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Blame the victim Max

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 Greenbanks 06 Jul 2020

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53315178

Couldn’t make it up. Ship of Fools? No, he’s cynical, devious, amoral, self-serving, egocentric, sociopathic, revisionist, inhumane, selfish, cowardly, insensitive, bullying, selfish...or, in the vernacular, a total  f*cking w*nker. How bloody dare he?

7
Clauso 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

Lovely fella. He nailed my head to the floor. 

In reply to Greenbanks:

I typed something of a rant, expressing regret that somebody recovered from covid-19.

Funnily enough, my internet went down just as I hit 'post message'. One for our friendly forum conspiracists...

 Ridge 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

What a 24 Carat, copper bottomed, ocean going tw*t.

6
Alyson30 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

Blame shifting alert !

2
 Tringa 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Ridge:

Although there were some care homes who refused to give sick pay to their workers in vulnerable groups if they self isolated without showing any symptoms, this pales into insignificance compared to the thousands of elderly patients released back into care home without being tested.

Oh, I forgot they weren't tested because we didn't have the capability and had refused to be part of an EU testing initiative, so obviously the high rate of COVID19 in care homes must be someone else's fault.

He is getting more Trump like by the day - say anything that puts blame on some other person or organisation.

Dave

4
 girlymonkey 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

Makes my blood boil! 

1
 Steve Wetton 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

And yet .....some people believe him......and will still vote for him..... incomprehensible

3
baron 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

> Couldn’t make it up. Ship of Fools? No, he’s cynical, devious, amoral, self-serving, egocentric, sociopathic, revisionist, inhumane, selfish, cowardly, insensitive, bullying, selfish...or, in the vernacular, a total  f*cking w*nker. How bloody dare he?

So are his comments false? 
 

31
In reply to Alyson30:

> Blame shifting alert

This had been predicted widely weeks ago; put out unworkable guidelines, and then blame those unable to follow them.

The care home situation was nothing to do with dumping untested patients into care homes, not providing testing of staff or inmates, not providing PPE, not including care homes deaths in the figures, was it...?

 Andy Clarke 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

> So are his comments false? 

Alok Sharma was out on "clarification" duty this morning and as far as I could follow it, procedures weren't followed because procedures couldn't exist because Covid. 

 DerwentDiluted 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

Cometh the hour, cometh the jellyfish.

 jethro kiernan 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

> So are his comments false? 

It is possible to lie by omission and lack of context whilst making a statement that is factually correct. 
it’s still amoral.

1
baron 07 Jul 2020
In reply to jethro kiernan:

> It is possible to lie by omission and lack of context whilst making a statement that is factually correct. 

> it’s still amoral.

It is indeed possible to lie by omission.

My point was  ‘is Johnson lying when he said that too many care homes didn’t follow the procedures’?
 

8
baron 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Andy Clarke:

> Alok Sharma was out on "clarification" duty this morning and as far as I could follow it, procedures weren't followed because procedures couldn't exist because Covid. 

That’ll be the normal procedure for trying to tidy up the mess after one of Johnson’s ill timed comments.

2
 Ian W 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

> It is indeed possible to lie by omission.

> My point was  ‘is Johnson lying when he said that too many care homes didn’t follow the procedures’?

The exact phrase / question  ‘is Johnson lying when he said that too many care homes didn’t follow the procedures’? is almost impossible to answer; care homes didnt follow "the procedures" - What procedures exactly? They did follow their own procedures / trade body procedures, but there were no general procedures for them to follow beyond what had been given to the rest of us. 

the care home my mum was in for a couple of years had excellent procedures in place for control of infectious diseases / viruses / flu bugs etc, as they understood full well the vulnerabilities of their residents (ie any sign of sickness / diarrhoea, that section was locked down for 72 hours), os this was just extended for covid 19. The reaction of this particular care home was to lock down early and hard; so no returning from hospital of anyone that had not had a negative test result. they have so far had no cases of covid 19.

Anyway, I would have thought Johnson would have been quite happy for any care homes to follow their own interpretation of the recommended guidelines; it was ok for Cummings etc to have their own interpretation of guidelines, even if it went against the interpretation of all 43 uk police forces, and required a live TV broadcast to explain to the rest of us.........

