3 in 10 cruisers won’t cruise again

[IDB37]

Respectfully, whilst you make some valid points, the word 'underfunded' is entirely subjective.

 

As for the problem of other treatements/surgeries being cancelled, having 'cleared the decks' for everything Covid related, that is a problem in most Countries right now. It certainly is here in Canada & I believe also in the US. 

 

 

[IDB37]

3 minutes ago, wowzz said:

The problem is that most of those in power have never worked in a proper job. Would you employ Matt Hancock in any commercial enterprise?

 

Debateable, but likely not.

 

Unless it was a choice between him & Albert Steptoe, in which case he'd be a shoe-in.

[Selbourne]

41 minutes ago, IDB37 said:

Well, as he's the PM's senior Adviser, I assume he's there to learn & to report on what goes on back to Boris when he returns to the Office tomorrow Harry.

 

Even Nick Clegg's former adviser James Sorene say's it's a non-issue & that he used to attend SAGE meetings during the swine flu epidemic.

 

 

 

 

I agree. It’s a complete non-story and I have even heard people in the media say that. As senior advisor to the PM, I would be more surprised had he not sat in on those meetings during the PM’s absence. Funny how people can criticise the PM for not attending meetings that they feel he should have been at (even though it is quite normal for PM’s to only attend COBRA meetings where critical high level decisions need to be made, and that has been the case with all PM’s) but then to criticise him for sending his senior advisor when he is off sick! Seems contradictory to me. I wouldn’t want the PM’s job for all the tea in China. I’d prefer the easiest job in the world - that of an armchair critic who can find fault with everything whilst never offering a constructive word about what they would do differently! 

[Son of Anarchy]

11 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

I’d prefer the easiest job in the world - that of an armchair critic who can find fault with everything whilst never offering a constructive word about what they would do differently! 

 

That's my job!!

[Harry Peterson]

21 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

I agree. It’s a complete non-story and I have even heard people in the media say that. As senior advisor to the PM, I would be more surprised had he not sat in on those meetings during the PM’s absence. Funny how people can criticise the PM for not attending meetings that they feel he should have been at (even though it is quite normal for PM’s to only attend COBRA meetings where critical high level decisions need to be made, and that has been the case with all PM’s) but then to criticise him for sending his senior advisor when he is off sick! Seems contradictory to me. I wouldn’t want the PM’s job for all the tea in China. I’d prefer the easiest job in the world - that of an armchair critic who can find fault with everything whilst never offering a constructive word about what they would do differently! 

You’re missing some key points:

 

1 Johnson DID want this job - look at the lengths he went to to get it.

2 Constructive criticism? Start the process sooner and don’t ignore the warnings that the UK pandemic preparations are inadequate.

3 This isn’t just any political advisor it’s the notorious Dominic Cummings.

4 Johnson missed the key Cobra meetings well before he was unwell. He had other more important personal matters to attend to and failed to understand the importance of Coronavirus. We lost at least a month’s vital planning.

 

This has been a horrendously expensive and catastrophic shambles. Both in terms of finance, and, sadly, unnecessary deaths.

 

 

[terrierjohn]

2 hours ago, zap99 said:

Hi.

If you do a search"covid19 mutating" you will find lots of hits. If you read too many on this sunny Sunday afternoon, you may need to do another search " best way to top yourself". Don't search for Trump "profound thoughts of". That would be pointless.😁

 

 

But none of these are reporting the 30 mutations that was reported in your Fox news link.

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, IDB37 said:

Well, as he's the PM's senior Adviser, I assume he's there to learn & to report on what goes on back to Boris when he returns to the Office tomorrow Harry.

 

Even Nick Clegg's former adviser James Sorene say's it's a non-issue & that he used to attend SAGE meetings during the swine flu epidemic.

 

 

 

 

I think we are both flogging a dead horse as far as persuading Harry and wowzz that this govt. are doing their best to control the covid outbreak without swamping the NHS, and their insistence on following the media's 20/20 hindsight is typical of those with left wing tendencies.

[Selbourne]

47 minutes ago, Son of Anarchy said:

 

That's my job!!

I’m afraid that you have a tough competitor for that job on this forum! 😉

[zap99]

11 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

But none of these are reporting the 30 mutations that was reported in your Fox news link.

Wasn't actually my link. I commented on the text of the poster,not the Fox news story in THEIR link.

[terrierjohn]

29 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

You’re missing some key points:

 

1 Johnson DID want this job - look at the lengths he went to to get it.

2 Constructive criticism? Start the process sooner and don’t ignore the warnings that the UK pandemic preparations are inadequate.

3 This isn’t just any political advisor it’s the notorious Dominic Cummings.

4 Johnson missed the key Cobra meetings well before he was unwell. He had other more important personal matters to attend to and failed to understand the importance of Coronavirus. We lost at least a month’s vital planning.

