Our country is on its knee's

[Lancasterclaret]

Neither do I, didn't vote leave and I'm not a right wing racist.

I'm also not a sanctimonious, self adulating egomaniac but I suspect more than one on here are.

Ouch!

You have a point with the sanctimonious but not with the rest!

[Tread Warily]

Everytime i look at the UK something else has become a problem , it's just one thing after another really .

When something goes wrong in your house,it is guaranteed, 2 more things will follow in quick succession,
to make it a hat-trick.

[dsr]

Better not get our hopes up...seems like they lose suites in Transit
Screenshot_20221214_132105_Facebook.jpg

Like I said this country is on its Knees

I'd have thought it would be loss of a table that meant having to eat off the floor ...

[beddie]

Talking of knees, has anybody got a spare one? the Hospital Surgeon has just told me he’s put me on the list but the current waiting time is 2 years.

[Lancasterclaret]

Talking of knees, has anybody got a spare one? the Hospital Surgeon has just told me he’s put me on the list but the current waiting time is 2 years.

**** that mate

[beddie]

**** that mate

Exactly. I had one done in 2013, the waiting list then was 8/12 weeks. I received a call after 4 weeks for admittance a week later. A bit of difference since then. I’m just hoping I’ll still be around in 2 years.

[Rowls]

Thing is, Rowls, we did much the same here in CZ, but we seem to not be quite so screwed. wonder what the possible difference could be over here in Europe.....?

Interesting Zizkov.

The UK boasted it had "the most genrous furlough scheme in the world" and they paid for it by printing new money. Maybe there's a link between the amount of new money printed and inflation?

As for your assertion that the CZ (or EU) economy isn't "quite so screwed" I have to confess I'm not up to date on the specifics of the Czech economy. However, the EU as a wider economic bloc is experiencing pretty much the same problems as the UK following the lockdowns of their citizens and economy.

[aggi]

Interesting Zizkov.

The UK boasted it had "the most genrous furlough scheme in the world" and they paid for it by printing new money. Maybe there's a link between the amount of new money printed and inflation?

As for your assertion that the CZ (or EU) economy isn't "quite so screwed" I have to confess I'm not up to date on the specifics of the Czech economy. However, the EU as a wider economic bloc is experiencing pretty much the same problems as the UK following the lockdowns of their citizens and economy.

It also boasted it had a world beating track and trace system. I would take those proclamations with a pinch of salt.

[Rowls]

It also boasted it had a world beating track and trace system. I would take those proclamations with a pinch of salt.

I don't recall any boasts about the track and trace system. Ministers spoke in defence of the system (and the amounts of tax payer's money they spaffed on it) but I genuinely don't recall anyone claiming it was a world-beating system.

Also, the effectiveness of these systems in controlling aerosol spread viruses isn't something I think has been proven to be at all effective.

The only thing not in doubt is that the UK spaffed considerably more sums on this particular waste of money than most other countries did. This would fit very well into my explanation about the UK being screwed because it decided to spaff tax-payer's money left, right and centre and everywhere in between.

[Volvoclaret]

Talking of knees, has anybody got a spare one? the Hospital Surgeon has just told me he’s put me on the list but the current waiting time is 2 years.

No spare knees, the England team keep taking them

[Taffy on the wing]

I don't recall any boasts about the track and trace system. Ministers spoke in defence of the system (and the amounts of tax payer's money they spaffed on it) but I genuinely don't recall anyone claiming it was a world-beating system.

Also, the effectiveness of these systems in controlling aerosol spread viruses isn't something I think has been proven to be at all effective.

The only thing not in doubt is that the UK spaffed considerably more sums on this particular waste of money than most other countries did. This would fit very well into my explanation about the UK being screwed because it decided to spaff tax-payer's money left, right and centre and everywhere in between.

You forgot to mention .....most of the Spaffing went to "Friends of Boris's Cabinet members".

[aggi]

I don't recall any boasts about the track and trace system. Ministers spoke in defence of the system (and the amounts of tax payer's money they spaffed on it) but I genuinely don't recall anyone claiming it was a world-beating system.

Also, the effectiveness of these systems in controlling aerosol spread viruses isn't something I think has been proven to be at all effective.

