COVID Inquiry

[Mike_F]

I'll give you my two pennirth. There's an overwhelming reason to believe that Johnson wasn't faking it.

It's called "Dominic Cummings"

Cummings was Johnson's right hand man  at the time. It is inconceivable that he  wouldn't have known if the illness was a scam.

Since he was booted out, Cummings has thrown everything he has at Johnson. It's been brutal. But he still holds to the line that Johnson was very seriously ill.

That makes it very, very likely that Johnson's illness was genuine.

That's a decent argument but the fact that we're even having the discussion about whether the Prime Minister of the UK pretended to have a life-threatening illness as a PR stunt shows what a pitiful state the government of our country is in.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'll give you my two pennirth. There's an overwhelming reason to believe that Johnson wasn't faking it.

It's called "Dominic Cummings"

Cummings was Johnson's right hand man  at the time. It is inconceivable that he  wouldn't have known if the illness was a scam.

Since he was booted out, Cummings has thrown everything he has at Johnson. It's been brutal. But he still holds to the line that Johnson was very seriously ill.

That makes it very, very likely that Johnson's illness was genuine.

That's a decent argument but the fact that we're even having the discussion about whether the Prime Minister of the UK pretended to have a life-threatening illness as a PR stunt shows what a pitiful state the government of our country is in.

Couldn't agree more. Johnson should never have got within a million miles of No 10.

[bpoolrover]

No one spends one night in intensive care, and no one gets discharged a couple of days later

not true my dad was in intensive care with breathing issues and was out of it the next day

[BillyStubbsTears]

To think. This woman used to be the Political Editor of the BBC.

https://twitter.com/Zero_4/status/1720230694897488124

Here she is today, uncritically repeating one of THE most egregious lies that Johnson regularly pushed.

She is an utter disgrace to the profession. Either deliberately deceiving, or too thick to realise how thick she is.

[Nudga]

I reckon the fat Kitson was in rehab

[BobG]

That, Nudga, is just about the best one liner in a decade. You've both made me smile and voiced a veritable truth in the space of 8 pungent words.

Cracking!

BobG

[Nudga]

That, Nudga, is just about the best one liner in a decade. You've both made me smile and voiced a veritable truth in the space of 8 pungent words.

Cracking!

BobG

Some folk think that using profanities is a lack of intelligence.
I like to think that it just cuts out the bullshit and gets straight to the point. Folk are also left in no doubt about your opinion of someone.

I am thick as mince meat btw hahaha

[Branton Red]

To think. This woman used to be the Political Editor of the BBC.

https://twitter.com/Zero_4/status/1720230694897488124

Here she is today, uncritically repeating one of THE most egregious lies that Johnson regularly pushed.

She is an utter disgrace to the profession. Either deliberately deceiving, or too thick to realise how thick she is.

Don't be daft. She's correct in what she says

Have a read of this www.france24.com/en/europe/20210206-how-the-eu-s-covid-19-vaccine-rollout-became-an-advert-for-brexit

Sums things up perfectly

It may not suit your black and white agenda but leaving the EU and having the diplomatic freedom to avoid membership of their failed vaccine procurement program (unlike all 27 member states) resulted in the UK saving tens of thousands of lives, us being able to meet with friends and family much sooner and get the economy going much quicker.

[Branton Red]

It appears that anyone with a modicum of common sense was in the same boat. I didn't believe it for a second.

Common sense of course being the main attribute which separates people who believe in conspiracy theories from the rest of society.

[idler]

The Good Law project team are reporting that 9,000 beds and mattresses were bought at a cost of £24 million to the NHS. They were bought for the Nightingale hospitals but 6,000 weren’t fit for clinical use so were sold for off  £410,000.
Some beds that cost thousands were sold for as little as £6.
It is nice to know that our taxes aren’t wasted.

[scawsby steve]

To think. This woman used to be the Political Editor of the BBC.

https://twitter.com/Zero_4/status/1720230694897488124

Here she is today, uncritically repeating one of THE most egregious lies that Johnson regularly pushed.

She is an utter disgrace to the profession. Either deliberately deceiving, or too thick to realise how thick she is.

A respected, experienced, professional journalist; thick?

You really do need to sort out your descriptive narratives, BST, because that one is just bordering on silliness.

[BillyStubbsTears]

To think. This woman used to be the Political Editor of the BBC.

https://twitter.com/Zero_4/status/1720230694897488124

Here she is today, uncritically repeating one of THE most egregious lies that Johnson regularly pushed.

She is an utter disgrace to the profession. Either deliberately deceiving, or too thick to realise how thick she is.

A respected, experienced, professional journalist; thick?

You really do need to sort out your descriptive narratives, BST, because that one is just bordering on silliness.

SS.

She really is NOT a respected journalist. She offers nothing at all in terms of analysis of political events or moves. She made her name by being close to major political figures, which meant she could be first with breaking news. She basically acted as a conduit to get onto the headlines whatever Johnson's team wanted.

