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Thread: The Clown Circus

  1. #571
    It's nothing like that. Johnson should have sacked Hancock and you know it.

  2. #572
    Absolutely and I called for him to be sacked immediately as soon as the story broke and was glad he did get the sack. It took him ~24 hours to do so and appoint a worthy successor which is pretty much lightning fast in the history of Cabinet Secretary "resignations".
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  3. #573
    What evidence do you have that Johnson sacked Hancock?

  4. #574
    Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
    Incidentally its worth thinking that the NHS via NICE typically measures the Potential Years of Life Lost in measuring health impacts of potential treatments. If a potential treatment like aducan'tumab or others can't be shown to save potential years of life then it won't be authorised. Lockdown now is every bit as much a disgrace as the FDA's response to aducan'tumab.

    Quantitatively we've lost 1.25 years in lockdown so far for 67 million people. 67 million * 1.25 = 84 million years of life lost.
    We have excess deaths of less than 120k. Supposedly the average years lost on average for them is 10 (though that's a mistake and its considerably lower than that) = 1.2 million years of life lost.

    Even if you only look since March when excess deaths dropped to below zero, when the vulnerable were all vaccinated by then, we've lost more years of life since March than we have from the pandemic. EDIT: Indeed we've lost more lives since March than we have excess deaths since the pandemic began.
    This has been knocking around my head for a few days. Can't quite tell if this is meant tongue in cheek. I hope it is. We haven't died during the lockdown, you haven't spent a year unconscious. And If anything, from my perspective, things have improved in a lot of other ways.

  5. #575
    Quote Originally Posted by Serapis View Post
    This has been knocking around my head for a few days. Can't quite tell if this is meant tongue in cheek. I hope it is. We haven't died during the lockdown, you haven't spent a year unconscious. And If anything, from my perspective, things have improved in a lot of other ways.
    I used to lose 5-8 hours of life every day, so you might say my daughter has been a real lifesaver
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  6. #576
    I don't consider my life to be lost, at all, during lockdown. True, I'm a fairly unique circumstance, but it meant I spent more time with my children and helped them with their education. I'm sure for some people it was horrific, but to assume we all subscribe to the same version of "life" is a bit a lazy.

  7. #577
    Quote Originally Posted by gogobongopop View Post
    What evidence do you have that Johnson sacked Hancock?
    What evidence do you have that he didn't? For reasons of politeness in politics a sacking is almost always called a "resignation".
    Quote Originally Posted by Serapis View Post
    This has been knocking around my head for a few days. Can't quite tell if this is meant tongue in cheek. I hope it is. We haven't died during the lockdown, you haven't spent a year unconscious. And If anything, from my perspective, things have improved in a lot of other ways.
    You and I haven't died, that's not true for everyone. About a million people in the UK alone from non-Covid reasons have done. Including very sadly one of our own community on this site recently passed away.

    My wife works in a care home. She loves her job but has felt horrid for most of this year having to explain to residents with dementia again and again why they can't see their families and loved ones. Explaining to families that no they can't come see their loved ones. She's held the hands of dozens of people who've died in the past year without having seen their family in their final months.

    I'm fortunate not to have lost any of my grandparents, my wife has lost all of hers, and since I returned to the UK in 2000 I have always ensured to go see them very regularly knowing increasingly in recent years that they wouldn't be around forever. The week it became legal to visit them again we did so, but one of my nans had a fall a few weeks earlier (after being double-vaccinated) and came home from hospital a shadow of herself. First time I saw her after lockdown was lifted was utterly heartbreaking and I couldn't hold back the tears - she's now bedbound and barely able to make eyecontact and simply isn't there anymore. Something happened due to the fall or while in hospital and she's not the same person anymore. My granddad is distraught and heartbroken, he's been by himself taking care of her. My parents were seeing them as their support bubble but we legally couldn't. My nan loved my girls but now my kids get upset and scared seeing her as they don't understand. She's alive but she's not herself anymore and I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that my nan I knew just isn't there anymore.

    Has all this been worth it? Maybe during the peak yes, my grandparents were quite reasonably voluntarily shielding during the peak until they got vaccinated, but now? No, absolutely not. Maybe some people will be delighted with the changes to their own lives and losing the commute to work etc, but this time lost was precious and will never be gained back.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  8. #578
    Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
    What evidence do you have that he didn't? For reasons of politeness in politics a sacking is almost always called a "resignation".
    Let's start here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57641097

    And the fact that Johnson said he stood by Hancock and considered the matter closed on Friday.

    And when asked why he didn't sack him, he said "I read the story on Friday and by Saturday we had a new health secretary."

    All the evidence points towards Johnson wanting to keep Hancock on. Hancock resigned when it became crystal clear just how little support he had from Tory MPs and, of course, the public.

