Any complaints about the way he's handling this crisis? Surely not, this is his Churchill moment and he is performing at the same level as the great man.

Got to say absolutely outstanding response today

Falling into perfect lockstep with Spain and France with a 7- and 9-day delay* respectively after originally fucking things up. What particular Churchill moment does that emulate?

*Expect quarantine to begin early next week.

Because Spain and France are coping so much better with their tactics?

I have to say no one knocked the tories more than me but I have been very impressed

He has won me over and I know personally how much in one order they have spent setting up for the testing

Apart from yesterday when he looked and sounded like he just couldn’t be fucking arsed and he was bumbling on about shaking hands last week

However, his chancellor has stepped up the plate and thank the Lord Mr Johnson has finally decided to get the pubs, gyms etc to close their doors, I’d like to see a bit more help for freelance workers, because if Matt Hancock cant live on 94 quid a week, no one else should

Like I said in a previous post, hopefully when this hideous shit show is over, perhaps zero hour contracts and no protection for lower paid workers will be washed down the pan, because clearly it’s cost us dearly already in the spread of this disease

Several months ago during Brexit I noticed Rishi Sonak who was an unknown he impressed me during debates and I thought this fellow is going to the top. I never imagined he would get to the top so quick. Obviously Boris was impressed with him and put him in the treasury and it was a case of being in the right place at the right time when the vacancy for Chancellor came. Well for a bloke with limited experience he has certainly made his mark

Too much fannying around, it's all come about 3 weeks too late, should have been able to make these decisions without being forced into it. I expect beer will now be a target for the panic buyers now to add to bog rolls. As for "turning the tide in 12 weeks", the last one to try turning the tide was called C n u t, he's not a million miles from that himself. Can't fault the financial help, though still not a lot for the self employed to be happy about.

Its easy to criticise, think he is doing as well as can be expected now, not great, but nothing as bad as some out to political point score are saying , though he may live to regret the slow reaction to the crisis. All this though has exposed the fragility of rampant capitalism and the tory austerity of the last 10 years, this has all played a part in the problems the country has faced so far, shortage of bed, insecure working conditions , high levels of people renting and self employed etc. I would also like to know where all the money has suddenly come from , maybe there is a magic money tree after all. As for comparisons with Churchill, well both of them are bumbling wankers and worryingly overrated.

In terms of the money, I suspect that he’s literally opened the war chest. We have reserves for wartime and that seems to be exactly where we are. There’s certainly that kind of feel about it.

Bollocks.

There is no "war chest".

All this inter-bred toffee-nosed twat can do is print pretendy money, and put a massive debt around the necks of you, me, and all of our children.

You might as well put a thick as shit pit-yacker in charge...

are you by any chance related to another Mr Angry in Purley?

It’s good the Chancellor’s reimbursement for the self employed matches what most put on their annual tax return.

An excellent point I know a few who class themselves as self employed and for tax purposes etc claim they pay themselves minimum wage.

[quote="Go Ask Alice"]

There is no "war chest".

All this inter-bred toffee-nosed twat can do is print pretendy money, and put a massive debt around the necks of you, me, and all of our children.

or is it another loan from another country like in WW2 that took generations to pay back. haven,t we been told before that there is no magic money tree on other subjects that have come up.

I think they're doing a decent job. Especially impressed with the Chancellor.

If they aren't then why the fuck are we belatedly copying them, with an outward display of reluctance?
Come on you know as well as I do there's no way yet of measuring the success. Only time will tell. That's equivalent to saying Brexit has had no effects when we're not even properly out yet.
Those countries are ploughing just as much money into this disaster as the UK.

Meanwhile, in Spain at least, people are playing the game. All credit to them.

Yeah better bait needed, it's not really a time for political point scoring or allegiance but this for me is more Johnson's Neville Chamberlain moment than Churchill. He has an almost terrified look in his eye like he knows his games up this is too big for him, he can't bluster and blag his way through this. At times like this the World needs actual leadership and people to make big decisions I haven't seen this from the UK just dangerous dithering leaving things in the hands of selfish idiots. It's like the gravity of this hasn't sunk in, it's the most significant event since World War Two, we have had nothing in our lifetimes that has impact on every single aspect of our lives. This will.

