Chaos and confusion as weapons against working-class people
Boris Johnson’s garbled and self-contradictory message last night was mocked brilliantly by comedian Matt Lucas, but it is anything but a laughing matter – and the chaos has continued this morning, making Johnson and his excuse for a government even more guilty of the UK’s shameful position as the major nation with the most deaths relative to its population.
Last night, Johnson told workers that they must return to work this morning unless they can work from home – ending the lock-down in all but the most peripheral sense and condemning millions of mostly low-paid people to run the gauntlet of infection on public transport and in workplaces. His exhortation to walk or cycle instead is utterly meaningless for the vast majority.
To rub salt into the wound of his gross mockery, the so-called guidance the government promised on the ‘safe’ use of public transport was issued at 2pm today, hours after people were forced to flood back into the streets, trains and buses – terrifyingly shown on Transport for London CCTV footage.
And the government has now said that its instruction to return to work was not meant to be implemented immediately, but rather on Wednesday. Maybe.
60,000 people have died so far because of this virus, perhaps many more – and the hands of Johnson and his helpers are stained with their blood. There will now be another ‘spike’ in a couple of weeks and thousands more will die – along with hundreds more health workers, teachers, transport workers and other front-line staff.
Using chaos, lies and misdirection as a weapon, the Tories are murdering people and using the media to cover their arses.
There is no clearer or truer way to say it.
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Time for those responsible for this to be looked into for criminal acts, if there is due cause, arrested, charged, tried by jury and jailed for as long as necessary
Totally agree Justin. This Tory government knew full well that the poorest workers, the vulnerable and the elderly would killed by Covid-19.
This Tory government had the same data available to all of us re the China, and South Korean experience DEADLY INCREASE since November 2019.
This Tory government saw as we all did, the approaching THOUSANDS of deaths in Italy and Spain.
Yet despite that, they gave the most ridiculous reason for not screening at ports and quarantining. They wilfully prevented OBVIOUSLY symptomatic people to be tested and admitted to hospitals. They paid as yet undisclosed sums to privately owned hospitals to commandeer their facilities. Yet with more spare capacity ever, the prevented sick people to get the care that was desperately needed.
All of the above are only a few of the OVERWHELMING evidence that this Tory outfit is CORRUPT, CALLOUS, NEGLIGENT, INCOMPETENT, HEARTLESS, Only interested in arranging yet more handout to their 1% chums. Even if it means Security Guards, Care workers, Postal workers Cleaning workers, NHS workers ALL OVERWORKED workers, die in their thousands.
This tragedy was enabled by Sir Kier Starmer, Margaret Hodge, Tony Blair, David Blunket, Jack Straw, Ian McNicol, Trevor & Jess Phillips, Charlie Faulkner Blair’s ex flatmate, Luciana Berger, Wes Streeting, Neil Coyle, Peter Mandelson, Sadiq Khan, Baroness Hayter, David Lammy by joint enterprise. They “worked night and day” with Alastair Campbell to undermine Jeremy Corbyn, make us lose the election to their Tory chums, then blame the loss on Jeremy.
They share responsibility for this with some in the unions. Their betrayal should NEVER be forgiven. Their treachery and arrogant sense of entitlement is unforgivable. None of them nor their associates should be in our party. They won’t leave of their own volition. The vermin, arrogant as they are, at least have more sense than Berger, Ummuna, and the other rejected CUCKS or what ever they call themselves this afternoon.
The coup plotters and traitors KNOW unlike Ummuna and Berger that they are NOTHING without the infrastructure of our party. We must not let the saboteurs get away with it 🌹🌹🌹
So you managed to compose and type out your ‘Reply’ to Justin within FOUR minutes did you signpost (and THAT’s assuming you saw his comment the moment he posted it!, and LESS than four minutes if you didn’t!). Hmm…….
Is ‘Justin’ an invention of yours?
Justin Is called Justin not anyone else in response to Allan Howard Post below, he is not some re-incarnated name, he is justin
Rest assured, we won’t!
