I can say Flitton that I have no assurance whatsoever that a Labour administration would have reacted any quicker on this - it is possible that the NHS would have been in a better shape but I cannot prove that. Britain has one massive disadvantage which is quite independent of which party is in charge, and that is the lack of a national registration system. If I move house in Germany then I have to register with the local authorities, and without a written confirmation of that registration nothing is possible - they also all have ID cards. This means that the regional authorities know where everybody can be located and makes the tracing of people a hundred times easier than in the UK. This is important at a time like this in that tracing of all the contacts of a person who has been positively tested is of paramount importance in order to get cases early. We all know that Britain is a very easy country to disappear in, as many maintainance dodgers have found out, but such a weakness in the infrastructure is fatal at a time like this - quite simply Germany knows where to find everyone, and this has been a large part of the German response.
good post It is a pity that no UK government has moved towards tightening up the system, I expect there would be cries of 'big brother' from some of the rabid liberals.
Yes. Most countries are governed quite normally by coalitions, so change is not required. The UK at the last election had a minority of people vote for this government, but because of the electoral system they are in power. The current President of the USA had a minority of the population vote for him, but because of their electoral system are lumbered with him. If you wish to see proper representation of the people both of those systems fail.
It was actually Thatcher who ran into trouble over ID cards. I have never heard her described as a rabid liberal before.
I'm looking forward to the Macron boy sharing government with Marine Le Pen if you think it is such a good idea.
You have little idea what is happening here, so give it a rest before you look silly. Just would like to ask though why we are doing rather better in people dying than the UK is?
I know Macron is much less trusted than Boris in our country. I thought you liked the idea of coalition, why not for France? The far right remain very popular in France at the moment.
Just watched Johnson. That was embarrassing. Having watched Macron talking to the nation and now this, the difference was quite alarming. Having trod the boards a few times under the tutorship of someone from the West End theatre, I would have been ashamed to have done such a horrifying performance. Do people in the UK really need pictures to help them understand what someone says? Mme watched and was laughing at him. That was supposed to be a serious statement?
Almost 60% disapprove of Macron at the moment, a slight improvement from almost 70% a couple of months ago. Are you seeing things the French don't?
I didn't notice anyone laughing about the presentational skills of Macron. I hope you will admit that that was a dreadful performance by your man.
I have not seen it yet, I will savour the moment till later. You do rather seem at odds with both the UK and French public. The Brits adore Boris and the French really dislike Macron, you always somehow manage to be in a minority.
Just a little point - ofh's graph was an average of the seven days prior to 8th May. It may well be that the same time period wasn't as bad for Belgium.
To be honest, I'm not the man to answer that. I learned a few years ago that by far the majority of the press, both here and in England, were not to be trusted when it comes to reporting on anything to do with the Scottish government, and particularly with the SNP. For that reason, I don't read any newspapers other than our local area one and, maybe strangely the Orkney News. Same applies to television - I refuse to watch the BBC, whether it be the English or Scottish version, and the same goes for ITV/STV. I tend to get my news from overseas - on television, both Australia's ABC and Germany's DW News actually report in an unbiased manner in my opinion and both have extensive coverage of UK goings-on. The same applies for newspapers - Australia's Sydney Morning Herald and the Times of India, both beat UK press hands down.
Just to point out about Belgium that they have the most liberal, inclusive, way of reporting deaths - which includes those from care homes which were only suspected cases, without them having been actually tested. It appears that if they are counting every possible death from this then it could explain why their figures are so high. At the other end of the extreme Russia is only counting deaths where Covid 19 was the cause of death and not necessarily those who had accompanying causes such as heart problems or diabetes.
Whatever the performance was you would have said the same negative comment. Political bias against the Conservative UK government is your particular speciality.
"we are testing literally hundreds of thousands of people every day." Johnson That is not true going by the governments own figures.
Agreed, Belgium is the only country accurately counting the deaths, the rest are conveniently leaving as many off the list as possible.
