Comments by "Helen Trope" (@heliotropezzz333) on "The Independent" channel.

  1.  @richardlyon67  This was not Labour's fault. The Tories always did too little too late and then flip flopped all the time as soon as they were criticised which meant the measures were not sustainably successful, people's sacrifices were in vain and the measures had to be repeated. Labour would not have done things the same way, but since the electorate in its wisdom gave the Tories an 80 seat majority in the house there's very little Labour can do about it. They don't have the numbers to stop or change anything the Tories are doing and now we are where we are, it's a bigger mess to sort out with fewer options. The best models for handling this thing can be seen in Singapore, Taiwan and New Zealand.
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  2.  @richardlyon67  I've not heard about the ciminalising bit. Criminalising asking questions or criminalising spreading false information? Countries that did best did what they did and are where they are. To be fair they are smaller countries in terms of population, people obeyed the guidance better, Singapore definitely controlled airport arrivals much better, Taiwan had a very impressive response by the administration there and also controlled arrivals. I can't recall all the details but I read an article about it. I believe the article was in Private Eye Magazine. Our government declined to plan ahead for a pandemic when advised to. As a consequence it did not have the right equipment or enough of it to deal with the pandemic. It required hospitals to send untested patients with symptoms back into care homes which had no equipment or provision for dealing with Covid. Our government also shilly shallied and flip flopped over its policies rendering them ineffective in the longer run. It didn't always follow the science and could not explain the logic of its policies to the public and it was a case of 'do as I say, not as I do' when it came to Boris visiting hospitals and shaking hands without gloves and Dominic Cummings doing as he pleased, travelling to and around Durham while infected with Covid.
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  3.  @richardlyon67  If what you say is true about exposure of those countries to similar viruses being a factor in their lower case incidence, then why does it not hold true for the whole region? Covid 19 is a new strain of Coronavirus and there's not been anything quite like it before in the way it behaves e.g. in what it can do to the body, in how it can spread and be most infectious for a longer period before any symptoms are experienced, and in how it can also be spread by symptomless people.
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  4.  @richardlyon67  Do you have evidence that Labour does not make a distinction between anti-Vaxxers and people who ask questions about why indemnity was necessary? What Labour seems to be concerned about is 'people churning out disinformation' https://labour.org.uk/press/labour-calls-for-emergency-legislation-to-stamp-out-dangerous-anti-vax-content/
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  5.  @richardlyon67  Labour are concerned about spreaders of misinformation about vaccines, not people asking questions and the tier measures now have to be taken because the Tories made such a hash up of dealing with the virus previously and it's now out of control. Labour is not going to vote against that as we have to get the virus under control but we wouldn't be where we are now if we'd had a Labour government in charge from the beginning.
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  6.  @richardlyon67  Yes but it doesn't look as if this one is going away any time soon and what if it mutates - then previous immunity won't count and neither will current vaccines and the lethality could increase. We also don't know yet, with this one, how long immunity lasts. There's no reason to be complacent.
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  7.  @richardlyon67  I'm referring to low case numbers, not just deaths. Keeping cases numbers low, unlike neighbouring countries indicates effective anti Covid policies, but you can read what they actually did if you are interested.
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  8.  @richardlyon67  Weren't the protesters breaking the law concerning Covid restrictions by holding a public demonstration at that time? Wasn't that the reason they were arrested?
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  9.  @richardlyon67  You need to be more specific. What demonstration are you referring to?
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  10. I guess you are not a Londoner.
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  11.  You love Youtube too??  Evidence of corruption?
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  12.  @unionjackjackson4352  That's an ignorant comment. The Home Office has a budget for police. It may be money that finds its way to the Mayor and local councils, but it originates from the government. The government has cut funding for police so much since 2010 that the police were reduced by 20,000 posts. Khan actually put some of London's money into the police budgets to try and offset some of the damage but he doesn't have the kind of spare funds for that to make up for the government cuts. P.S. To be perfectly fair, recently the government has said it will add to police funds to make up for some of its cuts. I don't think they will restore the whole amount though.
