Gay Forum

Derek wrote:

Severelius wrote:I wonder if 'proxy war with France' was "exactly what everyone knew they were voting for" in 2016...

If watching the UK get absolutely rinsed by France was on a ballot, I'd sure as hell vote for it.

Same.

UK politics in a nutshell from my experience:

BREXIT BREXIT BREXIT BREXIT BREXIT BREXIT BREAKFAST BREXIT
NO IMMIGWANTS^100000
MEGHAN MARKLE VS ROYAL FAMILY

At some point it was:

TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM

Honestly politics in general is sort of pointless for someone like me. Like I or anyone of us have some influence. I just focus on what I have control over.

EVERYTHING WOULD BE BETTER IF PRINCESS DIANA WAS HERE.

Magic J wrote:EVERYTHING WOULD BE BETTER IF PRINCESS DIANA WAS HERE.

Poor Dodi was the true victim, never was there a truer instance of the juice not being worth the squeeze.

LOCKDOWN FLOUTERS WILL BE HANGED AND THEIR BODIES DONATED TO FOOD BANKS

Don't be silly.

The Tories would never donate to food banks.

They very much do. The largest food charity organisations recieve substantial government funding.

The issue isn't one of comic-book villains who want to see people starve: it's that reliance on food charity might become normalised, that UK governments are too comfortable treating the symptom, rather than the causes of instability.

Anyway, wheeling Patel out was a smart move. Blame bad people rather than bad policy. It nearly always works.

Patel looks like a fat ugly hungry insect.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55814751

2019: UK ranked 2nd out of c. 190 nations in terms of pandemic preparedness and "health security".

Today: UK surpasses 100,000 deaths. Highest death toll in Europe, and one of the worst hit nations in the entire world.

How was their interpretation of the data so wrong? This was a catastrophically bad estimation.

Maybe preparedness is a different story than willingness. America is theoretically the most prosperous nation on earth, but universal healthcare is apparently a bridge too far. We also have enormous healthcare infrastructure, but that doesn't help with people outright denying the existence of a threat.

I don't know. Perhaps Brexit just sucked up all the oxygen. There's been a few civil servants and health advisors and such who've gone on record stating that the official line has been bunk for the last few years, and that the UK had developed serious deficiencies which were being overlooked. Hell, apparently the renewal of virus contingency plans and training were delayed for years in favour of no-deal planning.

Derek wrote:... but that doesn't help with people outright denying the existence of a threat.

There's definitely been some wishful thinking here at least. They eased restrictions too rapidly the first time round, then actively encouraged people to start mixing (and spending) again. It was all very premature, and many people thought so at the time. The "we'll see off Johnny foreigner's virus by Christmas" mentality was a bit too strong.

As for general population, government polling currently indicating that 80% will very likely take a vaccine, so it looks like uptake will be high enough to cut transmission. The remaining 20 are presumably split between unsure and refuse, I haven't checked.