I've come to the conclusion that we're so hated by the country right now that we have absolutely zero alternative but play the cards we've been dealt.
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cooperman
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Starmer has to strike a tricky balance here.
In a national emergency, the population tend to get behind the incumbent government. He doesn't want to be seen to be too aggressive.
He's asking good specific questions that clearly show the government have lost control. I personally think he's had a great start.
In a national emergency, the population tend to get behind the incumbent government. He doesn't want to be seen to be too aggressive.
He's asking good specific questions that clearly show the government have lost control. I personally think he's had a great start.
NilSatisOptimum
Player Valuation: £70m
We can just need to put the boot in to Johnson and Cummings at any opportunity, most people will come round once personal experience concentrates their minds.
Cant disagree with much what he said...
Indeed, it serve us no favour or the country to tear into Government, he would be a Soviet spy and Jew eating maniac by weeks end if he went in two footed...
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
It was a national tv broadcast without any heckling from opponents or interruption from interviewers, so he had the time to roll out his response, which I think he did well.
But there's need for a different approach in other formats. He has to start to call for the replacement of people who are clearly failing in their jobs and who are costing lives in their hundreds each and every day. If this was normal times a minister who was failing in their department on every major issue would be having the opposition call for their heads. Think Chris Grayling at Transport, for example, or Patel at the Foreign Office. How can HanCOCK be allowed to get away with his failures without the LP calling for his head on a plate?
Starmer said tonight that criticising governement was the only way to get better outcomes; well one thing that has to be criticised right now is the Health Secretary. He has to be critiqued and a demand that he leaves his post made.
tsubaki
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TBF the problem isn't Hancock - he has failed badly, but its No.10 who set the strategy for all this and his predecessor Hunt was the one who wrecked public health budgets and made such a mess of PPE storage and provision. Getting rid of him or any of the other people around Johnson is going to do nothing much.
Starmer has to be patient here - say what he would do, critique the government constructively and get them to promise to fix the problems with PPE / testing / staffing levels / the communications and so on. He has to remind them - and us - of those promises, of the ongoing problems and the cost to us all of them and highlight when they try to cheat the public by pretending they said something else or make ludicrous definitions like the tests that got delivered from a few weekends ago. He has to get enough of the public to realise that they are clearly lying to us all in the midst of the worst crisis of many of our lifetimes, and then lose his rag with Johnson on our behalf.
cooperman
Player Valuation: £10m
Absolutely
That time will come I think in due course.
He's following a strategy. Offering to work collaboratively, coming across statesman like whilst at the same time showing that nothing the government have holds up to scrutiny. This is part of a plan I'm sure, with criticism building over the weeks ahead when he can refer back to the consistent lack of answers.
With Johnson's majority, labour have to play the long game. The calm, forensic grasp of the detail is the perfect answer when the population finally tire of Johnson's endless bluster and bluff... Which they will do.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Procuring PPE from Turkey that was useless while telling health workers they were wasting PPE should have been the moment he walked the plank.
He's a Minister. The mistakes are happening on his watch. Who else should we blame?
cooperman
Player Valuation: £10m
Yet at the same time ppe made in this country is being shipped out.
The firms making it waiting for the call from the government that never came.
The handling of this crisis by the government has been an utter show. Once the penny drops I expect many people will be furious.
JelavicBrate2
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I know this is somewhat off topic when most people are talking about corona virus, but I've become increasingly opposed to Britain and Americas 2 party political system, it just encourages a kind of us vs them mentality where everybody is either an ally or a foe with nothing in between. One of my favourite books on British politics is the broken compass by Peter Hitchens, where he quite rightly points out that the 2 main political parties don't really reflect the divisions that exist in Britain. Personally I think the 2 main political parties should of been got rid of 20 years ago and replaced by smaller political parties that more accurately reflect the divisions in society and we could avoided the Iraq war, Brexit and other issues. Also it creates a situation where if your a Labour supporter and you didn't like Corbyn then you had nobody to vote for in 2019, if you were a Sanders supporter in America then you had nobody to vote for in 2016, if you were a Republican voter who dislikes Donald Trump then you had nobody to vote for. 85% of people who voted in the 2016 US election voted based on a dislike of the other candidate, which to me doesn't seem a productive way of aligning with people in politics, the enemy of your enemy isn't always your friend.
Some of you asking for Labour to make clear what they would do should be careful. Because you only read the Guardian, the Canary and MSNBC you miss some of the corkers that a more balanced press coverage would show you about Labour's great wisdom.
A classic was that great Blairite fool Rachel Reeves, now in Labour's shadow cabinet, got burned big time when she sent a letter to the government claiming there was a list of companies that could provide PPE and that they had offered their services to the government but the government didn't get back to them... these people could make up the shortfall apparently and get the country on track... haha
Goverment time then wasted investigating these companies found that
A. These companies never did contact the government.
B. They were completely unsuitable! One was a football agent offering to provide ventilators.... some were people that provide up to 500 gowns a week, equivalent 1.5 gowns per hospital... One was an events company in Surrey offering “supplying masks and respirators from China”. The company claims to provide the “ultimate corporate day experience…[with] delicious cuisine from sushi to sandwiches, hot and cold buffets, BBQ, breakfast, snacks and lunch”. Others were a company that was only formed in February ... yet Labour's top brass thinks these are a reliable mass producing partner for government. One more: The Whent, a company that exists to reduce dependence on plastic, peculiarly offering to produce tests and also gloves. Medical gloves are largely made of plastic. the company makes canned mineral water but is now offering to make Covid tests.
For the mess the government has made of this. Put the Labour party in charge and there would be bedlam.
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NilSatisOptimum
Player Valuation: £70m
Who did you say did the investigation?
Guido Fawkes:
Rachel Reeves Sends the Government on a Wild PPE Goose Chase
Rachel Reeves has sent a letter to the Government criticising PPE procurement to date and attaching what she insists is a helpful list of companies
order-order.com
Reeves' Del Boy PPE Suppliers Did Not Contact Government
At the end of April, Rachel Reeves sent a letter to Michael Gove with a less than helpful list of proposed PPE suppliers, from a small private legal
order-order.com
NilSatisOptimum
Player Valuation: £70m
So Guido Fawkes wasted Government time investigating this?
He's provided the letter that Reeves wrote to government. A quick Google search of the companies contained will tell you that he is right. Over to you...
The government waste of time is that civil servants investigate and Gove has to respond to it. His letter is provided in one of the links and is pretty excoriating of Reeves' incompetence. Well worth a read. A waste of time nevertheless since we already know Reeves is hopeless.
This 100%. It's no coincidence that both the US and ourselves have the ridiculous "first past the post" voting system.
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