COVID-19 : GOVERNMENT NEEDS SUPPORT, NOT POLITICAL NIT-PICKING.

I am sick to death of the snide sniping of the Labour Party over the little matter of the coronavirus epidemic.

Today on the Andrew Marr programme (BBC 1) the abomination that is Rachel Reeves demanded that the government reports deaths from the virus that occur in nursing homes and other places in the same way, and on the same timescale, that it reports deaths in hospital. To the uninitiated, this sounds perfectly reasonable but Ms Reeves is fully aware that it's wholly impractical and her words were nothing but an attempt to put the government in a bad light.

Those whose deaths in hospital is a result of the COVID-19 have been tested and infection has been confirmed. Their deaths are certified by a doctor within hours and the numbers can be collated and reported to the relevant public health body (PHE, PHS etc.) very easily. The figures can then be analysed and presented on a daily basis.

For those dying in other locations the situation is very different. For starters, the 'other locations' number in the tens of thousands and most of those dying may well not have been tested; their deaths are from 'suspected' infection, not confirmed infection. Most will probably have been likely to die in the near future from other conditions. While their deaths still have to be certified by a doctor, this will almost certainly be by a GP who may not sign the certificate until a day or more later; the deaths are then registered anything up to 5 days later and finally collated and analysed by the ONS, usually at least many more days later. Reporting of these deaths to the public health overseers on the same basis as the reporting of hospital deaths is simply impractical and would potentially be highly misleading; the reporting would be haphazard and with very poor consistency.

Reeves knows all of this and yet witters on about government failing in this area, as well as in anything else that she and her egregious bunch of pals can think of. If they argued their case properly, it wouldn't be so bad but the way in which they pick and choose their words results in nothing more nor less than attempts to gain political advantage, with no concern whatsoever for the people they claim to be trying to help, support or represent.

What is needed is support for the government and its plan for defeating this epidemic, not sniping from the political sidelines. Reeves and her friends are not alone in being guilty with a number of disenchanted Conservatives, such as Philip Hammond, joining in too. Indeed, it seems that this is becoming as much a battle between those who like Boris Johnson and those who loathe him. Now is not the time for such puerile behaviour, it is a time for all to come together with one message and one avenue of approach. Perhaps surprisingly, Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland has proved to be far more supportive of the UK government and has emerged so far with far greater credit than many others.

What hope is there that other politicians will, rather like Ms Sturgeon, break the habit of a lifetime and work together, rather than use every possible means to gain political advantage ?

TIME TO END THE NEGATIVITY OVER COVID-19

Media coverage of the COVID-19 epidemic seems to have turned from reporting to obsession. 

The various news programmes happily ignore all other events and cover only COVID-19 connected stories, or so it seems to me. They seek out every opportunity for criticizing the government, promoting scare stories and dramatizing numbers. Every aspect of the government's approach, every action, word and even nuance, is closely analysed for any possibility of turning it into yet another 'issue', while the opinions of those who claim to be disadvantaged, forgotten or put upon are broadcast as if undoubted fact. 

The same stories are repeated ad nauseam. The newly elected leader of the Labour Party, while professing to support the government in this time of crisis, demands they act in ways which are wholly contrary to common sense and the maintenance of good order. He is doing nothing but laying the groundwork for what he hopes will be future electoral success by demanding things which he knows should not, and will not, be forthcoming. Nonetheless, he is feted by the media and his demands receive little in the way of serious analysis or opposition from its members.

The result is a government doing its level best to deal with a major crisis while the media conspires with its political opponents to stir up trouble. There is no positivity from either, only a continuous stream of negativity. 

In this world of lockdowns, I wonder if locking down the non-essential news media might not now be a necessary move. There is little real news being reported and what there is, is often highly subjective and misleading. While the government's message is clear - we must all buckle up and sit this crisis out - the media wants to know when it will all end, something that no one yet knows or even has an objective view about. The media behaves as if COVID-19 is the government's fault, rather than it being a virus that is no one's fault, it simply 'IS'. By its approach, the media is almost encouraging people to be impatient and, ultimately, to turn against the government and its policies, something which would be an unmitigated disaster.