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  13.  @pauld5723  You could actually look it up. He has a house building programme (he has begun building over 56,000 homes), funded an anti-pollution programme, which will help to protect schoolchildren from toxic air https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/schools-benefit-from-mayors-air-quality-audits, he has a tree planting programme He has an anti crime programme https://sadiq.london/campaign/crime/ https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-announces-thousands-of-new-street-trees he capped some tube fares and introduced 2 bus journey for the price of one . This helped low paid workers in the city. He stopped the wasteful spending on Bojo's unnecessary vanity project 'The Garden Bridge' which was running into financial trouble and threatening to soak up ever more taxpayers money when the project had not even secured the land on the south side of the bridge to build that end of it. These are further promises for 2021 https://labourlist.org/2021/04/5-policy-pledges-in-sadiq-khans-2021-election-labour-manifesto-for-london/ London's crime increased as a result of the Tory government making huge cuts to funding of local authorities and police budgets resulting in 20,000 fewer police officers since 2010. Khan put some London money back into police budgets but he didn't have enough spare to make up for the huge government cuts. He pushed the Metropolitan police to do more stop and search to combat knife crime. His Tory opponent, Shaun Bailey, was against that as he said it was racist. The Tory government has cut its funding to local authorities by 80% since 2010 and local councils had to cut funding for leisure centres, your centres and day care centres as a result as well as other projects aimed at young people. The government probably hoped that people will blame local authorities/Mayors for the consequences of that. Some people blame him for TfL's debt but he actually paid off more of it than when Boris Johnson was Mayor. However Covid lockdowns have since affected its income stream.
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  14. This is what he has done and what he has promised to do in his next term: He has a house building programme (he has begun building over 56,000 homes), funded an anti-pollution programme, which will help to protect schoolchildren from toxic air https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/schools-benefit-from-mayors-air-quality-audits, he has a tree planting programme He has an anti crime programme https://sadiq.london/campaign/crime/ https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-announces-thousands-of-new-street-trees he capped some tube fares and introduced 2 bus journey for the price of one . This helped low paid workers in the city. He stopped the wasteful spending on Bojo's unnecessary vanity project 'The Garden Bridge' which was running into financial trouble and threatening to soak up ever more taxpayers money when the project had not even secured the land on the south side of the bridge to build that end of it. These are further promises for 2021 https://labourlist.org/2021/04/5-policy-pledges-in-sadiq-khans-2021-election-labour-manifesto-for-london/ London's crime increased as a result of the Tory government making huge cuts to funding of local authorities and police budgets resulting in 20,000 fewer police officers since 2010. Khan put some London money back into police budgets but he didn't have enough spare to make up for the huge government cuts. He pushed the Metropolitan police to do more stop and search to combat knife crime. His Tory opponent, Shaun Bailey, was against that as he said it was racist. The Tory government has cut its funding to local authorities by 80% since 2010 and local councils had to cut funding for leisure centres, your centres and day care centres as a result as well as other projects aimed at young people. The government probably hoped that people will blame local authorities/Mayors for the consequences of that. Some people blame him for TfL's debt but he actually paid off more of it than when Boris Johnson was Mayor. However Covid lockdowns have since affected its income stream.
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  15.  @unionjackjackson4352  What you're saying isn't true. You haven't bothered to look up any facts have you? TfL was in debt in Boris's time as Mayor. The pollution policies have not been in place for years. Again you didn't look at the the facts. I would know if they were in place previously. I have asthma and live on a main road and have lived here for over 30 years. Public transport is I think the cheapest in the country - buses are anyway and the services are frequent. A bus journey anywhere in London costs £1.55 and 2 journeys within an hour can be done for that price. Similar bus journeys in Manchester cost over £4 says the Mayor of Manchester. You can't see beyond race and your own prejudices and I'm not going to engage any more with someone who doesn't want to look at the facts and is racist.
