Analysis comment

Video: Johnson’s vanishing 250,000 daily tests: today govt HOPES to have just 25k – and not until late April

In 11 days, promise of ‘very rapidly’ reaching 250,000 tests per day has vanished – to be replaced by a hope of reaching just 25,000 by end of April

Boris Johnson promising 250,000 coronavirus tests a day ‘rapidly’ and ‘very soon’

Tonight’s government press conference on the latest developments in the fight against the coronavirus was an object example of Boris Johnson’s false promises – to put it kindly – and how those are simply discarded and replaced by something else without even an acknowledgement of the original position.

Just 11 days ago, on 19 March, Johnson promised the nation that a capacity of 250,000 tests a day was imminent – and he underlined how absolutely central that was to the UK’s hopes of victory over the coronavirus plague.

Yet in tonight’s daily press conference, a zero had magically and surreptitiously disappeared from that figure.

Not only that, but a capacity of even 25,000 was anything but imminent – instead, Director for Health Protection Yvonne Doyle said she thought it would be reached by ‘mid to late April’:

Worse, the government does not appear to have even hit the ten thousand figure yet. It claimed to have done so, but health experts then said it was more like 7,000 – a figure that agrees with a leaked NHS email on the UK’s current testing capacity.

In the meantime, in Johnson’s own words, the virus continues to spread under a ‘cloak of invisibility’ – and the UK is not even testing front-line NHS workers, who are still waiting for personal protective equipment that meets World Health Organisation standards (and which isn’t past its expiry date).

If six weeks to even hope to get from 5,000 to 25,000 tests a day is ‘rapidly coming down the track’, God help us all when the reality of the Tories’ ‘slow train’ speed of getting anything done turns out to be the truth yet again.

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21 comments

  1. Always prioritise what IS happening over what may or may NOT. Basic logic. Work on the balance of probabilities. It applies to many events. So we saw China, South Korea and Italy in particular. Boris Johnson has NO excuse. He failed to prepare and we have the evidence that as ever, he and his team failed to observe basic hygiene… and i refer not only to their failure to wash thoroughly their hands, but a failure to wash their minds thoroughly. They failed to wash their ideology even halfway of the nastiness which Theresa May identified “The Nasty Party”.

  2. Why should anyone, anywhere, anytime be surprised, shocked or stunned that Johnson doesn’t keep his word. He has spent his entire career ( read performance) of lying, deceiving and misleading people including the poor, deluded working class voters who voted for this absolute scoundrel and his despicable party.

    1. So if voters are deceived and misled (by Johnson and Co and their media buddies) they’re deluded are they? Yeah sure, and you and your Likers are obviously caring considerate people brrianbotou!

      Please don’t be taken in by this hate-mongering nastiness that trolls on here keep posting! Would such a thought ever enter the mind of Jeremy Corbyn? No, of course it wouldn’t! What was it Steve H called these people about a week or so ago…… fuckwits, if I remember correctly.

      These im-posters are NOT Jeremy Corbyn supporters, and their agenda is to create animosity and division amongst us!

      1. Allan, ‘deluded’ simply means believing something that’s not true.

      2. Let look at facts instead of rhetoric. Since 2010 the NHS has lost approximately 17,000 beds, it’s budget has shrunk by billions of pounds, removed the nurses bursary causing a dire shortage of nurses plus doctors and other ancillary staff. Not forgetting of course the accelerated privatisation of the NHS (as many posters on this site have attested to). If you have any alternative arguments to counter this, let’s see them.

        Now, let’s look at the former Labour sets ( 55 out of the 59) that Labour lost in the 2019 GE. From 2001 to 2015 these former rock solid Labour seats had been steadily haemorrhaged voters. Why, well under 18 years of disastrous industrial policies, a rabid anti union plus a market knows best ideology these seats had become ( in American parlance) part of the rust belt. Tony Blair and the brave new world of New Labour was supposed to be the knight in shining armour to save the downtrodden masses.

        Didn’t happen did it. Until, Jeremy Corbyn returned Labour to its democratic socialist roots. In 2017 they all increased by a wide margin Labours votes. What changed, why the Achilles in the Labour Party, the PLP whose “ moderates, centrists “ Blairites and right wing malcontents cling on to the failed ideology of a paler version of a Tory party. Thanks to their shenanigans and refusal to accept democracy they engineered a disastrous policy of refusing to accept yet again another democratic result.

