The Covid Inquiry
- Thread starter brogdale
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elbows
Well-Known Member
I've started looking at Cummings written statement to the inquiry, at areas they didnt touch on during questioning.
I've not got far through it yet but he is already trying to spin reality along the lines that if the government machine had all embraced Brexit properly then the machine would have been in a fit state to do all sorts of planning properly well in advance, and that we'd never have needed a lockdown as a result. This is shit for various reasons, including that the crap orthodox establishment 'do little' approach to pandemics in this country was formulated over many decades, across many sectors and professions, and that was not likely to have been dislodged quickly enough even if government had been in a fit shape for years leading up to Jan-March 2020.
I've not got far through it yet but he is already trying to spin reality along the lines that if the government machine had all embraced Brexit properly then the machine would have been in a fit state to do all sorts of planning properly well in advance, and that we'd never have needed a lockdown as a result. This is shit for various reasons, including that the crap orthodox establishment 'do little' approach to pandemics in this country was formulated over many decades, across many sectors and professions, and that was not likely to have been dislodged quickly enough even if government had been in a fit shape for years leading up to Jan-March 2020.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Here is his full document if anyone is interested:
As per my previous post, I am faced when reading it with the spectacle of totally disagreeing with one paragraph, only to find myself agreeing with some sentiments in the very next one, eg:
As per my previous post, I am faced when reading it with the spectacle of totally disagreeing with one paragraph, only to find myself agreeing with some sentiments in the very next one, eg:
elbows
Well-Known Member
He certainly is a cunt and you have to sift what he is sayuing carefully and reject the shit bits, but he sure is good at highlighting some stuff that goes unsaid in other circles.....
Point 47 certainly reminds me of some of what we went through on this forum from late Feb 2020 onwards....
Point 47 certainly reminds me of some of what we went through on this forum from late Feb 2020 onwards....
scalyboy
They’re taking the piss now
(44) Reads like bollocks from Cummings although he's been on the mark elsewhere.
WTF did Brexit have to do with it?
"...rapid action at the borders..." - well, yes, but Johnson was still allowing seven flights a day in from India at a time when the pandemic was exploding in some Indian states.
Nothing to do with Brexit then, just his personal decision of weakness and inaction / bending over for Modi / whatever.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yes 44 is bollocks to serve his own agenda, he probably believes it but I already described why I dont think its true: there are many decades of shit, do little, crap orthodox thinking about pandemics in this country that the establishment wouldnt have shifted from even if they had been an efficient plan-making machine for years before this pandemic arrived.
Speaking of do little shit, I note that in his written evidence there is an additional point about Johnsons attitude. We've heard about his swine flu/economic slump attitude before, but I dont think the 1918 stuff was brought up in yesterdays session....
Speaking of do little shit, I note that in his written evidence there is an additional point about Johnsons attitude. We've heard about his swine flu/economic slump attitude before, but I dont think the 1918 stuff was brought up in yesterdays session....
bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
Isn't point 44 about Brexit really about the fact that messing about with its implementation was taking up all the Cabinet headspace and energy and they seemed incapable of doing more than one thing at a time?
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly...
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly...
elbows
Well-Known Member
Sort of, but my point would still have rendered that largely irrelevant - the entire plan built into the system means they would not have prepared to act in that way at that time.
Also the Brexit people are fond of going on about how a lot of the emergency worst case hard Brexit emergency planning that was done in the year prior actually came in useful for certain things during the acute phase of pandemic woe.
elbows
Well-Known Member
The sensational matter that it is most obvious for the press to focus on in todays proceedings so far, is Hancock wanting to decide who would live or die if the NHS was overwhelmed :
To do this story properly requires far greater context. The context is longstanding shit emergency triage government plans. Where care is rationed. Not sure if the BBC will expand on the article later or leave it as a somewhat pathetic shell.
In module one this came up because it turned out that when Hunt was health secretary, they had a planning exercise where he was expected to make those decisions, and he wasnt up for it. I discussed this in the following post when it came up in inquiry module 1:
#58
Including Hunt saying:
After that Hunt, and the officials who were dismayed with his inconvenient reaction, tried to get the system changed so that such decisions would be taken on a medical level and by a special ethics committee rather than left to a minister. It sounds like when a similar pandemic exercise happened in Feb 2020 when this pandemic was knocking on the door, Hancock was happy to go back to the previous arrangement where he got to make that sort of decision!
I wasnt at all happy with how little attention these matters and the Hunt revelations were given at the time. If we now get more focus on it due to the Hancock angle, but without any proper discussion of the underlying issues, I will not be much happier. This shit is a story of individuals who people may have strong opinions about, but its also a story of systems and default establishment priorities and methods. We need to shout about both.
Covid inquiry hears Matt Hancock wanted to decide who lived and died
Former NHS boss Sir Simon Stevens tells the Covid inquiry the "horrible dilemma never crystallised".
www.bbc.co.uk
To do this story properly requires far greater context. The context is longstanding shit emergency triage government plans. Where care is rationed. Not sure if the BBC will expand on the article later or leave it as a somewhat pathetic shell.
In module one this came up because it turned out that when Hunt was health secretary, they had a planning exercise where he was expected to make those decisions, and he wasnt up for it. I discussed this in the following post when it came up in inquiry module 1:
#58
Including Hunt saying:
After that Hunt, and the officials who were dismayed with his inconvenient reaction, tried to get the system changed so that such decisions would be taken on a medical level and by a special ethics committee rather than left to a minister. It sounds like when a similar pandemic exercise happened in Feb 2020 when this pandemic was knocking on the door, Hancock was happy to go back to the previous arrangement where he got to make that sort of decision!