Someone needs to get a grip on the media, especially the BBC which is meant to be a wholly impartial national broadcaster but is, in fact, a bed of left wing political dogma that will use any opportunity to try to remove a right wing government as soon as possible. We can expect more highly damaging negativity, by the bucket load, from Kuenssberg and her colleagues unless the government gets a grip on this Fifth Column in its midst.

NOT A TIME FOR POLITICS.

Whatever they may say, there are some political figures who are desperate to turn COVID-19 into a tool for gaining future advantage. Protestations of support for the government are difficult to reconcile with a stream of claims that they aren't doing enough to support every disparate group, have got their strategy wrong, aren't doing enough testing, aren't accountable enough; basically that that they have got everything wrong.

There is no doubt that COVID-19 is dangerous, at least to some, but we have no idea how many may have been infected but shown no symptoms - results from one German village suggest that infection may be far wider than previously thought and serious consequences far less. Might this be the case world-wide or is it just an anomaly ? Are the world-wide panic measures really justified or are they not ?

There is a very important separation to be drawn between dying of COVID-19 and dying with COVID-19, although this distinction seems to be horribly lacking in any of the official reports. Dying of" the virus indicates that it was the primary cause of death; there were no other conditions which the virus did no more than mildly complicate or exacerbate. "Dying with" the virus means that the deceased had been diagnosed as having been infected with the virus but could well have died from other causes that had no connection at all with the virus. It has been suggested, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph a week or so ago, that most of the deaths so far attributed to the virus fall into this latter category. If so, how dangerous is the virus on its own to the rest of the population ?

To answer this question, and others, we can only rely on the knowledge and experience of the experts whose advice is being relied upon by our government. These experts may or may not be correct in their analyses of the situation but it is an unprecedented time and they have little in the way of passed history to use as a guide. Equally, our politicians will do what they think is for the best, guided by the best advice they can find. In the end, there will be no one to blame, only those to praise for helping us all to survive through an unprecedented time of national crisis. Doctors and nurses, carers, delivery drivers and shop workers, all of the other 'essential' workers and even those in government and advising government.

This is not a matter of politics, it's a matter of survival.

BORIS IS BACK !!!!!!!

I don't like politicians because most of them are self-serving and utterly disingenuous. They build lives of luxury on the backs of largely naïve populations, some of whom may be very clever but most of whom are not devious and are not aware of just how devious politicians can be.

However, every now and then a politician arises who is somewhat above the average. Those such as Melbourne, Gladstone, Disraeli, Lloyd George and Churchill had a charisma that transcended the norm. Margaret Thatcher was another who was well above the usual standard of political figures and the latest addition to this pantheon is Boris Johnson. This is not to say that these figure are not every bit as devious as their predecessors, just that they were, and are, far more luminous. 

Boris may not be everyone's idea of the ideal prime Minister, indeed, I had the most severe of doubts about his elevation to be leader of his party let alone of the nation. However, since he was stricken with the coronavirus COVID-19, his position as an outstanding attribute to our country has been clear. When he was simply unwell, the country was muted, when he went into hospital, it was worried, but when he was admitted to intensive care, it was close to panic-stricken. His release from hospital today has been greeted with universal relief, almost joy. 

His televised message tonight was a great occasion. To see that this now almost iconic figure is back amongst us, even if he will be recuperating at a distance for a while, was a huge relief to a population which is in desperate need of good news. While the media remains obsessed with reporting every piece of bad news, every item of nit-picking, petty-foggery that it can find and every opportunity for finding fault, the return of Boris to our screens was a moment of true importance. He is a character who has almost transcended politics and become a national icon. That he has suffered the current plague and come through it almost elevates him to a new level - he is truly "one of us".

While his political opponents look for ways of hiding their political opportunism behind veils of apparently supportive and yet meaningless verbiage, Boris has experienced the reality of the current crisis. When Boris talks of his admiration and gratitude for and to the staff of the NHS, it is real; others can do no more than issue an assortment of waffle and meaningless platitudes.

