East Kent Saint

"And it’s not just what Johnson is saying that’s causing confusion, it’s the way he’s saying it. There’s a carefree lightness to his tone, the familiar bluster and bumble seemingly making it impossible for him to stress the seriousness of the crisis we all face. Less than three weeks ago, Johnson was enthusiastically telling the nation about his visit to a hospital. “I can tell you that I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m shaking hands continuously,” he said. “I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were actually a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you’ll be pleased to know and I continue to shake hands”. Johnson has never been a great orator, struggling to keep to script and relying on bluster and jokes to get by. This is no time for either." This report about daily briefing on 23rd March. (via Google) and yes I hope he pulls through as well !

It would help the players reputation if , even now , they donated a regular sum to help the non playing staff . They would still be paying their tax (or whatever tax they haven't managed to avoid) . However the clubs may see that as a way of not paying their share so managers and others should also contribute. The PFA have been under scrutiny for some time for not doing enough for players and for the massive and ever increasing pay of Gordon Taylor , perhaps this is the time for him to go but I suspect he will hold on to power for as long as possible.

It would have been good if the players , manager and board all chipped in to a fund to support the lowly paid workers at each club. Clubs seem to be waiting for the football authorities to make their mind up about this season , UEFA , FA etc seem to be hanging on to prevent losing £750M TV payments so all in limbo . A bit of leadership is required here 1. to tell clubs to support their workers and 2. to make some statements about this season and the alternatives . I don't see going through the motions to finish the remaining games as the answer as the outcome will always have an asterisk attached plus it will impinge on next season.

Saints featured on BBC news , providing meals for the needy etc via the StMarys catering team and the Saints Foundation . Well done ! . I see at WHL are using their underground car park as a food distribution centre .

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52148695 UEFA stir the pot !

MH is the least worse spokesperson but is still electioneering. To any pertinent question over the last 10 years we have been told that there are a record number of X or £x have been spent etc when the reality was that the numbers were well short and the £ were less due to inflation.The Tories have just employed another right wing Communication expert from NZ to gloss over Boris and his false promises. 40 new hospitals when only 1 is proposed and mainly because the present hospital site would be redeveloped ! None of the other 39 were going to be built , just looked into , another lie. I remember Thatcher at the Tory conference declaring 800 new hospital beds but omitting to mention they had closed 1100 hospital beds. The Tories did nothing about Coronavirus until it was too late , lack of testing , tracking Ill people , repatriating UK residents abroad , failing to act after the 3 day simulation exercise in 2017 for a pandemic that showed the NHS couldn’t cope and not spending money on relevant PPE equipment ready for a pandemic. This has all come back to haunt Us now . The government spokespeople are still trotting out meaningless figures and promising undeliverable testing regimes while people in the NHS are dying for lack of basic PPE . The WHO told them they needed visors , coveralls etc but your government down graded the standards to apron , gloves and paper mask ! Just watch coverage from the Far East , their doctors and nurses are totally enclosed with full biohazard equipment not any bare skin or part of their body exposed at all . Boris and his cohorts are a total joke And totally out of their depth , wait for Brexit to start at the end of this year to put the. final nail in our collective coffin. We need food grown at home but have no one to harvest it and this government put up a bill on farming that didn’t mention food production. You couldn’t make it up and if you did you would be slagged off by the very same people ie Boris & co .

Debt to USA after WW2 was £21 Billion , lots of moaning by UK because of the £/$ exchange rate ! It was paid off in 2006 during T Blair's reign . It was lent at 2% per annum but had some sort of conversion rate attached which was bad for the UK. (I don't quite understand this bit ) The WW1 war bonds were finally paid off during George Osbournes time in the Treasury.

Yes it still would have been a massive problem . The NHS problems are not just funding but the the fact that the Tories from Thatcher onwards wanted to reduce the NHS and push people to towards private health care . Ken Clarke started the ball rolling by starting the internal market , since then we have had numerous reorganisations including one where the health secretary would have had no responsibility for the NHS . This was overturned !! We have had changes to GP contracts and then another filter to reduce hospital referals Comissioning Groups !!! Net result , difficult to get GP appointment in 2 weeks so people went to A&E .... Along the way corporate private health insurance was promoted etc etc . GPs now want out , several practices have closed in our area , remaining practices said they couldn't take any more numbers but the area health authority overruled them so they are struggling. Rural practices used to be given a subsidy to help them stay in place with low numbers but that was cancelled and they have ended up closed with villagers now having to travel to nearest town to see a Dr.

