We care a lot

After Conservative driven decade of austerity that, by their own figures cost 120,000 people their lives, and failed to deliver austerity's main reason, reducing national debt, should be be surpised that their reaction to COVID-19 had delivered so much death an misery?

What is odd is that Johnson saying in his first major speech back at Number 10 that the rest of the world looks at the UK enviously at our success in tackling the virus. Not sure who is going to break it to him that the rest of the world, for the most part, is horrified. But the media just report it without criticism, apparently happy with this twisting of facts to fit a liar's narrative.

This morning, the ONS released its mortaility figures up to the end of last week for care homes, and what we can say, is that in the week ending 17th April, some 4,000 more people died in care homes than happened the same week a year ago. Needless to say, these figures with multiply the daily figures the Government announces at three in the afternoon each day. Since the start of the outbreak there have been 27,015 excess deaths than for the same period last year. These include deaths not of COVID-19, but all deaths, many of which will have happened as ICU beds are unavailable, and that it seems to have been Government policy to release infected patients into the care system rather than have them stay at the hospital they were in or go to a Nightingale.

All of this means that the Government daily figures can easily be doubled to show how many people are dying, and that doubling doesn't seem to include those who died at home.

If this is a success, I'd hate to see failure.

There is a view that journalists reporting the facts and revealing the failings of this Government are being unpatriotic at a moment of crisis. This is clearly tosh, as Governments should always be held to account, especially when the virus cannot read newspapers, watch TV or access the internet. There have been fundamental failings in the preparation for a pandemic, the ignoring of lessons from the Operation Cygnus in 2016, and repeated ignoring of warnings from China, Spain and the WHO who had actually been dealing with the virus and wanted to ensure the UK among other countries, did not make the same mistakes. Instead it made who new ones.

It is likely that the reluctance of Johnson to implement a lockdown in a timely manner will have ensured 90% of people died un-necessarily, and not having enough PPE and have it at the right locations, not having sufficient testing for frontline workers and in the right place will have meant that many of those died as a result of Government failings too.

UK manufacturers of PPE had stock, but NHS Trust's procurement procedures were so lengthy that by the time purchases were approved the manufacturers had sold and shipped supplies.

But yes, lets all happy clap along. Tractor production is up and Dear Leader is out of hospital. Hoo-fucking-ray.

The United Kingdom's #Covid19 death toll is already above 45,000, according to @FT analysis. That's 21 per cent of coronavirus deaths globally, even though the UK population is just 0.8 per cent of the world population.