CV19. What would the Labour party have done?

[I'm With Stupid]

They still would have had to borrow hundreds of billions of pounds to help people out, during lockdown, otherwise there would have been riots, maybe they might have introduced it a week or so earlier, but I can't really see how things would have been handled much better.

I don't think anyone has criticised the Tories for borrowing money to help people out.

The problem is that a crisis doesn't just highlight poor leadership at the time, but highlights deeper problems in a society or government (or company). It's not a massive surprise, for example, to see a huge number of deaths occurring in the chronically under-funded social care sector. In that respect, a Labour government that only got elected in December last year probably would have had many of the same problems. But I'd also like to think even a Cameron or May government wouldn't have been so entirely led by PR. Let's be honest, there are Tory governments, and then there's this particular Tory government.

 

[blueish swede]

We now see Labour party voters sticking the boot in blaming Boris and the Conservatives for their response to this crisis, but what could they have done any differently?

They still would have had to borrow hundreds of billions of pounds to help people out, during lockdown, otherwise there would have been riots, maybe they might have introduced it a week or so earlier, but I can't really see how things would have been handled much better.

This is a question aimed mainly at Bluemoon Labour supporters.

There would have been half as many deaths,

 

[Len Rum]

There would have been half as many deaths,

This.
Labour (and indeed any other government bar this one) would have locked down earlier acting with the hindsight of what was happening in Italy.
This would have resulted in far fewer deaths and the disease would have been more manageable and we could have relaxed lockdown earlier thus reducing the damage to the economy.

 

[west didsblue]

I would like to think they would have learnt from the Italian experience and followed the European consensus and stockpiled PPE in advance, locked down a week or two earlier and properly looked after care homes.

We might then be down to single figures in terms of deaths per day instead of the few dozen we’re now at.

Whether they would or not is anyone’s guess but I doubt that their response would be largely based on what their equivalent of Cummings ordered their PM to do.

 

[kaz7]

Is this a what would a Labour government done differently thread or just another for the usual tweets slamming the Tories?

The question is not answerable,we don't know what they would have done

 

[Fame Monster]

I can't imagine Corbyn would have been shaking hands with as many people as Johnson. Unless he had a meeting with Hamas.

 

[jma]

Not just Labour but it is difficult to imagine any previous government of any persuasion, including Tory doing the following:

- having a PM that misses 5 COBRA meetings, for no valid reason, in the lead up to a world crisis.
- taking a deliberate and cynical decision to release infected patients into care homes, killing thousands.
- prioritising retaining the services of a SPAD over maintaining public confidence in lockdown procedures
- attempt to lie in the most insulting manner possible by publically claiming that it's the fault of the care homes that your deliberate choice to sacrifice old people in care homes resulted in mass deaths.

Other than the second one, the above aren't political failings, they are moral failings, reflecting the personality of the prime minister and those closest to him. No previous government has ever been so morally bankrupt, so it isn't fair to suggest than anyone else, Labour, Tory or otherwise would repeat those gross failings.

These are the most shameful aspects that others definitely would not have repeated

Other big, big cock ups, late lockdown, PPE farce, deliberately hiding and fudging testing figures, the test and trace farce, it is conceivable that other governments might have moments if similar incompetence (although possibly not all in one crisis)

 

[bluethrunthru]

Maybe have been more world class than this.................fucking shambles.................

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...c-testing-regime-broke-all-the-rules-12022566

 

[Rascal]

What Labour would have done needs to be looked at in context of what happened since the 2007 banking crash.

If at the election after that, Labour and maybe the SNP or Lib Dems had formed a coalition instead of what we got in the CONDEM coalition things would have been hugely different. The biggest contributing factor to the fucking disgraceful death statistics in the UK was the austerity years that followed from Osborne and Cameron's meglomaniacal zeal of cutting the state sector to USA levels of GDP. The policies they enacted created the perfect storm of outsourced undervalued underfunded services, the decimation of local government and the massive underfunding of the NHS and social care system. The Lansley reforms of the NHS made it difficult to procure PPE, local government hamstrung by the legal necessity to provide social care was unable to react in any meaningful way due to the excessive cutting of local government spending. Wage freezes left NHS and social care staff already in a position where they had no choice but to work or starve, there was increase of 3772% in foodbank usage amongst working families meant that many had to continue working or starve. There was a 14% rise in cancellation of routine surgery on the NHS, overnight beds fell by 11%. In 2019 every NHS trust failed the 4 hour waiting time for A&E for the first time. All of these added pressure on an already creaking NHS.

Social care fell by 9% per person and 30% of all children in 2019 were living in poverty. Since 2015 12,000 public spaces have been sold by councils to try and cover the cuts in local government grants, there has been a 74% rise in homeless families and 9% of women's refuges have been closed.

Add all this to JMA'S post and Johnson's natural libertarianism and incompetence, his refusal to sack the fucking idiot Cummings, the stupidity of the likes of Gove and Hancock and it is it really a surprise this country did so badly. Its British exceptionalism and the we know best, we ruled the world attitude of fuckwits like Johnson and his acolytes that have all added to this disaster. They have managed to kill more people in this country than the Luftwaffe managed in WW2.

What Labour would have done different is not introduced austerity on the purely ideological grounds of shrinking the state, it would not have told the associated lies that running a government is like running a household and yes they would have made mistakes I am sure, but the country would have been in a far better place to fight against the virus than it is now under these fucking morons.

But AS as PB says rather glibly stopped all that and you wonder why I get annoyed at times and frustrated with the inability of the likes of Starmer to actually see the real truths and not pander to the RW extremists in our media.

This country I am afraid to say and it hurts to say it, got exactly what it deserved.

 

[manchester blue]

The Labour Party would have been Corbyn and Abbott leading the battle.

I think the answer lies there...