The only thing not in doubt is that the UK spaffed considerably more sums on this particular waste of money than most other countries did. This would fit very well into my explanation about the UK being screwed because it decided to spaff tax-payer's money left, right and centre and everywhere in between.

Well, no-one other than the prime minister.

[Rowls]

You forgot to mention .....most of the Spaffing went to "Friends of Boris's Cabinet members".

Obviously well-connected people were in a position of power to potentially take advantage of the situation.

Taking advantage of the situation doesn't necessarily equate to any wrong doing. If you own a PPE company and know the health secretary who happens to be desperate to purchase PPE what would you do?

Let's re-phrase it: Will you ramp up production of PPE to "Help Save the NHS"? Of course you would and if you make a profit then so be it.

The mass panic the scare-mongering induced benefitted lots of people. That was one of the problems with lockdown and why so many people acquiesced so easily as their basic human rights and freedoms were stripped away.

So much was done wrong during the covid pandemic but we won't find out for a while. If the opposition had done their consitutional job of actually opposing the government instead of egging them on we would have had a lot more scrutiny. One of the problems was that the only people attempting to scrutinize the government and hold them to account were a tiny bunch of back benchers.

[Taffy on the wing]

Obviously well-connected people were in a position of power to potentially take advantage of the situation.

Taking advantage of the situation doesn't necessarily equate to any wrong doing. If you own a PPE company and know the health secretary who happens to be desperate to purchase PPE what would you do?

Let's re-phrase it: Will you ramp up production of PPE to "Help Save the NHS"? Of course you would and if you make a profit then so be it.

The mass panic the scare-mongering induced benefitted lots of people. That was one of the problems with lockdown and why so many people acquiesced so easily as their basic human rights and freedoms were stripped away.

So much was done wrong during the covid pandemic but we won't find out for a while. If the opposition had done their consitutional job of actually opposing the government instead of egging them on we would have had a lot more scrutiny. One of the problems was that the only people attempting to scrutinize the government and hold them to account were a tiny bunch of back benchers.

THERE'S NONE SO BLIND AS THOSE WHO WILL NOT SEE!

[Spijed]

Obviously well-connected people were in a position of power to potentially take advantage of the situation.

Taking advantage of the situation doesn't necessarily equate to any wrong doing. If you own a PPE company and know the health secretary who happens to be desperate to purchase PPE what would you do?

Let's re-phrase it: Will you ramp up production of PPE to "Help Save the NHS"? Of course you would and if you make a profit then so be it.

There is one thing making a profit and then there is down right greed.

I doubt many shed a tear with what happened to Owen Patterson, for example.

[Rowls]

There is one thing making a profit and then there is down right greed.

I doubt many shed a tear with what happened to Owen Patterson, for example.

Making a profit is distinct from greed, certainly. But one is subjective and the other is a simple sum. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I posed the question earlier, if you owned a PPE company would you refuse to take on a contract because it might make a profit? Even if you could "save the NHS" by providing, for example, plastic face masks?

Even if the said masks do little or nothing to prevent the spread of covid, the clamour to purchase such items was driven by the politicians who ramped up the fear.

Were you calling on the government to do everything it could at the time to secure these products? Almost everybody I know was in a state of fervour that this is the action the government must undertake and undertake it they did.

[Nori1958]

Making a profit is distinct from greed, certainly. But one is subjective and the other is a simple sum. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I posed the question earlier, if you owned a PPE company would you refuse to take on a contract because it might make a profit? Even if you could "save the NHS" by providing, for example, plastic face masks?

Even if the said masks do little or nothing to prevent the spread of covid, the clamour to purchase such items was driven by the politicians who ramped up the fear.

Were you calling on the government to do everything it could at the time to secure these products? Almost everybody I know was in a state of fervour that this is the action the government must undertake and undertake it they did.

Imagine if they hadn't bought any PPE, because it would cost too much

The people complaining about how much it cost, would be the same people who would have complained about not buying anything.

[Rowls]

Imagine if they hadn't bought any PPE, because it would cost too much

The people complaining about how much it cost, would be the same people who would have complained about not buying anything.

This is true.