2
 jethro kiernan 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

If the guidelines were unworkable, poorly communicated, unsupported and not joined up to the wider NHS then his statement may have been true but also a lie by omission.
As we a almost certainly facing a second wave not having the moral gumption to admit mistakes so they can be addressed in preparation for this second wave is amoral, that Personal act of denial will cost lives possibly measured in the dozens as certainly as if he had walked up to them and put a gun to their head.
 

I’m sure that teams of professionals are working behind the scenes to make recommendations for change to the procedures, however a PM’s word carries weight and has effect on perception, moral and how policy is implemented. He is steering us on a course for abject failure on covid.

1
 Dave Todd 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

> So are his comments false? 

No-one on the thread has said that his comments are 'false'.

His comment ("too many care homes didn't really follow the procedures") is a value judgement.  Unless someone defines 'too many' and 'didn't really follow the procedures' then it cannot be classed as 'true' or 'false'.

What his comment does show (IMHO) is industrial-strength lack of empathy / sympathy / compassion etc. etc.

1
 DaveHK 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Dave Todd:

> What his comment does show (IMHO) is industrial-strength lack of empathy / sympathy / compassion etc. etc.

Or, it was planned and deliberate because what it does is plant a seed of doubt about responsibility. And that's all you need to do sometimes.

Post edited at 10:15
1
 sg 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

> That’ll be the normal procedure for trying to tidy up the mess after one of Johnson’s ill timed comments.

More Trumpy by the day. They can't hire Kayleigh McEnany soon enough, maybe Sarah H-S would be up for it.

1
 Ian W 07 Jul 2020
In reply to DaveHK:

> Or, it was planned and deliberate because what it does is plant a seed of doubt about responsibility. And that's all you need to do sometimes.

Indeed; its like the "Australia style deal" with the EU that seems to be popular with brexiteers as an alternative to no deal / any other deal (as sold by the government).

Australia doesn't have a trade deal with the EU (although for completeness sake, it is negotiating one.....).

So the statement isnt a lie; but by failing to explain the situation in context, it is a falsehood.

1
 groovejunkie 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

> My point was  ‘is Johnson lying when he said that too many care homes didn’t follow the procedures’?

His mouth was moving, so probably. 

1
 Mike Stretford 07 Jul 2020
In reply to sg:

> More Trumpy by the day.

They'll probably get rid of their clown this year... we're stuck with ours for 4 years

1
 Mike Stretford 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

"too many care homes didn't really follow the procedures" 

well, 100% of chief advisers didn't really follow procedures but you bent of backwards to defend them Bojo.

1
 deepsoup 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Andy Clarke:

> Alok Sharma

Alok Sharma went to work feeling ill a month ago and stood there, in the house of commons surrounded by MPs (who had recently been stopped from WFH and forced to return to the house in person, courtesy of Rees-Mogg) making a speech while the sweat poured out of him by the bucket load.

"If you have symptoms, you must self-isolate immediately" is not difficult to understand, nor is "Wash your hands, don't touch your face." 

If you've not seen it, look at the state of him here: youtube.com/watch?v=_yjmz8fFUDg&
He's got some f*cking nerve 'clarifying' the failures of others to follow vastly more complicated and possibly non-existent rules now.

1
 Cobra_Head 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

> So are his comments false? 


Yes, in a lot of cases and on so many subjects.

"We've got an oven ready deal!"

"We'll have a world beating test and trace system."

blah! blah! I could go on, but you get the gist.

1
 Trevers 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

It really is a shame that COVID didn't take him and free us of his sickening stream of malignant, dishonest, narcissistic bullshit.

6
 Tringa 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Trevers:

Having read the report about this on the BBC website I wonder if minsters have training in how to make a ridiculous statement with conviction?

The PM says,  "too many care homes didn't really follow the procedures.",

which is about as clear as it can be - there were, so the PM said, procedures which too many care homes did not follow.

Then Alok Sharma comes along and says, "nobody at the time knew what the correct procedures were",

which again seems clear.

How can the minister (and the government press office) believe that is a reasonable explanation?

If no one knew what the correct procedures were then how were care homes expected to follow them?

The PM is increasing moving to not accepting any responsibility for his actions, unless they show him in a good light.