 

This has been a horrendously expensive and catastrophic shambles. Both in terms of finance, and, sadly, unnecessary deaths.

 

 

Harry, we wouldn't expect any comments from you other than criticism of the govt, regardless of anything to the contrary.

[zap99]

2 hours ago, IDB37 said:

Lol, that's a pretty fair assessment !

 

We overlook the Rocky mountains, which is one of the joyful consolations of being largely 'confined to barracks'.

 

Unfortunately, Calgary and Alberta are suffering in the extreme right now from the consequences of the oil crash, coupled with the impact of Covid. The 2020 Stampede has just been cancelled for the first time for 100 years or so and Banff is pretty well a ghost town (albeit hopefully has the cushion of some hugely successful years over recent times to fall back on).

 

Vancouver has fared better, but will greatly be impacted by the loss of the cruise market unfortunately.

 

Hopefully circumstances will allow you to visit this wonderful area again before too long. 

Don't like Banff. We were staying in the Fairmont. I said to DW let's get the bus back to the hotel. I said to the driver, 1 and a senior to Banff springs please. Only one senior sir. My dear wife was super peeved.

[IDB37]

2 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Don't like Banff. We were staying in the Fairmont. I said to DW let's get the bus back to the hotel. I said to the driver, 1 and a senior to Banff springs please. Only one senior sir. My dear wife was super peeved.

 

 

lol. Bet you were popular. 🙂

[Selbourne]

50 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

You’re missing some key points:

 

1 Johnson DID want this job - look at the lengths he went to to get it.

2 Constructive criticism? Start the process sooner and don’t ignore the warnings that the UK pandemic preparations are inadequate.

3 This isn’t just any political advisor it’s the notorious Dominic Cummings.

4 Johnson missed the key Cobra meetings well before he was unwell. He had other more important personal matters to attend to and failed to understand the importance of Coronavirus. We lost at least a month’s vital planning.

 

This has been a horrendously expensive and catastrophic shambles. Both in terms of finance, and, sadly, unnecessary deaths.

 

 

I agree that Boris always wanted the job, well at least since he discovered that there was no such job as ‘World King’, but the suggestion that he missed ‘critical’ COBRA meetings has been widely disputed and seems a bit tenuous. Funny old world Politics. From my experience in business, the best CEO’s delegate and empower their senior teams. They have a handle on the business but resist the temptation to meddle in the detail as it’s often counter productive as well as infuriating to those whose job is to manage said details. The best ones that I have worked for have been strategic, charismatic, bright and good with people of all types. As I say, politics is an odd world that I wouldn’t last 5 minutes in, as many of the traits that make a good CEO of a business are somehow seen by some as weaknesses. 
 

As for Dominic Cummings, he strikes me as a completely odious man and an odd ball, but he is who Boris chooses as his senior advisor so he obviously has talents that aren’t apparent to us armchair critics and in that role he absolutely should attend key meetings, even when Boris is in attendance. It would seem odd to me if he didn’t. 
 

As for preparedness, we couldn’t have possibly pre-empted a ‘once in 100 years’ pandemic of this scale and it would have been ludicrous to operate a health system that would be under utilised for 99 years out of 100. Same goes for PPE. We’ve never needed this amount before, hence very little is produced here, but now the whole world is chasing it. Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing. 
 

The vast majority of the population including, it has to be said, those on the left, feel that the government has handled the situation well, as confirmed by several polls. I am staggered at how the Nightingale Hospitals have been kitted out so quickly and it is surely a sign of excellent crisis management that we may end up not needing them. 
 

The whole crisis is indeed frightening though, but one thing still terrifies me more. The thought that we could have been going through all of this with Comrade Corbyn, Dianne Abbott etc in charge. God help us. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it 😉

Edited April 26, 2020 by Selbourne

[zap99]

1 minute ago, IDB37 said:

 

 

lol. Bet you were popular. 🙂

Not as unpopular as when I told her RC don't let you use OBC in the Micheal Koors shop. When she found out that was a fib, it cost me $150 in said shop.

[NoFlyGuy]

43 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

You’re missing some key points:

 

1 Johnson DID want this job - look at the lengths he went to to get it.

2 Constructive criticism? Start the process sooner and don’t ignore the warnings that the UK pandemic preparations are inadequate.

3 This isn’t just any political advisor it’s the notorious Dominic Cummings.

4 Johnson missed the key Cobra meetings well before he was unwell. He had other more important personal matters to attend to and failed to understand the importance of Coronavirus. We lost at least a month’s vital planning.

 

This has been a horrendously expensive and catastrophic shambles. Both in terms of finance, and, sadly, unnecessary deaths.

