In practice you can't come up with an exhaustive list of what is essential. There needs to be some discretion and the exercise of common sense when you undertake enforcement activity.

What you see with that Derbyshire police drone stuff and that other clip that went viral of the officer who issued a ticket for "criminal damage" to a woman who was marking lines with chalk in the pavement at 2m distances for people queuing to come in to her shop, that some enforcers aren't exercising their powers in the public interest.

This once in a generation arguement you use is a straw man.

Sars 2003

H1 N1. 2009


Mers. 2012


Now these once in A generation Incidents you talk about occur every 6 or 7 years So unless you are a forest elephant they occur a lot more often than once in a human generation.


The US system of poor national health services , approximately 20% of the population with no free health care, poor levels of social security, etc is one of the worlds countries most unlikely to be able to cope in a First world country. Although the size of it.s economy means it can then mobilise lots of resources to deal with things after the event.


Countries that can cope are those with more national systems of organisation.

The NHS failed a government test of its ability to handle a pandemic. Exercise Cygnus, a three-day dry run for a pandemic carried out in October 2016, examined how hospitals and other services would cope in a flu outbreak with a similar mortality rate to coronavirus. Results were never made public.

a 2019 parliamentary inquiry into biological security was postponed and then cancelled because MPs were focused on Brexit.


Your arguement about not maintaining extra resources just in case is a justification for cutting all public services to the bone the problem is when this is done across all services you end up leaving all services unable to cope .

So when the grenfell fire breaks out the fire service has problems getting enough fire engines of the right type to attend quickly.
In the health service every year for 3 or 4 months in the year at winter the health service has a crisis which means it cannot cope and ends up cancelling 1000s of operations. This does not happen in many other countries that invest more in their services.


None of this is rocket science. None of this is unexpected . None of this could not be foretold. None of this could not have been better prepared for .

The responsibility for this does lie with tHe government who has been in charge of all of this for the last 10 years.

It has happened on their watch and they should be held to account.


Let me give you one further example of where the government is failing.

Floods

These are now not one in 100 year events.

They are likely to be 1 in 3 year events or twice in one year events.

Yet the government has not banned building in flood plains.

When these new houses get flooded who is responsible ?


Much of this is due to the fact that the government in the UK for the last 40 years has been focused on one thing only short term decisions and actions to remain in power. There is no long term planning or strategy to manage any of these things. All governments have been culpable in respect of this BUT it is the Tories in the last 10 years who have taken it to this to its s denouement and left the public services cut to the bone and unable to effectively respond to any crisis.

With regards to JCB, there are over 10 million reasons why they'd be favoured over anyone else.



They've got to get that money back somehow.

a few facts for the hard of thinking but it wont make any difference to the lunatic left, it is all Boris' fault, Labour would have waved a magic wand and ended HIV, Inluenza, Meningitis, Cholera, Hepititis, you name it, at the same time. All by waving a magic cheque book.

a few facts for the hard of thinking but it wont make any difference to the lunatic left, it is all Boris' fault, Labour would have waved a magic wand and ended HIV, Inluenza, Meningitis, Cholera, Hepititis, you name it, at the same time. All by waving a magic cheque book.

For the sake of balance - the GTECH story has now been resolved; the Govt didn't 'snub' their offer of ventilators in favour of a company owned by donors - they had actually submitted a spec for a very basic ventilator that they admitted didn't meet the medical grade requirements in the UK, and would only be used in extreme emergencies. The ventilators offered by Dyson, JCB and McLaren F1 meet the spec, so they're the ones that will be used.

It's important to be factual.

Isn't that exactly what Boris Johnson is doing?

It's a strange new reality, where Labour can be criticised for what they *might* have done, whilst the Tories do the self-same thing. It's another example of not politicising an issue, which only applies in one direction.

But whatever gets you through lockdown I suppose

This will be the last time I respond to you, you are clearly a waste of time and effort and cannot see beyond the myopia of your ideals.

Yes, currently, the Government (you know, the people elected by the to runthe country) have fiscal measures in place to deal with a very unusual set of circumstances., they had to embark on a period of austerity ro redress theprofligate spending of the previous Labour government, who'sparting message was "no money left, sorry about that".

Stay safe.

SARS - killed 774 people
H1N1 - was a variant of normal flu - death count very low
MERS - Death toll minimal

No of the above come close to death toll that Covid 19 will deliver - so yes it is a once in a generation virus and the fact that originated from another animal is also a diffentiating factor. The other cases you identified are just variants that we get every year. Normal flu kills c10,000 a year every year so 774 SARS is hardly remarkable.

Countries that look to have coped well are smaller and have used differing strategies - Korea has tested a lot as have Germany - this seems like a good strategy. Italy and Spain have been in lockdown for weeks doesn't appear to be working at the moment?

I would accept your point about lack of investment but where do you stop - once you get the NHS as efficient as it can be and its customers treat it with the respect it deserves then might be a good time to invest. Whilst ever it is 10-20% inefficient 10-20% of your investment is wasted.

You can blame the government for everything but sometimes we have to take responsibility for our own actions - if we decide to by a house in Hebden Bridge we know there is a chance of flooding - the government cannot provide arrangements for every single eventuality its impossible. Perhaps if we drove with more care there wouldn't be as many accidents and the investment in the fire brigade would be sufficient. Perhaps if we didn't take illegal drugs and overdose or get drunk and fight then A&E would be able to focus on people who really do need specialist care etc.

You are delusional - you clearly have little to zero knowledge of self-employment - it would be funny if it were so sad - have you thought about self isolation in an appropriate institution?

Ah, the benefit of hindsight. Nobody knew at the start the potential outcomes of SARS, H1N1 and MERS.