care home needs to
charge to survive, they have sufficient indirect control over them to be
culpable for the problem

same argument applies to domiciliary care. They fund councils so that they
can pay for time on site and then bring in a minimum wage rule that decrees
that theses workers have to be paid for travelling time (quite rightly
IMHO), and then expect that the councils are going to magic up the money to
pay for that from nowhere

tim

On 09/05/2020 11:51, wrote:
On Sat, 9 May 2020 10:18:50 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Some, like Raab and Hancock, are simply over-promoted, but might grow into
the job; others, like Patel and Williamson, shouldn't be in the Cabinet at

Patel shouldn't even be an MP, never mind home secretary with her temperament
and lack of ability.



She fulfills the basic requirements for the post, she's no threat to Boris.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.