She is not fit to lick the boots of some of the truly great political analysts who have occupied her position at the BBC in the past.

I don't say that lightly by the way. I can give you dozens of examples of her acting like this. The one where, two days before the last election, she rushed to put into print the "fact" that a Labour worker had beaten up a Tory politician after an argument at a photoshoot outside a hospital should have finished her career there and then. It didn't happen. She had no evidence to support the claim that it did happen other than a message from Cummings claiming it had. Just shockingly bad journalism. The repeat of this outrageous lie is another example.

[Branton Red]

Billy

See below extract from www.france24.com/en/europe/20210206-how-the-eu-s-covid-19-vaccine-rollout-became-an-advert-for-brexit

Please point out which bit is outrageous or false

"Brussels took charge of vaccine procurement in the summer of 2020, as part of what Von der Leyen called a “European Health Union” in her September “State of the Union” address.

Member states were free to opt out of this supranational scheme, but none did so. Brexit made it “easy” for the UK to go its own way on vaccines, Bouzoua [political scientist at Washington DC’s Hudson Institute and former Portuguese Europe minister] observed.

“The EU Commission is very good at negotiating things like trade deals, but traditionally it hasn’t had competence in such matters as vaccines and contract negotiations, which were left to member states,” Wooldridge [political editor of The Economist] pointed out.

“The commission decided to aggrandise its competence and it wasn’t up to the job – it didn’t have the right people or the right skills,” he continued.

By contrast, Britain put a successful venture capitalist specialising in biosciences, Kate Bingham, in charge of its vaccine procurement programme."

[drfchound]

“Other than a message from Cummings claiming it had”.
FFS, for years the writer of that has been telling us all what a liar Cummings is……………but now believes everything that he is saying at the Covid Inquiry.
Two faced or what?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Billy

See below extract from www.france24.com/en/europe/20210206-how-the-eu-s-covid-19-vaccine-rollout-became-an-advert-for-brexit

Please point out which bit is outrageous or false

"Brussels took charge of vaccine procurement in the summer of 2020, as part of what Von der Leyen called a “European Health Union” in her September “State of the Union” address.

Member states were free to opt out of this supranational scheme, but none did so. Brexit made it “easy” for the UK to go its own way on vaccines, Bouzoua [political scientist at Washington DC’s Hudson Institute and former Portuguese Europe minister] observed.

“The EU Commission is very good at negotiating things like trade deals, but traditionally it hasn’t had competence in such matters as vaccines and contract negotiations, which were left to member states,” Wooldridge [political editor of The Economist] pointed out.

“The commission decided to aggrandise its competence and it wasn’t up to the job – it didn’t have the right people or the right skills,” he continued.

By contrast, Britain put a successful venture capitalist specialising in biosciences, Kate Bingham, in charge of its vaccine procurement programme."

BR.

With respect, your obsession with trying to find positives in Brexit is dragging you in the wrong direction.

The Big Lie here isn't whether we could or could not have gone it alone if still inside the EU. (We COULD, but I accept it would have been politically fraught.)

The Big Lie is that we did far better than the EU at running our vaccination programme.

We didn't.

But it's a line pushed relentlessly by the Torie that we did. And Kuenssberg here is simply repeating that lie as a fact.

What actually happened was that we did well on getting vaccination started. But the EU programme rapidly made up most of not all of the gap by mid-2021. And crucially, our programme was strongly tied to the Oxford/AZ vaccine, which turned out to be much less effective than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that were more heavily used in the EU.

The proof of the pudding is in the effectiveness of the different vaccine programmes.

The UK didn't have any less stringent lockdowns than leading EU countries once the vaccine programme started. And in the year after the start of the UK vaccination programme, we had about 90,000 COVID deaths, compared to 70-80,000 in Germany, France and Italy.

Yes, we were fast off the blocks in starting vaccination. But by no measure was our overall programme better than equivalent EU programmes. Yet Kuenssberg here just repeats it as a fact with zero analysis. Because she is f**king useless.

[BillyStubbsTears]

PS.

Your link is from very early days in the vaccination programmes. Read some from mid to late 2021.

[SydneyRover]

''Covid was 'wrong crisis for Boris Johnson's skill set'

Lee Cain told the Covid inquiry that Boris Johnson was someone who would often delay making decisions and change his mind on issues.

Covid was the ''wrong challenge'' for him, said Boris Johnson's former director of communications''

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-67273510

It would be interesting to one that was?

Maybe if someone urgently needed a liar, a racist, a coward, spendthrift, a philanderer, a ..........

.

[Branton Red]

Billy

With genuine respect you're conflating two separate issues: The procurement of vaccines (an EU competency); and The administration of the vaccine rollout (a member state competency).

The UK were fast out of the blocks in vaccinating as the UK was significantly more successful in it's procurement program than the EU.

Meaning we crucially vaccinated the elderly and vulnerable much earlier. Thanks to Brexit and not participating in the EU procurement scheme. Which we beyond reasonable doubt would have done if still in the EU.

