Coronavirus

[andydclements]

It's probably less useful then the exit interviews when an employee leaves a company.  In this case, the person giving "evidence" knows that they have been vilified in the press, so it may just slightly help to attack others.  If it were actual documented evidence, and no opinions then it might have a hope of achieving something, as it is it looks more like a trial of a witch.

[Chillidoggy]

Presumably Cummings will now take up a post in within the Opposition.

[SFO]

Cummings has an enormous over inflated sense of self importance. He talks as if he was the Government and making decisions, rather than his role as an adviser. He apologies for not having called lockdown earlier, as if it was up to him. Talk about megalomaniac. 

He is telling his "truth" as if it is fact, conveniently forgetting his own Barnard Castle adventures. Conveniently, according to his narrative, his behaviour and actions are beyond reproach, apart from some mea culpas which are actually attempts to justify his own perceived ineptitude; a false modesty. He should never have been allowed to give a press conference in No. 10's back garden.

He is bitter, twisted, pathetic and irrelevant. Yesterday's man, if he was ever a man of any importance at all. He forgets that without Johnson's protection and loyalty, he is nothing but a loudmouth with strong views. 

He is only getting so much airtime and newsprint because the press are out to get a story, any story, to sell more papers and get more clIcks.

[thebartman]

Oxygen of publicity ?

[100th_Idiot]

He getting ready to write a book. Needs the money.

[Bibs]

Zero.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57320320

[PaulCP]

Yet we still have the so called scientists telling us that it is all gloom and doom as they desperately try to cling on to their 2 minutes of fame 😠

[thebartman]

Does anyone think that scientists (Boris' learned team) are realted in any way to Pharma companies? vis-a-vis drug development/government pay-days.

Getting paid as professors and Govt advisors. Sick.

They must be kicking themselves now re: 20-yesr old flu jab - what a wasted opportunity.

 

[windymiller]

2nd jab for me tommoz 😁

[eeyoreish]

All I seem to hear on the BBC radio news this week is repeated talk by different ‘experts’ of advising a delay to the June unlocking.

Seems like we’re being softened up for bad news in a couple of weeks...🤔

[SFO]

Most, if not all, of the scientists pushing for a delay to lockdown easing have no qualifications to make any recommendations apart from the title "Professor", usually of a no name university, and usually with little or no knowledge of how the virus spreads, its transmissibility, its virulence, its ability to overcome vaccines (none so far) and its effects on hospitalisations and deaths, not to mention the side effects (for example, economic, mental health, lost education and life opportunities) of prolonging lockdown. 

it is all rent a quote from Professors of "bugger all" for a sound bite to increase clicks. No one actually really knows what they are speculating about as they don't have access to the data, nor are they qualified to make informed observations. 

[SFO]

This is what happens when you have a zero CV19 "strategy"

[mg4lotus]

Covid deaths in Australia = 910, makes a pretty good argument for the strategy.

Perhaps we should start a new thread for how you treat people who resist arrest.

[C8RKH]

On 08/06/2021 at 10:16, Buddsy said:

Few people who have ever thought a so called free western country would follow suit. 

That's not referring to Australia, so is it the UK?

[C8RKH]

42 minutes ago, mg4lotus said:

Perhaps we should start a new thread for how you treat people who resist arrest.

If the arrest is lawful, with the reasons for it clear and transparent, then batons, pepper spray, tazers and any reasonable non lethal force is fine by me.

You either have the rule of law, and people comply, or you have the consequences - for those who do not comply / or to society that increasingly becomes lawless due to the lack of compliance.

 

The role of the Police in all of this is to enforce the law. They don't make the laws. They enforce them and they need to do it without favour, discrimination, prejudice and to the extent it is "reasonable" - i.e. someone comes quietly they suffer little if anything, someone doesn't come quietly it hurts in direct proportion to their resistance.

 

[C8RKH]

3 minutes ago, Buddsy said:

Did you not see the clip of the lady being arrested for saying something negative about the Police on social media? They came for her and took away all her devices for calling them out. Thats ok in your eyes is it?

And then the journalist who was told he wasn't allowed to go to a organised protest the next day by order of the head of Police. So the Police now gets to chose who can report and who cant?

A free press is a cornerstone of any democracy and must be protected. 