You couldn't actually make up what happened on Friday so Johnson announces all the pubs and restaurants are to close, about time said anyone with any modicum of common sense, not immediately though you can stay open tonight. On a Friday, with the prospect of not being able to go out for months. What to do know the Pubs are all of sudden do drinks promotions and are rammed! Then the next day the same doyles are heading to the seaside to get full of fish and chips to soak up that hangover. Completely mental. Proof that this isn't time for advice it's time for actual shutdown and enforcement, we have all been guilty in varying ways but now it has to be time to listen and not to be selfish arseholes? I think it might have helped a bit though if the person delivering this advice wasn't a joke figure with a long history of lying. His own father was even on TV saying he was going to the pub!!! Mind you Johnson is statesmanlike compared to the increasingly unhinged Trump. All of those guns in the US and not one assassination attempt, terrible shame. How has it come to having these two leading people at a time like this!?

I'm somewhere where Monday afternoon will see us two weeks into school closures (it's felt like two months already) I got to work one day last week but I see no prospect of that now as my wife works at a hospital and all leave has been cancelled. The airport is shut to incoming flights my parents should be here now and we had friends coming the week after obviously neither is happening. It's going to be a challenge mentally as much as anything but being bored for a period of hopefully weeks is small price to pay if it stops thousands more dying. We're all but on lockdown here now, they are classing having a passenger in the car as group gatherings and have set up checkpoints to monitor this. Only supermarkets and pharmacies remain open. Plenty of food and bogroll here though, people seem to have realised panic buying is selfish and moronic. Whatever happens you will be able to get food, also strict measures have been put in place to stop profiteering and price hikes. These situations really bring out the best and worst in the human race.

Lastly back to hospitals my missus couldn't believe it when Hancock announced that the UK had only 5,000 ventilators available. In her hospital they have 1,500 ready to go and 300 in reserve if required. This is a women and childrens hospital in a state of less than 3 million people. One hospital here has almost 40% of the ventilators that an entire healthcare system serving 70 million people has. That is staggering, the neglect of the NHS in stark reality. It's only the tip of the iceberg really just about all public service in the UK leaving most hardly fit for purpose, Towns like Hartlepool with this on the horizon not even having an A&E department. Good luck everyone. It's not hard to work out why Johnson has such a terrified look on his face, I would hold off for a while on the back slapping..... Stay safe everyone and let's look after each other, especially those at the most risk.

From Today's Sunday Times, utterly staggering these people should face criminal charges putting money above human life, it certainly explains the look Johnson has in his eyes he knows what is coming and how he is going to viewed by history;

'Dominic Cummings, the prime ministers senior aide, became convinced Britain would be able to resist a lethal second wave of the disease next winter if Whitty's prediction that 60% to 80% of thee population became infected was right and the UK developed a "herd immunity"

At a private engagement at the end of February, Cummings outlined the governments strategy. Those present say it was "herd immunity, protect the economy and if that means some pensioners die too bad".

At the sage meeting on March 12, a moment now dubbed "Domoscene conversion", Cummings changed his mind. In this "penny-drop moment", he realised that he had helped set a course for catastrophe.'

As I said, I'd hold off on the back slapping for 'Boris' for now....

I’m sure Teflon Boris will try and throw Cummings under the bus but he should be in the dock for this as well, he’s Prime Minister at the end his advisors are just that it was his call.

Part of the problem seems to be that the experts at PHE and NHS don't believe in testing (against WHO advise) so we have no clue as to how many infected people there are. I find this very worrying given that they have been relying on modelling predictions to determine when to ratchet down isolation measures. They don't know enough about the virus to calibrate the model and have no accurate data on transmission. Garbage in garbage out I'm afraid. The experts might be more to blame than Cummings for the policy.

