Coronavirus

[Orange Cola]

Scotland's CMO has to go doesn't she? What an entitled bitch she is, preaching about what's important whilst flagrantly breaching the rules on 2 separate weekends.

You’ll be pleased to know she’s resigned.

What a shit show - apparently excellent at her job she’s been forced to resign for going to her other house - not meeting anyone or socialising - due to media pressure. During what must be a massively stressful time and she undoubtedly needed some down time. News broken by the Scottish Sun who assigned a photographer to follow her and drag up any dirt that they could use to sell more of their rags.

Reading the headline it says she was visiting her second home, but reading the actual article on the Beeb she was returning to her main family home at weekends which is an hour outside of Edinburgh, then living in another home in Edinburgh during the week to do her work.

Beeb have swung the article, Edinburgh is now mentioned as the main home and the second home is an hour away. In which case, she made a pretty silly mistake!

[DeskJockey]

Got my test results back and it was negative. Can rejoin normal (using the current meaning of the term) life again.

[Orange Cola]

Got my test results back and it was negative. Can rejoin normal (using the current meaning of the term) life again.

In a weird way did you want it to come back positive? I think if I got away with mild symptoms I'd be wanting to have had it.

[mik]

[mention]Orange Cola[/mention] I don’t think anyone could argue that it was anything other than a rather foolish thing to do. It just gets right on my tits that opposition politicians jump on it and use it as a way to attack and decry the party in power (which I am sure would be the same if another party was in power - fuckin politicians) and the press jump on it as an opportunity to leverage maximum outrage and hopefully sell some more rags. Both groups self-serving at this time of crisis.

The idea that she should resign (aka be forced to resign) seems preposterous to me. I don’t know her, but I hear she is very good at her job, and I can’t imagine that spending time recruiting a replacement for her is very beneficial to any of us.

Hand-wringing outrage response from the masses who are probably posting all their be-kind messages to anyone that will listen.

IMHO of course.

[DeskJockey]

Got my test results back and it was negative. Can rejoin normal (using the current meaning of the term) life again.

In a weird way did you want it to come back positive? I think if I got away with mild symptoms I'd be wanting to have had it.

Yes and no. Would be nice to have gotten it out of the way, but obviously no way to know how badly it would impact on the rest of the family. So on balance I'd rather have this result.

[Swervin_Mervin]

@Orange Cola I don’t think anyone could argue that it was anything other than a rather foolish thing to do. It just gets right on my tits that opposition politicians jump on it and use it as a way to attack and decry the party in power (which I am sure would be the same if another party was in power - fuckin politicians) and the press jump on it as an opportunity to leverage maximum outrage and hopefully sell some more rags. Both groups self-serving at this time of crisis.

The idea that she should resign (aka be forced to resign) seems preposterous to me. I don’t know her, but I hear she is very good at her job, and I can’t imagine that spending time recruiting a replacement for her is very beneficial to any of us.

Hand-wringing outrage response from the masses who are probably posting all their be-kind messages to anyone that will listen.

IMHO of course.

It's teh default response though these days isn't it? Person at top must resign, regardless.

[Orange Cola]

@Orange Cola I don’t think anyone could argue that it was anything other than a rather foolish thing to do. It just gets right on my tits that opposition politicians jump on it and use it as a way to attack and decry the party in power (which I am sure would be the same if another party was in power - fuckin politicians) and the press jump on it as an opportunity to leverage maximum outrage and hopefully sell some more rags. Both groups self-serving at this time of crisis.

The idea that she should resign (aka be forced to resign) seems preposterous to me. I don’t know her, but I hear she is very good at her job, and I can’t imagine that spending time recruiting a replacement for her is very beneficial to any of us.

Hand-wringing outrage response from the masses who are probably posting all their be-kind messages to anyone that will listen.

IMHO of course.

I agree in that I think a firm telling off would have been fine, but dragged through the papers is genuinely unfair given they are useful to the country. Was the photographers journey to follow her essential travel in the first place? Of course it wasn't.

[DaveE]

You’ll be pleased to know she’s resigned.

What a shit show - apparently excellent at her job she’s been forced to resign for going to her other house - not meeting anyone or socialising - due to media pressure. During what must be a massively stressful time and she undoubtedly needed some down time. News broken by the Scottish Sun who assigned a photographer to follow her and drag up any dirt that they could use to sell more of their rags.

Reading the headline it says she was visiting her second home, but reading the actual article on the Beeb she was returning to her main family home at weekends which is an hour outside of Edinburgh, then living in another home in Edinburgh during the week to do her work.

Beeb have swung the article, Edinburgh is now mentioned as the main home and the second home is an hour away. In which case, she made a pretty silly mistake!

I fucking hate this misuse of "I made a mistake"

A mistake is not deliberately ignoring the advice you're spouting to others on TV and deciding to take a trip to your second home.

This wasn't a mistake, it was a choice.