I saw the police here in the UK trying to charge a man for harassment of a Police force. Luckily the man knew harassment can only be a crime against a man or woman not an organisation & certainly not a police force.

 

buddsy

Not what I was referring to and these happened in Australia right, not the UK?

Also if you actually read what I said, I was justifying the Police enforcing the law - the absolute law - WITHOUT prejudice, discrimination etc. This is NOT what the actions above, that you mention, are.  So to be honest Buddsy, haven't got a flooking clue what point you are trying to make with your response by quoting what I said. I think you lost me there.

[C8RKH]

39 minutes ago, Buddsy said:

the police have no right to cause actual bodily harm

Tell that to my daughter whom is respectfully enforcing the law when she is being called a racist bitch and worst, being spat at, and physically attacked!

Stick to the point you are trying to make and don't generalise about what happens in one country as what happens over here.

So your point is you are not happy with the tactics and approach taken by Australian Police. Good for you. I agree in these instances they are wrong.  But that's something for the Australians to deal with, it wouldn't happen over here in the same way I bet. Different culture and different approach to Policing.

However, scumbags will be scumbags regardless of where they live!

[andydclements]

2 hours ago, Buddsy said:

...Resisting arrest is not an offense and the police have no right to cause actual bodily harm. 

 

buddsy

I don't know about our Sothern friends but it is an offence in the UK and many other countries.

Here's the sentencing guidance for that offence in the UK. https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/obstructresist-a-police-constable-in-execution-of-duty-revised-2017/

[Barrykearley]

On 08/06/2021 at 10:16, Buddsy said:

I pointed out earlier in this thread the world wide condemnation which has been aimed at Australia for their draconian measures. 

A few years back it was only China who were criticised for partaking in this kind of Government endorsed violence from their Police. 

[mg4lotus]

Nothing to do with Covid 19 then.

[Barrykearley]

@Buddsy I’m with you on this chap. Police in the uk police by consent. The second they start to behave the way they are then it’s not via consent. 
 

@mg4lotus actually the police and the establishment are using emergency laws passed in the name of covid utterly out of context. That’s the point at debate.

[mg4lotus]

Then why show a video clip from Australia where a reporter shows a string of edited clips that may well have been taken out of context to fit in with his agenda to be viewed by people who have their own agenda.

I don't want a police state here but I think you are all barking up the wrong tree. Nothing to do with policing here. Nothing to do with Coronavirus.

However, if you were to start discussing the merits of the various covid strategies in different countries that would be more relevant to this topic.

[andydclements]

59 minutes ago, Barrykearley said:

@Buddsy I’m with you on this chap. Police in the uk police by consent. The second they start to behave the way they are then it’s not via consent. 
 

@mg4lotus actually the police and the establishment are using emergency laws passed in the name of covid utterly out of context. That’s the point at debate.

And I agree with you wholeheartedly on that second point.

It has been proven that the enforcement in some cases has been incorrect interpretation, the most obvious one being where a certain senior officer indicated their officers would start checking shopping bags to see that only essentials had been purchased, despite nothing in the laws indicated only essentials could be purchased. That's just one example of what must either be blatant disregard for the laws as written or complete incompetence in the ability to understand them.  Other errors may have simply been misinterpretation, some caused by the way the laws were drafted and some just by our government not being able to be clear what's law and what's advice.

 

 

Regards @Buddsy point that the police have no right to cause physical harm.

That is debatable, they have the right to use reasonable force so it depends on the situation. If the person resists arrest and the police use force to arrest the person and it results in harm, it then comes down to that case on its merits whether it was reasonable. A person being arrested has no right to resist, so generally I'd say I side with the police on that one in many cases but there are some where officers loose control of themselves or simply act unreasonably.  Hopefully such cases are the in the minority, and hopefully we never get to the sort of policing we see on the media that happens in the USA etc, but I do appreciate we only see the arrests that are called out as problematic not the actions where the police are acting appropriately.

 

[windymiller]

so whats the bet on for june 21st ?? two week extension or four ?? note i didnt have june 21st down as the original freedom day as an option !! 🙄

[Clive59]

1 hour ago, Buddsy said:

The Aussies have a very left Government

Nup, quite the opposite, very conservative, right leaning, with a  Pentacostal PM. The States are a variety of Labor and Liberal(read Tory), Victoria being Labor and the major lockdown state.