Dave

1
 neilh 07 Jul 2020
In reply to deepsoup:

He was tested and it was negative , as per follow up stories at the time.At least get your facts right!

As per the Guardian and a host of other newspapers at the time.

14
In reply to neilh:

> He was tested and it was negative

Before his sweat-fest in the HoC, or afterwards...?

Regardless, he clearly had feverish symptoms, and so should have been self isolating. 

1
 Rick51 07 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

But until he was tested he should have self-isolated and not gone to work, which is what deepsoup said. He didn't say that Sharma had Covid but that he exhibited symptoms.

 Ian W 07 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

> He was tested and it was negative , as per follow up stories at the time.At least get your facts right!

> As per the Guardian and a host of other newspapers at the time.

The guidance was that if you are symptomatic, you self isolate. The fact he was tested is not really relevant; the level of false negatives were / are 20 - 30%. 

he should have self isolated, negative test result or not.

edit - what Rick 51 said.

Post edited at 13:13
 deepsoup 07 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

> He was tested and it was negative , as per follow up stories at the time.  At least get your facts right!

After the event.  My facts are right: he failed to self-isolate and went to work whilst displaying symptoms of Covid 19 (ie: a fever).

As it turned out, through sheer dumb luck, he tested negative later and we have to assume he didn't actually have Covid but some other bug instead.  But he couldn't possibly have known that at the time, when he walked into the chamber despite feeling ill to make his speech and stood there sweating profusely as he spoke.

Post edited at 13:29
 neilh 07 Jul 2020
In reply to deepsoup:

Whatever.....

38
 sg 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Mike Stretford:

It really is very, very depressing. But having just re-read Greenbanks' perfectly-judged list of attributes, and heard more craven cabinet defence this lunchtime, today is more of an 'angry' day for me today.

 Dave Todd 07 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

> Whatever.....

Wow...

You ask deepsoup to 'At least get your facts right!' and when they (and others) point out - in detail - that the facts are right you manage 'Whatever.....'

That's a pretty poor level of debate.

(Cue another 'Whatever......')

2
 SDM 07 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

> He was tested and it was negative , as per follow up stories at the time.At least get your facts right!

That he later tested negative was good news but irrelevant.

At the time he had symptoms that were linked to covid-19 and the advice was that anyone displaying symptoms must stay at home and self isolate.

Clauso 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

Marina's thoughts on the matter... On the money, as always:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/07/boris-johnson-care-ho...

"According to Boris Johnson, a Cobra-dodging handshake-nut who was blamelessly “mugged” by the virus himself, “too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have”. Oof. This is quite the blame-game from a government that operated a formal procedure of discharging more than 25,000 people from hospitals into care homes without testing them for coronavirus. You could say that care home residents are still living with the consequences of that decision, were it not for the fact that so many of them ended up dying from it."

... And another zinger:

"Speaking of which, no sooner have the pubs opened than the first few are forced to close again, after punters tested positive for coronavirus. A number of pubs are now beginning the process of contacting people who spent “Independence Day” with them. Please take a moment to enjoy the bathos. A few months ago, government ministers were honking daily that we were going to invent our own world-beating test and trace app, a state-of-the-art public health strategy that has now been delegated to the manager of the Fox and Hounds in Batley."

In reply to Dave Todd:

I'm expecting one of the other standard responses, such as: "That's just your opinion"!

 jkarran 07 Jul 2020
In reply to DaveHK:

> Or, it was planned and deliberate because what it does is plant a seed of doubt about responsibility. And that's all you need to do sometimes.

Both. It's weapons grade callousness deliberately delivered as the official death-toll tops 50,000 to shift blame off him and his cabinet of inadequates onto those without the platform to answer back.

Let us never forget countries which handled this well with caution, compassion and openness have death tolls measured in the hundreds, if that. Johnson's failures should haunt him to his deathbed if there is any justice in this world. Sadly there isn't.

We'll have to save our reply for 2024.

jk

Post edited at 14:26
1
 wintertree 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Clauso:

> You could say that care home residents are still living with the consequences of that decision, were it not for the fact that so many of them ended up dying from it."

Not just care homes really but all of us; the latest ONS report just out adds to the evidence that care homes are part of the reservoir that’s preventing all the measures taken in the UK from wiping out the infection.