Yes, yes, signpost, of course! Well you WOULD say THAT, wouldn’t you
Allan – You’re 3 weeks late with your comment
This is my response to you, highest death rate in Europe, still on high r scale and they ended lockdown to early,were gonna get hit by wave 2 because of this, who tory gonna blame then, the dog that ate the homework, the blind man that drove to a castle for a eyetest, the twat that wants everyone to queue for miles to vote, they want business to shore them up, no good if people are not buying, so there solution, chlorinated chicken unmarked of course and the mv tax evader, sponsored by business, national lottery and public purse, wonder what businesses, tax avoiding ones probably, I billion on a sodding boat, royals should pay for it, when business don’t fund this floating rich toy public funded junk box who gonna pay for it, china, wow were so out of touch, the eu probably wants us out, who would have such a useless government back in, we used to be a country with respect, now were a third world laughing stock, when the two alledgedly most powerful men in the world are portrayed with benny hill clown music, that says it all really
I agree. I have read that there would be a case for legal action on this governments inaction, incompedance & and outright lies & bs. Again. A deliberate political choice in which kills people. By their 1000s.
Well, it certainly seems that the toerags (Through their shareholdings) – and their donors – are profiteering from this crisis through their ‘awarding’ of contracts, keep in mind, especially, the 8000 ‘private sector’ beds at a cost of £2.4m per day – yet the Government has deliberately kept them ‘spare’.
IIRC other countries ‘requisitioned’ their private sector’s beds & laboratories.
Then there’s the PPE, the ventilators, the logistics and the ‘apps’…
All’s that needs be done is to follow the contract awards, and the money trail…Cui bono?
Not your average blue-collar Joe with Covid19, put in ICU on a ventilator and drips for WEEKS on end – not THREE days on oxygen, then us all having to bear witness to his miraculous resurrection…That coming on Easter Sunday of ALL days!
WHY have we not heard from these doctors who were about to write his death certificate or what have ya? They were quick enough to get an interview out of the ‘nurses’ ; and I didn’t read anything about THEM worrying about the overstuffed scarecrow’s life.
David McNiven
@KnownBastard
Replying to
@BBCNews
Another doctor bleating about masks being dangerous to amateurs.
Healthcare workers weren’t born knowing how to use masks, they were TRAINED.
No massive IQ required, takes a couple of hours to train someone.
MAKE A YOUTUBE VIDEO.
BROADCAST IT ON THE BBC, you DUMMIES.
Jeezus.
OUR PLAN TO REBUILD:The UK Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy
You can download/view the full 50 page booklet of advice and proposals here
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/884171/FINAL_6.6637_CO_HMG_C19_Recovery_FINAL_110520_v2_WEB__1_.pdf
The only thing that was completely clear in that document was the page numbering.
You may enjoy Matt Lucas’s take on this (Video)
https://twitter.com/RealMattLucas/status/1259566662791106569
Oh, I did.
I can’t be bothered if it’s just Bozo the clown waffling, be alert over and over and over again!!
Pat – The video is of Matt Lucas taking the piss out of Johnson, whether you choose to watch it is obviously entirely up to you.
If this “lockdown” had been better planned it could have been over in three weeks and infection be down to virtually zero – the accepted incubation period is 14 days – both of the claimed 24- & 27-day outliers are probably misdiagnoses but even if not the spread from such tiny numbers can be easily dealt with.
People need time and funds to prepare for three weeks completely housebound though, and there need to be emergency numbers for all eventualities, not just 999. The potential voluntary sector is massively underemployed because of red tape.
Giving every householder/UC claimant who needs help free food, power, phone, internet and everything else they need to last them a month will be nothing compared to the cost of a year of repeated half-arsed lockdowns.
Fund TV channels to broadcast the good stuff whatever the cost. 24-hour cartoon channel for kids who won’t sleep.
Call-in TV shows to keep people informed and interested. Free chat lines for every interest and none.
People have gone without food for longer than a month and recovered. Staying indoors for three weeks is fuck all if you know at the end of it things will be back to normal.
Stark – I am full of admiration for your speed reading skills
It’s easy to skim when there’s very little content. Plus the BBC had a phone-in about it on Five Live – they weren’t all that impressed by it either.
Stark – Just for clarity. I posted the link to the document as soon as I located it so that others could read it for themselves, it is not an endorsement of its contents..
I never thought it was an endorsement, SteveH, don’t worry.
The country needs clarity. This “plan” and Johnson’s shite Churchill tribute act yesterday (which has had to be clarified numerous times, and those clarifications themselves clarified) is not what we need right now.
No it’s not ‘murder’ – that’s stupid hyperbole.