        In despair they believed that they were being betrayed once again and made a disastrous despairing decision to vote against Labour and in many cases voted Tory.

        Now, let’s look at your ( and a very small minority of posters ) view that the Labour members should refrain expressing just how disgusted they are with both the people who betrayed the democratic socialist Labour Party and their brothers in arms in the Tory party.

        It ain’t going to happen. I have been a Labour Party member since 1973 and my father before me supported Labour all his life summed it up when a Tory canvasser came chasing his vote he said “ hell will freeze over before he would vote for them” followed by a few expletives. My sentiments are all these years later have not changed from my dads.

        The Tories are a despicable, detestable group of grasping greedy individuals and any working class people who believe they are there for their benefit are deluding themselves.

  3. Before this day is through, let us remember, it is the same nasty ideology, which has ensured 44 years of an enduring stain of wilful wickedness. A wickedness that ensures another country’s people will have our Covid-19 experience multiplied by thousands on top of FOURTY FOUR YEARS of rationing, inadequate healthcare, their homes demolished, their farms trashed, vines pulled up and children murdered in cold blood. Those others will find this virus, infinitely more distressing than we are experiencing it. The ideology that multiplies there sufferings TODAY, is one of pure selfish heartless greed.

    So, in future, when you hear certain shameless individuals putting on amateur theatrics of the threat of one place being wiped off the map, don’t just remember, tell them STRAIGHT – that ONE PLACE DEFINITELY HAS BEEN WIPIED OFF THE MAP – PALESTINE. Despite the FACTS of history including maps … good old fashioned printed maps, walking reservoirs of DISHONESTY & SHAMELESSNESS have been saying for a long time “There is no such place as Palestine.” I know. It was said to me around 8 years ago, by an otherwise respectable intelligent person … with a scientific education. I was at a loss for words. Alas, when i am shocked, most of the before and after was lost. But the ridiculous claim was more proof that no one is immune from bigotry, ignorance and committing their denial of fact to print and sound waves… even scientist are not immune to the sins of creeping group think, siding with the powerful while dumping ethical principles and facts.🌹🌹🌹

  4. BBC explanation was that Gove’s 10,000 tests referred to actual tests while the later 7,000 figure referred to people! So approximately half the people tested had to be retested? Why?

    1. Its just utter bullshit as usual , the only consolation and its a pathetic one is that France and Germany also seem to be gaming their population in the same way .
      Sometimes it is difficult not to believe in fate and here we have a fateful set of circumstances 10 yrs Austerity , Brexit , the lying BBC /MSM that has delivered the perfect storm , Boris Johnson and his lying Govt.

      But for a small and insignificant change to one of the many variables along the way and we’d have had a Corbyn Govt .
      Camamoron wins the referendum, JLM & LFOI being insignificant and powerless in the Labour party with their false AS bullshite , Jim Murphy not leading Scottish Labour etc … strange is it not how the worst possible outcome has come about at the worst possible time for the World .

    2. Philip, it is because Boris Johnson has always been lazy. His reputation was built on unrestrained charlatanry… winging it and quite bizarre lies… especially the one where he attributes an invented quote to his own godfather. Very very odd indeed. That was an exceptional brand of lying. I suspect pathologically bad parenting…. Which reminds me i’v heard that two people are devoting a lot of time meeting business people in China. Business links??? 5G??? Could be anything…. hmmm lets see what turns up.

      ANYWAY, The myths of Tory competence in general, are just that, myths. Tory catastrophes are masked by the MSM and multi tons of cash from the public purse in bailouts/ subsidies & Big Business Welfare Benefits ie the state paying the employees of parasites like Phillip Green via Tax Credits, etc and lately the pension shortfall … like Maxwell … the father of Epstein’s paedophilic supplier and alleged abuser Ghislaine Maxwell. The more said the better, but i must stay on point Philip. So…

      People have been trained over hundreds of years to look across and down then kick across and down. The whole system is also constructed to keep the masses busy and in any spare time kick those who are most like them. A sufficient number of the public, only a sufficient number is needed to keep the same old same old by not scrutinising the 1% who abuse them. It is neither unique to now or this country. Think of the ruins of great empires in Central & South America. Great numbers were sacrificed to appease imagined deities. But the sacrifices could not take place, were it not for the efforts of the masses who captured people from their own class to be sacrificed. Thousands of years later … ruins of rubble. Thousands sacrificed themselves in vain. Or witch drownings and executions sink or swim…. because a sufficient number fail to keep watching the exploiters and plunders… the 1% 🌹🌹🌹