The worst of it is that there's no evidence that any of the PPE bought was effective in controlling the virus. In fact, there's lots of evidence to suggest it was pretty much worthless.

There's no excuse for anyone who might have defrauded the government over the matter - they ought to be prosecuted.

But if the government wanted people to create a scenario where it was easy to profiteer and defraud them then they succeeded with aplomb. And everybody* egged them on as they did so because they'd been whipped up into a state of fear by government propaganda.

* The vast majority of people, including His Majesty's Opposition and leader, Sir Kier Starmer.

[evensteadiereddie]

The problem was, and still remains, is that vast sums were pi$$Ed up the wall on inadequate equipment and, funnily enough, to the benefit of family and associates of people in government.
The whole debacle stank, those crooks took advantage of the government's weakness, stupidity and openness to corruption and, astonishingly, some folk even now are too stupid to think it's wrong.

[Lancasterclaret]

Public enquiry into the handling of the pandemic

Public enquiry into the PPE scandal

Only way to be sure, and if it turns out that Rowls and his facebook conspiracy mates were right, then at least we all know for next time

[Steve1956]

From the late delivery of a sofa.....to a public enquiry into a PPE scandal,that could only happen on this unique and absolutely bonkers football forum...please don't ever change guys
I love this place

[SouthLondonexile]

Our Country is in a poor state. It has suffered from a lack of government for over a year ever since partygate and from the disaster of the Truss days in office.
So many things have been left to drift eg Social Care, Transport system in the North of England…. I could go on.

[Nori1958]

From the late delivery of a sofa.....to a public enquiry into a PPE scandal,that could only happen on this unique and absolutely bonkers football forum...please don't ever change guys
I love this place

You started it

[Steve1956]

You started it

Sorry

[Rowls]

Public enquiry into the handling of the pandemic

Public enquiry into the PPE scandal

Only way to be sure, and if it turns out that Rowls and his facebook conspiracy mates were right, then at least we all know for next time

I really don't use facebook for anything other than messaging people and if you really cared about discovering the truth of what was effective and what wasn't you would brand scepticism as a "conspiracy".

For the record, I don't believe in a conspiracy. I simply believe the government screwed up massively and I think the continuing excess deaths, the growing cancer deaths, the massive backlogs to NHS waiting lists, rampant inflation, an extra 1million not working, the recession, children missing vital education, increases in mental health problems and whole host of other problems are a direct result of the lockdown.

But at least we "saved the NHS" and prevented a lot of deaths, eh? Comparing how countries with strict lockdowns like the UK fared against countries with much lighter touch measures (Sweden) or even no measures at all (Florida, Texas) doesn't appear to show that the lockdown achieved much at all. It looks like factors such as population age, obesity levels etc were key.

There was no cost/benefit analysis done (not even a flawed one) and the countries who continue to restrict their citizens liberty (China etc) and who insist on a "zero covid" policy are looking increasingly ridiculous. They're like Canute commanding the tide.

That's not to mention the civil liberties that were swept aside. Who's to say that we couldn't end up like China? After all, they were the model we based our lockdown.

All it took for the people of the UK to whoop this all up and insist on their liberties being swept away, their economy crashed and their lives thrown up in the air was for Boris Johnson to stand behind a lectern with some stripy yellow and black tape on it and to tell them they were "saving the NHS". If you turn off your cognitive faculties, you risk having your liberties taken away.

If you want a little reminder about how ridiculous the whole thing was, then think back to police helicopters (how much does it cost to run a helicopter BTW?) hovering over dog walkers and yelling at them to go home on pain of unspeakably large fines. Or perhaps you might want to look at the arbitrary nature of the rules, even within the UK. In England it was safe to be within 2 metres of somebody, but in Scotland it was 1 metre. That's so stupid it's almost beyond satire. How would Spinal Tap have phrased it? "In Scotland you're 1 metre safer."

Everybody but everybody think that propaganda is something that the Nazis did and that they'd see through it. But we've just had a massive countrywide experiment showing that wasn't the case - virtually everybody went along with it. Have you seen your neighbour going out for two walks? Dob them in to the police. The police were inundated with this nonsense and they went around investigating these "crimes". The public lapped it up.

