Given what the government wastes every year, I think we’d all chuck a comparative 2p in to see boris clapped in irons.
4 Likes
Well given the WhatsApp messages demonstrated that those in charge were making decisions based upon Financial Times article, and they didn’t know the different between probability and percentage, I think they are highly relevant.
Those alone (that have been already released) showed experts were not in charge. Flawed decision-making processes. Having GCSE level maths knowledge might be useful when your the PM.
4 Likes
Let’s be honest here. Unless he’s got an IQ of 10 he would have long deleted any messages that are incriminating. And given how this guy is so experienced with breaking all the rules applied to him and getting away with it, I’m not surprised he feels he’s got nothing to hide…now the mass purge of messages has taken place.
So you’re saying that he might actually have an IQ in double figers?
1 Like
And here’s another one suspended.
I worked on a series of planning and resiliency exercises in 2015/16 that were related directly to emergency and pandemic responses. From my perspective it was more a case of whether access to data and online public communications were in place.
These things are things which are planned for in advance. Certainly, one of the items picked up in 2016 was something I was directly involved in putting in place and which was used. I was also involved in emergency planning in the early 2000s which was related more to the threat of bioterrorism but I noticed that some of the same protocols that were discussed then were used during the pandemic.
Reviewing these panning exercises in retrospect is essential as I think you indicated. However, part of this is whether that initial planning was ever followed in the first place. I have the feeling here that not only were plans ignored but that the government of the day actively worked against them.
The whole thing of the Boris parties is a bit of a sideshow. It merely demonstrates how completely unsuited this trivial individual and his inept acolytes were. Far more of a problem is whether suitable checks and balances against rogue individuals were in place. Clearly in many areas they weren’t. How is that addressed in the future? I suspect that many people knew exactly what was going on and yet there was no route that they could blow a whistle, serve legal injunction or even have basic policing in place.
4 Likes
Yep , and remember they had already seen Johnson , acting as final arbirter , dismiss the findings of ethics inquiries and refuse to take action against his own ministers , prompting the resignation of the government’s independent adviser on standards
2 Likes
Just to add I think the uk needs to understand how and why the UK chose to follow a heard immunity plan and then binned that not very long afterwards.
I also think it’s right to understand why the pm elected to miss 5 cobra meetings while Italy’s health service was basically collapsing.
That’s before we look at how we ended up with useless PPE that’s still sat in storage.
There’s so many things that need to be understood.
1 Like
The thing where Johnson’s partying does matter, is the extent to which it collapsed public trust and endangered lives. In this pandemic and possibly the next one.
Add Dominic Cummins flagrant rule breaking to the socialising and partying the Johnson was sitting at the head of, and you have a culture of disregarding the rules which was not only grossly insensitive, but potentially dangerous.
It is far more than a sideshow.
1 Like
What happened to Jonathan Pye? Exceptional stuff but seems to have gone AWOL.
Still on Twitter but I don’t think he’s posted a new video for a while:
https://twitter.com/JonathanPieNews
1 Like
I think I read on twitter recently that he has taken up a role on a tv show or something, so that has probably taken up a lot of his time away from the online videos he used to do
1 Like
According to his bio he (or the actor that does him) is working on GB News. That would account for why no-one has seen him.
Jeezus fucking christ , I had no idea that this was even a thing. Introduced by that twat Osborne back in 2015. And to think that the Blair government eradicated child poverty in the UK , and that this one policy alone is resposible for pushing one million kids back into poverty. Shocking and shameful.
2 Likes
Caring roles are massively undervalued by society. The current government uses an economic model whereby cash earnings and accumulated wealth are used to guage the value of an individual rather than what they actually do with themselves.
There used to be an annual survey in the 1970s that calculated the value of carers (usually women) if all the tasks that they carried out were performed by paid for staff. It meant that the typical housewife was performing work that would have earned several times the median wage.
Unfortunately, there has been a complete devaluing of those that do the work by portraying them as idle benefit scroungers. In fact those that are not pulling their weight are the idle rich.
1 Like
oh, please extrapolate on that one. I’ve yet to meet one “rich” person that is idle. and, define rich in how it relates to this statement. are we talking, no mortgage on their home rich? multiple homes rich? old money rich?
1 Like
Pretty much the definition of unearned income. However there are plenty of rentiers that will benefit from an asset without ever doing anything other than sitting back and reaping the benefits from others. Obviously from a different era but I think this quote highlights the point.
“The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expence of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent, as if they had been all made by his own." Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations Ch XI.
2 Likes
I get it, however that type of “old money” aka land owners aren’t the ones driving up the cost of living.
1 Like
There’s a definite problem with land-banking pushing up the cost of housing. The cost of living increases do have a miriad of causes, though.