I hope that happens too but I don't think Boris will be seen as the hero of the hour, I think even most people who voted for him probably think he's a bit out of his depth in this situation and as Sal says, Sunak will have come out of it better.

One thing I think this has shown though is a difference between Boris and Trump. Boris might be a blundering baffoon who has shown few scruples in taking advantage of populist rhetoric, casual racism and opportunism on his way to get the prize he wanted, but now he's there I don't think he is prioritising his own political gain in this situation. I think he would generally rather everyone was healthy and happy and in the mood to vibe with his happy banter and jokes, like when he was London mayor in the 2012 Olympics.

Trump is a much more sinister character who is continuing to use this crisis as a way of manufacturing the culture war to his political advantage, stirring up controversy over the 'Chinese virus' as he knows it will play to his base, trying to ensure blackmail the Democrats in to passing his rescue package bill which is loaded mostly to giving support to his own cronies and their favoured industries, knowing that if the Democrats block it he can then create carnage for ordinary people and say there would have been support but the Democrats blocked it.

Admittedly Boris is not facing re-election for another 4 years and Trump is up for re-election in 8 months but I still don't think Boris would have been AS bad.

The Conservative party is good at adapting to circumstances and changing its policies - and leaders - to retain power, so it could be that if Boris ends up coming out of this badly and there is a lot of anger and discontent, they need a new re-invention for compassionate Conservatism to heal the wounds of Brexit and coronavirus and their MPs may start to coalesce around Sunak, and sacrifice Boris as a necessity to win in 2019 but a liability for 2024.

Sunak was also very prominent in the last election campaign - so he understands what is needed to fight a campaign. Him against Starmer - another Labour massacre.

I think it is very premature given the current environment to predict that the next election will be a landslide for the Conservatives....

There will be a lot of anger and frustration and people whose livelihoods and living standards have taken a nose dive and that anger will be targeted (rightly or wrongly) at the government. It happened to Labour after the financial crisis.

If Starmer becomes Labour leader he is likely to attract a large proportion of the 'disaffected Remainers' who consolidated around Labour in 2017 but were disillusioned with Corbyn/Brexit strategy/anti-semitism in 2019, so Labour will have a stronger base than in 2019.

At the end of this the government will have managed a once in lifetime incident-provided they don’t screw it up too badly it will reflect positively. Starmer is suggesting Corbyn-style policies were unlucky to lose and only Brexit stopped a Labour landslide. He will be campaigning for a return to Europe - good luck with that. Yes higher taxation will be in place but given what is going on that will be more acceptable than austerity. Given the amount of debt we will have there will little scope for more borrowing for Labour’s pet projects of nationalisation, environmental etc.

It’s a long way away, and a lot will change between now and then.

The comparison your post begs, imo, is with Churchill and the Conservatives being voted out in 1945 and the creation of the welfare state and NHS by the Atlee-led Labour Government in a debt-burdened UK.

The Conservatives will have been in power (with inconsequential Lib Dem enablers for few years, admittedly, and then the DUP more recently) for 14 years by the time of the next election. They massively re-positioned themselves and ran against their own record and a labour leader very poorly suited to leadership last time. Personally I think they’ll need more than not screwing this up too badly and the post-Brexit situation merely being better than disasterous. On the other hand Labour needs to up its game massively.

All Labour will be able offer is more borrowing or much higher taxation - either way there is no other way of investing and growing the public sector?

When do we get to the stage where the long term economic impact of this virus actually causes more long term damage than the virus itself?
I'm not an expert, so I'm happy to go with the recommendations for now, I'm just curious as to what the plan is beyond the current restrictions. If the advice is for the current restrictions to remain in place until a vaccine can be created then I don't see how we come back from this.

Quote ="Charlie Sheen"When do we get to the stage where the long term economic impact of this virus actually causes more long term damage than the virus itself? I'm not an expert, so I'm happy to go with the recommendations for now, I'm just curious as to what the plan is beyond the current restrictions. If the advice is for the current restrictions to remain in place until a vaccine can be created then I don't see how we come back from this.'" Don't know, but this will probably save more lives than stopping covid-19. popularlogistics.com/wp-content/ ... _China.jpg https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/worl ... -year.html https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... oronavirus

Quote ="Charlie Sheen"When do we get to the stage where the long term economic impact of this virus actually causes more long term damage than the virus itself? I'm not an expert, so I'm happy to go with the recommendations for now, I'm just curious as to what the plan is beyond the current restrictions. If the advice is for the current restrictions to remain in place until a vaccine can be created then I don't see how we come back from this.'" Don't know, but this will probably save more lives than stopping covid-19. popularlogistics.com/wp-content/ ... _China.jpg https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/worl ... -year.html https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... oronavirus

If the Tories don't get these support packages available soonest there really will be some very unhappy people. It is OK saying they will pay 80% but what is the mechanism - does the employer pay and claim back or does the government pay direct to the employee? The rumour is no monies until the end of April!!

People who have been put on universal credit get huge delays in receiving their payments, especially if they take short-term work and then the contract finishes, this has been an issue for a while. The DWP/HMRC systems aren't suddenly going to have become blue chip now this new scheme is around. Remember as well that HMRC will be down on workforce due to staff sickness, and also they have little spare capacity left from the projects to set the customs systems up for dealing with the end of the Brexit transition period: that deadline won't move, and if those aren't set up we really will have chaos in January.

