You have to ask yourself how Starmer would handle it if it was Steve Barclay had done exactly the same thing. It would be the first question in PMQs on wednesday. Okay for my side, absolutely disgusting if it's the other side.
Incorrect. I said he has probably lost his chance to be health secretary, because a tory opposition would remind him and the media would hammer him when there was an NHS issue. In other words in the future he is open to being hammered by the media. It is what they do, use a story at the opportune time. I also never mentioned the media lapping it up if it were tory. The media would lap it up if it were the health secretary who had said it. In other words if it were the government of the day. There is a significant difference in what I wrote and what you have claimed I wrote. I think this should be a big deal. Perhaps you dont. All fine, opinions are just that. I am out on this one. Said my piece. Not getting into a back and forward on it.
Apparently Dominic Raab is a bully, several civil servants been given time off cos he is back in the Justice Dept.
Actually laughed out loud watching the BBC news just then. Jeremy Hunt was asked if he was worried that, in the G7 economies, only the UK was going backwards .... .... "Yes but next year that will apply to a third of economies globally". Woo hoo it's global issues again, which makes everything fine Jeremy
It is worse than that. We only slipped 0.2% backwards to june. It is likely to keep slipping for another 6-12 months. That is only half the story though. We are the only UK economy still smaller than pre covid. That means our baseline is low already. To be fair we are the only country who voted Brexit so in a way you reap what you sow. Do you know before we come out of recesion we wont have seen any growth since Brexit actually happened. We all knew it would be a long time before we could grow again of course, and covid lengthened the time, but nevertheless we have self imposed Brexit on ourselves and been wammied by Covid (we suffered worse in the first half because of our Brexit shackles and that was unavoidable, so say economists). Covid was probably at the worst possible time for our country. Look on the bright side, first into a recession, first out (crosses fingers), maybe. I am now watching this crypto mess unfold, hoping there isnt too much exposure in the principle economy.
Similar problem with Covid19, when it was decided to run down supplies of PPE to save inventory costs. It was decided to run down the usual amount of gas stored to use during the winter and use just-in-time from elsewhere.
Of course not. There is however a political, logistical and economic orthodoxy that is followed by most western nations. We've seen the consequences for stepping outside that orthodoxy only recently. Was any country adequately equipped with PPE, for example? Funny you should mention Brexit. If ever proof was needed that it was never a vote to cut ourselves off from the rest of Europe any way other than politically, or that it was possible to do so, the last few years have given it.
Actually iirc the NHS under Hunt ran a big exercise a few years before Covi19, as to how to prepare for a respiratory disease epidemic. One the main recommendations was to maintain a high level of PPE for hospitals and Care Homes. A epidemic was likely to be worldwide and therefore it would be hard to import PPE from overseas. The results of this exercise were published widely. Germany actioned the PPE recommendation and had lots of PPE on hand, we didn't even follow our our own findings.
