[spireitematt]

Thats a bit unfair matt. The reason it was in parliament today was because of labour, Starmer brought it up at the last PMQs and the party have campaigned for it.

What Rashford has done is a great job in using his social status to increase the pressure on the gov, without him I doubt it would have passed parliament because Boris would have whipped the majority from his MPs. I'm not sure this says much that is good about us as a country.

What annoys me about Starmer so far is he seems to be worried about upsetting the establishment and he's trying to distance himself away from Corbyn which is understandable as most leaders want to be their own person. He makes a lot of relevant points at PMQs and the forensic dissections of Johnson and what the Tories are doing is great but at times it feels like he's missing an open goal. I know he's a few weeks and months into the job and it will take time for him to adjust but sometimes he needs to get straight to the point instead of going round the houses. He will have to do a juggling act where he keeps the Left and the Corbyn supporters happy while at the same time trying to attract the floating voters to vote Labour at the next election. A lot of the people who voted for Brexit have already stated they won't for Labour or Starmer as he was talking about a 2nd referendum in the 2019 General Election.

I agree without Rashford highlighting the issue I very much doubt that there would have been a U-turn. It's 2020 no child should go hungry in a country which has the 5th/6th best economy in the World and we shouldn't have bloody foodbanks either. 10 years of austerity has caused this! Johnson's supporters were complaining on social media about the U-turn on providing school meals for children from low income families throughout the summer holidays but they are all for £900,000 of taxpayers money to be spent on the PM's official plane to be resprayed red, blue and white, to 'better represent the UK'. I'm sorry but that £900,000 could and should be spent on something else, I mean there are more important things going on right now than having a bloody plane resprayed. Talk about getting their priorities straight.

[theo_luddite]

You're missing their point, they think they have their priorities right.

They can order their shopping from Waitrose for the loo roll to be delivered just in time to wipe their arse. Whether they've managed to work out how their lacky can be 2 metres from them while he/she wipes their arse is another matter. Hence they want the two metre rule to become one metre or an arms length with a slight bend at the knees for an extra sensitive touch, while the lacky is wearing at least one Marigold and a face mask of course.

[ritchiebaby]

I agree with theo about their priorities. Right from the start their stated intention was to protect the NHS. In that narrow objective they have undoubtedly succeeded.

"Saving lives? - a mere secondary consideration as far as we are concerned.
It all goes wrong? - we are following the scientific advice OR too many people are ignoring the advice (unless you're untouchable)
Using common sense? - don't be daft, we'd have to make a decision."

[theo_luddite]

There still are (and were) far too many working in the NHS they didn't protect and continue not to protect.

Their aim was to keep the numbers low going into hospital. They did that OK. Folk were (and are still) shit scared of going anywhere near an A&E in case they catch the virus. So they die at home of heart attacks and everything else that could have been treated by an 'unprotected' NHS instead.

The true number of 'deaths above the norm' is way above this Governments bluster about Covid deaths, that they don't compare with Johnny Foreigner countries any more because we don't count our dead (murdered by Bodgit) the way other countries count theirs (murdered by Trumpit or the chap in Brazil who's name I can't be arsed to look up).

[ritchiebaby]

theo - their intention was to protect the NHS, that is the organisation, not individuals working in the NHS. They succeeded in that, so they count that as being successful.

To me, the only true way to count Covid-19 deaths is the one issued by the ONS and the National Records of Scotland, which record the causes of death. To be honest, I don't know why there is a delay in producing these figures. If I had access to these figures, I could produce a big spreadsheet that would analyse the figures in a matter of minutes. The total must be around the 60,000 mark.

Bolsonara will be that Brazilian chap - a pound to a penny he's a right-winger.

[0762]

Jair Bolsonaro is indeed a right-wing (bordering on ultra right) uncaring shitheid who brokers the burning of rainforests and the murder/eviction of indigenous Amazonian natives - a Brazilian clone of Trump! He was amazingly elected using the same highly questionable data-streaming methods in his election campaign that are linked to Cambridge Analytica, Steve Bannon and Cummings - the method used to install populist governments on unsuspecting populations!!!! Re the poor protection of NHS staff, there are countless nightmare stories of inconsistencies in provision to the likes of the BAME staff in the NHS, a group that comprises about 4% of the workforce and one that is more vulnerable to the extremes of this virus.
I totally agree with Theo on this that the Tories priorities are as expected - THAT IS WHAT THEY DO AND THEY HAVE SHAMELESSLY BEEN PRACTISING LIKE THIS FOR YEARS!! I'll give you another example of this kinda shit and it centres on an absolute Tory numpty named Lord Digby Jones (yep, that's his flipping name!) proposing that the Queen gets a new royal yacht Britannia at a cost of £100M!!! Outrageous esp at this particular time of crisis!! This guy also spouts off the most right-wing bullshit that you could imagine incl a reference to the Scot FM's hairstyle breaking lockdown rules to Ian Blackford travelling during lockdown when indeed he was returning from Parliament at the start of lockdown!! One of the main arguments for retaining the House of Lords is the alleged "expertise" of its members. Allegedly because they don't come through the traditional political route i.e. having to stand for election. This man "blows that argument out of the water". He clearly highlights that the House of Lords is as full of numpties as any other gathering of people and that this claim of expertise is complete nonsense! Moving on to his own political party, IMO it is riddled with numpties like him who hold strange values and priorities compared with the common man and this phenomenon spans back about three to four decades.

