Keir Starmer

[sploo]

Lets not forget that having hindsight is a great asset, the real issue is that no government Labour, Tory or otherwise had thought of being prepared for any form of pandemic and that the NHS was already crumbling yet no contingency plans.

That's not actually true though; e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ed-of-impact-on-uk-four-years-before-pandemic

For those that are allergic to the Grauniad; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-pandemic-preparedness/uk-pandemic-preparedness details Exercise Cygnus. And here are details from the British Medical Association: https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-s...ailed to act,Delays continued throughout 2020.

That any government would have struggled in the face of the Covid pandemic is undoubtedly true. That Johnson's government ignored advice, bungled and delayed responses, and gave their mates millions in return for inadequate PPE is, sadly, also very true.

 

[sploo]

Little point, indeed. I will stick with what I know.

Ah. Those "alternative facts". Presumably the ones that came from a reality where Boris was a completely different PM to everything known, discussed, and evidenced.

It's difficult to observe the 'lasting impact' of Brexit on the heels of the pandemic and the subsequent downturn of the global economy.

To some extent yes; the pandemic ironically muddied the waters sufficiently that it masked some of the negative impacts of the Brexit. Unfortunately, losing a leg doesn't mean that losing a finger wasn't a problem - it merely made the loss of the digit less critical at the time.

 

[sploo]

It is fortuitous that we left when we did and, when we have paid off the EU what legacy contributions are due, we can watch as the EU struggle without having to contribute any more.

Brexit costs the UK economy more than the value of our contributions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_of_Brexit#Contributions_to_the_EU), and has caused long term economic damage (https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/the-economy-forecast/brexit-analysis/#assumptions).

We've hardly brought the EU to it's knees, and regardless, celebrating the fact you may have hurt a perceived enemy in the act of doing major damage to yourself is pure insanity.

 

[Yorkieguy]

St Helena is in the South Atlantic ocean

Yes - it's 8,484 km Distance from Chagos Archipelago, which is the Indian Ocean, which Lammy/Starmer surrendered last week.

It all seems to make sense to Starmer.

 

[Spectric]

What I find so amazing is that Labour have promised change and to "fix the foundations" but they all seem to want to keep on blaming the torries for everything over the last 14 years as an excuse for there lack lustre performance so far and this so called black hole that no one can explain apart from 9 billion which is down to payrises awarded by Labour so are they just going to do what ever and use these as excuses, this forthcoming budget will be very interesting if not painful.

 

[Yorkieguy]

That's not actually true though; e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ed-of-impact-on-uk-four-years-before-pandemic

For those that are allergic to the Grauniad; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-pandemic-preparedness/uk-pandemic-preparedness details Exercise Cygnus. And here are details from the British Medical Association: https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/covid-19/what-the-bma-is-doing/the-public-health-response-by-uk-governments-to-covid-19#:~:text=The UK failed to act,Delays continued throughout 2020.

That any government would have struggled in the face of the Covid pandemic is undoubtedly true. That Johnson's government ignored advice, bungled and delayed responses, and gave their mates millions in return for inadequate PPE is, sadly, also very true.

Had Labour been elected, and Jeremy Corbyn was running the country, I can't help wondering how that might have panned out, during the pandemic, and with Ukraine, Israel/Palestine.

The government thought they were doing the right thing for the right reasons with Lockdown, but locking everyone down, vulnerable or not has had a lasting deleterious effect. Looking back, I think it would have been better to have simply given strong guidance to the most vulnerable, who didn't need any persuading to stay at home, and even when lockdown was lifted, they still stayed at home.

Many who were in abusive relationships were cooped up with violent partners, and the education of children - particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds has caused setbacks which will blight their lives well into the future. Through two world wars no schools were closed. If they were destroyed, alternative provision was up and running in days.

The government said 'children would need to be 'home schooled'. How does a single parent with limited numeracy and literacy, with no books in he house, stuck in a high rise flat with a pay as you go phone and no internet 'home school' her kids? One of the argument was that the teachers couldn't 'socially distance the pupils, but they could have had half the class in one day - the other half the next, which would have been better than nothing.

Many such kids were struggling before the pandemic and since then, truancy levels have remained stubbornly high. It doesn't matter how many teachers or how much money is pumped into schools, if parents don't play a part in their children's education the kids won't thrive. Better of parents whose kids had facilities at home such as a PC and wi-fi in their room were often 'home schooled' by the school, having lessons by zoom.

One of the things that was persistently said to justify lockdown was that 'we're following the science' but in reality, they were following the predictions of statisticians which as often as not proved to be wildly out.

It's disingenuous of Labour to keep banging on about home the 'Tories trashed the economy', whilst totally overlooking the cost of the pandemic and the effect that the war in Ukraine had on the world economy. In addition to keeping the Winter Fuel Allowance, every household received a non means-test grant towards winter fuel.

When it comes to the so-called 'black hole' one thing that's conveniently overlooked is the cost of furlough. In total the schemes cost £96.9 billion. The Departments distributed £68.9 billion of furlough payments through CJRS to 1.3 million employers covering 11.7 million individual jobs, and £28.1 billion over five SEISS grants to 2.9 million self-employed people.

