0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.
Something very odd about these "leaks". Is it to make governments look incompetent in handling pandemics so they sign up to the WHO pandemic treaty?
Hancock:“We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain”“When do we deploy the new variant?”Perhaps time to admit that the lockdown sceptics who could see that fear was weaponised by the government had a point.Classic weak man tuned villain drunk on power.
Quote from: ncRover on March 05, 2023, 08:45:30 amHancock:“We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain”“When do we deploy the new variant?”Perhaps time to admit that the lockdown sceptics who could see that fear was weaponised by the government had a point.Classic weak man tuned villain drunk on power.I think Hancock is a Kitson on a dozen levels, but this absolutely misses the point by a million miles.When he posted those messages, we were at the start of a wave that, even with a new hard lockdown, as about to kill 60,000 people in ten weeks. Given that Johnson was flouncing around saying everythin was alright and he wasn't going to let Starmer be the Grinch who Stole Xmas, ANY vaguely responsible Health Secretary who understood what was coming had a duty to frighten the pants off people.It's cack handed wording from Hancock, but then again it was never meant to be aired publicly. Until Hancock gave his entire stash of messages to a far right, Covid-sceptic journalist...I said at the time that COVID-sceptics would be like this after the event. Insulated from the horror of what would have happened if they'd had their way 2-3 years back, they would indulgently claim that it was all an unnecessary over reaction, or an Orwellian attempt to subjugate people. Like kids complaining that they couldn't do exactly as they wanted without consequences. Oakeshott and the Telegraph are playing a very clever long term game here. They know the Tory party is f**ked for a decade. They know there's going to be a bloodbath of a fight for its future soul. They know their favourites on the far Right of the party, the ones who brought us Brexit, are increasingly seen as idiots and charlatans who have unleashed a quarter of a century of economic damage on us. So they need a new angle to make sure the far right head cases stay in control of the party, and (in their minds) hopefully the country by 2035.So they hold up Hancock as the ineffectual laughing stock of a man that he undoubtedly is, by a week of leaks of messages chosen to amplify that side of him. Then they release these messages about what are perfectly sensible plans in the face of an impending catastrophe. And they reinforce the message to the gullible that COVID was deliberately overplayed by all politicians except a small, brave group on the far right of the Tory party, who were right all along.Watching people lap this up is very depressing.
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1630960569585999874?s=20This is beyond depressing.That's from July 2020.5 months into the epidemic. And senior staff are having to wet nurse Johnson on GSCE level maths. I have a business contact from China. He was astonished when I told him most of our senior politicians have an educational background in law or arts/humanities. He said the overwhelming majority of the Chinese politburo have scientific/engineering backgrounds.How can we hope to have senior politicians make sensible decisions if they are functionally innumerate like Johnson here?
Yes DD, I'm sure Starmer would still have us under lockdown.Jesus...
For a virus that was harmless to the vast majority of people??(Chris Whity's words btw)I'm not vaxxed, I wasn't really poorly when I got it, I didn't pass it on to anyone else and no one died around me. But yeah, I should have been excluded while big pharma hoover up massive profits.
NC.On the second point, there was a feeling among many people at that time that the virus was going to be a very serious threat for a very long time. Some attitudes go to extremes in those circumstances. I suspect the great majority of those people wouldn't have the same opinions now. But at the time, it was always better to err on the side of attitudes that helped us beat down the virus.On your first point, I have a lot of sympathy with harsh approaches to those who refused vaccination. They were basically saying "My sovereign right to act as I want trumps any responsibility I have to society." I've given my opinion about that enough times to bore everyone shitless so I won't do it again. Suffice to say I think it was the ultimate in selfish behaviour.Do I think it should have been illegal not to be vaccinated? No I don't, and I doubt many of those who agreed with that premise in that poll had thought through the consequences of how you'd administer that. But I understand where that frustration came from. My take was that anti-vaxxers had the right to act like that. And society had the right to exclude them.
NC.Do you agree that Society has the right to remove someone's freedom to drive a car if they are caught driving after supping 8 pints?