[hibeejim21]

Thats a bit unfair matt. The reason it was in parliament today was because of labour, Starmer brought it up at the last PMQs and the party have campaigned for it.

What Rashford has done is a great job in using his social status to increase the pressure on the gov, without him I doubt it would have passed parliament because Boris would have whipped the majority from his MPs. I'm not sure this says much that is good about us as a country.

What annoys me about Starmer so far is he seems to be worried about upsetting the establishment and he's trying to distance himself away from Corbyn which is understandable as most leaders want to be their own person. He makes a lot of relevant points at PMQs and the forensic dissections of Johnson and what the Tories are doing is great but at times it feels like he's missing an open goal. I know he's a few weeks and months into the job and it will take time for him to adjust but sometimes he needs to get straight to the point instead of going round the houses. He will have to do a juggling act where he keeps the Left and the Corbyn supporters happy while at the same time trying to attract the floating voters to vote Labour at the next election. A lot of the people who voted for Brexit have already stated they won't for Labour or Starmer as he was talking about a 2nd referendum in the 2019 General Election.

I agree without Rashford highlighting the issue I very much doubt that there would have been a U-turn. It's 2020 no child should go hungry in a country which has the 5th/6th best economy in the World and we shouldn't have bloody foodbanks either. 10 years of austerity has caused this! Johnson's supporters were complaining on social media about the U-turn on providing school meals for children from low income families throughout the summer holidays but they are all for £900,000 of taxpayers money to be spent on the PM's official plane to be resprayed red, blue and white, to 'better represent the UK'. I'm sorry but that £900,000 could and should be spent on something else, I mean there are more important things going on right now than having a bloody plane resprayed. Talk about getting their priorities straight.

The honest answer to that matt is that starmer IS part of the establishment, he's a sir and a former DPP. It's the right wing media he's wary off, he saw what they did to corbyn. He likely won't rock the boat much as a result.
But that doesn't mean that he can't deliver some positive changes for the country. I think he's potentially a very good leader but he's up against a guy who's a blatant liar,gaslighter,bully and bullshit merchant and parliament isn't a court of law, so Boris gets to bluster his way out of it. Its nearly impossible to hold him to account.

He's said the brexit argument is done, so now he can shift the debate to things that will concern those brexit voters pretty soon. I think he's played a good hand so far.

[0762]

Starmer's main challenge is to gradually provide an accountable opposition to this huge majority Tory govt. The depressing side to this challenge is that he has four years to do that and there is no guarantee that he will have a winning formula although the state of this country will be an absolute mess by the time another GE arises and I suspect Johnson will not be the PM either.
Meanwhile I notice Dominic Raab confirming again what a f###### prat he actually is with unnecessary, comments re "kneeling" footie players. He was an ignorant non-entity of a Brexit minister in May's govt and just continues to astound with his stupid comments much like he did with his ill informed and shameless Brexit assertions. I call it ignorant, overpaid and totally "out of his depth" - another numpty who should be nowhere near any Cabinet position.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/do...-dhp-feeds

[ritchiebaby]

Just to put in my tuppence-worth on "regular" NHS operations.
In North-East England, my brother-in-law had a lung removed because of cancer and is continuing regular radiotherapy treatment, all in Covid19-free hospitals and since the lockdown. In the Scottish Borders, my sister-in-law had a benign tumour removed since the lockdown, also in a Covid19-free operating theatre. So there are some treatments continuing during the current pandemic.

[0762]

Re that positive news re the NHS on the Scottish side of the border, that doesn't surprise me too much as my daughter works for NHS Scotland on the admin/organisational side of their operations. She has certainly made me aware of the very busy periods, particularly in ICUs, but in recent times the various servs have been very quiet to a point where many staff were literally "twiddling their thumbs". Therefore one could logically assume that some priority cases could be targeted for "priority attention" if safe enough to do so and staff available to do it but don't advertise the fact.