 

 

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

We may be faring relatively badly but we are not the worst - that seems to go to Belgium who have had the worst number of deaths per  million population so far. But we hear nothing of what their approach has been.

 

Sweden is taking a different approach and their stats on testing are on a par with ours (per population)  whilst not employing a severe lockdown.

Why is that? Surely they should be a disaster area!

 

Reality is there are no easy answers as we are all dealing with something new and trying to learn from each other.

 

But of course there are always those on here and elsewhere who will slate the government 'come what may'.

I'm sure some of the medical experts we hear from each day would have resigned by now if they thought that ministers were ignoring their advise and following ideas that 'advises' like Cummings or others may have come up with.

[majortom10]

The NHS has been seriously underfunded a lot longer than 20 yrs and by governments of varying colours.

[Harry Peterson]

42 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

I agree that Boris always wanted the job, well at least since he discovered that there was no such job as ‘World King’, but the suggestion that he missed ‘critical’ COBRA meetings has been widely disputed and seems a bit tenuous. Funny old world Politics. From my experience in business, the best CEO’s delegate and empower their senior teams. They have a handle on the business but resist the temptation to meddle in the detail as it’s often counter productive as well as infuriating to those whose job is to manage said details. The best ones that I have worked for have been strategic, charismatic, bright and good with people of all types. As I say, politics is an odd world that I wouldn’t last 5 minutes in, as many of the traits that make a good CEO of a business are somehow seen by some as weaknesses. 
 

As for Dominic Cummings, he strikes me as a completely odious man and an odd ball, but he is who Boris chooses as his senior advisor so he obviously has talents that aren’t apparent to us armchair critics and in that role he absolutely should attend key meetings, even when Boris is in attendance. It would seem odd to me if he didn’t. 
 

As for preparedness, we couldn’t have possibly pre-empted a ‘once in 100 years’ pandemic of this scale and it would have been ludicrous to operate a health system that would be under utilised for 99 years out of 100. Same goes for PPE. We’ve never needed this amount before, hence very little is produced here, but now the whole world is chasing it. Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing. 
 

The vast majority of the population including, it has to be said, those on the left, feel that the government has handled the situation well, as confirmed by several polls. I am staggered at how the Nightingale Hospitals have been kitted out so quickly and it is surely a sign of excellent crisis management that we may end up not needing them. 
 

The whole crisis is indeed frightening though, but one thing still terrifies me more. The thought that we could have been going through all of this with Comrade Corbyn, Dianne Abbott etc in charge. God help us. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it 😉

I don't in any way disagree with you about the Labour far left, Momentum, Corbyn and Abbott.  I've never been of that persuasion - far more just left of centre.  Keir Starmer will, I hope, cause normal service to be resumed - New Labour proved very electable for three full terms, and lost in 2010 only because they failed to deflect the very clever Conservative tactics blaming them, instead of an international financial crisis, for the worldwide economic crash.

 

Do the vast majority really think the government has handled the situation well?  Not according to the latest published poll:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/26/trust-wanes-in-uk-ministers-handling-of-coronavirus-pandemic-poll

 

And as for failing to prepare, this tells a damning story about failure and cover up in 2016 - cuts had, of course, to come before public safety:

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/exercise-cygnus-uncovered-pandemic-warnings-buried-government/

 

 

[IDB37]

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

I agree that Boris always wanted the job, well at least since he discovered that there was no such job as ‘World King’, but the suggestion that he missed ‘critical’ COBRA meetings has been widely disputed and seems a bit tenuous. Funny old world Politics. From my experience in business, the best CEO’s delegate and empower their senior teams. They have a handle on the business but resist the temptation to meddle in the detail as it’s often counter productive as well as infuriating to those whose job is to manage said details. The best ones that I have worked for have been strategic, charismatic, bright and good with people of all types. As I say, politics is an odd world that I wouldn’t last 5 minutes in, as many of the traits that make a good CEO of a business are somehow seen by some as weaknesses. 
 

As for Dominic Cummings, he strikes me as a completely odious man and an odd ball, but he is who Boris chooses as his senior advisor so he obviously has talents that aren’t apparent to us armchair critics and in that role he absolutely should attend key meetings, even when Boris is in attendance. It would seem odd to me if he didn’t. 
 

As for preparedness, we couldn’t have possibly pre-empted a ‘once in 100 years’ pandemic of this scale and it would have been ludicrous to operate a health system that would be under utilised for 99 years out of 100. Same goes for PPE. We’ve never needed this amount before, hence very little is produced here, but now the whole world is chasing it. Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing. 
 

The vast majority of the population including, it has to be said, those on the left, feel that the government has handled the situation well, as confirmed by several polls. I am staggered at how the Nightingale Hospitals have been kitted out so quickly and it is surely a sign of excellent crisis management that we may end up not needing them. 
 

