[0762]

PHE this week issued a report which confirmed this week that people from ethnic minorities are at higher risk of dying from coronavirus. The report showed that age remains the biggest risk factor, while being male is another.

Labour's shadow equalities minister Marsha De Cordova called for an action plan, adding: "The government must not wait any longer to address underlying racial and socioeconomic injustices, so that no more lives are lost." Absolute garbage. She seems to be saying that BAME people cannot understand the basic premise that the best way to fight the virus is to be as healthy and/or safe as possible. I am a white elderly man and have potentially underlying health conditions and I manage to take extra precautions to protect myself. No guarantee in this bit I'm giving myself a better chance. At yesterday's press conference, a BBC reporter took the same attitude about BAME people, ie wait for the Government to do something

Surely BAME people should be encouraged to look after themselves. Whether Government or NHS , do it yourself as much as possible.

I have heard the same thing over here with regards to ethnic minorities being higher risk.  What I have yet to see are the reasons why this is the case?  I am guessing a certain amount of it is general health, poverty, lack of healthcare options (obviously a big problem here rather than the UK) and the fact that they are more likely in lower grade jobs such as checkout personnel at supermarkets or cleaners at hospitals, so have had to work throughout this pandemic.  But is there anything genetically that makes them more at risk or is it just lifestyle either by choice or circumstance?

I can add to this debate by saying that a high number of UK based ethnic men of Indian and Pakistani extraction fall under that high risk category mainly because many of them suffer from diabetes due to having a poor lifestyle, health wise. I wasn't aware of this phenomenon at all until discussing the issue with a more qualified member of my family who works in the NHS in an administrative capacity. It became clearer as more and more virus infections and consequent extreme effects were being recorded as well as an even higher risk age group of men who just didn't take care of themselves as well as they should.

[hibeejim21]

To be fair though matt its hard to know what your mind is because it seems like its all over the shop. You more than anyone on here has argued with passion the case for brexit and argued the farage/daily mail narratives even when they were shown to be bullshit.

I'm not trying to have a go at you, I just genuinely don't know what your trying to say. If I was as eurosceptic as you seem to be no way would I have voted remain.

And its not particularly Neo-liberalism thats the problem here.....The EU is less Neo-liberal than the conservatives, in that it at least tries to make big organisations pay tax and look after the environment. Anyway even if that wasn't so leaving the EU wouldn't change the course of the ship. If anything it would make us more vulnerable to neoliberal pressures.

Yes I want us to leave the EU but not cut full on ties with them, we still need to trade with them and have a relationship on good terms. I never argued the Farage and Daily Mail narratives. I don't like the direction that the EU is going in, they constantly keep going on about further integration and expanding the membership. I don't like the political aspect of the EU, the red tape and bureaucracy. I believe it should be a commonwealth, a commonwealth of Europe. I very much dislike the behaviour of the European Central Bank and the way they treated southern European countries especially Greece and Italy and forced austerity on them. They also have pro-competition laws where it can make nationalisation difficult. The EU are lobbied by multi-national companies as is our Government and Parliament.

That view of Brexit was never heard as it was Johnson, Rees-Mogg, Gove and Farage whose view of Brexit was heard by the media and the people. I guess they never cared about those things I wrote above as with them it was about turning us into a low tax, low regulation offshore country.

The EU has a president and a militarised police force, it's pushing for it's own army, helped stir up the crisis in Ukraine with it's expansionism. The single currency has been a disaster for millions of people across and Europe. They called the Greeks lazy and forced them to make cuts to there public services in exchange for more loans. José Manuel Barroso when he was the European Commission president said "I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire." A EU superstate would suit the US, it's multi-nationals and it's military as one leader would be easier to deal with then 50 separate one's, the same argument would go for a single currency as well.

To sum it up. I would like the EU to go back to being just a trading bloc with freedom of movement without the political side of it or the red tape or bureaucracy. I don't want to see the EU break up as a whole or for countries to go nationalistic like we had during the World Wars.

By the way I voted Remain because I thought the whole thing could be reformed and the fact that I didn't trust the tories and still don't. I am not on my own with this view either, I know several people who are eurosceptic who voted Remain. I don't agree with how the Tories have handled Brexit and they will make a mess of this country and turn us into a banana republic.

