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I am continually amazed at Sturgeon's ability to keep hoodwinking the Scottish public into thinking that she's doing a great job, and that she is sincere and honest.
I could comment about her but I am a fraud to say that it would probably lead to me being banned forever.

Let me just say, I’m not a fan
 
Tsk tsk.... but France and Remain won the PR war. Ask the woman on the street and she'll tell you that the Port is disrupted.
You would have thought that our national broadcaster, the BBC, after all their incessant reporting of doomsday predictions by people such as Adonis and Campbell, would have made the effort to report that port traffic is flowing well.

Oh, hang on... :rolleyes:
 
You would have thought that our national broadcaster, the BBC, after all their incessant reporting of doomsday predictions by people such as Adonis and Campbell, would have made the effort to report that port traffic is flowing well.
Oh, hang on... :rolleyes:

Now, come on.
The BBC did tell us that the port traffic would be a disaster.
That the 1.2 million people in Financial Services would lose their jobs to Frankfurt. (Population 800,000)
That six million EU citizens would move back home
That NHS staff would decrease because of all the EU citizens rushing back home.
That interest costs would go through the roof.
That unemployment would rocket
That there would be a dividing wall, with watchtowers, across the island of Island....

Presumably they're not reporting that ALL of those forecasts were wrong because the BBC is too busy challenging whether the UK can vaccinate two million people a week, so the people most at risk will all be vaccinated by ... the end of February.

Vaccinations in the UK as of 5th January: 1.3 million.
Vaccinations across the entire EU: barely worth counting.
 
If anyone wants a stark example of how dysfunctional our state machinery has become, this is a great illustration:

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The reality is that it has been known for months that we would urgently need an army of people to administer any Covid-19 vaccines once they're available, so it begs the question: who on earth in the NHS thought that the training and certification of otherwise suitably qualified people in spurious topics such as "conflict resolution", "equality, diversity and human rights" and other non-critical matters was so important that it could stop them effectively injecting people at a time of crisis?

Furthermore, who in Whitehall agreed with that ludicrous position and signed off on it? And if the answer to that question is "no one", that's even worse in the respect that an operationally critical matter isn't subject to oversight.

The reality is that if it hadn't been called out on social media by otherwise capable practitioners and then picked up by a newspaper, the metaphorical rockets would never have been aimed at the deserving derrieres and in another few weeks we'd be told "the vaccination program is slower than it could be because we don't have enough qualified practitioners to administer jabs" :mad:
 
The list of training required for a Dentist who wanted to volunteer was quite ridiculous. No wonder the NHS are short staffed they all spend too much time sat at a computer doing training modules ad nauseum.

Being recently retired they can't inflict repeated computer based training on me anymore. It was an aspect of employment I was heartily sick of. It has very little to do with competency and everything to do with ticking boxes and protecting backsides.
 
If anyone wants a stark example of how dysfunctional our state machinery has become, this is a great illustration:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

The reality is that it has been known for months that we would urgently need an army of people to administer any Covid-19 vaccines once they're available, so it begs the question: who on earth in the NHS thought that the training and certification of otherwise suitably qualified people in spurious topics such as "conflict resolution", "equality, diversity and human rights" and other non-critical matters was so important that it could stop them effectively injecting people at a time of crisis?

Furthermore, who in Whitehall agreed with that ludicrous position and signed off on it? And if the answer to that question is "no one", that's even worse in the respect that an operationally critical matter isn't subject to oversight.

The reality is that if it hadn't been called out on social media by otherwise capable practitioners and then picked up by a newspaper, the metaphorical rockets would never have been aimed at the deserving derrieres and in another few weeks we'd be told "the vaccination program is slower than it could be because we don't have enough qualified practitioners to administer jabs" :mad:

Senior NHS management and civil servants are responsible for this, along with PHE. All have a vested interest in not getting things done either timely or efficiently. It's the "it can't be done" approach as opposed to "we need to do this" or "we can't do this on our own and need to flag it up".

At the strategic level it's strictly speaking at PHE's door, but Boris has already blamed them for going AWOL early in the process and has ordered its restructuring.

Which basically is just a rearranging of the deckchairs.

The NHS continues to demonstrate it cannot think nor act strategically. Hancock has been firefighting and being advised by NHS managers and civil servants who are anti this govt. He is too lightweight but, apart from Gove, I cannot see anyone else with the drive and gumption to sort this out. He does oversee part of it via his Cabinet Office remit, but he has eyes on Boris's job.

FWIW I thought Boris should have put Cummings in with Hancock. Perhaps he tried and failed - Cummings would not have wanted that (nor Hancock!).

It's a real Bugger's muddle and clearly Boris is now going for the "we have always followed the science and I have been very badly let down by my advisors" defence.

Let's not forget that, a few months ago, Boris didn't know whether he would still have an ally in the White House and what the shape of the final Brexit would be. On the face of it he is going to miss Cummings and is now very vulnerable without him ... but ... I can still see him playing a big part in govt, whether from the inside or from the sidelines. I wouldn't be surprised if he and Boris are working behind the scenes .... I certainly would be doing this.