I reckon that if we can’t get it out of the care homes by late autumn we risk a winter of lockdown style measures.  We shouldn’t be blaming the sector, we should be looking at why it’s so vulnerable both in an immediate sense and in terms of structure/funding/staffing practices.  


 sg 07 Jul 2020
In reply to wintertree:

It's good that we can all agree that what the PM was actually saying was 'the care homes have all done a brilliant job in challenging circumstances, especially because they didn't know what the guidance was', when it sounded like he was trying to blame them for massive excess mortality and deflect any responsibility from himself.

From the lobby briefing:

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1280467072779157505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf...

1
 Trevers 07 Jul 2020
In reply to sg:

strongandstablestrongandstablestrongandstable...

1
baron 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Trevers:

> It really is a shame that COVID didn't take him and free us of his sickening stream of malignant, dishonest, narcissistic bullshit.

Really?

You’re disappointed that he didn’t die?

 wintertree 07 Jul 2020
In reply to sg:

I wish I'd not read that.

"Again, the PM was pointing out that nobody knew what the correct procedures were because the extent of asymptomatic transmission was not known at the time"

Let's go back in a time machine to late February 2020.

A new virus has been seen to spread like barely containable wildfire through Wuhan province and Northern Italy.  Multiple independent groups of medics and epidemiologists have published pre-prints detailing multiple independent cases of asymptomatic transmission.  Obviously the full extent is not know as we're in the early days and leading affected places were teetering on the bring of the brink of disaster.  A half-wit could put these reports together with the barely containable spread to reach a "balance of probabilities" view that widespread asymptomatic transmission is a realistic worst case scenario.

At which point the correct procedures become bloody obvious - act is if the realistic worst case scenario is true until more is known.

It's not rocket science.

Post edited at 14:59
1
baron 07 Jul 2020
In reply to wintertree:

So did SAGE give the PM the same advice that you’re suggesting was obvious and did he ignore it?

Or did SAGE give some different advice?

9
 Trevers 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

> Really?

> You’re disappointed that he didn’t die?

I am indeed.

3
 jkarran 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

> Really? You’re disappointed that he didn’t die?

I'm not but viewed dispassionately it's a classic trolley-car problem, a better leader even now could save tens of thousands of lives, millions of jobs. Johnson's lurghy brought us close to needing a new leader and it'd be hard to find a worse leader than Johnson for these times.

jk

Post edited at 15:08
1
baron 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Trevers:

> I am indeed.

If you feel that strongly about it then maybe you could actually do something about Johnson being alive.

But that would mean you doing something other than gobbing off on the internet.

19
 deepsoup 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Clauso:

> Marina's thoughts on the matter... On the money, as always:

Oof.

Consistently brilliant as ever, but this is the paragraph that jumped off the page (er.. screen) for me:

"So yes: we are where we are. And yet: need we be? Is it too much to want to live in a country where the government doesn’t describe its own pandemic response as whack-a-mole? I mean, guys … Go to the fairground. No one wins whack-a-mole. Only people who’ve had 12 pints of scrumpy believe they can execute a precise and targeted approach to emerging outbreaks of mole. That’s how the circus folk have set it up: you’re never going to win the giant teddy, yes? You’re going to flame out below the threshold for a tiny teddy, shake your head, think about asking the carnival operator for your money back, have a look at him, think better of it, then make the same mistake all over again trying to shoot some ducks through a gun barrel with a 20-degree bend in it. Whack-a-mole? You might as well describe your contact tracing strategy as Find the Lady."

 groovejunkie 07 Jul 2020
In reply to jkarran:

> Let us never forget countries which handled this well with caution, compassion and openness have death tolls measured in the hundreds, if that. Johnson's failures should haunt him to his deathbed if there is any justice in this world. Sadly there isn't.

I actually have no idea how he sleeps at night. Perhaps the more he spouts blame shifting crap to the nation he can actually convince himself he did a great job...unless of course he already wholeheartedly believes that. 

1
 Trevers 07 Jul 2020
In reply to jkarran:

> I'm not but viewed dispassionately it's a classic trolley-car problem, a better leader even now could save tens of thousands of lives, millions of jobs. Johnson's lurghy brought us close to needing a new leader and it'd be hard to find a worse leader than Johnson for these times.