I wasnt at all happy with how little attention these matters and the Hunt revelations were given at the time. If we now get more focus on it due to the Hancock angle, but without any proper discussion of the underlying issues, I will not be much happier. This shit is a story of individuals who people may have strong opinions about, but its also a story of systems and default establishment priorities and methods. We need to shout about both.
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elbows
Well-Known Member
BBC version of the Johnson hair dryer shit and a few otehr bits and bobs:
Boris Johnson asked scientists if hair dryer could kill Covid, says ex-aide
Former adviser Dominic Cummings says the ex-PM asked top scientists about a video making the claim.
www.bbc.co.uk
elbows
Well-Known Member
Sir Christopher Wormald, permanent secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care is giving evidence at the moment and just like in module 1, he is beyond tedious to listen to. Awful. Couldnt even give an interesting answer when asked about all the people within government that considered Hancock to be a liar.
Simon Stevens, who gave evidence earlier, wasnt much better. He at least managed one or two interesting answers, one of which the BBC picked up on in the Hancock article I linked to earlier:
Simon Stevens, who gave evidence earlier, wasnt much better. He at least managed one or two interesting answers, one of which the BBC picked up on in the Hancock article I linked to earlier:
elbows
Well-Known Member
It was the entire establishments fault, including medical and scientific experts, that over very many decades the standard pandemic plan boiled down to:
Reassuring propaganda communications, excess death management, dodgy triage, medically study the first few hundred cases, drugs if available, milder mitigation at peak if required, try to get it out of the way in one wave that avoids winter.
But during the weeks and final days when the penny started to drop elsewhere in the establishment, some of the most senior civil servants were the most resistant to the possibility that the standard plan would have to go in the bin, that other ambitions were not just possible but were about to become essential. And so today we had this on the screen:
(in some ways this post could act as an intensely condensed summary of the main pandemic wave 1 fuckup conclusions)
Reassuring propaganda communications, excess death management, dodgy triage, medically study the first few hundred cases, drugs if available, milder mitigation at peak if required, try to get it out of the way in one wave that avoids winter.
But during the weeks and final days when the penny started to drop elsewhere in the establishment, some of the most senior civil servants were the most resistant to the possibility that the standard plan would have to go in the bin, that other ambitions were not just possible but were about to become essential. And so today we had this on the screen:
(in some ways this post could act as an intensely condensed summary of the main pandemic wave 1 fuckup conclusions)
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elbows
Well-Known Member
Hence the Cummings message:
(from page 68 of the October 31st transcript https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/w...431/2023-10-31-Module-2-Day-15-Transcript.pdf )
But if you thoughts Stevens was bad, dont watch the Chris Wormald testimony that followed next, even worse!
elbows
Well-Known Member
If anyone is interested in the meeting from September 2020 when a few shitheads were invited to talk shit about the pandemic in the hope of helping Johnson justify doing very little to deal with a looming second wave, and are interested in those who relied on a bullshit version of Sweden to justify such things, see this post on the other thread which makes use of some Cummings evidence that I havent posted in this one: #163
elbows
Well-Known Member
Mark Sedwill of chicken pox parties fame and many other pandemic and Johnson dynamics is one of the people giving evidence next week. Unlike every witness I can think of so far in this poorly paced inquiry, they've pencilled in an entire day for him to give evidence, next Wednesday.
I took the opportunity to brush up on his background via wikipedia, to use the term securocrat would not really do it justice, fucking hell.
en.wikipedia.org
Gulf War, UN weapons inspector, Pakistan, Border Agency, NATO in Afghanistan, Iraq War, National Security Advisor, and more. After his government role and the pandemic, non-Exec director of BAE, advisor and supervisory board member of Rothschild & Co, important Lloyds of London roles, chair of the Atlantic Future Forum.
And:
I took the opportunity to brush up on his background via wikipedia, to use the term securocrat would not really do it justice, fucking hell.
Mark Sedwill - Wikipedia
Gulf War, UN weapons inspector, Pakistan, Border Agency, NATO in Afghanistan, Iraq War, National Security Advisor, and more. After his government role and the pandemic, non-Exec director of BAE, advisor and supervisory board member of Rothschild & Co, important Lloyds of London roles, chair of the Atlantic Future Forum.
And:
hash tag
Books, not bombs
In front of a tory heavy audience, Camilla Cavendish ripped in to Johnson on QT last night saying what a useless shit he was etc. Question Time - 2023: 02/11/2023 Sadly, he will be gone and forgotten before the enquiry is over, and hopefully never to return. Alas, he will never pay for his failure.
Is it right that the enquiry is expected to last until 2026?
PS. The enquiry has it's own site What is the UK Covid-19 Inquiry? - UK Covid-19 Inquiry
Is it right that the enquiry is expected to last until 2026?
PS. The enquiry has it's own site What is the UK Covid-19 Inquiry? - UK Covid-19 Inquiry
elbows
Well-Known Member
They've broken it down into a whole bunch of modules for a few reasons, including so that some can report long before the final date.
gosub
~#
Rats do as rats do. On plus side it did focus a lot of minds on how serious things were (not that Cummings could count that as a justification of actions).
Also who was actually running things whilst Boris was hospital bound and Cummings had scarpered ? Seemed (from the outside) better coordinated
Silas Loom
Man with glasses
Raab, of all people, no?
elbows
Well-Known Member
Turns out Sedwill isnt getting the whole of next Wednesday, there was just a temporary error with the published timetable.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yes it was Raab.
It worked better because the period of initial chaos and the big u-turn had already passed by then, there were still specific issues caused by the pandemic and earlier mismanagement and shit priorities, but it wasnt a giddy period. And because its a machine-like structure that really runs things, and evidence heard so far was that Raab liked the predictability of that machine, he liked to stick to whatever was planned for him each day, so everyone knew where they stood. Plus Johnson is lazy and changes his mind too often and cant chair meetings.
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