What it is is mind-boggling incompetence, which started with a lockdown based on the crap projections from Ferguson and the ICL group – who have a strong record of totally ludicrous forecasts.
In terms of rates of infection and mortality, this is behaving much like any other faily severe epidemic, with a peak reached in early April. The only significant difference is the age profile of deaths, which are concentrated in the 65+ age group and raised by co-morbidity. The bulk of the healthy population below that age has less to worry about than in a ‘flu outbreak.
We are now into the period of additional mortality resulting from the supposed ‘cure’. I’m not over-worried on either count – but the letter received today apologising for the non-happening of my cancer review is but one among millions of deferred appointments/treatments.
The problem now is that, having stimulated blind panic, the government has no plan for getting out of the unsustainable situation, and is floundering round – the real target for rubbishing the government. This was admirably and acurately predicted by Johan Giesecke a few days ago in an interview broadcast on Sky for an Australian audience.
The bottom line is that the government is guilty of that incompetence and of scaring a lot of the population witless on the basis of the medical equivalent of Tarot cards. It might be more fruitful in a political sense to have a look at possible motivations for creating this farce (beyond cluelessness).
The full time Troll, and full time fool, and bigot, RH, now moved on by his paymaster handlers from ‘proving’ repeatedly over the previous year of constant posts, that the overwhelming majority of Labour voters, even in our pro Brexit heartlands, supported Remain – so adopting Remain and Second Referendum was a definite winning Labour Strategy (how did THAT work out, you cynical wrecking troll ?), to Mandelson’s new priority – ie, play down the severity of the coronavirus plague, and get the UK back to work for the capitalist class – no matter how many people this will inevitably kill !
The current decline in coronavirus deaths is of course in no way related to some permanent, natural, ‘early April peak’ as the dishonest RH spouts for his capitalist paymasters. The current reduction in deaths is purely down to the unprecedented current lockdown. As soon as the lockdown is lifted, the cycle of exponential infection will re-start – as Skwawkbox, and all the experts, explained weeks ago. We are still in the ‘herd immunity’ grand plan process , possible total deaths in the 500,000 area, but now as a strategy of repeated lockdowns interspersed with relaxations, the process will spread that death total out over years , so the NHs and mortuaries aren’t overwhelmed (if a vaccine isn’t found – and that looks less than certain).
Coronavirus is NOT just a fairly severe, flue-like, epidemic , you cynical moron, RH. It is a new, hugely infectious, fast-mutating, super-epidemic , of 1918 proportions, that will kill most of our older citizens and huge numbers of our sick and vulnerable, and overwhelmingly our poorer manual workers of all ages. The (supposed – but probably simply made up) claimed ‘cancellation of your cancer review’ is NOT due to ‘government panic’, but is due to the inadequate capacities of an NHS run down and fragmented by ten years of underfunding and privatisation and related commercialisation of services waste. The German Health Service has not had to discontinue all other services to deal with coronavirus – firstly because they got a grip of the epidemic early, and secondly because they have a properly funded health service.
Bad Penny
No connection with the American flu in 1918 whatsoever, no comparison or relevance
Watch Sweden and America, they are the two outliers for this virus and only then in parts of America that go full scale Trumpton,
Call the fire brigade, Hugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub to put out the fire in your pants
Prick
RH – “he bulk of the healthy population below that age has less to worry about than in a ‘flu outbreak.”
You prediction that over half of the population is not at risk isn’t much of a reassurance for the less than half of the population who are at risk and also just discounts the worth of those with existing but well managed health issues.
You appear to be completely ignoring a number of important differences in reaching your hypothesis.
We as a population a built in immunity to influenza (flu) viruses. Because Covid-19 is a new SARS pathogen we have no inherent immunity to it.
We have vaccines to protect us from a flu epidemic, Covid-19 vaccines don’t exist yet.
There are well tried and tested therapies and drug treatments for flu related infections. None exist for Covid-19. The only ‘treatment’ that exits for Covid-19 is to assist with breathing and other life support functions in hope the body can survive long enough for the patients immune system to catch up, A significant number don’t survive long enough.
Covid-19 is e a very virulent SARS virus that has spread throughout the world very quickly and current knowledge seems to indicate that it is not seasonal like flu.