That Boris is back has to be a huge relief to us all.

GOD SAVE US FROM SIR KEIR.

The non-story of the weekend must be the election of the oily Keir Starmer, sorry SIR Keir Starmer, as the new leader of the Labour Party. Starmer is one of those greasy characters who seems to have risen to the top of his chosen profession almost without being noticed. Does anyone actually know what his true beliefs are ?

A lawyer by profession, Starmer has been active in local politics for many years and obviously had enough connections to get himself appointed as Director of Public Prosecutions in 2008 when Gordon Brown was performing as the countries then worst Prime Minister on record. For such an appointment to be given to a man of clear and heavily biased political views was itself questionable, but for him to emerge after 5 years and be a Member of Parliament in an ultra-safe seat within less than 2 more is astonishing. For him now to be leading his party leaves me speechless.

That said, his opponents in the leadership election were not exactly top drawer and his election was almost a foregone conclusion. His approach of talking a lot while saying very little and committing himself to even less, is that adopted by most of those who reach high public office; his comments about the government's approach to the COVID-19 crisis are a typical mixture of criticism and apparent support, but it's clear that he will use the current emergency for his own party political advantage as much as he can.

Starmer is not a fanatic like Jeremy Corbyn, nor is he a loser like Ed Miliband; he is probably more adept than Gordon Brown. He seems to me to be most like Tony Blair, a man who will ride roughshod over all opposition while climbing the greasy pole as fast as he can, using whatever he can grab hold of on the way.

A few weeks ago, the prospect of a Labour victory in the next general election was a distant possibility, but COVID-19 has changed all that. If the government doesn't succeed in dealing with the epidemic quickly and with minimal disruption, Starmer could well be Prime Minister in 2024, leading a party obsessed with equality, human rights and getting the UK back into the European Union. 

God help us if he is.

PREMIER LEAGUE MUST ACT ON PLAYERS' WAGES.

As a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur, I find it more than a little concerning that the club has decided to seek the support of government in paying its non-playing staff while, apparently, that cohort are continuing to draw their vast salaries. How can it possibly be right or justified for the state, which means ordinary taxpayers, to be called upon while players on salaries of tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of pounds a week are still being paid in full ?

We all know that footballers wages are ludicrously inflated and wholly unjustified, but then that's the market they play in. Clubs that can attract large crowds and profligate sponsors use their income to attract the most expensive players rather than always being overly generous with other staff. Now that the crowds are absent and sponsors must be looking for ways out of their arrangements, it must surely be the players wages that are subject to the first cuts and not the non-playing staff who are laid off. 

One can only hope that the government sees it this way too. Of course, clubs in the lower divisions may not be in the same position as the Tottenhams of this world and many may deserve support, but for those in the Premier league there can be no reason for government money to be called on until players take substantial reductions in their pay, as has happened in some other countries.

Addendum :

And so the body which represents professional footballers doesn't like the notion of their members taking a pay cut. Even in these unprecedented times of national emergency, the PFA objects to Premier League players being asked to give up some of their massive wages. These players who are, on average, paid more than 100 TIMES the national average wage, that is £60,000 PER WEEK, with some being paid up to 4 or 5 times this amount, whose lifestyles are such as to be distant dreams to the rest of us, should not be asked to surrender part their pay as it would be "detrimental to the NHS", according to this egregious organisation. Their argument is that a pay cut would result in the government losing tax income and this, in turn, would impact the NHS; what utter bilge.

How much money is the government being asked to spend on supporting the non-playing staff of clubs such as Liverpool, Newcastle, Tottenham, Norwich and Bournemouth which have already placed non-playing staff on furlough ? A simple calculation would suggest it is as much as £5m per month, while players continue to draw their multi-million pound salaries, untouched.

I reiterate my previous comment. If the players do not accept a substantial cut in their wages, there should be no thought of providing support to their vastly rich clubs. If clubs have overstretched themselves, that's not the government's fault, nor is it their problem. Football clubs are not essential services and if some of the biggest names have financial problems they should look to manage their own biggest outlays - players' salaries - long before they seek government support.