See also: "I mislead parliament" rather than "I lied to parliament" etc

[Swervin_Mervin]

We lost my Uncle in the US on Friday, albeit not due to CV-19 - he'd been fairly unwell over the last 12mo and everything just came to a head. It's a big blow for the family as he was the last of the generation that kept the dispersed family as one, if you like - there were 3 brothers, one in US, one in France (died years ago) and my dad in the UK. He was 16/17 when my dad was born and was effectively both big brother and father to him (real father absent). Still, he was 87 and he'd really lived a hell of a life, travelling the globe, divebombing in planes, becoming decon of his US church (after he settled down and found God ) and so on.

Whilst we're sort of glad that he didn't succumb to CV19, it's obviously going to be very difficult none of us being able to head over there to say our goodbyes.

In other news, the wife finally received her letter from the NHS. Could've done with it to queue jump yesterday when doing the shop but nevermind. We've been told by Sainsburys that we're on the list as well, but getting a slot is proving almost impossible - I think we'll need to phone up to get one.

[NotoriousREV]

The idea that she should resign (aka be forced to resign) seems preposterous to me. I don’t know her, but I hear she is very good at her job, and I can’t imagine that spending time recruiting a replacement for her is very beneficial to any of us.

I can't agree, I'm afraid. She showed an astonishing lack of judgement at a time when we need flawless leadership. We don't need the great unwashed deciding they can go out if she can. She had to go.

[NotoriousREV]

In other news, the wife finally received her letter from the NHS. Could've done with it to queue jump yesterday when doing the shop but nevermind. We've been told by Sainsburys that we're on the list as well, but getting a slot is proving almost impossible - I think we'll need to phone up to get one.

Call, they have an automated system dealing with slots for the vulnerable list.

[Orange Cola]

I guess the argument there Rev is that they're now earning the money they are paid, fuck ups aren't an option.

[integrale_evo]

Was the photographers journey to follow her essential travel in the first place? Of course it wasn't.

If it's their job to take photographs to get a story for a newspaper then it's within current government guidelines and not exactly something they can do from home

[Jobbo]

The idea that she should resign (aka be forced to resign) seems preposterous to me. I don’t know her, but I hear she is very good at her job, and I can’t imagine that spending time recruiting a replacement for her is very beneficial to any of us.

I can't agree, I'm afraid. She showed an astonishing lack of judgement at a time when we need flawless leadership. We don't need the great unwashed deciding they can go out if she can. She had to go.

I have to agree with Rev. What she did might not have put anyone in greater danger of catching it, but her actions directly contradicted the advice she gave publicly - that simply undermines her public advice. It's almost on a par with Gerald Ratner saying his shops sold crap in terms of publicity cock-up.

[Orange Cola]

Was the photographers journey to follow her essential travel in the first place? Of course it wasn't.

If it's their job to take photographs to get a story for a newspaper then it's within current government guidelines and not exactly something they can do from home

The guidance is for reporting in public interest, not running a smear campaign

Could argue that it's both though, depending on your point of view

[NotoriousREV]

I’d say it’s definitely in the public interest, imo.

[Nefarious]

I’d say it’s definitely in the public interest, imo.

Although, in many ways, the public interest would've been better served by keeping schtum - no encouragement for the great unwashed to break the rules, and a decent doctor carries on doing her job.

Maybe tabloid journalists could serve the public interest better with a bit more scrutiny of how decision made at government level interact with the personal interests of those in charge, rather than trying to catch public figures out for, say, turning the tap off before the end of the second verse of happy birthday

[Rich B]

I’d say it’s definitely in the public interest, imo.

Although, in many ways, the public interest would've been better served by keeping schtum - no encouragement for the great unwashed to break the rules, and a decent doctor carries on doing her job.

Maybe tabloid journalists could serve the public interest better with a bit more scrutiny of how decision made at government level interact with the personal interests of those in charge, rather than trying to catch public figures out for, say, turning the tap off before the end of the second verse of happy birthday

where does that stop though? Prince Andrew raised a lot of cash for charities that has been affected by recent events, should they have kept schtum?

[NotoriousREV]

I’d say it’s definitely in the public interest, imo.

Although, in many ways, the public interest would've been better served by keeping schtum - no encouragement for the great unwashed to break the rules, and a decent doctor carries on doing her job.

Maybe tabloid journalists could serve the public interest better with a bit more scrutiny of how decision made at government level interact with the personal interests of those in charge, rather than trying to catch public figures out for, say, turning the tap off before the end of the second verse of happy birthday

Again, completely disagree. If someone in charge of public health during a global pandemic cannot or will not comply with their own rules then they need to be removed from office.

Personally I don’t want to live in a society where those in charge are able to behave as they wish with no public scrutiny or consequence. I’m surprised that you appear to want to.

[Nefarious]

It's a question of priorities, imo. There is an awful lot going on behind the scenes that could be being reported/investigated/scrutinised, and exactly which of the CMO's 2 houses she is officially regarding as her primary residence falls some way down the list, imho, behind the likes of Raab and Mogg lining their own pockets in terms of "the public interest"

Totally agree this is a pr cockup, and sends out the wrong message, but not all journalistic scrutiny is created equal, and imo this is very much at the finger-pointy faux outrage end of the scale