The whole crisis is indeed frightening though, but one thing still terrifies me more. The thought that we could have been going through all of this with Comrade Corbyn, Dianne Abbott etc in charge. God help us. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it 😉

 

An excellent summary of the whole situation. Well said and well written.

 

As for those who constantly carp, nothing the Government does will ever be recognised as positive. If they announced tomorrow that a cure had miraculously been found, the response of the perennial whiners would be to ask them to apologise for not finding it sooner.

 

 

 

 

 

[Adawn47]

21 hours ago, wowzz said:

I'm not sure who you are listening to, but if it's Matt Hancock,  I would ignore everything he says.  

At the moment,  I would prefer Mrs Merkel to take over - look at how the Germans are controlling the situation. We are being lead by donkeys. Empty hospital beds,  empty testing centres, people being denied cancer treatment,  transplants, etc. It's a total shambles.

The only people that are happy are the police, who suddenly are out in force to stop you sitting on a bench,  or seeing if your shopping is essential.  

Just read this on Express online.

Quote " Germany has been used as a tool to bash the UK government,  with critics in the UK pointing to the significant lower death rates in Germany as proof of Downing Street's failure. However Germany's own Foreign Minister has rebuked these claims suggesting that the two countries actually share the same strategy and it was unfair to attack the British Government's response in comparison to German response." Unquote.

Avril 

 

[Harry Peterson]

6 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

Just read this on Express online.

Quote " Germany has been used as a tool to bash the UK government,  with critics in the UK pointing to the significant lower death rates in Germany as proof of Downing Street's failure. However Germany's own Foreign Minister has rebuked these claims suggesting that the two countries actually share the same strategy and it was unfair to attack the British Government's response in comparison to German response." Unquote.

Avril 

 

You might like to read on, though, Avril,  to the rest of what he said. References to their numbers of ICU beds, and their high levels of testing - as against ours. 

 

Very generous comments, though. If only we could be so generous towards EU countries instead of constantly sniping.

[Adawn47]

3 hours ago, Harry Peterson said:

To be accurate,  it wasn't built in 9 days. The building was already there, and it was a straightforward internal conversion job, akin to shopfitting. 

 

It was sensible to do it, to counter the dire shortage of NHS beds built up, but the problem has been staffing it, because of the dire shortage of staff built up.  Patients have been sent away for lack of staff, and had it not been for this and similar shortages elsewhere our appalling death rate, already heading for 30,000 in just the first wave, would be lower.

The death toll as of today stands at 20,732.  That's bad enough Harry with out adding nearly another 10,000 just to make a point.

Avril 

[Adawn47]

6 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

You might like to read on, though, Avril,  to the rest of what he said. References to their numbers of ICU beds, and their high levels of testing - as against ours. 

 

Very generous comments, though. If only we could be so generous towards EU countries instead of constantly sniping.

That was the only quote on the piece I read. I didn't shorten it to make it sound better. 

Avril 

Edited April 26, 2020 by Adawn47

[NoFlyGuy]

3 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

You might like to read on, though, Avril,  to the rest of what he said. References to their numbers of ICU beds, and their high levels of testing - as against ours. 

 

Very generous comments, though. If only we could be so generous towards EU countries instead of constantly sniping.

 

ICU beds - seems like we have coped well with that unless you believe that both the government and all the senior health pros are lying. It seems we have far more capacity than we need at the moment.

Maybe you think that's another failure - wasted money on Nightingale hospitals etc.

Talk about bending the facts to fit your views!

[kalos]

Some very good points have been put forward on this thread and I do agree that politics/colour is not

very helpful at the moment. Most of the opposition who have been on TV also say the Government is doing a very 

difficult job with the outbreak.

One thing that seems missing out of this thread is the public, no not us who are isolating or the ones staying at 

home following the lockdown rules .No we are talking of the UK selfish who on the first ray of sunshine go out

not giving a second thought for others .Look in most papers and the photos of them laid out in parks and beaches

is there to be seen .

This does not happen just in our country , USA figures are going through the roof and again look in the papers and 

look at the photo's of Daytona beach and others and you begin to understand why, when you see how many people

they are .

We need to look forward and learn from countries like South Korea, they learnt a hard lesson from the MERS outbreak.

They were not going to go through anything like that again ,so the first sign of this they were onto it and more importantly their public were prepared to follow advice and stay indoors until testing and other plans were made .

A very good article about South Korea https://www.wired.co.uk/article/south-korea-coronavirus

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by kalos

[zap99]

I can understand why most threads start with a topic and rapidly turn to covid and it's effects on cruising. I get that. What others seem to not get is the request of this site not to bring politics into posts. Not that hard to understand is it? Have a look at the green bar at the top and please let me know if I have got it wrong.🤔