I don't want to see a repeat of any of this ever again. It's not funny. It's deadly serious. I happen to think it was the biggest policy mistake in the UK in the my lifetime by a margin ineffibly large.

By all means, everybody is entitled to their own opinion on what the lockdown possibly achieved. You might look at evidence and think it was worth it. But if you care about civil liberties, freedom, children's education, the NHS, the economy, unemployment, cancer deaths, etc then you should at very least stop labelling people questioning what happened as "conspiracy theorists" and be prepared to exercise a healthy degree of discernment about what we did.

For most people, that's going to take an uncomfortable amount of self-reflection.

[Rowls]

Our Country is in a poor state. It has suffered from a lack of government for over a year ever since partygate and from the disaster of the Truss days in office.
So many things have been left to drift eg Social Care, Transport system in the North of England…. I could go on.

What we're suffering from is the effects of all the lockdown policies.

[Carport]

We ordered a new suite on November 1st and was told it would be in the distribution centre on the 25th of November...nothing happened....got an email from them this morning and it went like this.....

Hello Stephen, 
 
I have taken the time to look in to your order and can see it was due in on the 25/11/2022 unfortunately our Uk suppliers are facing a shortage in interior foam which has resulted in a delay we are hoping to have your order in soon and will be in touch once it comes in to your local distribution centre.

Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous in your life?

From Micro chips to interior foam it would be interesting to hear what other ridiculous excuses these people expect us to believe.

There will be a shortage of Turkey fat and Brussel Sprouts next.

Plurals can never be plural’s. Knees not knee’s. I know I’m being picky!

[Rowls]

The problem was, and still remains, is that vast sums were pi$$Ed up the wall on inadequate equipment and, funnily enough, to the benefit of family and associates of people in government.
The whole debacle stank, those crooks took advantage of the government's weakness, stupidity and openness to corruption and, astonishingly, some folk even now are too stupid to think it's wrong.

It's not that the equipment was "inadequate", eddie. The equipment doesn't protect against covid.

I'd have to agree that profiteering stinks. But profiteering is not against the law. Fraud is, yes, but profiteering isn't.

If we want to avoid a repeat, we'll need to look into why it happened - why did the government create the perfect conditions for fraud and profiteering?

[Steve1956]

Plurals can never be plural’s. Knees not knee’s. I know I’m being picky!

It's been pointed out Carport,I'm blaming predictive text....do you believe me?

[Spijed]

why did the government create the perfect conditions for fraud and profiteering?

In a number of cases so friends could benefit to the tune of many millions.

[Nori1958]

Sorry

No probs, nothing like a good debate, whilst it's allowed

[Rowls]

No probs, nothing like a good debate, whilst it's allowed

It does tend to get heated when apostrophes are involved.

[Lancasterclaret]

I really don't use facebook for anything other than messaging people and if you really cared about discovering the truth of what was effective and what wasn't you would brand scepticism as a "conspiracy".

For the record, I don't believe in a conspiracy. I simply believe the government screwed up massively and I think the continuing excess deaths, the growing cancer deaths, the massive backlogs to NHS waiting lists, rampant inflation, an extra 1million not working, the recession, children missing vital education, increases in mental health problems and whole host of other problems are a direct result of the lockdown.

But at least we "saved the NHS" and prevented a lot of deaths, eh? Comparing how countries with strict lockdowns like the UK fared against countries with much lighter touch measures (Sweden) or even no measures at all (Florida, Texas) doesn't appear to show that the lockdown achieved much at all. It looks like factors such as population age, obesity levels etc were key.

There was no cost/benefit analysis done (not even a flawed one) and the countries who continue to restrict their citizens liberty (China etc) and who insist on a "zero covid" policy are looking increasingly ridiculous. They're like Canute commanding the tide.

That's not to mention the civil liberties that were swept aside. Who's to say that we couldn't end up like China? After all, they were the model we based our lockdown.

All it took for the people of the UK to whoop this all up and insist on their liberties being swept away, their economy crashed and their lives thrown up in the air was for Boris Johnson to stand behind a lectern with some stripy yellow and black tape on it and to tell them they were "saving the NHS". If you turn off your cognitive faculties, you risk having your liberties taken away.