Actually it's less problematic philosophically than the trolley-car problem. The dilemma there arises from the human intervention, not a value judgement about one life versus many. I'm not for a moment suggesting Johnson should be killed, or that he should have been denied medical attention. I don't even begrudge him receiving better medical care than the rest of us - he is our prime minister after all, much as I resent that fact.

Nonetheless, I wish he had died. It would have done our country a massive favour and perhaps avoided thousands of unnecessary, additional deaths.

And honestly, he doesn't deserve to have survived. I held out a faint hope that his brush with mortality might teach him a lesson in humility, make him a decent human. The virus gave him a second chance. He's flunked it. It's not fair that he survived when so many thousands didn't.

4
 Trevers 07 Jul 2020
In reply to baron:

> If you feel that strongly about it then maybe you could actually do something about Johnson being alive.

> But that would mean you doing something other than gobbing off on the internet.

Nah I'm good thanks. Morally there's a world of difference between wishing that someone had died naturally and killing them. I'm sure you'll appreciate at least that, unlike Johnson, I'm no coward and will take ownership of my words.

In reply to deepsoup:

> You might as well describe your contact tracing strategy as Find the Lady

Although, as we know. Johnson is quite successful at 'cherchez la femme'...

In reply to groovejunkie:

> I actually have no idea how he sleeps at night

Then you're probably not a sociopathic narcissist.

1
 Alkis 07 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

Great mental gymnastics. Here are some facts about why what he did was wrong:

  • The guidelines are that if you display any of the symptoms you have to self-isolate.
  • He displayed symptoms of a flu-like disease, consistent with Covid-19.
  • He went to the House of Commons, where he could have infected any number of people, a lot of them elderly and vulnerable.
  • At the time of him turning up to the House of Commons, he did not know whether he had Covid-19 or not, since he had not been tested.
  • In order to protect other people and stop the spread of the virus, the guidelines state that in the absence of other evidence, you *must* self isolate.
  • Thankfully, he turned out not to have Covid-19.
  • The fact that he turned out to not have Covid-19 is hindsight, he did not have any evidence to suggest that, even in the form of a test, which in itself can give false negatives, when he turned up to the House of Commons.

None of what we are saying here is in any way controversial. He screwed up in a very public way that is both very bad form and could have resulted in the death of MPs and other staff. 

Post edited at 16:21
 Jack 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

I'm almost as annoyed about this as I still am about Cummings eye test. I've emailed my mp, again.

I remember reading of mp's who had recieved 1000's more emails than they usually would over the cummings situation.

If they get a lot about this situation, some of them may start getting the message - but probably not.

1
 nikoid 07 Jul 2020
In reply to sg:

Why does the PM have an official spokesman and since when? I genuinely do not understand. 

 lorentz 07 Jul 2020
In reply to nikoid:

> Why does the PM have an official spokesman and since when? I genuinely do not understand. 

Since it became very apparent that the PM couldn't open his lying, blethering mouth  without next putting his foot in it. Wasn't this  why he was ordered by his sweary aides to hide like the coward he is in a freezer rather than face the terrifying, Paxman-like ordeal of a Piers Morgan grilling  on This Morning during the election campaign? 

In reply to nikoid:

> Why does the PM have an official spokesman and since when? I genuinely do not understand. 

Because he's the weakest PM we've ever had. Simple. He has zero leadership qualities. He's not a leader but a follower of populist opinion. Basically, he lets the gutter press and Scumbag tell him what to do.

1
 sg 07 Jul 2020
In reply to nikoid:

there's always been an official / unofficial 'lobby' briefing involving some kind of spokesperson with select political hacks who have the chance to grill the spokesperson about the stories of the day before filing their pieces. The current government have already made some small changes to this. However, in a marked departure, probably as a result of the 'great ratings' they got in the daily coronabriefings Downing Street / Dominic C have decided to go for a US-style press briefing where some extremely capable individual who has sold their soul to the devil has to defend whatever inept or dishonest or divisive comment or policy is doing the rounds that day, which basically means trying to not lie about lies. The current incumbent in the states in Kayleigh McEnany but Trump has, as you can imagine, been through quite a number of these people, including Sarah Sanders. You have to see them in action to make up your own mind about them, I think. Who gets the job at No. 10 will certainly be a source of amused gossip for journos between now and September which is when they're planning to change formats here, not least because it will probably be one of them that gets the job and becomes vilified and feted in equal measure. 