RH
The bumbling posh pratt and jolly good chap routine is pure Tim terribly nice but dim, but underneath is and always has been shed loads of money going to their friends and supporters
Socialism for the rich
Always follow the money
If you press ahead with a policy that you KNOW will lead to the death of people, then that’s MURDER.
Whether the victims died directly or indirectly is NO defence, dicky. None at all.
You’re so fond of how it’s going in sweden, so why don’t you sod off there and have many saunas with many people you neither know or seem to care about whether they’re infected or not.
Cretin.
It probably isn’t murder, as that requires an active intent to kill/injure, as opposed to not giving a shit (I really don’t like the Tories, but I think they basically don’t give a micro-toss about people, as opposed to being genocidal).
Corporate manslaughter is more arguable, I’d say. Unhappily, that’s usually difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Maybe a high profile barrister, and former DPP, could explain to the Government just what their actions constitute…
Just remembered the American version of corporate manslaughter, which sums up the Government philosophy much better: Depraved Indifference Homicide.
(I’m working nights at the moment, so I’ve been watching Law & Order on TV in the afternoons – that’s why it sprang to mind)
Stark – Yes complete indifference to the fate of the vulnerable appears to have been the Tory’s guiding mantra for the last decade. As has been proved time after time. They just don’t give a shit. If they think they can get away with it they’ll do it and bugger the consequences for the victims of their malfeasance.
@Stark
If you continue with a project after it’s been proved people have died as a direct result of the course you steered them on, then ‘malice aforethought’ becomes a valid accusation.
Hitler wasn’t present at the ‘wannseekonferenz.’
De piffle didn’t show at the first 5 cobra meetings.
It is a sad day for our now utterly impotent, Starmer and other Right Wing careerists-run Labour Party, when that ghastly Right-Winger, Piers Morgan, can produce a much more hard-hitting demolition job on Boris Johnson’s current shambolic performance (in the ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’ DAILY MAIL FFS !) than anything the cowardly , Trilateral Commission’s Starmer-led cretins have churned out ! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8307337/PIERS-MORGAN-Boris-Johnsons-shameful-mixed-messages-cost-lives.html
Labour’s craven ‘strategy’ under Starmer is just to sit on the sidelines, ‘ being loyal’ to the government, rocking no boats, but just nitpicking at minor cockups and details, and doing lots of empty sad-faced hand-wringing, whilst totally failing to explain the continuing Herd Immunity and privatisation of the NHS agendas the Tories are actually pursuing, and the damage ten years of funding cuts and fragmentation and privatisation has done to NHS capacities. Because of course, Starmer and his useless creature, Ashworth, et al, AGREE with privatising our NHS, and, as Blairites, always have done. They really see nothing wrong with the Tories using the coronavirus crisis to hand huge amounts of dosh to their incompetent private sector paymasters to fuck up repeatedly every effort to safeguard our NHS workers (the continuing PPE scandal) , and get mass coherent testing, as part of a proper mass contact/trace/isolate programme, established nationwide.
The UK will now quite likely eventually experience the 500,000 plus excess deaths over the next five years if a vaccine isn’t discovered quickly (increasingly unlikely experts say) that experts warned about when the ‘herd immunity’ eugenics plan was unveiled at the start of the crisis. And that circa 500,000 dead will primarily be our old , (poorer old) people, and the poorer, manual occupations, working class, and disproportionately , the poorer ethic minorities, and the long term poorer sick, not the middle or upper classes . What could be better from the Tory eugenicists point of view ? The ‘social care problem ‘, and ‘the pensions problem’ sorted out there then ! And another major bonus for these ‘disaster capitalism’ fans being that the huge new National Debt will provide (entirely bogus) ideological justification for a new, Austerity-on-steroids future, and an NHS which is mainly sold of , and the remaining state-provided mass insurance-based provision no longer caters for things like cataract operations or hip surgery. You want that – you go private – or lump it – just like in the USA.
Indeed, jpenney.
Slimer’s more concerned about de piffle (further) sullying MP’s already shite ‘reputation’ , than he is anything else.
The type of rodent that if he was a teacher he’d blame the dinner lady for little johnny not being able to do his two times table at the age of eleven.