The point is if the NHS and DWP had been given proper funding over the last decade these departments would be in a much better place to deal with the current crisis etc Don't forget the Tories blaming Labour for the criminal behaviour of the banks worldwide , not just rolling up bad debt that they had encouraged people to buy and turn them into "Financial Instruments" to sell to other Banks but the Libor and other crimes that went largely unpunished. Having sold on these bad debts they were then free to sell even more mortgages at a low rate for the first year , failing to mention that the repayments would rapidly rise in following years , leading to more bad debt. The UK economy has barely recovered from this before Brexit and now the virus .

sort of related ! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52040579

Decide all outstanding matches with a toss of a coin , award points and call it the end of the season , no risk and everyone gets a 50/50 chance Ha Ha !

On the plus side pollution levels have fallen 40% or more around the world , even Bejing has blue skies rather than choking smog , another pointer to future direction for countries to follow. I did see an advert for an £80k Maserarti SUV that did barely 20 MPG in the fake test world ! Time to ban SUVs I think , the explosion of SUV sales have negated and environmental benefits of electric vehicles in the UK !!! ( not forgetting Boris cancelled Ken's increase on SUV's congestion charge in London !)

A thread now beyond parody , similar to the out of depth jokers in government.......

They say after SARS etc the far east countries have learnt to respond to such an epidemic. In the west we have been complacent and have reacted too slowly . You could say that as the trade live wild animals for consumption in open markets in China etc that they cause them as well !!!!! (such as bats ,bush rats , lizards etc)

You can get a test done for £370 in Harley St , according to reports in the press. You may be clear but I assume it won't stop you catching it after the test ! They say they are developing a test to show if you have had it already ( checking antibodies I think) it which case you are OK to work in a hospital etc so I presume you won't get it twice .

Boris can fix it in 12 weeks , say Daily Mail , Express etc . Er I think he suggested it might peak in 12 weeks if everyone stopped going down the pub etc. Now the supermarkets have run out the “locusts” have stripped the local shop ............

Hope you were impressed with Boris’s effort today Batman , Ha Ha Ha .....

Why do they put up Boris everyday ? No sensible person would believe anything he says even (by chance) it was true . Reference ; leave campaign and the last get it done election campaign. The BBC is just about a worldwide respected provider of News despite the World Service funding being transfered from the Foreign Office and now the over 75 s concession being transfered from the Social Services budget also to the BBC.Around the world the BBC is respected but all independant news services are being undermined by dictators and elected dictatorships . Well thats got that off my chest !!!!!!!

Being a bit deaf I haven’t heard any company directors saying they will cancel their bonuses until the crisis is over , in fact I heard some of them were rushing to protect them ha ha ha .......

Everyone is hedging their bets at the moment, I imagine restart dates will be pushed slowly back until the Olympics are postponed and team games realise the season is over........

I think all this talk about finishing this season in September , playing Euros in December etc is all wishful thinking . They will just have to bite the bullet and abandon this season including no promotion or relegation or champions , cue lots of whinging .............. We are cursing booking tickets to USA in advance !!!! (Not football related).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51832377 Another case of lighting the blue touchpaper and watch it crash and burn , who can put Humpty back together ????

The red card , in real time , looked like the Newcastle player got to the ball a fraction of a second earlier so to me that was a yellow . The on field ref , who saw it in real time , gave a yellow which reflected the intent angle as well as the timing . Of course in slo mo it looks worse because the timing is ignored ie there was no time to avoid contact in what was an attempt to block the ball. The penalty was also border line to me even in slo mo , how far up does the arm go ? he did move toward the ball but was another decision that was debateable in my view , great save though. Interesting to see WH waltz through Arsenal's defence as well !!

Ings was said to be only fit enough to be on the bench and they also said on Motd that Djenepo's mother had died . Moyes was quoted on BBC sports on line as saying their plan was to let us have the ball , which worked ! Ralph should have seen what was going on and changed things but WHU were playing so much better than when Moyes took over. McCarthy left it too late to jump for the ball, got both hands on it but Antonio had got his head to it after an impressive jump . It would be good if we had a plan when we take corners , JWP got back from one to block a shot but WH had several chances from our corners.

Leicester unlucky with VAR again goal ruled out for "handball" !