The measures the government announced were all good ones and popular but the true test will be on the capacity of the state to administer it. There will be some Tory ministers now who wonder whether it was wise to have spent all these years slashing headcounts, outsourcing functions to dodgy private companies, and attacking the civil service as part of the "culture war".

The next 2 years at least as going to see this government face a number of very challenging problems for which they will be reliant on a super-effective government machine to deal with: first the virus, then the disruption that will come from the end of the transition. This could easily see the same or worse shortages in shops because if it's not super-smooth at the borders we'll have gridlocked roads, disruption to supply chains and we've already seen how vulnerable our supply chains are to panic buying when there isn't a supply shock. The additional bureaucracy to administer the extra trade costs will be huge and this hasn't sunk in to a lot of people. Business representative groups have been raising concerns with the government for a while but the ones who shouted the loudest got sidelined by government for not being positive enough about Brexit. Before Brexit happened, they could dismiss these business groups as Remoaners who wanted to overturn the result but the problems they raised will become reality next year.

After a while, people will become tired of living in perma-disruption. They will know the virus isn't the government's fault but if disruption continues next year after the end of the transition when the rest of the world is returning to normality they will be angry and their anger will be focused on the competence of the government. At first they might be able to divert blame to the civil service/EU but the question is, ok, how are you going to sort it out. Just culling a few Permanent Secretaries and appointing your own yes-men won't solve problems of this huge complexity, you really needed to invest in the government machine before. If they go on more culling of headcounts in the civil service it might cheer the base but it won't solve the problems and in the end it comes down to people expecting a level of competence from the government.

Boris probably thought once Brexit "got done" he could be throwing around all this extra money saved from not paying in to the EU to improve the NHS and do all his "levelling up" of the regions, and offer some tax cuts to keep middle England happy, whilst pointing at Starmer and saying this guy will lead us to having a second Scottish referendum! Instead he's going to be consumed with firefights. I bet with hindsight he would have not launched his leadership bid last summer. Would have been better to have sat this out as a personality carping from the sidelines at Hunt/Javid/Gove instead.

He could have been doing interviews now saying "of course we need to do something about the virus...but taking away the essential freedoms of our great citizens is not the way!"

I seriously doubt that.

[url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2020/bbc-entertains-the-nation-in-time-of-needThe lunatic left BBC have a cunning plan to make us all go out and get fined[/url

seriously, since when has The One Show been 'part of daily life'

You did not read that article at all did you.













You are hilarious. I thought the other drivel you posted was serious. Now I know you are just a comedian . You really brighten up the forum with your posts please keep it up

Oh I read it all, all very rightepus and woke broadcasting, I am sure people are waiting, holding their breath, to see what smug self righteous stuff Packham comes out with and to watch the annoying Irish bloke 'interview' his fellow luvvies.

Keep triggering the liberals and sticking it to the lefties. That's what it's all about.

Nope, it is about having an opinion and voicing it, just like you do.

I see Tim Martin is doing his bit to look after his employees - what a piece of - I see Branson has piped down and has offered to put some serious cash into his company.

So, non-essential workers are now being encouraged to go to work to keep the economy ticking over.
Boris's address to the nation on Monday night in reversal.
You nearly couldn't make it up.

When all this is over, I sincerely hope that we hold our treasured billionaire, 'wealth creator' class to account; Mike Ashley, Tim Martin, Phillip Green and Richard Branson have proven themselves to be nothing more than parasites - whilst the heroes in the NHS, Social Care, food supply chain, transport etc - many of whom were, until a few weeks ago, low paid and 'low skilled' - are keeping the country running, and people alive.

Amen to that Bren

I agree but without the wealth generators and the private sector you don't have the monies to fund the NHS and develop the drugs that keep the country running and people alive. Who do you think is moving the food supply around - who is generating the food - it certainly isn't the public sector. Who is producing the ventilators? Don't class all the public sector in the same boat as a few arrogant low-life's who have a view of capitalism that is completely skewed from reality that is normal everyday life.

No its not - the message was pretty simple - if you can work from home you should do so - we are closing down non essential retail/leisure activities to stop groups mixing other than that go to work. No ban on travelling to work.

You have been listening to Piers Morgan's clap trap.

You must have missed "food supply chain, transport etc" when you read his post.

The point that he was making was that the "wealth creators" are not the ones taking the risk and Branson, Ashley are bothered only about themselves and their own wealth.
The couldnt give a flying feck about us or their staff and as he rightly points out, it's the low paid, working in warehouses, supermarkets etc that are keeping us going not the "Generals" who, as usual, are standing at the back and in no danger whatsoever.
Tim Martin, someone who I've never been too keen on, actually stooped lower, by suggesting that the 40,000 staff that he had laid off could "get a job at Tesco's"

The staff at the local shops and supermarkets are in serious danger of contracting the virus.

Most other businesses have now closed their doors to visitors, postmen & delivery drivers now leave everything on the doorstep, to avoid contact but, those left working in "retail" are in direct contact with the general public, with little or no protection and for minimum wage - probably working less than the 16 hours required to receive the same benefits as those in full time employment.

Johnson has got to get a grip. Either we test everyone or, we lockdown completely and this government pay out on their promise to meet 80% of wages.

At the moment, it looking like the government are just trying to wing it.

Fair point - my misunderstanding