In addition there has been no testing of people's temperatures. I was in Singapore 3 weeks ago and you get temperature tested everywhere, at the airport, hotel, public buildings etc and you have to give contact details so that they can follow up cases. It was a culture shock coming back to Heathrow and to see no temperature measurement. Supermarkets should start temperature testing customers and block any that have temperatures and refer them to NHS. I know people can have the virus and no temperature but it would at least reduce the spread.

Yeah we had friends who visited here 5 weeks ago and were screened for temperature coming through the airport.

I suppose it’s the difference between a government intentionally trying to infect millions of people to protect its economy and the rest trying to protect human life.

People here are blowing the whistle on the non-cooperating dickheads and I will absolutely do the same if I witness any (assuming I can see them from my house whose gates I haven't crossed for a full week now).

To be saying PHE and government are doing nothing about testing the masses is plain wrong. My work tomorrow starts a six trying to assist this and the mobilisation on the testing units. I have been working 6-8 at night all last week trying to do this

Whatever you are doing Compo and it's surely commendable, you are only one person. Even if you have 50 colleagues on the job, how far does that go toward stopping the plague? What you do is science. Keeping infectious people apart is commonsense.

The authorities have been painfully slow in ramping up testing facilities and failed to take the advice from the WHO and countries like South Korea and China. The guy from the WHO on Andrew Marr this morning said test people, trace contacts and chase the virus. The efforts of frontline staff is, as always, exemplary.

They are doing this unfortunately the delay in the testing isn’t caused by anything that the government can do but unfortunately logistics in having enough machines or producing them quick enough which is happening 24/7 at present. Unfortunately these have to be regulated and verified to not produce false positives. As you can imagine every country in the world want a lot of these machines. And let me tell you not one country is just buying and getting them all at once these are being shared fairly where needed. It’s logistical nightmare and why the uni and companies have helped across the world to provide these already out on the market. If I tell you one of these extraction. machines can run 1000 samples in 6 1/2 hours you see the scale of how many are needed and this is only the first step in getting the RNA out of the collected samples, you then need to measure the integrity of the RNA (another machine) and then amplify it another machine called a qPCR machine:

Another absolute fucking shit show from Johnson

Got to the park, go out, go out, see your mam

They weren’t even 2m apart at the conference

Most people I know are being responsible and socially distancing and only going out to shops for basics etc, however a fucking lot think it’s an holiday

I despair

scenes from whitby today are brutal. This will not end unless people are forced to stay in.

Treating it like a holiday.

The only Johnson worth listening to is Matt Johnson.

"The stains on the Heartland can never be removed
From this country that's sick, sad and confused".

Or possibly Brian Johnson.

"The bowlers Holding, the batsmans Willey".

Gallipoli? Norway?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wasn’t Gallipoli WW1?

It was. But it was Churchill's baby.

https://genius.com/Eric-bogle-and-the-b ... lda-lyrics

Let's not provide Eric Bogle with new material for his songs.

scenes at scarborough looked like a bank holiday sunday. people need to stay local even in villages if they have a shop. do not think things will hit em until they or a family member catch the virus.

I have just been blocked by some woman on Twitter for ‘spreading fear and panic’ for quite calmly saying the NHS was in a far better position to deal with this crisis ten years ago and then pointing out that we 17,000 more hospital beds alone then so I am only stating fact.

She had #I’mbackingBoris in her biography.

I’m of the mind that during lockdown social media should be, or at least Twitter should as well unless it’s for good because is it really doing any good for anyone? At least one of things I’ve learnt that I was actually wrong about Piers Morgan. The man is a even bigger arsehole than I ever imagined. A man with an ego so enormous he can make a global pandemic about him and that He thinks he had influence over the government during a global crisis. What he doesn’t realise is the influence and responsibility he has on the general public having so many followers. He was actually suggesting people stockpile goods a couple weeks ago.

Use it for positive ideas, to raise awareness of those in need and for news and information. It’s not a time for point scoring and one eyed political allegiance like the lady who just blocked me.