I don't like the political aspect of the EU, the red tape and bureaucracy.


This was one of the lines that the leave campaign used extensively in their campaign. 'Were being held back by all this red tape' Then the BBC interviewer questions some dopey xxxx behind a stall somewhere down south and gets him to confirm it ,all suitably indignant, but rarely asking the question how it affects them materially. And when they did they usually got a massive 'errrrr' or some other xxxx nonsense about bananas. Its totally meaningless.

Of course what farage,banks and co meant in their fury against this stifling 'red tape' was getting rid of any kind of standards and accountability so they can flood the UK with cheap garbage and sidestep employment and environmental laws. Doesn't matter to them if it damages peoples health or not.

I could also point out the instances where the EU has actually reduced the amount of red tape and bureaucracy across the 28...say in patent law for instance but that's for another time, I've got to work shortly.

In short, much of the protections and safeguards we enjoy today are enshrined in bureaucracy and 'red tape'.

[0762]

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/no-european-le...20901.html

The "tide has finally turned" on Johnson and a shit, corrupt Tory govt??? Popularity plummeting and no f##### wonder!!! I notice up here in Scotland there is also a surge, following the Cummings fiasco, in Scottish voters who would vote for Scot indy!! I still can't believe it is under 60% - f###### bizarre when one considers the disrespectful shit and crass governance that emanates from this Tory govt. Also it is too late for the "tide turning" in respect of the Brexit conspiracy being foiled but hopefully it will cause massive ructions in the country when these fanatics "get their way" and force a no deal Brexit on a country that is heading into recession no matter what assurances are being said from these serial liars!! Still too late all the same - MASSIVE DAMAGE GONNA BE INFLICTED BY THESE C####!!
I'd like to see Scotland/the Scot govt go above the heads of these Tory nutters and apply directly to the EU for an extension to Brexit for Scotland as our population didn't vote for it and we know what damage it is gonna inflict on our economy, working practices and social welfare up here!! Bring the two country differences to a head and f### them!! It obviously won't happen but I'd love to see it materialise for the good of our devolved country but also knock these Tory bastards out of their "comfort zone"!

[theo_luddite]

The "tide has finally turned" on Johnson and a shit, corrupt Tory govt???

We can only hope - for now. Andrew Marr started off like he was having a go at the Tory fuckwits his morning but unfortunately backed down when the bullshit and bluster offered as a piss poor set of answers was all that was forthcoming. Still, you aren't going to get this bunch of idiots to admit to doing anything wrong are you, even though the evidence is there for all to see?

Why didn't you make incoming arrivals at airports etc self-isolate earlier - official answer - we didn't have enough staff to track and trace them. Strange that the likes of Greece and Portugal did it and have a few hundred deaths between them when their economies have been kicked around like footballs by the EU for a few years???

Real answer - it would have been done by the National 'Elf service and Local Gov't officers, who would be far too good at this but we'd have had to pay for it and (ahem) we, or our paymasters, like Serco, and a bunch of bent but far too big and corrupt so called auditing companies wouldn't have the chance to make any brass out of it.

So we delayed all this a while until we had a World Class (=yet another total piece of Government shit that could have been obtained for free from Apple and Google and probably worked) Track and Trace App available and our paymasters could hire a bunch of untrained (and by the sounds of it unused) bunch of out of work folk on minimum wage or less (to keep the unemployment rate down a bit) and we can pay them  1000's as much as it would have cost in the first place to to do this wonderful World Class (sic) job.

Meanwhile Johnson and Co. continues to murder the innocent British public at World Class rates. Don't forget which lazy bastard announced to the world there was big money to be made from this. No it wasn't the fat lazy useless bastard that calls himself Prime Minister, it was this lanky, skinny useless lazy bastard who now wants all MP's back in 'The House' because their (In)Glorious Leader is getting totally panned at every PM's Question Time.

