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Off Topic London Calling: Summer Holidays Abroad 2021 in doubt?

Discussion in 'Sunderland' started by Blond Bombshell, Dec 14, 2020.

  1. The Norton Cat

    The Norton Cat Well-Known Member

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    This is very true. I studied Nazi and Soviet use of archaeology as a propaganda tool for my unfinished (I cut it short and got an MPhil instead) PhD. I'm also, as I said the other day, fascinated by British deception during WWII. Two major things about propaganda occur to me (and are widely held to be true). Its easy to sell a lie if:
    1. It confirms what people already believe (or want to believe)
    2. It is based on a manipulated version of the truth.

    These Led By Donkeys videos are excellent examples of propaganda, presenting what is undoubtedly fact but with the context judiciously used to bolster their argument or through the use of fact that is irrelevant but hints at things (such as nepotism) that are distasteful to the public.
     
    #1341
  2. Smug in Boots

    Smug in Boots Well-Known Member

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    " ... presenting what is undoubtedly fact."


    The lack of context, hints or whatever shouldn't be used to enhance the facts ...

    ... nor should those things be used to denounce them.
     
    #1342
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  3. The Norton Cat

    The Norton Cat Well-Known Member

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    This is true. You could quite easily produce a pro-government video using only out -of-context fact. Reinsert the context and you have a more balanced piece. The fact the figures make grim reading just makes it easier for anti-government pressure groups like Led By Donkeys to make propaganda like this.
     
    #1343
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  4. Montysoptician

    Montysoptician Well-Known Member

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    I must have missed the hints, I thought they made a few substantiated claims of cronyism and tenders been won by companies with direct links to the Conservative party outside of competition rules.
    But as I said it's information and we use it as we will.
     
    #1344
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  5. Smug in Boots

    Smug in Boots Well-Known Member

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    Of course the government get things right, that's their job ...

    ... it's no different to being a goalkeeper tbh.

    He may make some good saves but blunders that lose you the game will be pointed out.

    At the same you want him to be capable, not just make errors that cost you. Only idiots would want mistakes to be made to back up their stance.

    The figures actually are grim reading, I don't need a pressure group to decide that.
     
    #1345
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  6. The Norton Cat

    The Norton Cat Well-Known Member

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    Not sure how Dido Harding's husband being a Conservative MP is relevant. She's a member of the party in her own right and is a member of the House of Lords. But it was presented in a way that suggested nepotism. Or that's how it seemed to me.
     
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  7. The Norton Cat

    The Norton Cat Well-Known Member

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    Yep, I agree
     
    #1347
  8. Montysoptician

    Montysoptician Well-Known Member

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    I never mentioned Dido Harding, could this be an example of using information as we will?
     
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  9. The Norton Cat

    The Norton Cat Well-Known Member

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    I know you didn't. You said that you thought that you missed the hints of things like nepotism so I was providing you with an example of what I thought was the video using irrelevant information to hint at nepotism.
     
    #1349
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  10. Sunderpitt

    Sunderpitt Well-Known Member

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    That is the point, Bonko and chums have shown bungling ineptitude imho in handling the pandemic, too many deaths and a knackered economy.

    However like the idiot USA policeman who messed around with evidence in the OJ murder case, it resulted in him getting off.

    The bald key facts of deaths, hospitalizations,unemployment/ fall in GDP and students not in education are clear enough... biased propaganda just helps Bonko dodge the reckoning. A review of which one year on does not have to wait any longer.
     
    #1350

  11. Montysoptician

    Montysoptician Well-Known Member

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    I don't think nepotism or cronyism is irrelevant, but I am more concerned about the flaunting of Civil Service procurement policies and Competition rules with contracts being awarded without tendering.
    It gets boring but I will say it again, we use information as we will
     
    #1351
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  12. The Norton Cat

    The Norton Cat Well-Known Member

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    I agree with you, mostly. The use of propaganda, either one way or the other, doesn't help in this situation. It just polarises the public. What we need is clear, balanced facts to be presented so that, at the appropriate time, those responsible for the mistakes can be held accountable.
    I agree. Awarding contracts in that way is wrong. I have also been agreeing with you all along about the use of information. It can be used in many ways and can be manipulated.
     
    #1352
  13. Smug in Boots

    Smug in Boots Well-Known Member

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    I'd have fewer concerns if a PPE contract was given to the PM's dad if he actually had a PPE factory ...

    .... rather than to someone who thought PPE meant Personally Profiteering, Easy.
     