Read all about it (although you may have to pay for this extremist left-wing propaganda, I'm not sure): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/07/daily-televised-gover...

Post edited at 20:17
 Trevers 08 Jul 2020
In reply to sg:

Here's village idiot and fat little pig boy Mark Francois attempting to threaten the head of the armed forces with Cummings in his face:

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/tory-mp-mark-francois-army-genera...

I wonder how long till somebody in the establishment decides that Cummings has grown too big for his boots and needs to have an accident.

 wintertree 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Trevers:

I am at a loss for words.

 neilh 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Trevers:

Maybe in a roundabout way they have a point......2 aircraft carriers...... what do we really need them for other than "vanity"...defence money probably could have been better spent elsewhere...unless you are deliberately keeping shipbuilding going.A bit brutal .

 Rob Exile Ward 08 Jul 2020
In reply to wintertree:

I though the general's response was entirely appropriate. He acted as though he were being hectored by a child - which he was.

 wintertree 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Yes; I wouldn't have been able to contain an outburst at that point.  

 Trevers 08 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

> Maybe in a roundabout way they have a point......2 aircraft carriers...... what do we really need them for other than "vanity"...defence money probably could have been better spent elsewhere...unless you are deliberately keeping shipbuilding going.A bit brutal .

I'm not denying that military spending is long overdue a review.

 neilh 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Trevers:

Well irrespective of the characters raising this , they have a real point. Better to focus on the message. 

3
 Rob Exile Ward 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Trevers:

I don't think anybody is. But a wannabe soldier who managed to reach the heady height of Lieutenant in the TA trying to browbeat  a real General by threatening to set an unelected gobshite with no record of managing so much as a whelk stall to oversea a process that has been problematic since Samuel Pepys ... 

It could be released as a Monty Python sketch only everyone would think it was too far fetched.

 mondite 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

His response to the "lets bring back national service" was good.

https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1280535618548912132

Can ex TA be recalled to service? If so the general could have some fun with Francois.

 Trevers 08 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

> Better to focus on the message. 

Is that because focusing on the messenger is politically uncomfortable for you?

2
 Ian W 08 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

> Well irrespective of the characters raising this , they have a real point. Better to focus on the message. 

but they dont have a new point; as has already been raised, nobody has learned anything new by the issue of procurement being brought into the light. so focussing on the message is somewhat lost.

What is new, and what should be focussed on, is the fact that an elected MP should be using the "my dad is harder than your dad" in a discussion with the head of the military in a Parliamentary Committee session, and that he thinks that by threatening him with Dominic Cummings, who don't forget has precisely zero influence in the MoD, then procurement is going to be sorted out pdq, asap, and now, if not earlier. DC is the PM's SpAd, so threatening the MoD with him amounts to absolutely nothing. As was shown by the Generals "light hearted" reaction.

What Francois has done is to reduce his own standing with the MoD top brass (if that was actually possible), and reduce the effect Cummings might have, should his limitless might and power be unleashed on the cowering masses of the MoD procurement dept. I would just love to see DC's reaction to being given a few home truths by the chiefs in the MoD, who I suspect will have significantly more "life experience" than him.

he has also yet again highlighted exactly how poor the current crop of ministers are (not that he is one). so yes, focus on the message, which here is that change is expected to be done without any clue as to how to do it, following "advice" from members of a select committee who clearly have no clue what they are talking about. Letwins reaction of "interesting" when informed that national service would mean a significant change to the entire structure of the regular military, and the requirement of finding the new entrants some work to do is rather telling.

so yes, we would love to focus on the message; its just that its importance is hugely diminished by the method of transmission. 

Post edited at 12:37
1
 wintertree 08 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

> Well irrespective of the characters raising this , they have a real point. Better to focus on the message. 

Yes I would have liked to see an MP articulating himself and his message clearly, not saying he’s going to send someone in “to sort you out”.  The only message I saw was an apparent half wit making silly threats.

Post edited at 12:54
1
Clauso 08 Jul 2020
In reply to wintertree:

>... The only message I saw was an apparent half wit making silly threats.