It's a great opportunity for exposing the negative civil service and inefficient and ineffective NHS. Can he/will he grasp it?

And now Frost will have some spare time, too. There's still lots to tie up on Brexit for at least the next few years, but I think he has much to offer across other govt activities and should be used.
 
I think the issue is NHS policies and procedures are designed to operate in normal times, and is 'gold plated', which is stupid when we have a health crisis and emergency.

this box ticking nonsense is a result of society trying to eliminate risk, rather than manage it.
 
And now Frost will have some spare time, too. There's still lots to tie up on Brexit for at least the next few years, but I think he has much to offer across other govt activities and should be used.
I really hope Frost gets involved in the important issues of the day. He did an incredible job rowing us back from Theresa May's terrible deal.
 
The list of training required for a Dentist who wanted to volunteer was quite ridiculous. No wonder the NHS are short staffed they all spend too much time sat at a computer doing training modules ad nauseum.

Being recently retired they can't inflict repeated computer based training on me anymore. It was an aspect of employment I was heartily sick of. It has very little to do with competency and everything to do with ticking boxes and protecting backsides.
It is also very useful for NHS Management to show how much "training" is being given when in reality the majority of face to face training which actually held some value dissapeared long before Covid was discovered.

"Training" as is, has become a diluted, poorly regulated affair run by outside suppliers in many cases.

People in the NHS had so little trust in the value that groups would collaborate to share the results for the multiple guess questions so they could update training records and stop the incessant nagging from non clinical "managers" most of whom couldn't find their backside in the dark with both hands.

The RCN has had a significant hand to play in this in the past by creating metrics to measure, assess, grade etc Nursing staff but it gives you a very one dimensional view of a person and their abilities etc
 
So we are short of people to carry out vaccinations, surely someone should have been planning a 'mass vac' program way back when it was known that this was going to be the way out of this. Not suddenly wake up now and discover we don't have enough people. However how much training do you need to measure the right dose, stick it in an arm and press the plunger.
 
So we are short of people to carry out vaccinations, surely someone should have been planning a 'mass vac' program way back when it was known that this was going to be the way out of this. Not suddenly wake up now and discover we don't have enough people. However how much training do you need to measure the right dose, stick it in an arm and press the plunger.
Dunno, but I’d rather it was done by someone that actually knows the answer to that question...
 
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Still, we're in 3rd place...:

Yes, 3rd amongst the 172 nations of the world.

Beaten by Israel. A country of 11 million people whose medics have been on a constant war footing since before we were born.

Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland: so far behind that it's unlikely that they will "catch up."

On the other hand, if the NHS hadn't dumped Covid infected Wrinklies back into care homes back in March, we would have had about 30,000 fewer deaths back in April / May. Dang.

Practical Project Management quote: "OK, that happened. How do we fix it & what's next ?"
 
Yes, 3rd amongst the 172 nations of the world.

Beaten by Israel. A country of 11 million people whose medics have been on a constant war footing since before we were born.

Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland: so far behind that it's unlikely that they will "catch up."

On the other hand, if the NHS hadn't dumped Covid infected Wrinklies back into care homes back in March, we would have had about 30,000 fewer deaths back in April / May. Dang.

Practical Project Management quote: "OK, that happened. How do we fix it & what's next ?"
Not just the UK that failed the care homes, allegedly in Spain there are a number of care homes under investigation where the staff just packed up and left the elderly to their own devices.

Report below regarding care home deaths in Spain.

 
And so it begins..


Who’d have thought it eh :rolleyes:
The fact is that some (not all) EU legislation that provides “rights and protections” is well-intentioned, but ineffective or counterproductive. Why shouldn't that be in the cross-hairs for repeal?

It really isn’t the case that “all EU legislation is automatically good”.
 
The fact is that some (not all) EU legislation that provides “rights and protections” is well-intentioned, but ineffective or counterproductive. Why shouldn't that be in the cross-hairs for repeal?

It really isn’t the case that “all EU legislation is automatically good”.

Nobody said it was but that is a far call from ‘binning’ all hard won rights for workers and data protection as two examples.

All no doubt ‘to make business easier’. Easier for who is the question.
 
There have always been significant discrepancies between EU member states (UK included) in terms of social welfare benefits, workers rights, employment law, etc.

I've had some experience with employment law in Italy and in France and the mind boggles.....
 
Not just the UK that failed the care homes, allegedly in Spain there are a number of care homes under investigation where the staff just packed up and left the elderly to their own devices.
Report below regarding care home deaths in Spain.
The NHS dumped a large number of covid infected patients back into their care homes to clear the way for the arrival of covid infected patients. They then infected other in-mates.

In Spain, Italy, France and Germany, care homes deaths were disproportionately high at the beginning. In Lombardy, they were simply overwhelmed. In Spain there were several cases of staff simply "doing a runner."
 

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