Would the present government have been as generous as this? I very much doubt it.

Current estimates of the total cost of government Covid-19 measures range from about £310 billion to £410 billion. This is the equivalent of about £4,600 to £6,100 per person in the UK. Official figures show that spending in 2020/21 was about £179 billion higher than had been planned before the pandemic for that year.

The Covid Enquiry in underway and hopefully some good will come out of it for dealing with future pandemics.

I'm no apologist for Johnson, but when he was serious he did have 'gravitas' as in the 'you must stay at home' video but of course, we know what ensued with politicians behind closed doors, with 'Partygate', Hancock deriding people for not socially distancing, then caught on camera snogging his 'bit on the side' Jenrick travelling to Wales to see his dad, and the ludicrous Cummings malarkey.

But I can't bring to mind any other PM in recent times who could have made a better job of this:

 

[paulrbarnard]

Yes - it's 8,484 km Distance from Chagos Archipelago, which is the Indian Ocean, which Lammy/Starmer surrendered last week.

It all seems to make sense to Starmer.

View attachment 190662

Looks like the flight goes very close to Rwanda and half the distance. Kier is missing an opportunity to recover money already spent and save on flight costs at the same time. Beyond belief how anyone could consider St Helena to be a suitable place to send people.

 

[sploo]

But I can't bring to mind any other PM in recent times who could have made a better job of this:

Being able to deliver a message convincingly, but whilst doing the exactly opposite yourself behind the scenes isn't really the mark of good leader - it's the mark of good conman.

I'd take a deeply dull, but generally competent and honest leader over a charismatic conman every time. Unfortunately that's not how the world works, and the latter frequently thrives.

 

[Amplidyne]

Now all we need is a "deeply dull, but generally competent and honest leader"

Well I suppose one out of three ain't bad.

 

[ey_tony]

I'd take a deeply dull, but generally competent and honest leader over a charismatic conman every time.

So would I but that unfortunately rules out Starmer et al.
So far he's shown he's deeply dull alright but beyond that he gives off the air that he's just an incompetent who is out of his depth, though perhaps not incompetent enough to grab all the freebies going.

 

[Spectric]

So far he's shown he's deeply dull alright but beyond that he gives off the air that he's just an incompetent

At least old Joe has a good excuse for his behavior, Starmer has no excuse and is still clueless.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

Good. Serves you right.

Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing. It must be if Starmer is anything to go by.
I remember the decisions to lock down and they were made with due consideration to the need for isolation with the, likely, mental health of those affected. The decision was left until the 'right moment', at the time.

Some businesses were closing down early; one reason being that some companies needed to anticipate their supply chains and not place orders that would not be used should the lockdown occur sooner rather than later. They would mostly have been the food processing and hospitality industries; the service industries being able to stay on without loss.

I think he did take Covid seriously. Too seriously, some might argue, since he did shake a few hands to show his soilidarity with the sick.

And do remember that we are expressing opinions here, with few accurate facts on either side. When 'lists go on and on', without explanation, they tend to be for effect than accuracy.

I'm not sure whether your reply about "hindsight" is serious, flippant or simply disingenuous.

Two separate lockdown were at least a week too late, without hindsight being a factor. The advisors have even said so on the record. These things were understood at the time. The fact that businesses were closing up prior to lockdown speaks to the truth that no hindsight is being used here and that the contemporaneous information available a week or so prior to lockdown being called should have precipitated an esrlier lockdown. Had they been called earlier, as was advised and obvious at the time, they would have lasted a shorter period. All of the above is substantiatable.

 

[ey_tony]

At least old Joe has a good excuse for his behavior, Starmer has no excuse and is still clueless.

Ahhh the man of many pledges! Don't let Starmer fool you, he appeared clueless as an opposition leader but he's going to be even worse as the leader of this country going forward.
They've already lost the goodwill of the pensioners, they will lose the goodwill of employers next with their worker's rights nonsense which will increase unemployment and encourage very early decisions on probationary employees as to whether the employer thinks that they will fit in or let them go.

They are about to unleash an even bigger issue with regard rental landlords who will simply bail out due to laws/rights making renting simply unprofitable which will mean fewer properties to rent and therefore higher rents. Then there's the taxation on private schools which will increase the pressure on the already struggling state education system.

I've no doubt they will stick it to the motorist as usual and council taxes will no doubt shoot up and I've no doubt the TV tax often referred to as a TV licence will increase.
Given the cost of living crisis, the TV tax hits once again the poorest in our society and when they can't pay it they end up criminals. It's a disgusting tax that should have been removed decades ago.
The real criminals are the BBC mandarins who benefit lavishly from the taxes that millions of struggling families have to pay.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

Lets not forget that having hindsight is a great asset, the real issue is that no government Labour, Tory or otherwise had thought of being prepared for any form of pandemic and that the NHS was already crumbling yet no contingency plans. Was it not back in 2015 that the world just managed to avoid a global outbreak of Ebola and that people like Bill gates warned that we must learn from this and all be prepared for future pandemics but it seems little was done in the UK. An even more interesting question is are we now prepared for another pandemic if one came along next week ? I would say no, the NHS is in a bigger mess and with someone like Starmer at the helm it would be utter chaos just like with Boris.