If you want a little reminder about how ridiculous the whole thing was, then think back to police helicopters (how much does it cost to run a helicopter BTW?) hovering over dog walkers and yelling at them to go home on pain of unspeakably large fines. Or perhaps you might want to look at the arbitrary nature of the rules, even within the UK. In England it was safe to be within 2 metres of somebody, but in Scotland it was 1 metre. That's so stupid it's almost beyond satire. How would Spinal Tap have phrased it? "In Scotland you're 1 metre safer."

Everybody but everybody think that propaganda is something that the Nazis did and that they'd see through it. But we've just had a massive countrywide experiment showing that wasn't the case - virtually everybody went along with it. Have you seen your neighbour going out for two walks? Dob them in to the police. The police were inundated with this nonsense and they went around investigating these "crimes". The public lapped it up.

I don't want to see a repeat of any of this ever again. It's not funny. It's deadly serious. I happen to think it was the biggest policy mistake in the UK in the my lifetime by a margin ineffibly large.

By all means, everybody is entitled to their own opinion on what the lockdown possibly achieved. You might look at evidence and think it was worth it. But if you care about civil liberties, freedom, children's education, the NHS, the economy, unemployment, cancer deaths, etc then you should at very least stop labelling people questioning what happened as "conspiracy theorists" and be prepared to exercise a healthy degree of discernment about what we did.

For most people, that's going to take an uncomfortable amount of self-reflection.

I was being slightly facetious Rowls so don't sweat it

Lots of stuff could have been done differently I'm sure, but a public enquiry into everything to do with it with everyone being honest (maybe an immunity from prosecution?) would certainly make sure that we'd know for next time (and there will be a next time)

I have no idea if you are part of the millions of frankly bonkers conspiracy theorists who are still going strong about the pandemic, and I've no idea why you would be, but the fact that such groups exist should be terrifying for us all

[Bosscat]

I wonder if we could stick politics in a

Ford Transit.jpg (17 KiB) Viewed 2742 times

Things get lost in Transit

[fatboy47]

I really don't use facebook for anything other than messaging people and if you really cared about discovering the truth of what was effective and what wasn't you would brand scepticism as a "conspiracy".

For the record, I don't believe in a conspiracy. I simply believe the government screwed up massively and I think the continuing excess deaths, the growing cancer deaths, the massive backlogs to NHS waiting lists, rampant inflation, an extra 1million not working, the recession, children missing vital education, increases in mental health problems and whole host of other problems are a direct result of the lockdown.

But at least we "saved the NHS" and prevented a lot of deaths, eh? Comparing how countries with strict lockdowns like the UK fared against countries with much lighter touch measures (Sweden) or even no measures at all (Florida, Texas) doesn't appear to show that the lockdown achieved much at all. It looks like factors such as population age, obesity levels etc were key.

There was no cost/benefit analysis done (not even a flawed one) and the countries who continue to restrict their citizens liberty (China etc) and who insist on a "zero covid" policy are looking increasingly ridiculous. They're like Canute commanding the tide.

That's not to mention the civil liberties that were swept aside. Who's to say that we couldn't end up like China? After all, they were the model we based our lockdown.

All it took for the people of the UK to whoop this all up and insist on their liberties being swept away, their economy crashed and their lives thrown up in the air was for Boris Johnson to stand behind a lectern with some stripy yellow and black tape on it and to tell them they were "saving the NHS". If you turn off your cognitive faculties, you risk having your liberties taken away.

If you want a little reminder about how ridiculous the whole thing was, then think back to police helicopters (how much does it cost to run a helicopter BTW?) hovering over dog walkers and yelling at them to go home on pain of unspeakably large fines. Or perhaps you might want to look at the arbitrary nature of the rules, even within the UK. In England it was safe to be within 2 metres of somebody, but in Scotland it was 1 metre. That's so stupid it's almost beyond satire. How would Spinal Tap have phrased it? "In Scotland you're 1 metre safer."

Everybody but everybody think that propaganda is something that the Nazis did and that they'd see through it. But we've just had a massive countrywide experiment showing that wasn't the case - virtually everybody went along with it. Have you seen your neighbour going out for two walks? Dob them in to the police. The police were inundated with this nonsense and they went around investigating these "crimes". The public lapped it up.