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  16.  @unionjackjackson4352  Look it up for yourself, lazy boy.
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  17.  @unionjackjackson4352  Look these up yourself, lazy boy. I'm fed up of doing all the work for you. Do you pull your weight at work?
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  18.  @unionjackjackson4352  You don't know. You say 'whenever housing is built' but social housing (which is truly affordable) has not been built under the Tories. Since Margaret Thatcher's day it has been the Tory objective to get rid of it or as much of it as they could. She forced councils to sell it off. Then for a long time councils were not allowed to build more. Now they don't have the money for it and any they build they could be forced to sell off in the future. Much of the housing sold off eventually ended up in the hands of landlords who rented them out at market rents which are high in London. The Tories are all about keeping house prices high and protecting developers.
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  19.  @unionjackjackson4352  Blair was a closet Tory. He was an admirer of Margaret Thatcher but even with rents going up social housing would still have been the cheapest for people to live in. You have to be a British Citizen to be eligible for Social Housing or someone with a long term right to stay. https://www.thetenantsvoice.co.uk/advice_from_us/are-you-eligible-for-social-housing/ With councils, some are nearly bankrupt. Overall the debt far outweighs the 10s of millions you mention. Traditionally wealthy councils (mostly Tory) have not been hit as badly by Tory government cuts and don't spend as much on services for their citizens. For instance Westminster Council doesn't have the extent of homelessness and poverty to deal with that some of the others do. (Westminster at one time was exporting their homeless to other boroughs) Some have got themselves into trouble by creating and investing in housebuilding projects without the experience or knowledge (Croydon is one). This was trying to raise income in alternative ways after big (80%) cuts to central funding. https://www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/exactly-one-londons-richest-councils-18327652
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  20.  @unionjackjackson4352  But councils are limited in how much they can raise as council tax from residents. Wealthier councils with lots of businesses do better than areas that have lost businesses and areas with lots of unemployed, get reduced council tax from those. It's a vicious circle - the more poverty the less council tax, but the more legally required or voluntary spending is needed.
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  21.  @unionjackjackson4352  Here: educate yourself on council tax. https://citizensassembly.co.uk/how-is-local-government-funded/#:~:text=1%20More%20government%20grant%20funding.%20Councils%20are%20expected,percentage%20of%20VAT%20receipts%20%28VAT%20cannot%20be%20 The government used to ensure fairer distribution of income but from 2020 councils can keep all their business tax raised so more prosperous councils benefit at the expense of others. Since 2010 deprived areas have had their grants cut more than less deprived areas.
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  22.  @unionjackjackson4352  Do you have any evidence for your allegations or is it just your bigotry in play? Are you a Londoner? I suspect not.
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  23.  @unionjackjackson4352  P.S. When you don't like the facts you revert back to unsupported allegations. That's a sad mentality to be unable to fact facts.
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  24.  @unionjackjackson4352  I suppose you'd rather have an 'honest' man like Boris's puppet in charge. Boris is an honest man isn't he?
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  25.  @fentonfairway5793  Small minded or what?
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  26.  @safslut01  I know that. I'm not ignorant but I have difficulty finding reputable traders from China on E-Bay or Amazon. They sometimes falsely claim to be local traders when they are not, and when you get to the reviews, the genuine ones, they're not so good. By the way, the 'device' I wrote my 'ignorant' comment on is a Hewlett Packard P.C. An American company I believe, and I've just ordered new headphones from a German company. You may rely on Chinese goods more than me I suspect.
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  27.  @Cepheidvariable  There are some sanctions though. The UK did tell China it would allow millions (2.9m) of Hong Kong residents to come to the UK, if China persists with imposing its new security laws on Hong Kong, and the UK has also blocked Hua Wei from being part of its 5g roll out. I dare say China might lose nuclear reactor contracts in the UK also. This is ironic by the UK government though, because they have just said they themselves will be breaking international law by unilaterally legislating to change articles in a Brexit withdrawal agreement they signed up to with the EU at the end of last year.