I despise Johnson but he clearly said the return to work would begin on Wednesday for workers in construction and manufacturing if their employers could maintain social distancing. The lockdown was never meant to last forever, it’s purpose was to flatten the curve and prevent hospitals becoming swamped. If you maintain lockdown to long you risk causing more deaths from austerity than from the virus.
well tories love austerity, accept when it came to banker’s bonuses, there own pay rises etc, so if we have another round of there austerity while there spaffing money on bridges, trains, planes, automobiles, there own subsidied booze bill and any other stuff then they can set some of this money aside for that to pay for the people that do something for and runs the gauntlet of hate of being called scroungers by these tory bastards and I know of at least two volunteers who were threatened with sanctions for voluntary work they were doing who also no longer do voluntary work, so I f any of you tory bastards are reading this, think carefully what you say, what you think about and what you plan, no voluntary sector for a week would hurt you, imagine If you had to pay for it, David Gauke tory Take note, it is the likes of you and the ids/Essex breed I am talking about
He didn’t say it ‘clearly’. He mentioned Weds, but in relation to another issue. It was an absolute disaster and will result in thousands of deaths.
”If you maintain lockdown to long you risk causing more deaths from austerity than from the virus.”
The cynic in me would say that you sound like someone in the 1% who fears losing out by the continued lockdown measures. That’s what they’d try to palm us off with. Only they are crying for lockdown measures to end prematurely and that can only be so us plebs can stem THEIR losses with OUR lives.
Oh, I’ve been vehemently opposed to austerity since 2010 and utterly despise the concept; but it’s most definitely the lesser of the two evils. I’m not in any way, shape, nor form putting any sort of case for austerity but let’s look at the numbers, shall we?
130,000+ dead since 2010 from austerity.
45,000+ in four months from coronavirus.
I’ve been poor but reasonably healthy for most of my life. The poor part will probably never change; but I don’t want to suffer any illnesses that I don’t necessarily have to.
The same goes for a lot of people I know & care about.
Toffee, I think we can chalk up an awful lot of CV deaths to austerity too.
The Tories penny-pinched the NHS and social care into its present state of underfunding and profiteering by parasites – just because they stopped calling the twin planks of Toryism “austerity” and “privatisation” doesn’t mean they went away.
We most definitely CAN tot up a load of C19 deaths to austerity too. Look at the death rate demographic in terms of poverty to wealth…
And that’s the toerags fooked, because they can’t use austerity as being an ‘underlying health factor’ without admitting austerity HAS been a cause of premature death.
Although they’ll attempt to rely on their threadbare, default/stock answer of ‘No causal link between the two’.
Which A/ Nobody will swallow, and
B/ Will only lead to more bewilderment as people dying of C19, having been previously diagnosed COPD (for example) will have DEFINITELY died of COPD.
Linda “If you maintain lockdown to long you RISK causing more deaths FROM AUSTERITY than from the virus.”
R u having a laugh❓ Maybe u r being sarcastic. If not, what have u seen over the last 10 years❓ Just here by total accident from a far off uncontactable planet❓
If so, please be informed, the wretched Tories have inflicted deafly austerity on the many, for the last ten years. Covid-19 wilful deadly mishandling is just another opportunity they seized to kill off those they consider expendable… too expensive to allow to live… lives not precious enough.
Tories want the money instead for the Phillips & Tina Greens of the world, the Mike Ashleys, Dukes of Westminster and elsewhere, Owen Patterson’s employer, Dido Harding’s past employer, Dickie Branson … too many to list…, just think parasites, bandits, … besuited but bandits all the same.
It’s about money not people. It’s the same attitude that sent brave men to their deaths and serious injury by our army generals at the Somme. Working people are being sent “Over the top” to protect the millionaires & Billionaires in big business.
totally and when I see fruit picking farage, with arron banks, rees mogg and a few others sharing a caravan doing 13 hours a day for 8.50 a hour in a hot greenhouse under piecework ten I re-think my attitude, it Is time that the were all in it together crowd were really in it together, so lets start, summer recess should be two weeks, the rest of there recess should be sent out doing work in the community in sectors of there constituents choice, that should be mandatory for any political person so they can learn first hand the issues of there constituencies by working in them for a minimum of 20 hours, I know two politicians that do Friday/Saturday night food shelters and they are better people than the ones that sit in a office and pretend there brilliant
#vitaminD
GREAT stuff PaulS. Lovely presenter too.
FWIW – if you have a choice, go for D3 form of vit D supplements.
don’t forgive them, they know what they do.