PMQ’s, COVID and the NHS

In Prime Ministers Questions today, the comments of Nadine Dorries about how the nations preparations for a pandemic were “found wanting and inadequate” were brought up.  As discussed earlier in the week, the government had warning shots with Exercise Cygnus and Exercise Alice that the UK was not as prepared for a pandemic as we should have been.  Most Conservatives do not wish to bring this up, but Nadine Dorries did.

Yes, Boris Johnson did ensure that we got enough vaccines, but he was wrong to say that the UK got the first vaccine approval.  In June 2020, China approved a vaccine for emergency use in high risk occupations, Russia approving one in August for emergency use, this being the case in the UAE in September 2020 and in November, Bahrain. He was right to point out that the UK does not have the highest death rate in Europe (it is the 4th highest in Western Europe), but we do have the highest numbers of dead in Europe (not counting Russia which is both in Europe and Asia).  

The issue of the NHS was brought up with problems accessing a GP.  Cancer treatment times were also discussed, but the best performance from Starmer happened when he followed the example of Jeremy Corbyn and named people when it came to waiting for surgery along with also ambulance waits.  

Sadly, I did not get to watch the rest of PMQ's, even though I watched this after the show, so I do not know if there were any other highlights worth discussing.

On a personal note, my back is starting to improve and I only have pains on occasion.

Back pain

I have been off work with backpain today.  I had got up and was fine, but my back went before I got into the shower.  I have to say it was like a spasm on certain movements and when I first had it, it literally hurt to breathe.  My wife was amazing, but my daughter came up to laugh at me in the morning before heading off to her Maths exam.  My son has not been that supportive either, calling me old man.  Needless to say, I had to take the day off work but managed to do a little bit from home.

I have just got back from taking the dog for a walk and this appears to have helped my back.  Here is hoping it gets even better after a night of rest.

Boris Johnson and his vote of confidence

Jacob Rees-Mogg, 

Dec 12, 2018: “This is a very bad result for the prime minister, 117 votes against her…… much worse than she thought” 

June 7, 2022: "It was a good victory for the Prime Minister, he won comfortably and now he is getting on with business"

PMQ's tomorrow is going to be interesting.  211 votes to back him, 148 against.  The numbers cannot be directly compared to what happened with Theresa May as she did not have a huge majority, but one in four Conservative MP's do not back Boris Johnson and that proportion is even greater of backbench MP's assuming that all those who are part of government voted to back the Prime Minister.

Latin

 

My daughters exams in Latin and Psychology were okay apparently.  She has a mathematics paper tomorrow and then four more papers after that (for this week, her exams continuing afterwards). I am not sure she has watched Life Of Brian, but if she does, I am sure she would be able to comment on the accuracy of this scene… 

The Tories and COVID

Nadine Dorries today has tweeted that Jeremy Hunt’s “pandemic preparation during six years as health secretary was found wanting and inadequate.” She is not the most reliable of people when it comes to facts, but in this she is right.  

In 2016, Exercise Cygnus was carried out along with Exercise Alice.  In the first, the need for ventilators was noted, in the second, issues about having decent stocks of PPE, having a working contact tracing system in place along with pandemic related travel restrictions were noted.  

I was lucky enough in the pandemic to have access to decent PPE, but that was not the case for too many.  Our test and trace system has been viewed as funnelling money to the Chumocracy and while COVID would have arrived even if we had travel restrictions, it would have bought the UK more time if it had been put in place sooner. 

I know that she has tweeted this because she does not want Jeremy Hunt to oust Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, but she has not realised that she has admitted that the government should have been better prepared for the pandemic.

Top Gun: Maverick

loved the film. My wife came with me to watch it. I did not want my children to come, one has watched bits, is revising and did not like what she had watched. The other has not watched the first at all. I am biased as I may have watched Top Gun about 100 times or so, but I did like this. I was concerned that it was going to have too much testosterone in it, but it did not. Yes, a lot of the plot was predictable, but the film was well put together. I suspect that most of those who did not like the original would not like this.

Today was the street party.  I had gone to work in the morning after taking Leia out for a walk and got back too late to help my wife take food to the party.  I did get to take Leia as my daughter stayed at home to revise while my son had helped my wife take the food down.  There was an ‘interesting’ discussion about the less admirable aspects of the local Boys Grammar School where two women appeared to be defending it or making excuses.  We did leave early, my son having left earlier to returned home.  I ironed and then my wife and I went to the cinema.  

Tomorrow is going to be busy for her and me in our jobs, but I do feel refreshed after this long weekend.

We Got This and Dylan Moran

My wife and I have been looking forwards to this.  Sadly, it did not match up to previous comedy shows or even the past performances of Dylan Moran.  At best I would describe this as the ramblings of a previously articulate drunk interspersed with  great insights which would have been better for the heckling.  But some of his responses to heckling were the funnier parts of the show.  We did like bits of it, but both agreed that we were expecting a lot better.  While he says that he was boring sober, I would have loved to have seen him perform sober as I suspect the show would have been better had he done so.  While I get ready for sleep, we are watching some of this past performances on YouTube to reassure ourselves that he was funnier in the past.  Ultimately, the attitude of Dylan Moran is that I doubt he cares for the opinions of those who felt he could be better as many did love him.  I could have a go at the worse hecklers for moving seats to be closer to us, but I had taken us to the wrong seats earlier and we had to move to the correct ones before the show started.  Oops! 

Our son looked after Leia while my daughter continued to revise for her seven exams this coming week.  We had offered to take both out to lunch, but he opted to stay at home while my daughter accompanied us to The Whalebone.  We enjoyed our meal, though my wife and I felt that more seasoning would have improved our main courses.  My daughter did feel too full to finish her dessert, which was great as I got to finish it for her!  We helped her revise by testing her on questions that she asked but I ended up in a slight disagreement over Colour Constancy.  I said A and B are the same colour below, she disagreed.  To be fair, in her exercise book, they were not, but if you zoom in on this image and crop the squares, they are.