  9. #579
    Is this your first day following politics?

    The PM saying they stand by their team is the first response to virtually any scandal ever, until the data about what's happened comes out and the response from public and MPs is heard. That's always what happens.

    Wanting to keep your team on should be the default, if it isn't then why is he part of your team in the first place. But then when everything comes out and its clear an immediate apology isn't sufficient, to get a "resignation" within 24 hours is a pretty fast sacking. If Boris still wanted to keep Hancock on he could have rejected his "resignation" on the Saturday but he didn't.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  10. #580
    Accepting a resignation is not the same as sacking. He said he considered the matter closed on Friday, which doesn't allow time to consider the matter or the public response. Johnson did his usual thing of trying to shut a scandal down and hoping it would go away.

    I can understand your point if it were just about the affair. That I get. I understand that you'd want to give it a bit of time to measure the public response and how things could be played. But this wasn't about the affair. This a blatant "fuck you" to the entire country that deserved a sacking the second the dates were known, which they were right away.

  11. #581
    "Accepting a resigntation" absolutely is the same thing as sacking politically. Plus I think you're naive if you think saying the case is closed means the case is closed.

    Trying to shut down a scandal at first is the default first reaction by everyone. Its not a Boris thing, May, Cameron, Brown and Blair would all have done the same. I can't think of any scandal that saw a quicker sacking than this one.

    Incidentally the initial media reporting on this majored more on the affair element than the hypocrisy element. There were 'commentators' saying how could Boris of all people sack someone for having an affair. What was clear before long though was that the breaking the rules bit was what cut through, not the affair and he was entirely rightly out on his ear within 24 hours.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  12. #582
    I understand the political nuance of sackings and resignations. If I'm correct, the usual procedure is for the naughty boy or girl to be summoned to No.10. The PM will tell them how dissappinted they are then give them an opportunity to resign, instead of being sacked.

    Correct me if I'm wrong but that didn't happen here. Johnson stood by Hancock until Hancock published the letter and creepy video on Twitter.

    I think you're being naive if you think Johnson did anything else but sit on the side lines and hope it all went away.

  13. #583
    The summoning normally happens days after the scandal broke, about a week to ten days was the rule of thumb under Blair - if the scandal hasn't blown over a week later its time to think about axeing the minister. Of course that was pre-pandemic when things were done more face-to-face.

    That creepy video had all the authenticity of a hostage video.

    You don't think he was told to do that? You think he made that hostage video unilaterally and sent it out without a conversation with the PM first?
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  14. #584

  15. #585
    I'd forgotten about this:

    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  16. #586
    I could have had class. I could have been a contender.
    I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum
    Which is what I am

    I aim at the stars
    But sometimes I hit London

  17. #587
    After shutting down the pub, he decided to try his hand at (bad, racist, stupid) poetry:

    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  18. #588
    wow, the absolute state of this state

    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  19. #589
    Mings wasn't accusing the she-witch of stoking racism, but stoking the fire on the so-called controversy of taking a knee.

    Which she did.
    I could have had class. I could have been a contender.
    I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum
    Which is what I am

    I aim at the stars
    But sometimes I hit London

  20. #590


    It's like they're TRYING to come out as racists and racism-enablers I like this team. Looking forward to seeing these players clown puffed-up English racists for many more years
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  21. #591
    I think they have a real problem on their hands here. May this be the beginning of the end of Johnson and his scumbag cabinet.

  22. #592
    Senior Member
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    It would be nice if you could elect a government that isn't hellbent on making things more difficult.
    Congratulations America

  23. #593
    Led by donkeys

    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  24. #594
    Quote Originally Posted by Steely Glint View Post
    I wonder if Cummings will continue dropping screen dumps of WhatsApp messages etc and attacking Johnson's government, or if the purpose of this entire circus was really just to get Matt Hancock fired. If so, I have to grudgingly admire how petty that is.
    Update: it's the first one
    When the sky above us fell
    We descended into hell
    Into kingdom come

  25. #595
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  26. #596
    Senior Member Flixy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steely Glint View Post
    Update: it's the first one
    Did he have anything interesting to say during the interview?
    Keep on keepin' the beat alive!

  27. #597
    Quote Originally Posted by Flixy View Post
    Did he have anything interesting to say during the interview?
    Not really. More tattle about Johnson being a callous dipshit and resisting lock-downs, the government being completely dysfunctional behind the scenes, factional struggles, inappropriate influence etc. Nothing that he hasn't said before or wasn't immediately apparent to anyone paying attention to current affairs past few years.

    A summery is here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57882892
    When the sky above us fell
    We descended into hell
    Into kingdom come

  28. #598
    Someone's hero is not having a good summer:

    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  29. #599
    Deputy speaker character archetype fulfillment:

    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  30. #600
    Sigh.

    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

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