Toby, I can assure you I'm trying to understand and I actually agree with much of what you say (despite you impugning otherwise), there is nothing willful in that. However, I still don't understand how most of it applies to my main concern: the dangerous government advice on the potentially infected returning to care homes, providing a huge mortality risk to others there (including staff).
Toby,I have to disagree with you about Johnson. He clearly knew the risks and went ahead shaking hands with people. Lots of people. He showed a complete disregard for his or other people's lives. This is typical of his bluster and bumble.While I obviously wish him well, he has brought this upon himself.
The availability of the PPE to make this possible however is another question. It's not this government's fault specifically that they've been massively negligent in having a pandemic plan in place, however; it's the fault of every world government for the last decade or so, since virologists and epidemiologists have been warning them about it but most people have been preoccupied with trade wars, Brexit, immigration or gender politics etc. All that looks pretty frivolous now really. All of us are guilty really as I doubt it was something anyone thought about when they decided who to vote for, I certainly never have.
How do I parse the sentence "It's not this government's fault specifically that they've been massively negligent in having a pandemic plan in place"? I can't make it make any sense I'm afraid. Are you saying they've been negligent in not having a plan, or negligent in not implementing it? Either way, I agree! But if you think they have been *negligent* then how is it not their fault that there is a massive PPE, ventilator, and testing shortfall? By definition it is. Who else's is it?...You seem very keen to excuse the government by saying other nations didn't nail it - several wrongs don't make a right though. Finland are a useful counter example - they do have a PPE stockpile. Are we in the midsts of it? Because if you are a doctor or nurse on a ward with insufficient PPE it looks a little weak to put it mildly. Or alternatively, have we just jibbed it off? Either way, that's not my fault, or the fault of other world governments. Its on the UK government, no wonder how much you'd like to give them a free pass...PS as a final point I note that in Trident we have a very, very, very expensive system for transporting nuclear missiles around the world's oceans to counter no particular threat, and yet we still do it. But we don't have enough masks and gloves for doctors and nurses.
...and I don't believe for a second that any particular political party would have done much different. This government has not been in power for a decade, the conservative party has been, but this government has been in power since December. There is a difference.
There have been significant failings and shortcomings in the way the government has handled the planning but in January, I don't suppose you thought it'd come to much either.
Essentially what I meant was all countries knew broadly that something like this was a possibility, but all of them shelved it. This doesn't excuse the UK, but it also doesn't mean anyone else did much better, and I don't believe for a second that any particular political party would have done much different. The UK has been slow to react in some respects, which has certainly made matters worse, but your example of Finland isn't really comparable. It's got a much lower population, lower population density, fewer international airports, and many other factors that make something like this a lot easier to deal with there.
This government has not been in power for a decade, the conservative party has been, but this government has been in power since December. There is a difference.
Your last point, well I'm not a doctor or nurse but I am a physio, partly on a ward, with inadequate PPE. I think the situation with that is pisspoor, especially that PHE change the regulation and recommendations every other day at the moment, which is confusing and frustrating. However, using that to make a point about trident is a bit cheap. There are a hundred things one could start bitching about the government spending money on which suddenly seem rather frivolous. I think trident seems a bit silly these days, but trying to use a massive crisis to make party political points just isn't very helpful.
I disagree with the first sentence quoted - the failure to stockpile PPE was a cost desicion, and I think the Labour party - or indeed any party that valued healthcare workers and was not ideologically wedded to fanatical austerity and breaking up the NHS would likely have gone along with the expert advice on prep for a known major threat, that was rejected by the conservatives.The second sentence is disingenuous at best - A large number of the current lot have been in government for several years.The FIRST duty of any government is to keep its citizens safe - and this one has failed, initially by running down its health service, then by rejecting advice re planning for a pandemic just such as this on cost grounds, and then by dismissal and delay in the face of mounting evidence from the far east and then Italy (not in december though Nigel it was jan - feb), and finally by the farce around testing - witness Germany.In the context of keeping citizens safe the cost of Trident (and defence spending as a whole) is a perfectly valid point to make.
[How many NHS workers have died of coronavirus caught while working now? I don't know but one is too many - they should be properly equipped by their employer, HM Government. I would say that whoever was at the helm, whatever their stripe. If a company in industry lost this many of its workers in a couple of weeks due to insufficient equipment then the high ups would be standing in court, no question. HSE would be on them like a ton of bricks. They are breaking their own laws on this.