Halfwit?... You overestimate him. 

1
 Rob Exile Ward 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Clauso:

Halfwit? I'd kill to have halfwits in charge right now. We should be so lucky.

That Francois, he has the making of a great comic character - worth looking up up on Wikipedia at the moment - in the disambiguation page...

1
 jethro kiernan 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

The really troubling thing with this is that on the face of it some of what Cummings highlights I sometimes agree with, but although I would like to see reform of much of our systems of government for the better I don't believe in his break the system and remould it to suit yourself. 

To achieve what we need as a nation we need a team of visionaries, what we have is the weakest cabinet in history with no vision, no skill led by a liar and fool and Cummings himself has no empathy and a far higher opinion of himself than he deserves.

I'm sure they are very good at breaking things as the Tories have been for sometime but I wouldn't trust the lot of them to put together a Kinder egg toy.

 climbingbadger 08 Jul 2020
In reply to neilh:

There’s a fair few small islands around the world that rely on us for defence, places like the Falklands, Bermuda, Montserrat, etc. If we don’t have carriers we can’t effectively fulfil our obligations to them. Plus there’s the need to keep shipbuilding going to keep people in jobs.

 neilh 08 Jul 2020
In reply to climbingbadger:

BOn the Falklands you just base planes there- which is what happens. I cannot think of anyone who wants to invade Bermuda etc.

Shipbuilding- what are you proposing --building an aircraft carrier every 2 years. Better value building destoyers ( more versatile) or hunter killer submaines anyway. Carriers were a vanity project and we do not even have enough other ships to defend them anyway as part of a flotilla.They can also easily be sunk by these new anti - ship missiles.

The only advantage with the carriers is that Australia may possibly need them as part of a strategic plan to keep Chinese at bay.

What you need is  a proper defence review, but it will tell you you need to spend more money......

 wercat 08 Jul 2020
In reply to deepsoup:

Whack a Mole?  does that make any more sense than Guacamole which I thought he'd been saying till I read your post?

 wercat 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Trevers:

I'd love to have seen Cummings try to sort Bowman out in the 90s!  And Someone of his abilities would surely have got Nimrod up and running as well ....

Scum

In reply to Trevers:

> Here's village idiot and fat little pig boy Mark Francois attempting to threaten the head of the armed forces with Cummings in his face

I didn't know Cummings had so much experience with the MoD procurement process. When in his long and distinguished career did he come by that experience? Was it during the mysterious time spent in Russia...?

Post edited at 18:03
 deepsoup 08 Jul 2020
In reply to wercat:

> Whack a Mole?  does that make any more sense than Guacamole which I thought he'd been saying till I read your post?

"Whack a Mole", or "Whac a Mole" (or originally "Mogura Taiji") makes sense, it's a Japanese arcade game that tests your reflexes, where you try to hit moles on the head with a foam mallet as they pop up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whac-A-Mole

A "Whack a Mole strategy", which is what Johnson said, doesn't make sense no.  It's a contradiction in terms but describes his style of leadership very well.  There's no strategy involved at all, you just wait for a mole to pop up and then react, usually too late.

Quoting from the above:

> The term "Whac-a-mole" (or "Whack-a-mole") is used colloquially to denote a repetitious and futile task: each time a task is finished or a problem is dealt with, yet another task/problem appears elsewhere.

scott culyer 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Greenbanks:

general tory policy

 Darron 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Clauso:

> Lovely fella. He nailed my head to the floor. 

Dinsdale Pyrahhna?

Removed User 08 Jul 2020
In reply to scott culyer:

WE only have the carriers because it would have cost more to cancel the things than build them due to the contract's clauses . re Blair & Brown i believe

And yes i voted for The Buffoon in no 10 but only because there was no alternative at the time. I do not think hes going to last his term,  He is without doubt the worse we have ever had

What a state, A Buffoon here & A Baboon across the water

Clauso 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Darron:

> Dinsdale Pyrahhna?

Doug...

Doug was born in February 1929, and Dinsdale 2 weeks later, and again one week later, born on probation, the eldest sons in a family of 16. Their father was Arthur Piranha, a scrap-metal dealer and TV quizmaster, who married their mother, Kitty Malone, an up-and-coming East End boxer.

Source: Ethel the Frog. 


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