Given that in a normal year the number of people who die of flu is between 10,000 and 30,000, how many have died of flu this year? Or, if as I suspect, is every flu-related death being included in the covid-19 figures?
"Governments must learn lessons from this and not get caught with its pants down again."
Well every government of whatever political stripe says that the lessons will be learnt after every terrorist incident and then puts the problem to bed. Why should this be any different?
The legal obligation that we must spend 0.7% of GDP on overseas aid every year presents those responsible for its distribution with the requirement that they spend about £280,000 every single day of the year. Faced with this the temptation to find something, anything, which might qualify must be overwhelming. So are we surprised when money goes to projects that might not actually be deserving of such largesse?
Let's see ...... There will need to be a new government IT system to run the vote. Based on previous experience with government IT that makes the idea a non-starter. But further the vote must be open and transparent at all stages. How will a vote cast in the village hall be securely sent to the count centre? How will the candidates' agents be able to observe the count? How will hacking be prevented and guaranteed to be 100% safe 100% of the time at 100% of the polling stations?
If "Our NHS" is the envy of the rest of the world, why have no other countries adopted the same system? Perhaps it's because no politician dares to make any significant reforms as they know they will be met with accusations of privatisation from Labour and the public sector unions. The NHS is run for the benefit of its staff and not its patients and will not be allowed to change from the way it was set up 71 years ago. If the entire GDP was spent on the NHS the Labour party, the unions and NHS staff would still complain of underfunding. I despair.
Difficult for Labour candidates to support its Brexit policy as there doesn't seem to be one that makes any sense.
Does anyone believe that should Corbyn ever be given the powers of PM he would relinquish them voluntarily? Right now he may say that this would be a time-limited exercise and that he would not propose any socialist legislation while acting as caretaker PM, but once in No.10 what would there be to stop him abandoning those promises. After all he is a politician and politician's promises are only made to achieve an end, and once achieved they can be safely dropped.
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Opus