East Kent Saint

It was a comment about relying on Gove for the truth about Cummings trip up north during lockdown . Duck is being pedantic , Gove did say 77m Turks could come to the UK when Turkey joined the EU which was extremely unlikely and just a scare before the Brexit vote. So that was the point which is correct , Lord D seems to be trying to make the point about it not being an exact quote , this is true but then it wasn't supposed to be , it was a reference to what Gove did say in the past. Do I have an army of fact checkers to check before I post on here ? No , I use Google like most people usually after the event ! Time to move on ......

But nipping up 260 miles to see/stay with grand parents plus having cov 19 is essential for child care , says Gove (60 million Turks to settle in uk Gove that is !)

When Italian foota was on Ch4 the pitch always looked awful , they said it was because the sun never reached it !

Vaccine .....

The schools are still open , the teachers are looking after essential workers children and also teaching remotely . I'm not sure their Union can protect them much these days . After a bit more time and as things get moving in other areas I'm pretty sure schools will be opening fully . Aside from all the issues where exams have not been taken etc etc ...

The advice was to test , track and isolate but the Govt abandoned that but insisted they were following science with their subsequent actions . Everyone knows they have made a hash of it but thankfully death rates are slowly coming down . Doctor on TV says there is the winter effect , cold nasal passages etc , which is now over so infection rates should slow down.

Excellent timing by Patel to put forward the immigration bill. NHS and Care workers from abroad have had to pay a big visa fee plus a large ‘you can use the NHS’ fee . After a year they are out ! So thank you for keeping our NHS and care system going despite the risk of dying but at the end of the year you are deported , die or f*** off is the new slogan.

We haven’t got a test , trace , isolate system in place yet so mass mixing will spark off a rapid spread of the virus. I agree if you are well any no one you know have the virus / died then you could wonder what all the fuss was about. Relaxers say we are ok to make our own decisions but from what I have seen that’s not true . Tesco , Waitrose , Sainsbury’s all have systems ie clean trolleys, controlled numbers , a one way system and Controlled access to checkouts . I have been told that Aldi , Lidl and Morrison’s are a free for all , no distancing or control measures.

Real interested but should he stay at a team where he will always shine . He has scored again today !

Devolved parts of the UK , like local authorities, have the responsibility without the budget . An easy target if the Govt. want to deflect criticism. Labour ‘playing politics’ said Boris !!! Also Nice to see Tories are really worrying about disadvantaged children’s education so the schools/childminders must open on 1st June ! And now Williamson , poor poor children really must go back to school sob sob . Tell people what safety measures you are carrying out and when your 5 targets are met then talk about opening schools to the rest of the population.

David Hunter (If we follow Boris Johnson’s advice, coronavirus will spread, 11 May) highlights the danger of a partial return to work before a programme of “test, trace, isolate” is in place. He rightly identifies the government’s decision not to tap into unused capacity in local councils but fails to examine why. They have established a parallel central system which bypasses local public health, local councils and GPs. Testing centres (which are often difficult to access), three super-labs (still experiencing “teething problems”) and a contact tracing app of doubtful efficacy are all divorced from local control. Control – and, presumably, a lot of public money – has been handed to Deloitte and private outsourcing companies with dubious records. An ideological commitment to private rather than public services is the real story behind the failure to institute an effective “test, trace, isolate” programme. The government must account for this misuse of public money when experienced public health capacity goes unused. Professor Emeritus Nick Spencer Leamington Spa, Warwickshire • In support of the call to put openness at the very heart of the government’s Covid-19 response (Transparency is key in a crisis – so why isn’t the British government being straight with us?, 13 May), and in light of the earlier award of a £133m contract to produce testing kits to a commercial company without any competitive bidding process, can someone tell me how much the British taxpayer is paying Boots to set up and resource new drive-through testing stations for the virus? An advert on the company’s website said it was looking for 1,000 current staff and volunteers to work at least 32 hours a week as Covid-19 swab testers across the UK. Local recruitment websites are also now carrying ads for volunteers for this scheme. But unless Boots is offering its services to the government for free, how can it be expecting anyone to do such vital work without being paid for it? And will the Boots UK CEO, Sebastian James (a former Bullingdon Club member alongside Boris Johnson), be volunteering on the frontline? Instead of working with private companies that appear willing to use volunteers for profit, the government should be expanding the UK’s testing and tracing capacity by recruiting thousands of people through the NHS and local health authorities. And they should be paid a proper salary. Dr Ian Davis Gairloch, Wester Ross From the Guardian today.