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  14. Draig

    Draig Well-Known Member

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    I'm in total agreement. The only thing I would say in addition is that there might be some hidden regulation that would allow suspension of these rules in time of emergency - like maybe an instruction in a pandemic-response plan.

    If there is then we ought to be informed about its enactment and I certainly haven't heard anything along those lines.
     
    #1354
  15. rowley

    rowley Well-Known Member

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    Of course the figures are bad reading. But they are very bald figures.They may be worse than they seem. They may not be.

    Perhaps Belgium, with a record of deaths per capita quite far ahead of the UK has an appalling health care system. Perhaps India, with nearly 11m cases and only 50,000 more deaths than the UK has an immeasurably better one than here, or Belgium. Perhaps China, a country 25 times in the size of the UK in population really has a quarter of the amount of cases and a twentieth of the deaths. And so on. You could go on forever. Bald figures.

    But without proper, detailed and careful analysis of true figures, which might never be available actually , it is impossible to make proper judgements . You will certainly never see anything more than skin deep, sensational negativity from the BBC and most of the MSM. It is easy, serves their remit of "nothing over a twelve yead old's head" and within the grasp of those who pass for journalists today.

    Around 600,000 of us breathe our last breath in this country each year. Similar figures per head can be found for other countries. It is a very complicated business assessing the excess deaths, and their reasons, for all of these countries, and beyond the wit of most of the media, most politicians and most gabble mouth experts.

    Suffice to say IMO, that the times we are living through are wildly un predictable, unprecedented, fluctuating, challenging and pretty dark.

    It is no one person's " fault" , and there is no easy solution. If there is a finger to be pointed, it should come from all the world at the CCP, who, as they did with the first SARS epidemic, knew about Covid 19, kept it secret, bought hundreds of tons of PPE from the EU and Australia, closed down a internal flights and most other links but allowed external flights. Even now the WHO is not allowed proper access. They have much blood on their hands.
     
    #1355
  16. Montysoptician

    Montysoptician Well-Known Member

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    I agree entirely with you and hate the misinformation pushed out by all sides of the debate. I despair that normally sensible people believe some of the stuff that is pushed out by media, spin doctors, Cambridge Analytica etc. Sheep following the flock springs to my mind
     
    #1356
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  17. Sunderpitt

    Sunderpitt Well-Known Member

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    Certainly, to me at least, Bonko and chums had not learnt much from the first wave, as perhaps half the deaths have occurred since the autumn.

    I am not the only person who thinks instead of using its own NHS blueprint Exercise Cygnet, from several years ago, of what to do in a pandemic, in the first wave this was totally ignored. This plan said to expect a respiratory pandemic which would affect the elderly more than other groups. PPE and respirators should be stockpiled, (and to be manufactured in the UK) Track, test and Trace, with penalties and incentives to enforce self isolating, boarders should be closed and a lockdown instigated.

    The NHS is probably one of the largest single Health services in the world. Its reports are widely circulated throughout the world. As it happens Germany and France and especially New Zealand ( and Australia?) made use of and followed this report.... the UK didn't.
     
    #1357
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  18. Montysoptician

    Montysoptician Well-Known Member

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    From experience I would think you are right and there will be something in the contingency plans that allow this. I watch the Health and Social Care Select Committee most mornings on BBC Parliament while I am working, I must say that Jeremy Hunt is a brilliant and impartial Chairperson. I don't think they have discussed procurement contracts in any real depth, which suggests to me that it isn't a concern to them.
     
    #1358
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  19. Smug in Boots

    Smug in Boots Well-Known Member

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    I have a very simplistic view of this tbh.

    I don't compare the UK with other countries, guess at how their counting operates or analyse figures of how many dead there are.

    I just know, as we all do, that the one and only way to spread the virus is through human contact.

    My question, to myself, is 'have the government taken every reasonable measure to prevent unnecessary human contact'.

    The answer is undoubtedly 'no'.

    In my opinion the message was wrong at the start and subsequent messages have been wrong.

    Yes some of the public are idiots but we knew that before this started. Don't give them permission, excuses or mixed messages otherwise they'll exercise what they see as their right do whatever they choose. The PM boasting about going into Covid wards bravely shaking hands, allowing a totally unnecessary horse race, paying people to go to restaurants, backing his 'man of integrity' who broke the rules, etc etc etc all, at least confuse, at worst encourage people.

    The endless slogans and U-turns haven't made things better, they've made them worse imo.
     
    #1359
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2021
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  20. DH4

    DH4 Well-Known Member

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    They did actually pass a legislative enabler to suspend rules around tendering for contracts hence the chumocracy.
     
    #1360
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