East Kent Saint

Laura Kuensberg and Nick Robinson are said to be tory voters . Charter flights to bring in Romanian fruit and veg pickers ! ........

We have been told by Cameron ( May Home sec) that they would reduce immigration to a set figure. They soon realized they had no system and no staff in Border Force to do this . May then tried to get down to the made up figure by restricting student visas ( reducing Uni income !) and trying to deport the Windrush generation and members of their family that have lived and worked here for 50 years . We don't have much chance of repelling illegal immigrants as our coastline is not covered except by a few retired coastguards who do it as a hobby and only 6 (I think ) main control points around the coast. There are a large number of small air strips with no proper control . There dosen't seem to be any checks carried out at Heathrow before the flight ban in our experience. Take back control of the borders ? We have never had control throughout history and we certainly don't now nor will have . I think Shengen was a big mistake by the EU , no more Day of the Jackal" style border checks or passport registration at hotels etc to evade !!!

I see Boris is now using his second official home , one rule for ..... (a joke)

Ralph has agreed a 3 year contract in principle , say The Sun !

The Govt are not making an effort to collate and pass on stats about deaths of NHS staff as it needs the staff to keep on working . Remember that the Govt have hired a right wing campain advisor from NZ to "get their message across" so what they say in pubic has been carefully thought out to put them in the best light (most of the time) so it is no surprise that how/where NHS staff have been infected has been put in doubt . This message is then repeated on places like here and before you know it black is now white . So NHS staff didn't catch the virus in their hospital and if they did it wasn't because of lack of PPE it is because they used too much PPE so they didn't have enough to protect themselves , then went shopping on the way home and caught it there .

You are a very strange individual “quote”

Point taken , it was the globalisation that means we don’t produce so many items in this country . In a crisis we have to start from a very low base , this is true around the world (apart from China) . In America it seems nearly everything is made in China .

I was stunned when Hancock tried to shift the blame for lack of PPE onto nurses , doctors and care workers using them when they “didn’t “ need to . It didn’t appear on line in the reports of the briefing but the front line workers are making their voices heard today . He is still trying to defend his comments today , of all the people to criticise they are the last to pick on . Globalisation is showing the cracks now , if it’s all made somewhere else you are vulnerable, a bit like the ERG saying poor people will be able to afford food after brexit because UK can import cheap food from around the world that they could Buy , so goodbye British farmers.

It was quite a battle to get a refund a year ago when our flight home was cancelled hours before it was due to depart ! The chances of getting one now must be pretty slim. I suspect this years flights , which are already booked , will be rebooked a few times before we actually get to fly .

Believing Trump ? you couldn't make it up ! Not sure any of the election promises we were given in December would have actually happened but this pandemic will totally change the economy , HS2 could be the first thing to go .

The ministers look bewildered because they haven’t got any answers . The journos are trying hard not to criticise the Govt at this time. Don’t forget Boris has already excluded journos who asked awkward questions before the virus outbreak and refuses to appear on Various programs , radio and TV . Trying to control the media by giving Facebook “interviews “ .

apparently title does not carry a set rank , First Secretary does not automatically outrank other members of the cabinet unless the PM has elevated the position , in the past the Chancellor has been the next highest after the PM etc ..............

But Rabb was still pretty vague when asked and was telling us it was collective cabinet responsibility and now they are saying Boris is still very much in charge of the government!!! Meanwhile back in the real world we are going stir crazy and resorting to football team forums for entertainment.

He is just a stand in , if Boris becomes incapable he does not take over automatically etc. No doubt constitutional law experts could enlighten us but without a written constitution no one can say absolutely. By firing the Chancellor’s advisors Boris has concentrated power in No10 . All way above our pay grade , as they say.

It's a bit mind boggling that when the PM is ill there is no deputy to take over that is in the loop 100% of the time . Nice of Batman (of all people) to tell us there are odd people on here Ha Ha .

"And it’s not just what Johnson is saying that’s causing confusion, it’s the way he’s saying it. There’s a carefree lightness to his tone, the familiar bluster and bumble seemingly making it impossible for him to stress the seriousness of the crisis we all face. Less than three weeks ago, Johnson was enthusiastically telling the nation about his visit to a hospital. “I can tell you that I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m shaking hands continuously,” he said. “I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were actually a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you’ll be pleased to know and I continue to shake hands”. Johnson has never been a great orator, struggling to keep to script and relying on bluster and jokes to get by. This is no time for either." This report about daily briefing on 23rd March. (via Google) and yes I hope he pulls through as well !