  5. What’s the use of a test that can’t determine viral load and only test for coronavirus and not covid 19, which the former is something most people have in their bodies anyway, which mean everyone who get tested will test positive.
    Vic Lowestoft UK

    1. ⚠️⚠️⚠️https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/30/britains-coronavirus-death-toll-bigger-official-figures-show/

    1. To quote the Telegraph today “ Perhaps it was because of his nerves that Mr Raab clean forgot his own Government’s basic guidelines on avoiding the virus. While he was delivering his statement, two of the pages of his script got stuck together. So, to loosen them, he absent-mindedly raised a finger to his lips – and licked it. ” Myths of Tory competence exposed for all to see. Their nastiness is from head to toe .. and finger. Fingered catastrophic deadly incompetence ⚠️⚠️⚠️

  6. The real evil of this type of propoganda from this government is that even ,the good decent human beings are led to believe that Saint Boris Johnson and his misfits are doing a fantastic job whilst selflessly struggling with a virus that might kill them all for the sake of the realm.and the British public.IT makes my blood boil and people who should know better,cling to anything that will excuse the fear.This Tory establishment alleged government are far more dangerous than the Covid 19virus and have already killed hundreds of thousands with their sick austerity programme.

    1. Ahh! Dear Joseph, you are my assurance that the world has not been destroyed. The “Establishment” signal is of course the BBC. But i hereby appoint you Mr Joseph Okeefe as THE signal that life continues‼️‼️‼️

      And, that we continue the walk, the undeterred walk to a decent way of living. Simon Bolivar kept going. Che kept going, Tony Benn kept going to the very end… i saw him do so. We too must observe and learn, and NEVER give up. A fresh INTELLIGENT sustained campaign that captures the “space” with the alternative LOGICAL way of government, has to be the way. Reticence, apologia, appeasement, detachment, avoidance, insufficient visibility AND inaudibility is the embodiment of failure. NO GOOD. Inflexibility… failures to seize MANY moments… no good. Indulgent avoidance of assessment. No good.

      Short lived transformation is worse than no transformation at all. WHY❓ It gives the impression that things are fixed … that change is impossible. A competent team is ESSENTIAL for transforming achievements. Even the failure to SEIZE the moment and CALL OFF THIS BLOODY ELECTION, is a sign that our party needs intensive care🌹🌹🌹

  7. ‘Reticence, apologia, appeasement, detachment, avoidance, insufficient visibility AND inaudibility is the embodiment of failure. NO GOOD. Inflexibility… failures to seize MANY moments… no good. Indulgent avoidance of assessment. No good.’

    So how many times is THAT that you’ve repeated this same B/S over the past few months Signpost? Forty, fifty, sixty times or more!

    Repetition, Repetition, Repetition! Signpost is a fraud, so please don’t believe a word he says!

    1. Funny, isn’t it, how Jeremy and the LP did so well in 2017! So did all this reticence etc exist and apply prior to THEN signpost, or did it just suddenly all materialise AFTERWARDS?

      I don’t actually recall you EVER having anything positive to say about the LP under Jeremy Corbyn, and it’s just a stream of negativity whenever you do so, albeit ALL contrived and manufactured and completely fraudulent.

      Signpost knows full well of course that the corporate media and the semi-corporate BBC have total control, for example, over how ‘visible’ or ‘audible’ Jeremy and the leadership are AND how they spin anything he or they say or do negatively……..

      Just like signpost does ALL the time!

      The Establishment know of course that practically no-one on the Left reads the Sun or the Mail or the Express etc AND that we know they just churn out lies and falsehoods and smears and black propaganda about Jeremy and his membership supporters, so the ONLY way to propagandise the left is to infiltrate sites like skwawkbox with ‘personas’ who play a duplicitous game of pretending to be JC supporters, whilst at the same time constantly and continuously attributing faults to him and the left (and CLPs), and the reason they repeat the negativity over and and over and over again is because the black propagandists KNOW that repetition is a subtle form of brain-washing.

      Please get wise to it if you’re not already, and be alert to such negativity, which in signpost’s case, is practically ALWAYS ‘contained’ within long rambling posts, and HAS to be, because if it WASN’T, it would be blatantly obvious what he is doing.

  8. I can hear the pot lid starting to rattle…This isn’t gonna end well if the toerags continue with their barefaced lies barley disguised behind rice paper-thin platitudes.

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