Off Topic Coronavirus and NOTHING to do with football thread

David Young is the DUP agricultural minister, and he has just stopped all building works in NI on inspection facilities that are needed under the Gove/Frost agreement. This means that the DUP are openly breaking an international agreement. It makes the reunification of the island come closer, and if a poll were held now, by a narrow margin NI would vote to leave the UK. Along with Scotland thinking the same way, Johnson could finish up with a very much smaller job to do in a short space of time. He is clearly worried, setting up a unit to fight the Scots departing, but can he get the DUP back on board?

 

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This is what the right wing nutters are doing in Nice, and now the hospitals down there are at breaking point again.

 

A unit that has already been disbanded...

As to the DUP, perhaps another £1.5 billion bribe may tempt them?

 

I have less than no intention of frequenting one of his pubs ever again. Met the bloke in Marylebone... knob.

 

Nuno Espirito Santo has been airing his thoughts about the World Cup qualifiers that take place at the end of March. He seems to have a point.

"What we expect is direction from the Premier League, the government, telling us. We as managers, what can we do? Which players can we count [on] when they return? How is it going to be, the competition, because some teams will have 15 in their squad going to international teams, some teams will have two or three."

"If they're allowed back in the country, when? All these circumstances need taking care of."

 

I think they have more pressing issues on their mind but of course most of his squad are from Portugal so no wonder he is worried.

I do agree with the point they should these players be flying around the world.

 

What is the collective noun for these things?

 

Dregs from the Bottom of the Barrel.

 

Unprintable

 

In terms of his missing the first five COVID-19 COBRA meetings, presumably Johnson had gone for a Burton.

 

Another Brexit dividend revealed...

 

One year ago today.



One year ago today.

Jacinda Ardern brought in tough restrictions on inbound flights to NZ.

Result: NZ deaths 26. UK deaths 123000 +

Someone got it right and someone got it wrong.

 

More self-imposed trouble looming for BoJo - to add to the fast-rising support for Independence in both Scotland and Wales, loyalist paramilitary groups withdraw their support for the Belfast Agreement.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ire...hdraw-support-for-belfast-agreement-1.4500982

 

Just one of the things that people were warned about but dismissed as project fear. And now it is all beginning to come to the surface.

"The EU are negotiating with a partner they simply can’t trust." The Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney.

"That is why the EU is now looking at legal options and legal action which means a much more formalised and rigid negotiation process as opposed to a process of partnership where you try to solve the problems together."

 

I really cannot believe this piece of news after all they have been through.

"The government has published its submission (pdf) to the NHS pay review body and it shows that for NHS staff in England it is proposing a pay rise in 2021-22 of just 1%."

So taking into account inflation staff will be expected to take a real terms pay cut. I do hope that the public say that this is a disgrace and the government think again.

 

I suspect that it's a deliberate ploy to make staff leave - to reduce staffing levels to below the bare bones and make the NHS look to be failing , in order to justify selling it off to Yankee health insurance firms.

 

You may well be right BB. There was a news item a few days ago about 500,000 people who had be transferred to an American company for their health services without their knowledge. The local hospital that was near me in England had buildings that were allowed to fall into such a bad state that they became unusable, so were sold off for building land. They then didn't have enough space, so some of the services were transferred to Oxford 35 miles away. And now there is to be a £30bn reduction in the NHS budget. Starving the NHS and there is a good case to suggest that this is a deliberate policy.

 

Court Order confirms that Johnson 'misled' (aka lied to) parliament over Covid contracts.

No doubt nothing will come of it though.

https://goodlawproject.org/update/johnson-misled-parliament/

 

"Travellers risk being fined £200 if they go to an airport without a document stating the reason for their trip, the Department for Transport has announced".

"From Monday, people flying abroad from England will need to complete and carry a Declaration to Travel document downloaded from the government’s website"

I cannot understand the reasoning behind this measure. Who is it supposed to protect, the UK or the destination country? I had to carry such a document months ago, but that was to prevent unnecessary trips away from home and seemed logical. Looking at the form it seems to say that you are not allowed to leave home. "It is illegal to leave home without a reasonable excuse." This is not the situation as I understand it.

 

England’s failed Test and Trace program gets more money than the whole Scottish Government budget.

Test and Trace England £37 Bn.
Whole Scottish Budget £34 Bn.