how to get out of this mess

[vbsydenham]

I can't find a corroborating source for that Stuart - Do you have one?

If so I'll get straight onto Nicola and let her know of your displeasure

[stuart]

VB From 2:44:35 here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000rc9t.
NB how circumspect he is when invited to criticise the Scottish National Statistician but I'm sure you can read between the lines.

Announcement here: https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/news ... march-2022

Stuart

[vbsydenham]

Thanks.

The only insight I can perhaps offer is that my own team of 13 people has been operating with 4 people since early March 2020 as there was a civil service wide call on resources to manage CV-19. There is no realistic prospect of this being reversed any time soon. If the team leading on the census have had a similar experience then I totally understand the decision, problematic though it is.

[stuart]

Except the core civil service function in understanding/managing Covid-19 is ONS. That's where some of where your more numerate people should be. And, as in 1944 during D-Day a part of the Civil Service was helping to put the post-war welfare state together. Planning our way out of this mess is rather more important than wondering whether lockdown ends in March or May.

I know Boris can't see that far - but Nicola surely must. If only to help plan her Independence Referendum campaign

Stuart

[angela53]

It saddens me to be continually atacked and insulted on this forum for challenging government retoric
Don`t attack me for having opposing political views re the handling of covid. Healthy discussion is good for all of us
No doubt I will receive a load of abuse following this post.
Admin - Please can you deleat this thread.

[stuart]

Have you not noticed that most posters here are critical of government action on Covid? Too little too late might be the scientific consensus.

What's political about that? Are you seriously suggesting that anybody here thinks Jeremy Corbyn would have done a better job?

The science is fairly clear as to what we know and don't know about the pandemic and the least damaging way forward. Our lives depend on that. When you appear, like some politicians, to confound that - why should one not be allowed some blowback. That's the point, lives are at stake, and when stuff is said that is untrue - it is a civic duty to refute.

I really hope Admin is not going to suppress honest debate. I think it disappointing that you should try.

Stuart

[JGD]

I can't find a corroborating source for that Stuart - Do you have one?

If so I'll get straight onto Nicola and let her know of your displeasure

Ensure you have as concise a statement as can be prepared for Nicola.

I Hear the lady likes to command her brief and can cut to the point very quickly. Extraneous verbiage not to be tolerated.

Not my politics - but quite a talented wee wummin.

[JGD]

And, as in 1944 during D-Day a part of the Civil Service was helping to put the post-war welfare state together. Planning our way out of this mess is rather more important than wondering whether lockdown ends in March or May.

I know Boris can't see that far - but Nicola surely must. If only to help plan her Independence Referendum campaign

Astute observation.

It is not widely recognised just how much the war altered the nation's outlook and had a largely unforeseen consequence where HMG understood the need for and conducted deep analyses of what the country would require post-war.

Can we call him Johnson ? He and his cabinet cannot see past yesterday never mind work out a road-map to get the country out of the pandemic beyond their investment in the hope that vaccine will protect us and there is no mutant strain that will emerge to negate the vaccines in production now.

It might already be evident that the core strategy will be a return to austerity - a policy that in hindsight was not as necessary for the extended period when it was enforced upon us pre-pandemic.

Biden's early view is that the economy cannot be fixed unless you fix the pandemic - and our lot are fixated on sound-bite based leaps in the dark with ill-judged edicts of premature "return to normal, go back to work" calls. Christmas folly and a peak of over 1800 deaths in one day in January was the price the country paid for that type of bluster.

No there is no capacity or capability in the governing party to plan a way out. At best their thinking takes them to a point where they hope that this will serve to keep from the headlines the emergent vacuum that has manifested itself instead of innumerable and measurable promised benefits of Brexit.

Another Biden-ism - a lie for profit or power is still a lie.

[admin]

I am afraid that this thread has got rather personal at times.

I don't want to delete the whole thing, as there has been an interesting debate on here.

So I have (I hope) deleted all the personal comments - apologies to those whose posts have been affected.

Please continue the discussion. No more personal remarks though please or I will shut this down.

Admin

[JGD]

An interesting BBC report relevant to parts of the discussion on this thread.

Gordon Brown: Trust has broken down in way UK is run

The public's trust in the way the UK is run is breaking down, former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown has warned.

He said Covid-19 had exposed "tensions" between Whitehall and the nations and regions, who were often treated by the centre as if they were "invisible".

Mr Brown is urging Prime Minister Boris Johnson to set up a commission to review how the country is governed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55791179

[vbsydenham]

Except the core civil service function in understanding/managing Covid-19 is ONS. That's where some of where your more numerate people should be. And, as in 1944 during D-Day a part of the Civil Service was helping to put the post-war welfare state together. Planning our way out of this mess is rather more important than wondering whether lockdown ends in March or May.

