ITV confirmation Number Ten partied whilst the rest of us locked down.

And your pro lockdown has killed and will kill just as many people as covid will. Nice try on the anti lockdown guilt trip though I'll give you that. 👍🏻
I know how much you were against lockdowns etc, but honestly what do you think would have happened to this country if we had no restrictions last year?
 
PMQ tomorrow - who's bringing the popcorn?

Starmer had better go for Johnson with all guns blazing. 67m people expect him to tear Johnson to pieces. It's make or break time for him too. He has to make an irreversible impact.
Except he won't.
 
I know how much you were against lockdowns etc, but honestly what do you think would have happened to this country if we had no restrictions last year?
Probably exactly the same that is happening now.
For example France have required vaccine passports to be shown to get into nightclubs for the past few months. Guess what the French have done now? Shut nightclubs in France for a minimum of 4 weeks because nightclubs are apparently to blame for cases there. Or how about the mandatory mask mandates in Germany? Once held up as a shining example on how to battle the pandemic, now with some of the highest case rates in Europe. Hell South Korea was once doing well but the inevitable was only delayed and they too are struggling with case rates.

Those who are pro lockdown refuse to recognise or see the damage they have done to people's health, people's livelihoods and people's education as yes lockdowns have directly caused preventable deaths. To say lockdowns haven't caused preventable deaths is quite frankly a lie.
 
denying children a childhood is worse, in my opinion,
they're not being denied a childhood, they were temporarily kept at home to keep them safe, their parents safe and their grandparents safe.

You want to see what denying a childhood is? I can tell you from first hand experience, watching a 7 and 9 year old bury their mother, that messes up with kids far more than 6 months schooling over zoom, including a summer holiday anyway. Continuing to send kids into school when some had vulnerable parents was cruel. More kids will have gone through what my kids went through
 
Public schools should not have remained open, that does not mean shutting state schools was wrong. (They weren't fully closed).

You're suggesting it was possible for schools to remain fully open at that time, it just wasn't for many many reasons that you're not looking at.

Millions of children would have not been able to attend for various reasons, parents isolating or unable to use support networks they rely on to take/pick up children in school etc.

More fundamentally teachers and support staff would not have been able to remain in sufficient numbers to safely operate a fully open school, it would have been chaos with some shut, some open or half open with the schools left to fend for themselves.

I also have children, and my son did not want to go because he feared passing the virus to me as I was shielding. There are two sides to this coin and the effect on children are not universal.
OK, lets look at that holisticaly. Would we not have been better shutting down every where else earlier, harder and for less time? You know like they did in europe? This is Randy's point. Keep listening to these fuckwits who make the wrong decisions at the wrong times, if you want, it's not really for me. I have worn a mask for months, because I am not stupid. I have avoided the pub for months, because I am not stupid. I will continue to do the right things for me and my family, as I hope we would all do.

Yes they will eventually get a decision right, even if it's for the wrong reasons. The right and wrong stop mattering, when whatever you and I do, the goverrnment will dictate legislation, which has been proven to be, ultimately wrong, either at the wrong time, or ineffective. That is undeniable.

I feel for your son, but that is not indicitive of what is happening across the country with children, more generally. The harm that is being done is going to impact our children for their entire lives.

You're argument Chris, seems to be, its right to lock down, have limitations on our freedoms, because of where we are at any particular time. The truth is we didn't have to be, ever, where we were. We ended up at any point in time because of **** goverrnance that was aimed at enriching the governments tory pals.
 
they're not being denied a childhood, they were temporarily kept at home to keep them safe, their parents safe and their grandparents safe.

You want to see what denying a childhood is? I can tell you from first hand experience, watching a 7 and 9 year old bury their mother, that messes up with kids far more than 6 months schooling over zoom, including a summer holiday anyway. Continuing to send kids into school when some had vulnerable parents was cruel. More kids will have gone through what my kids went through
Thats awful BoroMart, it's not the entire picture though. I will say I, respectfully disagree, from my own experriences.
 
Probably exactly the same that is happening now.
For example France have required vaccine passports to be shown to get into nightclubs for the past few months. Guess what the French have done now? Shut nightclubs in France for a minimum of 4 weeks because nightclubs are apparently to blame for cases there. Or how about the mandatory mask mandates in Germany? Once held up as a shining example on how to battle the pandemic, now with some of the highest case rates in Europe. Hell South Korea was once doing well but the inevitable was only delayed and they too are struggling with case rates.

Those who are pro lockdown refuse to recognise or see the damage they have done to people's health, people's livelihoods and people's education as yes lockdowns have directly caused preventable deaths. To say lockdowns haven't caused preventable deaths is quite frankly a lie.

I’m not denying that lockdown may have caused preventable deaths, but this in no way would be higher than the amount saved by restrictions. It’s not exactly a scenario that will ever have a perfect solution
Just imagine for a second the impact of not putting any restrictions in place last year and how many deaths this would have caused, even non Covid related

What was the alternative to lockdown that wouldn’t cause thousands of deaths?
 
I’m not denying that lockdown may have caused preventable deaths, but this in no way would be higher than the amount saved by restrictions. It’s not exactly a scenario that will ever have a perfect solution
Just imagine for a second the impact of not putting any restrictions in place last year and how many deaths this would have caused, even non Covid related

What was the alternative to lockdown that wouldn’t cause thousands of deaths?
Randy's point is, and excuse me if I have this wrong Randy, we would have had the same number of deaths from covid, without lockdowns. It would have happened quickerr, and more might have died through lack of care because our NHS has been stripped to the bone through privitization.