An idea I have had which could help a lot of people is free WIFi and ensuring access to WiFi for all over 70’s. It’s a very real prospect that they are facing self isolation for up to 12 weeks many alone, access to things like WhatApp abs Skype could be an absolute life saver as friends and family could still be with them in a way. Living abroad over the last few years makes you appreciate being able to see your friends and family when you speak to them. It could even be used by healthcare or social workers for those without family. Or even volunteers to be chat to lonely and isolated people. It’s not like we don’t have the spare time right now! It would also help the mental health of those helping giving people something to do and a sense that they are doing some good at a time like this.

Not sure why any of you are surprised by any of this. We are undoubtedly the thickest country in the world. And most of the thickest are the ones that voted this tory government back in. The very one that has put the NHS in the very position it is now.

On second thoughts its probably a close run thing between Britain and the USA for the highest proportion of thickets.

Oh and Piers Morgan is absolutley loving this. Revelling in it.

The way I see it is that Boris and his cohorts know and keep telling us that we are 2 weeks behind Italy and Spain and will get worse for us yet is only going to introduce the next step in his plan to control the spread of the virus in 2 weeks. Why not get ahead of the game before its gets worse, bring the plan, curfew or whatever Italy and Spain are doing, forward now. Why wait until the NHS breaks down completely?

Free WiFi you say, that sounds like something I heard before Christmas from a bloke with a white beard

Crackpot idea, bit like a universal income the needy

No just for the over 70’s. I’m not sure it’s that crackpot to honest and it could really help those left alone for a long period of time. Even mobile phone companies stopping charging them for data for this period I’m sure families could sort most out with a device to keep them connected.

You could even set up a system were people could donate or loan unused handsets or devices. I’m sure most people want to do something to help others during this.

My Nana is 89 but still active and independent she’s out three or four times a week usually, the thought of her being on her own for a long period of time really worries me to be honest. This is something that could really help people like her.

Two weeks behind Italy, 9 days behind Spain. And they missed a golden chance to get ahead of the curve.
I've been saying here for a week to expect quarantine early this week and frankly I don't see how the blond bombshell can avoid it, and he has known that all along.

I suspect in the back of my mind that there is some twisted Brexit thinking going on behind this delay.
"We told them we'd give them their country back and here's a great example of our no longer having to follow [insert name of any intelligent nation] like sheep!"

New Zealand are ahead of the game, only 100 cases, no deaths in the country and just announced a four week lock down, no messing about, no waiting till the virus has taken hold, but they've got a thoroughly decent PM in Jacinda Ardern, Johnson still fannying around, no lock down as deaths double every three days.

PJ, I was being sarcastic, when this was mooted by the Labour Party, it was derided and myself as a Labour Party thought it wasn’t a policy winner, although a good idea

They will be a lot of people with limited access to broadband which can’t claim UC because all on line

Likewise, UC of 94 quid is fucking laughable, especially when spunkbubbles like Ian Duncan Smith claims 35 for breakfast

Ah ok.

Switzerland on the other hand is way behind the game. They escape the limelight because they're only a small country, but per capita they have the highest number of cases in the world (after midget states like Liechtenstein where a single case tips the balance). And guess what: no quarantine.
Madame Poolier's daughter lives there and is scared shitless even though the Swiss are a relatively disciplined bunch.

And you think this is true ?

It’s very true

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETsuakJVAAI ... name=small

His chief adviser said 250000 dying was worth the price, he’s a student of eugenics, he’s a fucking immoral c..u.n..t

When this is done, he should be slung into the big house for a long fucking time

And there it goes - absolutely perfect lockstep.

All along the line from "please don't go to the pub, no school closures are planned" to "we're shutting the schools" to "we're shutting the pubs" to "we're shutting you in". Every single announcement in lockstep.

A lot of people are critical of Mike Ashley keeping open Sports Direct but think about it, his place IS essential in these times, two words; wank socks.

Especially heightened by bog roll hoarders.

Also his massive tea mugs could help the National Grid. Expect a gong in the New Years honours list for kind hearted Mike.

I hope these people working from home aren't taking more than 30 mins for their unpaid dinner breaks.