I don't want to see a repeat of any of this ever again. It's not funny. It's deadly serious. I happen to think it was the biggest policy mistake in the UK in the my lifetime by a margin ineffibly large.

By all means, everybody is entitled to their own opinion on what the lockdown possibly achieved. You might look at evidence and think it was worth it. But if you care about civil liberties, freedom, children's education, the NHS, the economy, unemployment, cancer deaths, etc then you should at very least stop labelling people questioning what happened as "conspiracy theorists" and be prepared to exercise a healthy degree of discernment about what we did.

For most people, that's going to take an uncomfortable amount of self-reflection.

Great post, and almost totally concur.

I tend to think, though, that Johnson's instinct would have been to impose as few draconian restrictions as possible on people's freedoms but was left with almost no alternative in political terms.

[Lancasterclaret]

"Immunity from prosecution wouldn't include those that profited massively from faulty PPE btw!

[Rowls]

I was being slightly facetious Rowls so don't sweat it

Lots of stuff could have been done differently I'm sure, but a public enquiry into everything to do with it with everyone being honest (maybe an immunity from prosecution?) would certainly make sure that we'd know for next time (and there will be a next time)

I have no idea if you are part of the millions of frankly bonkers conspiracy theorists who are still going strong about the pandemic, and I've no idea why you would be, but the fact that such groups exist should be terrifying for us all

It's nice to have a healthy and open debate about things Lancs.

But on a serious note, we ought to be careful what we label a "conspiracy" because it's often an attempt to discredit something. And we ought to keep an open mind as to what happened. The stakes are, after all, incredibly high. We're genuinely talking about our fundamental liberties and our prosperity here.

At the start of the pandemic, the idea that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory was labelled a "conspiracy". It's now increasingly accepted as the truth of what happened.

The "truth" in those days was the virus had somehow spawned itself into being because somebody ate a bat.

Worth bearing this in mind when we label things as "conspiracies". I know which of those two theories sounds absurd to me.

Talking of absurdity, does everybody remember reading which country recently made it illegal to have sex with people?

"Which country is that, Rowls?" Is it one of those whacky Islamic theocracies in the Middle East who we constantly lecture about their human rights? Is it Qatar? Indonesia?

Nope.

It was the UK.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 42171.html

[Steve1956]

I'm just watching "Beyond the Yorkshire Farm"
Clive is building a dry stone wall....I bet none of you clever buggers dissing my use of an apostrophe could build one of those....but then again they will probably say they could.

[Rowls]

Great post, and almost totally concur.

I tend to think, though, that Johnson's instinct would have been to impose as few draconian restrictions as possible on people's freedoms but was left with almost no alternative in political terms.

He did have alternatives. But fear is a powerful driver. In fact, it is the most powerful driver of human behaviour.

One of the people who must bear a good deal of the burden is Professor Neil Ferguson and his apocolyptic predictions.

[Lancasterclaret]

Great post, and almost totally concur.

I tend to think, though, that Johnson's instinct would have been to impose as few draconian restrictions as possible on people's freedoms but was left with almost no alternative in political terms.

I think the situation in Bergamo in Italy showed what happens when the virus ran unchecked at the start and Johnson was left with no choice, or he'd never have done it

I think people who concentrate on the damage the lockdowns do tend to forget that

Can I also say that if you knew or had close family members who were incredibly vulnerable because of medical conditions then that certainly affected how you behaved

But the outdoor benefits for everyone should have been relaxed pretty much at the start on reflection

But thats just my opinion, and I'm not an expert so I may well be wrong on that!

[Lancasterclaret]

It's nice to have a healthy and open debate about things Lancs.

But on a serious note, we ought to be careful what we label a "conspiracy" because it's often an attempt to discredit something. And we ought to keep an open mind as to what happened. The stakes are, after all, incredibly high. We're genuinely talking about our fundamental liberties and our prosperity here.

At the start of the pandemic, the idea that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory was labelled a "conspiracy". It's now increasingly accepted as the truth of what happened.