Sorry stuart. All fair points but I just can't agree with you that it's a priority right now. Anyway I hope you're keeping well and staying safe.

[vbsydenham]

It saddens me to be continually atacked and insulted on this forum for challenging government retoric
Don`t attack me for having opposing political views re the handling of covid. Healthy discussion is good for all of us
No doubt I will receive a load of abuse following this post.
Admin - Please can you deleat this thread.

I'm sorry that you feel attacked.

Hopefully people can read your posts and if they find what you say compelling they can read an authoritative view like that expressed at the Covid FAQ https://t.co/JjPDTWdEYq and reach their own conclusions.

I would be even better if you took some time to look through that resource as the views that you are expressing on here are dangerous and deserve to be challenged robustly.

[mosy]

One aspect that worries me is continuance of supply, which is outside the control of the government as only the distribution/allocation of supply is within its control. It is remarkable that first doses are being so rapidly administered, but what confidence is there that second doses will be available when all these first millions near their 12-week anniversary date?

This government has been known, ahem, to defer future deadline plans until panicking a day or two before. Have any assurances been given that plans are in place for second doses of the appropriate vaccine to be available in time? Without being in control of supply, is there even any way of knowing? The government refuses to publish any detail on the receipt of vaccine stocks or on where stocks are allocated/shipped to. Why the secrecy?

[angela53]

"I would be even better if you took some time to look through that resource as the views that you are expressing on here are dangerous and deserve to be challenged robustly."

I totally disagree, all I am doing is challenging the government retoric which some people have difficult with and want us to be locked down forever -look to Sweden are doing really well with very few deaths

[stuart]

look to Sweden are doing really well with very few deaths

Deaths per million population for comparable countries:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Sweden: 1,086
Denmark; 346
Norway: 101
Finland: 118

Sweden deaths total 11,005 - a few?
Cold statistics - not political rhetoric.

Stuart

[vbsydenham]

"I would be even better if you took some time to look through that resource as the views that you are expressing on here are dangerous and deserve to be challenged robustly."

I totally disagree, all I am doing is challenging the government retoric which some people have difficult with and want us to be locked down forever -look to Sweden are doing really well with very few deaths

I certainly don't want us to be locked down forever - I can agree with you on that. And there is lots to be critical of this Government for in how they have handled this crisis. But Sweden is not the model. It is true that they performed relatively well during the first wave but - as stuart points out - they have suffered terribly since the Summer, are now amongst the worst performing countries, so bad that their Health Minister was forced to resign.

I would love to know what you propose as an alternative approach over the next few months until vaccination is widespread?

[stuart]

I would love to know what you propose as an alternative approach over the next few months until vaccination is widespread?

Maybe this could help you. What do this countries have in common that the UK and Sweden could possibly learn from?. Deaths per million population:

Australia: 35
New Zealand: 5
Japan: 40
South Korea: 27
Taiwan: 37

UK: 1,447
Sweden: 1,086

Stuart

[JGD]

Sorry stuart. All fair points but I just can't agree with you that it's a priority right now. Anyway I hope you're keeping well and staying safe.

Perhaps it should be considered a priority and if not, what compelling argument can be made to deny that it should not be?

Political imperative?

HMG at the moment continues to display an absolute resistance to conducting any immediate and ongoing analysis of events of the last 14 months or so and is most certainly unwilling to hear any message or receive information from outside its own circle.

HMG denies that this is the right time.

A balanced view would be that this far into a problem that still has the potential to worsen, for example of any of the mutant viruses has a more deadly payload and begins to kill people in greater numbers, should be a clear and urgent driver to conduct meaningful reviews and analysis.

Immediately - it is of vital importance.

[vbsydenham]

Not HMG, JGD. SG.

It shouldn't be a prioirty for SG because 100% of civil service capacity is going to manage the pandemic at the moment. I don't know what function you would redeploy people from to resource the census.

[stuart]

Except VB that it is the lack of strategic planning that has resulted, predictably, in consuming all resources now. Do we wish to stumble on from one crisis to the next or plan our way out? The assumption that the jab will solve the problem sometime soon is a great hope but far from a certainty.

Good to be proved wrong otherwise someone should be working on Plan B. And I know some cancer patients who would like to think there is a post pandemic plan for them if they live to see it. People suffering depression, poverty and loneliness now won't change much unless there is a credible plan to get education, welfare & employment sorted - or the misery and deprivation carries on. Just with fewer funerals.

Stuart