The current avaricious, self-serving and frankly risible stance of the PFA is utterly unacceptable. That some of our leading clubs have sought government support before reducing players' wages is a shocking disgrace. Football is doing itself no favours by this disgusting display of greed.

COVID-19 : WHAT ARE THE REAL FACTS ?

As the COVID-19 epidemic continues to be the only issue in the news, the media continues to stick to its lop-sided reporting, particularly when it comes to headline stories. Ignoring every potentially positive story, doing little but publicise everything negative and look for whatever they can criticise the government for either doing or not doing, there is little for the public to be joyful about.

Yes, there are tiny oases of fluffy nonsense, such as a family of You Tube video makers or a nonagenarian's 90th birthday party - along a whole street - but such are not news in any real sense of the word and aren't telling us anything of value. Virtually every piece of real news concentrates on the horrors of the epidemic and how dreadful it all is.

For all we know, the truth may be very different to what we are being force fed. In the UK, we actually have no idea of the number of infected people, meaning that the published numbers for those testing positive for the virus and those dying have no grounding; they are simply numbers. Without far more information it is impossible to place these numbers in any proper context or to answer some very basic questions.

How infectious is the virus ? What proportion of those infected can be expected to develop worse symptoms than those of a bad cough or cold ? What proportion of those infected can be expected to die ?

In the absence of answers to these very basic questions, the necessity of the real damage to our economy being done by the current 'lockdown' cannot be properly measured against the assumptions of lives saved by it. Are we talking £1,000 per life saved or £1,000,000 ? If the former, it's probably worth it, if the latter, maybe not. The trouble is that such an epidemic has never before been experienced in our technological and computer-driven age and there is too little knowledge about the true nature of the virus or its ability to spread and survive. Computer models have been developed but they are based on assumptions that may, or may not be, valid; governments have reacted more out of fright than anything else and the media has revelled in their uncertainty, picking holes at every opportunity.

Let's be clear. It's highly likely that very many more people have been infected than is shown in the official figures. The vast majority of those infected have experienced mild, or no, noticeable symptoms and have recovered without even knowing they'd been infected. As a proportion of the population, those admitted to hospital with sever symptoms is tiny, and those dying, while sad for them and their families, is almost negligible. Again, the vast majority of those admitted to hospital have been those naturally more susceptible to infection and serious illness - the elderly, already sick, or with compromised immune systems. Yes, a few otherwise healthy people, even some quite young, may suffer dire effects, but so do they in epidemics of influenza and the assorted childhood illnesses.

This is not to minimise the widespread nature of this current epidemic but to try to place it in some sort of realistic context. Very few of the population are at serious risk and only a very tiny number, in proportional terms, will die from COVID-19; most of those who do will probably have died fairly soon from other conditions which the virus has exacerbated. However, listening to, watching or reading the media we could all be forgiven for believing that the end of life as we know it is just around the corner; that we are all at peril of our lives and their is no end in sight. The numbers are mounting ! But with no context in any of the headline reporting.

No government or health service anywhere in the world was prepared for such an outbreak of disease and nor could they have been. This is a once in a century situation and to be holding reserves of hospital beds and equipment to cope with emergencies with such a frequency is practically and economically impossible. Our government's response, which seems to be receiving nothing but criticism from most of the media, has been rapid and has developed as the crisis has deepened; at the same time, the media has concentrated on highlighting every complaint from whoever it can find who will whinge about lack of resources, testing, money, support, blah-blah. Of course there are problems, some of them real and time that  imagined, but why do we not hear more support for our leaders at this time of crisis ? What we get, instead, is the usual sentimentalised twaddle about our wonderful NHS and its 'front line staff' who, it seems, can do no wrong, ever, despite well known evidence to the contrary, some of it experienced personally and on several occasions.

It really is high time that our media forgot its biases, and simply reported the real news, without trying to embellish it to fit its preconceived notions and desire to make the news 'exciting'. Some hope.