The "truth" in those days was the virus had somehow spawned itself into being because somebody ate a bat.

Worth bearing this in mind when we label things as "conspiracies". I know which of those two theories sounds absurd to me.

Talking of absurdity, does everybody remember reading which country recently made it illegal to have sex with people?

"Which country is that, Rowls?" Is it one of those whacky Islamic theocracies in the Middle East who we constantly lecture about their human rights? Is it Qatar? Indonesia?

Nope.

It was the UK.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 42171.html

A conspiracy to me is a bunch of people with no qualifications telling people with experience and qualifications what is and isn't a worldwide pandemic

I know I've not got those qualifications, and I know you haven't

[JohnMcGreal]

Obviously well-connected people were in a position of power to potentially take advantage of the situation.

Taking advantage of the situation doesn't necessarily equate to any wrong doing. If you own a PPE company and know the health secretary who happens to be desperate to purchase PPE what would you do?

Let's re-phrase it: Will you ramp up production of PPE to "Help Save the NHS"? Of course you would and if you make a profit then so be it.

A good number of the biggest contracts were awarded to people who didn't own PPE companies, Rowls, they went to shameless opportunists who literally created brand new companies from scratch in order to act as a middleman for the import of PPE, at an obscene markup.

The fact that some of these people were well connected to government ministers shows the level of corruption at work. They basically stole billions of pounds (collectively) from the British tax payer. Rishi Sunak as Chancellor conceded there was no way for the Treasury to recover around £9 billion lost to fraud during the contract award process.

It's disgraceful. He's in no position to lecture the public about what can and can't be afforded.

[Bosscat]

I'm just watching "Beyond the Yorkshire Farm"
Clive is building a dry stone wall....I bet none of you clever buggers dissing my use of an apostrophe could build one of those....but then again they will probably say they could.

Bloody dead right ... Drystone walling is an artform ... my m8 Danny who lives in LP dies it for a living and its a dark art akin to wizardry

[Lancasterclaret]

I am deeply suspicious of people who act with total knowledge of stuff they have no experience of

Not just the pandemic btw, one of the reasons I got quite annoyed with being told that I didn't know what I was talking about with regards to NI and the EU back in the day regarding road haulage and sea freight was that was what I did for a living, and they did not, but they thought their belief that everything would be great trumped actual knowledge about the subject

Turns out it didn't, and I'd be very wary of calling out any infectious disease experts because of that

[1882Clarets1882]

The collateral damage of the lockdown, on the economy, on children and their education, the NHS , on the national debt, on people's mental health , shows there should never be another lockdown. Mainly because, they don't actually work and we should've ignored those politically motivated cranks in SAGE and gone along with the established WHO advice on dealing with pandemics instead of following the brutal Chinese communist regimes approach.

Some of those ministers (including the Scots and Welsh) who continued with lockdown after the initial wave in spring 2020 should be behind bars. All of the decisions were nodded on by the opposition mind, they were no better.

[Steve1956]

Bloody dead right ... Drystone walling is an artform ... my m8 Danny who lives in LP dies it for a living and its a dark art akin to wizardry

Everyman Jack on here will be an expert on dry stone walling on here BC ...just wait and see!

[Rowls]

A conspiracy to me is a bunch of people with no qualifications telling people with experience and qualifications what is and isn't a worldwide pandemic

I know I've not got those qualifications, and I know you haven't

That's a daft definition of a conspiracy if you ask me.

A conspiracy is a false idea that gains traction because of some kind of deliberate deception.

It has nothing to do with qualifications.

[1882Clarets1882]

Lot of talk about "conspiracy theories" on this thread. Does anyone have any going spare ? I've used all mine up. They became reality......

[Bosscat]

Bloody dead right ... Drystone walling is an artform ... my m8 Danny who lives in LP does it for a living and its a dark art akin to wizardry

Edit

[Lancasterclaret]

That's a daft definition of a conspiracy if you ask me.

A conspiracy is a false idea that gains traction because of some kind of deliberate deception.

It has nothing to do with qualifications.

It has everything to do with qualifications and experience

You are telling people that they need self reflection

We all do if we believe that experts in viral diseases don't know more than Frank from accounts