That isn't right.
There were indeed "plans" and even a major scrutiny of those plans made in 2016, a mere 3 years prior.
The report highlighted many failings that woukd need to be addressed, but the Tory Govt failed to act on those plans or fund the required emergency equipment stocks.

Your claim that the NHS would be in a bigger mess under a Labour Govt is interesting, to say the least, and without any real substantiation or credibility as far as I can tell.
Labour having just committed the required funding to *maybe* prevent a mass exodus of highly trained medical staff to other countries, is testament to the emphasis to getting the NHS back on a better footing.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

It's difficult to observe the 'lasting impact' of Brexit on the heels of the pandemic and the subsequent downturn of the global economy.

No.
No it isn't.
Or is it your expert opinion that ALL of the major financial institutions around the world are wrong? They have all performed research, not of the "forecast" variety, which can clearly be denied, but instead research into the recent past progress since Brexit was achieved. Unanimously, the findings are that the UK GDP has suffered around a 4% negative impact.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

It is fortuitous that we left when we did and, when we have paid off the EU what legacy contributions are due, we can watch as the EU struggle without having to contribute any more.

What information are you party to that the major big hitting world financial institutions are missing, please?

Your forecast may turn out to be true, but right now the smart money is not in agreement with you.

 

[spanner48]

Looks like the flight goes very close to Rwanda and half the distance. Kier is missing an opportunity to recover money already spent and save on flight costs at the same time. Beyond belief how anyone could consider St Helena to be a suitable place to send people.

My old boss - and good friend - ended up as Governor of St. Helena. He said there's nothing wrong with it: a consistently mild - but wet and windy - Atlantic climate. But it's VERY small, and very mountainous. The popultion is just 5,000 people, and occupies most of the one available valley. There was - only with some exteme civil engineering - JUST room to build a small airstrip. So where are the tens or hundreds of thousands of failed 'asylumm-seekers' going to go?

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

She isn't representing the truth? That's merely your opinion.

If she isn't telling the truth, exactly which part of what she said is untrue? I'm not defending her as I haven't seen enough of her to judge whether or not she's factual but I would ask you to substantiate your argument that she isn't telling the truth in that video!

When the Tories were being constantly slated in the gutter press by such as the Guardian and Independent together with other media in their orchestrated and choreographed agenda to bring down the Tories, I'm quite sure you Labour supporters revelled in it and believed every word but now that Starmer et al are in the hot seat and under the cosh, Labour luvvies are up in arms because of the criticism that Labour is attracting.

So far as I can see they're nothing better than hypocrites and liars and Starmer and his chums have got more faces than a town hall clock none of which are appealing. They blatantly lied to the electorate and withheld their true agenda in order to make themselves electable, well now we're seeing the results.

They've only been in power since July and they've attracted nothing but criticism which says it all and this was the government which was supposed to save the UK...so far they haven't proven they can run a bath let alone the economy and judging by their pathetic start, typically they will destroy whatever they started with. That unfortunately is Labour's MO.
If you thought the Tories were bad, just wait until this lot get really started. One thing you can depend upon with Labour is that they sure know how to redistribute misery very well.

And there we are.
Label me as a Labour supporter.
Wrong.

May I suggest that you do your own research into the Chagos Islands and the majority of people who (were forced) to live there. (and why).

May I suggest that you might then come back when you have educated yourself.

The reason that I say this is because it would appear that you have already made your mind up about *me* and have a firm predisposition that you will not believe anything I place here (despite it all being verifiable truth and observable reality).

You might also want to brush up on who Oakshotte actually is, her very close connections with Tufton Street, and her toxic views that have gotten her in bother in the past.

Basically, what she has said is trash. Even if it weren't trash and there were some truth to the relocation story, there are no "parallels" to Rwanda. None at all.

The entire story of the inhabitants of Chagos is an utter tragedy of a forcibly displaced people who have retained zero rights and are likely set for further tragedy to come.

 

[Sachakins]

Just because we signed up to the GFA and ECHR does not mean we can't re-examine whether staying in it is a good or bad thing.
Societal changes, way of life and other things change with time. So something set up many years ago and still rooted in archaic logic may are may not make sense today.

I am neither for nor against it at the moment, but I do think it's membership needs to be reviewed under today's way of life and a determination as to it's benefits or restrictions still hold true for today's populous.

 

[Amplidyne]

My old boss - and good friend - ended up as Governor of St. Helena. He said there's nothing wrong with it: a consistently mild - but wet and windy - Atlantic climate. But it's VERY small, and very mountainous. The popultion is just 5,000 people, and occupies most of the one available valley. There was - only with some exteme civil engineering - JUST room to build a small airstrip. So where are the tens or hundreds of thousands of failed 'asylumm-seekers' going to go?

It all seems to me that they are all desperately seeking some sort of answer, without actually grasping the nettle.
The required message still isn't being sent.