It would help the players reputation if , even now , they donated a regular sum to help the non playing staff . They would still be paying their tax (or whatever tax they haven't managed to avoid) . However the clubs may see that as a way of not paying their share so managers and others should also contribute. The PFA have been under scrutiny for some time for not doing enough for players and for the massive and ever increasing pay of Gordon Taylor , perhaps this is the time for him to go but I suspect he will hold on to power for as long as possible.

It would have been good if the players , manager and board all chipped in to a fund to support the lowly paid workers at each club. Clubs seem to be waiting for the football authorities to make their mind up about this season , UEFA , FA etc seem to be hanging on to prevent losing £750M TV payments so all in limbo . A bit of leadership is required here 1. to tell clubs to support their workers and 2. to make some statements about this season and the alternatives . I don't see going through the motions to finish the remaining games as the answer as the outcome will always have an asterisk attached plus it will impinge on next season.

Saints featured on BBC news , providing meals for the needy etc via the StMarys catering team and the Saints Foundation . Well done ! . I see at WHL are using their underground car park as a food distribution centre .

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52148695 UEFA stir the pot !

MH is the least worse spokesperson but is still electioneering. To any pertinent question over the last 10 years we have been told that there are a record number of X or £x have been spent etc when the reality was that the numbers were well short and the £ were less due to inflation.The Tories have just employed another right wing Communication expert from NZ to gloss over Boris and his false promises. 40 new hospitals when only 1 is proposed and mainly because the present hospital site would be redeveloped ! None of the other 39 were going to be built , just looked into , another lie. I remember Thatcher at the Tory conference declaring 800 new hospital beds but omitting to mention they had closed 1100 hospital beds. The Tories did nothing about Coronavirus until it was too late , lack of testing , tracking Ill people , repatriating UK residents abroad , failing to act after the 3 day simulation exercise in 2017 for a pandemic that showed the NHS couldn’t cope and not spending money on relevant PPE equipment ready for a pandemic. This has all come back to haunt Us now . The government spokespeople are still trotting out meaningless figures and promising undeliverable testing regimes while people in the NHS are dying for lack of basic PPE . The WHO told them they needed visors , coveralls etc but your government down graded the standards to apron , gloves and paper mask ! Just watch coverage from the Far East , their doctors and nurses are totally enclosed with full biohazard equipment not any bare skin or part of their body exposed at all . Boris and his cohorts are a total joke And totally out of their depth , wait for Brexit to start at the end of this year to put the. final nail in our collective coffin. We need food grown at home but have no one to harvest it and this government put up a bill on farming that didn’t mention food production. You couldn’t make it up and if you did you would be slagged off by the very same people ie Boris & co .

Debt to USA after WW2 was £21 Billion , lots of moaning by UK because of the £/$ exchange rate ! It was paid off in 2006 during T Blair's reign . It was lent at 2% per annum but had some sort of conversion rate attached which was bad for the UK. (I don't quite understand this bit ) The WW1 war bonds were finally paid off during George Osbournes time in the Treasury.

Yes it still would have been a massive problem . The NHS problems are not just funding but the the fact that the Tories from Thatcher onwards wanted to reduce the NHS and push people to towards private health care . Ken Clarke started the ball rolling by starting the internal market , since then we have had numerous reorganisations including one where the health secretary would have had no responsibility for the NHS . This was overturned !! We have had changes to GP contracts and then another filter to reduce hospital referals Comissioning Groups !!! Net result , difficult to get GP appointment in 2 weeks so people went to A&E .... Along the way corporate private health insurance was promoted etc etc . GPs now want out , several practices have closed in our area , remaining practices said they couldn't take any more numbers but the area health authority overruled them so they are struggling. Rural practices used to be given a subsidy to help them stay in place with low numbers but that was cancelled and they have ended up closed with villagers now having to travel to nearest town to see a Dr.

The point is if the NHS and DWP had been given proper funding over the last decade these departments would be in a much better place to deal with the current crisis etc Don't forget the Tories blaming Labour for the criminal behaviour of the banks worldwide , not just rolling up bad debt that they had encouraged people to buy and turn them into "Financial Instruments" to sell to other Banks but the Libor and other crimes that went largely unpunished. Having sold on these bad debts they were then free to sell even more mortgages at a low rate for the first year , failing to mention that the repayments would rapidly rise in following years , leading to more bad debt. The UK economy has barely recovered from this before Brexit and now the virus .

sort of related ! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52040579