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  28. And yet they want economic growth which wouldn't easily happen with a reducing population.
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  29.  @justinb3574  It depends how much resource you want the country to put into sport. Is it really important enough to spend more than the USA and China when we are in debt and the economy is suffering. The USA is bad at soccer because so much more money goes into other sports and football (soccer in the USA) is not the main sport young boys get obsessed with growing up such that they practise, practise, practise in that sport more than any other. I'm not sure about China but the reasons may be similar. Most Chinese athletes seem selected and trained by the state. Football talent does not emerge that way. It emerges from the streets and from boys dreaming of being a football star. As for running a distance in under 10 secs, and athlete once told me that there was a physical advantage that black people have that others don't which makes them best at sprinting. It's to do with 2 types of muscle fibre and which type they have more of than others. So the Chinese would probably be at a disadvantage there. Here's an article on it https://strivegymwear.com/muscle-fiber-types/#:~:text=How%20do%20the%20muscle%20fiber%20types%20differ%3F%20,%20%20High%20%206%20more%20rows%20
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  30. How do you know? The only people with dark skin shown in this video are members of the police raid squad.
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  31.  @lauralishes1  No what wasn't? Where in the video do you see the skin colour of the arrested person? Please let me know the video time for that?
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  32. What's the matter with you?
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  33.  @pw6295  Calm down. There's no coercion involved.
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  34.  @pw6295  The only common global element is capitalism which is an economic as well as political system but there's no global conspiracy. Countries can't even unite or agree on how to stop war or save the planet from global warming. They are not capable of a global conspiracy and involving everyone in the science, medical and political communities, agreeing on it. Yes life is rather hellish for many at the moment but it's because they are trying to protect the population and the health services from the pandemic. It's not as bad as you say though. People can leave home for exercise and essentials. They can go to work if they are unable to work from home. Vaccination is not compulsory. The job losses are awful but many jobs and businesses are promoting themselves online now. I've heard of local collections of shops grouping together to do it. Robotics will take many jobs in future whether there's a pandemic or not and Brexit will take more. People who don't understand the dynamics of the time, will lump everything together and call it a global conspiracy. It's simpler to understand and accept that way isn't it?
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  35.  @pw6295  A Breitbart man. Huh!
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  36.  @pw6295  I meant Delingpole who you referred to. From googling: 'James Mark Court Delingpole is an English writer, journalist, and columnist who has written for a number of publications, including the Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Spectator. He is executive editor for Breitbart London, and has published several novels and four political books. Wikipedia'
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  37.  @pw6295  He's not denouncing. He's warning against. Compulsory vaccination does not exist. There have been 'suggestions' that people who've been vaccinated will be able to do stuff that those who have not been vaccinated won't. It's a suggestion at the moment, that's all, but I've no sympathy for this guy. If you look at all the things he rails against, he doesn't seem to support any measures against Covid at all. You can listen to 'the great fount of wisdom' and what he said in the commons, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20BAY69UTyo If idiots like him and you had complied with the guidance to begin with there would be no need for lockdowns and tiers now.
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  38.  @vijayafernando1  If that were true it must be the ' I Saw You Coming' care homes. Lol, They could be looked after at home with support for a fraction of that amount.
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  39.  @misc.endeavours8343  Ventilators were a last resort for the sickest people likely to die, but ventilators can't save many of them. Given that the number of ventilators were limited, they would hardly be putting people on them unless there was no other choice.
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  40. No one 'unleashed a virus'. It spread as viruses do when they are behaving like viruses.
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  41.  @BB-rn6so  I've done loads of research. Unlike you, I don't just look at conspiracy theory sites.