Hancock , when caught out , first denies he said it (even though they play it back ) then says it’s taken out of context or just answers a different question plus praising the Government’s performance. It’s all going at a pace these days plus we are getting info overload or they just stop showing the deaths by country graph as we were top in Europe !! We know they were slow to react (not alone in that) , cov 19 infected people were transferred from hospitals to care homes , PPE was/is lacking esp in care homes. The Govt. communication should be better with all these expert advisors they employ , it’s poor to announce changes before issuing the 50 pages of detail .

If labour were in Govt I imagine the initial response would be similar perhaps with slightly more humility . However the Tory supporting press would be hammering them daily !

Suggested a while ago . Sounds sensible but too many vested interests re promotion and relegation PLUS money money money .Nothing will be decided until they run out of time and then they will argue about scrapping this season entirely or calling current league position the final positions to decide promotion and relegation followed by various legal actions .

Why can't the Govt even organise our own testing ? 50 000 tests being sent to USA for analysis ! It will be intersting to see what is really happening , that's if the the information ever comes out/trickles down to our level .

It would take alot of time and effort to untangle the Coronavirus figures given by each country and then you would have to investigate the validity of the original information before coming to a conclusion that was accurate. Currently there is still a debate about how the Black Death was spread around the world . The common understanding was that it was spread by fleas hosted by rats but that is now disputed .Common remedies at the time were for example in Frankfurt was to kill all the Jews as they spread the disease ! Our Govt responce has been hampered by 10 years of under investment in the NHS , using private companies to do testing , not utilising local council and NHS facilities for testing and tracking , being more concerned with praising their own efforts than telling us the truth , over promising and under achieving on a grand scale . They have also made bad decisions such as clearing out hospital wards of elderly patients to care homes , not realising the severity of the problem so dragging their heels on lockdown and failing to test and track and failing to close our borders. We have seen diversionary tactics , yesterdays briefing included a long VE day mention ending with a promise that the NHS would look after the vets ?? I thought they did that anyway ? the environment minister did sound lost at this stage . The briefings are poor surely they have some presentation experts they could use ? The Govt are putting out mixed messages , some via the freindly bits of the press and ministers who have to backtrack the next day. I wonder what the press reaction would have been if they wern't supports of the Tories/Boris ? I hope they get some kind of grip and tell us how it is and what they are going to do in a clear way so we can do what is required !!!!

To add to ant’s comments it appears the “friendly” media were briefed by the Govt so yesterday’s headlines were all about easing the lockdown and Boris to brief us on Sunday about all these new freedoms. All now denied by Rabb ! The emergency RAF airlift of PPE has gone wrong as the gowns don’t meet UK spec and were produced by a T shirt business , no further details are available !! NHS asking the Govt to stop over promising and under delivering .

Liverpool will tell him to play himself into the Prem at Saints first then he will walk into their first team , Ha Ha !

Jennick also ignored the stay home advice but he didn't resign !

The whole point is that since the Thatcher years with Kenneth Clarke ( of all people) the NHS has been slowly split up in competing sections just so private companies can get a slice of taxpayers money by offering services to the NHS (Cherry picking of course) . The total irony is just what you are quoting !! It started in the Thatcher years where there was central purchasing , by the NHS itself , for the very reasons you have quoted !! It is going nearly full circle except Deloittes will be running it not the NHS . They will now be creaming off profits , bonus payments etc at the expence of us taxpayers . As foggy says "you couldn't make it up" ( It's just the rest of what Foggy says that is wrong) Of course what the Govt are putting out sounds reasonable but like everything else they have done since this crisis started they are not actually delivering what they say they are . https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52553430 for example.