Once the supply issues in the EU were overcome several EU countries administered their vaccine program more efficiently than the UK.

This meant by mid/late 2021 they had overtaken the UK and vaccinated fit and healthy 20 and 30 somethings sooner. This has nothing to do with Brexit.

On deaths we need to compare statistics by country pre and post vaccine to identify the relevant successes of each countries vaccine program.

Looking at total deaths, as you have done, brings in many other variables: ageing of population, obesity levels, population density, Government attitude to lockdown/controls (not an EU competency), societal attitudes to controls, method of recording Covid deaths esp re co-morbidity, levels of testing etc etc

So Covid Year 1 deaths y/e 28/2/21 vs Covid Year 2 deaths y/e 28/2/22. www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

UK - Year1: 147,340 deaths; Year 2: 40,199. Fall of 73%
France - Year 1: 85,414; Year 2: 52,721. Fall of 38%
Germany - Year 1: 70,675; Year 2: 52,653. Fall of 26%
Italy - Year 1: 97,338; Year 2: 57,222. Fall of 41%
Spain - Year 1: 69,142; Year 2: 30,504. Fall of 56%.

Pretty stark. Why did deaths in the UK fall so much more significantly between these periods?

Simple. By the end of February 2021 a significant proportion of the most likely people to die from Covid had been fully or partially vaccinated. This was not the case in the EU.

Why? Because the EU ballsed up their vaccination procurement program. Whilst on that score the UK did well.

How many lives did this save? Applying the average % fall of the EU countries above to the UK's Year 1 stats - approximately 48,000 lives.

48,000 lives.

There's a Brexit benefit for you right there.

Res ipsa loquitur

[Bristol Red Rover]

I'll give you my two pennirth. There's an overwhelming reason to believe that Johnson wasn't faking it.

It's called "Dominic Cummings"

Cummings was Johnson's right hand man  at the time. It is inconceivable that he  wouldn't have known if the illness was a scam.

Since he was booted out, Cummings has thrown everything he has at Johnson. It's been brutal. But he still holds to the line that Johnson was very seriously ill.

That makes it very, very likely that Johnson's illness was genuine.

That's a decent argument but the fact that we're even having the discussion about whether the Prime Minister of the UK pretended to have a life-threatening illness as a PR stunt shows what a pitiful state the government of our country is in.

Couldn't agree more. Johnson should never have got within a million miles of No 10.

But he did because our country's establishment engineered things for that. The greedy establishment is the problem, Johnson and others are just the fall guys, and our media focus on them. Its a distraction.

[Bristol Red Rover]

Billy

With genuine respect you're conflating two separate issues: The procurement of vaccines (an EU competency); and The administration of the vaccine rollout (a member state competency).

The UK were fast out of the blocks in vaccinating as the UK was significantly more successful in it's procurement program than the EU.

Meaning we crucially vaccinated the elderly and vulnerable much earlier. Thanks to Brexit and not participating in the EU procurement scheme. Which we beyond reasonable doubt would have done if still in the EU.

Once the supply issues in the EU were overcome several EU countries administered their vaccine program more efficiently than the UK.

This meant by mid/late 2021 they had overtaken the UK and vaccinated fit and healthy 20 and 30 somethings sooner. This has nothing to do with Brexit.

On deaths we need to compare statistics by country pre and post vaccine to identify the relevant successes of each countries vaccine program.

Looking at total deaths, as you have done, brings in many other variables: ageing of population, obesity levels, population density, Government attitude to lockdown/controls (not an EU competency), societal attitudes to controls, method of recording Covid deaths esp re co-morbidity, levels of testing etc etc

So Covid Year 1 deaths y/e 28/2/21 vs Covid Year 2 deaths y/e 28/2/22. www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

UK - Year1: 147,340 deaths; Year 2: 40,199. Fall of 73%
France - Year 1: 85,414; Year 2: 52,721. Fall of 38%
Germany - Year 1: 70,675; Year 2: 52,653. Fall of 26%
Italy - Year 1: 97,338; Year 2: 57,222. Fall of 41%
Spain - Year 1: 69,142; Year 2: 30,504. Fall of 56%.

Pretty stark. Why did deaths in the UK fall so much more significantly between these periods?

Simple. By the end of February 2021 a significant proportion of the most likely people to die from Covid had been fully or partially vaccinated. This was not the case in the EU.

Why? Because the EU ballsed up their vaccination procurement program. Whilst on that score the UK did well.

How many lives did this save? Applying the average % fall of the EU countries above to the UK's Year 1 stats - approximately 48,000 lives.

48,000 lives.

There's a Brexit benefit for you right there.

Res ipsa loquitur

Sorry, but there's way too many variables in all that, not least the health of survivors of covid short and long term. Though, with a huge amount of stats which will still be dubious on many levels, you can assess the aims of countries with their achievements purely in terms of vaccinated numbers, timing, and the care of covid patients.