[0762]

Good comments and I'd just add that it irritates me to read and listen to comments coming from folk with words like "bumbling" and "Bojo" or "Boris" being used. These Tory f####rs are incompetent (not bumbling!), the PM is called Johnson, he is not our friend and he is a lying, law-breaking Prime Minister!! This govt are not "buffoons", they are deliberately appalling people who don't care for the country or the constituents they ostensibly represent. I believe calling them buffoons or Boris etc plays into their cynical narrative - they are "friendly terms". All jolly larks eh!! No! That is the image they wanna project, the Woodhouse "how-bad-can-THIS-bad-guy-be-look-at-him" cloak behind which they hide. As for Rees-Mogg? He isn't some 18th century remnant. He is a vile, poisonous man who is just a middle-class Tory cosplaying as Lord Snooty! And every time someone makes a joke about him being some top-hatted toff from another century, his deceptive little cosplay cloak works - it is a deflection!!! This is a govt with a breathtaking contempt for parliament, for the devolved assemblies and for the world at large - we need to stop "playing their game"!
Journos, other MPs and us need to stop "falling into this trap". How we use language MATTERS and the more that lotsa people use their language, the more they can get away with.

[hibeejim21]

It truly amazes me how people can get themselves worked up about a statue of some xxxx monster being hauled down, or some hoodies being looted from H and M but go straight to the next page when it comes to black people being murdered by police or discriminated against.

Its 2020 for gods sake.

[0762]

It is part of this "narrative of deflection" that I previously mentioned Jim. Right-wing c#### like Patel, Trump, Johnson, Gove, Farage etc thrive in addressing some form of violence, looting, negativity attached to protests and use the technique of tarring everyone ("look at ALL these terrorists" or similar slurs) when they are actually referring, in this case, to a very small minority of the BLM movement/protesters!! That is how these morons operate and they should be challenged in the way that the bbc's Emily Maitliss did it last week to a Trump propagandist (a disingenuous black guy btw!) with a cutting interjection, "Wait a minute, you are not getting away with that untrue statement"! The guy tried to rhetorically insinuate that all US protesters were looters!! She rightly "put him down" on that score.

[theo_luddite]

I'd just add that it irritates me to read and listen to comments coming from folk with words like "bumbling" and "Bojo" or "Boris" being used.

I prefer to call him Bodgit, because bodging is all the useless bastard is any good at.



He tells more lies than Del Boy when he's darn the market.

[hibeejim21]

Just to add insult to injury Mr Brexit himself, Nigel Farage, was on tv this morning describing the 'Black Lives Matter' movement as like the Taliban and a "Marxist organisation". This is the mentality behind Brexit, and the thinking of the people who are working Boris behind the scenes. They don't give a xxxx, just get him to lie through his teeth to the people.

UN: Austerity has caused worrying levels of child poverty in the UK.
Tories: Nah we don't accept that.

Irish President: You are risking a border between NI and the UK in the Irish Sea.
Tories: Nah we don't accept that.

ONS: UK has the highest death rate from covid outside the US.
Tories: Nah we don't accept that.

UK people: Cummings has broken the lockdown!!!
Tories: Nah we don't accept that.

And on and on and on it goes. Gaslighting on a massive scale. Whats really happening here is the final stages of the tory rollback of Atlee's post war consensus. In its place ? well crumbs from Trumpo's table. Probably GM crumbs too. Starting off by making our food industry compatible with the USA and incompatible with Europes and the introduction of US Pharma and big business into the NHS.

The people of this country are in for one helluva reality check.

[St Charles Owl]

Just to add insult to injury Mr Brexit himself, Nigel Farage, was on tv this morning describing the 'Black Lives Matter' movement as like the Taliban and a "Marxist organisation". This is the mentality behind Brexit, and the thinking of the people who are working Boris behind the scenes. They don't give a xxxx, just get him to lie through his teeth to the people.

You are starting to see the same rhetoric over here from the Republicans about the whole BLM movement, and of course trump's base is lapping it up as per usual!!! I do think its a mistake to focus on defunding the police as a lot of protesters are saying at the moment. The Dems have put forward a police reform bill and so far have take the sensible stance of staying away from the word defund. The Republicans are having a field day with that one and added to the lies about BLM its still on a knife edge as we head into the election.