We just moved waves, we never prevented them.

Now I don't know if this is true or not, and I, generally, agree with lockdowns. What I don't agee with is the when and why of their implementation.

We have to agree that we all want the least number of deaths, with the least amount of damage to the most people. We just don't necessarily agree with the right way to do it. What we should all agree on is Johnson ****ed this up royally.
 
Randy's point is, and excuse me if I have this wrong Randy, we would have had the same number of deaths from covid, without lockdowns. It would have happened quickerr, and more might have died through lack of care because our NHS has been stripped to the bone through privitization.

We just moved waves, we never prevented them.

Now I don't know if this is true or not, and I, generally, agree with lockdowns. What I don't agee with is the when and why of their implementation.

We have to agree that we all want the least number of deaths, with the least amount of damage to the most people. We just don't necessarily agree with the right way to do it. What we should all agree on is Johnson ****ed this up royally.
If those waves all happen quicker it wouldn’t take much for it to become very catastrophic quite quickly, and personally I think that causes far more disputation on every aspect of our lives than a lockdown would

Pushing back waves to when people had the opportunity to be vaccinated must have also saved thousands of lives though

Completely agree on the final point, it really didn’t need to be managed like this
 
I’m not denying that lockdown may have caused preventable deaths, but this in no way would be higher than the amount saved by restrictions. It’s not exactly a scenario that will ever have a perfect solution
Just imagine for a second the impact of not putting any restrictions in place last year and how many deaths this would have caused, even non Covid related

What was the alternative to lockdown that wouldn’t cause thousands of deaths?
There is no 'may' about it. Ultimately lockdowns will be attributed to just as many deaths as the virus has when we look back in years to come.

@Laughing as normal you've explained my point better than I could. 👍🏻
 
No mention of this story on front page of tomorrow's Sun or Telegraph. The Sun's deputy editor James Slack worked in No. 10 as director of communications at the time the Christmas party that wasn't a christmas party took place, no doubt other journos were there too......
It’s blatant, isn’t it? I truly hope this is another phone-hacking/expenses scale scandal. It needs to be.
 
If those waves all happen quicker it wouldn’t take much for it to become very catastrophic quite quickly, and personally I think that causes far more disputation on every aspect of our lives than a lockdown would

Pushing back waves to when people had the opportunity to be vaccinated must have also saved thousands of lives though

Completely agree on the final point, it really didn’t need to be managed like this
You may be right on the disruption point, but I don't personally agree, but I don't know. It is all supposition.

Yes, more people would have died with lack of care if we had done nothing, that is also true, I expect, to an extent. However, would our excess deaths have been higher overall? Again I don't know.

What I do know is that the way this pandemic has been managed has, absoloutely caused more deaths, covid and non covid, than was necessary. That I think is undisputable and can be backed up with excess deaths around europe, as an example of this Sweden didn't use lockdowns and allowed immunity to build. They have an excess mortality rate of change at 160%, in the UK we have a relative change of almost 3,000%.

It is not like for like, but come on, you don't have to look at population density to know who got it right. They tested less, by an order of magnitude, had less deaths per million, and reduced their excess deaths massively.

 
Sorry Laughing, but you have to take timings and population density into account.
The preventative measures and when the government put them in place should also be treat separately.
If we had gone down the Sweden route then our population density would have meant more infections and the death toll would have been much higher due to wider exposure of individuals and the complete breakdown of the health care system.
By spreading out those waves we bought a lot of people time, people who would otherwise have not had access to hospital beds or the improved treatment methods we have now.
I have worked throughout the pandemic while living with 2 people who were shielding and extremely vulnerable. If we'd let Covid run wild what would my chances have been to stay infection free and not inadvertently kill my family?
We have all suffered, but trying to retrogradely say we were wrong to lockdown is madness in my opinion.
 
You saw the anger from the Dominic Cummings situation where he drove to Durham and you thought there's no way he survives this, then you saw the way the Tories brushed it off rather easily.

I don't see how this will be any different, they'll just keep doubling down on the lie that it was a meeting and no rules were broken, its time to move on.

I'm not sure how bad it would have to be to bring Johnson and the government down. Anything less than him murdering someone I think he could brush off.
 
He did last week Randy. But he was ridiculed and criticised by the 'Anyone but Starmer' brigade on here for 'wasting' 2 of the 6 questions he's allowed on a meaningless Christmas party from a year ago.

Strangely enough those critics are absent from this thread.
Don't get me wrong I hope he goes for it but I don't think he'll go for the jugular which is what he should do.
 
Former education sec 'threw a party on 10 December'
As we've been reporting today, tensions are flaring following the emergence of a video showing Number 10 staff joking about an alleged Christmas party.

Separately, the Department for Education has admitted it held a social gathering of staff in the lead-up to Christmas in contravention to coronavirus social-distancing rules.

Former education secretary Gavin Williamson threw a party and delivered a short speech at the event, which took place on 10 December while London was in Tier 2, which banned social mixing between households.

The claim of a second gathering was initially made by the Mirror.

In response, a DfE spokeswoman said: "While this was work-related, looking back we accept it would have been better not to have gathered in this way at that particular time."


Oh so that's fine then? **** off.
 
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