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  42.  @BB-rn6so  You realise the President of the USA is a lying toe rag don't you and that Mike Pence is his dimwit acolyte? Kerry Mullis died in 2019 before the Covid 19 pandemic was known about.
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  43. Judging by the comments below, Trump was right when he said he could shoot someone in the street and his supporters would still follow him.
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  44. Boris Johnson has a hairstyle look alike. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FGV188v_uk&t=75s
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  45. I thought the government had introduced some rule that stopped private landlords from evicting tenants during the lockdown crisis, for about 3 months anyway.
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  46.  @Cruzeoc101  It's not all hearsay. The witness also testified to statements she heard the President himself make. What you say about weapons not being found is not correct either. Weapons were found on people arrested on Jan 6th. 'Only 75 people were arrested on the day of the Capitol siege, and police were not stopping and frisking random protesters. Yet the authorities still turned up a wide array of weapons among the tiny slice of protesters who were arrested before and after the Capitol invasion.'. The cops also found weapons on people coming to the Capitol for the demonstration and on people leaving the Capitol to go home from the demonstration. Anyway regardless of the weapons situation, the President was told by his security staff that some of the crowd had weapons and he still wanted them to be let through, because, as he said, 'they've not here to harm ME'. I think it's you who is the gullible one. The evidence so far, from the hearings of insiders in the White House is overwhelming and other insiders people aren't denying it. The most they are doing is that some of those most implicated by the testimonies are pleading the 5th amendment. I'm sure you have your hands over your ears singing la la la, not listening and busy inventing reasons why none of it can be true. That's loyalty trumping reality.
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  47.  @Cruzeoc101  Hearsay is when you report what someone else told you but it can't be substantiated. It's not always hearsay when you report what you heard someone say yourself, or what you saw yourself.. For instance if she herself heard Trump give an order to remove the metal detectors, that's not hearsay. She witnessed him say it. I can't remember which bits of her testimony were witnessed directly and what she was told by others without relistening to her testimony. I think you need to google the evidence about the firearms to get the truth. It is true that not many people were challenged or searched on that day (not more than 75) as the forces of law and order were overwhelmed, but arms were found on a number of those that were searched and security forces with their equipment could also spot armed people in the crowd. However if you're determined to see Trump as innocent, I don't suppose any evidence will convince you. You'll find a way to explain it all away but there's rather a lot of explaining that has to happen as the evidence is accumulating.
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  48.  @andrewcheshire4762  That's rubbish. No one has ever lied as much as this government. They are the Olympic Champions of liars. In the past if a Minister was caught lying to Parliament or breaking the Ministerial code that was an automatic resignation matter and people did resign. Now no one resigns no matter how mendacious or corrupt they are and Boris keeps them in power. He even hangs on to Ministers he himself has called f*cking useless. The Civil Service is not in control. They do what Ministers want. They have no choice. They can draw Ministers' attention to possible downsides of their policies but in the end Ministers make the final decisions. They have changed a lot of Civil Servants. First of all they cut the civil service by 500,000 posts since 2011. Then, as there were not enough to deal with Brexit and the Pandemic they paid outside consultants to do much of the extra work and those consultants are paid at rates way way over civil service rates. If you don't do what Ministers want in the Civil Service you don't get on, and you can be put on a procedure leading to dismissal. I worked for a government department and 2 years after I retired there was not one person in charge at director level and above who was the same as when I retired. They had all gone. I don't think Brexit would necessarily have been the same if other parties were in power. For instance there were other Brexit options such as staying in the customs union which would have eliminated all the bureaucratic problems and the NI border problems. The Labour Party did offer a choice like that and a further Referendum as the implications of Brexit had become clearer. The Lib Dems always stuck with a Remain policy. There were options which meant it would not necessarily have been the same situation as we have now.
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  49. She's still Deputy Leader. That's an elected position so he can't sack her from that.
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  50.  @expendable1969  Being a lung expert he would be knowledgeable about drugs that affect breathing.
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