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

  1.  @roseipk  I was only joking. I assumed it must be because the guy who worked there was also touching it.
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  2. Probably Van Tam doesn't normally give vaccinations. He was just slow to pull the needle out.
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  3.  @jasonwoods3711  It's a pretty simple procedure and Tam must have learned it sometime in his career. Maybe he's just lingering in there for the sake of a good camera shot.
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  4.  @jasonwoods3711  Vaccination in the UK is being done according to a priority of age ranges. Hancock's age range is now due to receive vaccines. If he'd done it previously people would have shouted 'Why is he getting priority? He's exerting privilege'. (I can't believe I'm defending this awful man against conspiracy theorists but not everything is a conspiracy, you know).
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  5.  @jasonwoods3711  True. It's good to have a healthy scepticism and to research on independent fact sites. My assumption was based on the fact that so many sceptics seem to get their information from conspiracy sites. Sorry if I misjudged you.
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  6.  @jasonwoods3711  Forgive a correction. It's accepted not excepted. Excepted is used when you exclude something from whatever it is you are referring to.
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  7.  @jasonwoods3711  You're right on both counts but 'excepted' is similar in meaning to 'excluded'. People also get confused between the words affect and effect. The way I remember the difference is that the 'a' and the 'e' at the beginning relate to the Latin where 'a' means to or towards, and 'e' means from or away from.
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  8.  @jasonwoods3711  Very well done, except you need a capital letter at the start of the sentence and for the word 'I' and you don't need an apostrophe in the word 'its'.
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  9. *are deliberately avoiding. It's been a decision of the government not to co-operate with media that have been critical of government. It's an attempt to pressure the media to become their lap dogs - just like Boris and his cronies banned critical newspapers from attending press briefings at Downing St. The rest of the press, to their credit, walked out when that happened. Even Boris's supporters in the press could not stomach his attack on press freedom.
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  10. It's all got to hang out - the dirty washing - what they said and how they behaved towards each other is relevant to how they were able to co-ordinate or not, to tackle Covid.
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  11. Or rather genuinely stand up for their areas.
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  12. Why would he be spending money for nothing?
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  13.  @poosnip  He certainly worked in the US healthcare industry previously and was appointed to run NHS England because of that experience and because he probably had no objection to running a service where some of the services get handed to private contractors as the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 opened the way to that. He may be leaving because the government handed a lot of their former responsibilities to NHS England and now they plan to take those responsibilities back to have more direct control.
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  14.  @poosnip  I'm sure you know more than me about his background. 👍
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  15.  @poosnip  I agree with you but I do think that some of these zealots change their minds when they are in charge of the NHS and realise how good it is - not all though. The fact that the government wants to take back control of the NHS is either because he wouldn't do everything they wanted or because they want to ensure more privatisation by stealth. That's my guess anyway.
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  16.  @poosnip  I'm sure money must be high up in the equation but there are other areas, like working for banks, where much more money is to be made, if money is the primary goal. My view about what the Tories are doing in regards to the NHS is stealthily and gradually putting out its work to private health companies under the NHS brand so people aren't so aware. Also awareness can be reduced by the fact that the government still funds it and it's free to patients at the point of delivery. The other way they push the private sector is to allow NHS waiting lists to grow long (as happened when they removed treatment time targets, and under Covid) because then more people will buy private treatment to escape waiting lists. The last stages would be to privatise hospitals and move to an insurance based systems but both those moves would attract massive opposition by voters so maybe they could only achieve it by massively running down the NHS so that people perceive it as a poor service.
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  17.  @poosnip  I thought they had already loosened controls. At one time there used to be limits on the amount of private work consultants could do. I believe the Tories removed or increased the limit for NHS Trusts anyway.
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  18. How do you know?
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  19.  @davedave4699  This is a quote from Khan's spokesperson in City a.M London newspaper.
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  20.  @davedave4699  It's not all down to the Mayor. his fares freeze was estimated by TfL to cost £1.9 bn but they were £11bn in debt in recent times before Covid. That was mainly due to longstanding problems with Crossrail, a time and budget overrun. Crossrail is a massive longstanding project not a Khan initiated project. The government also withdrew £700m p.a. support from TfL. Before the Covid Khan had reduced its operating debt by 71% and increased its cash balance by 16% but Covid reduced its income by 90%. You can look all this up yourself. I'm a bit fed up of looking up all the info for you. Here is a list of the cost of Boris as London Mayor. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/what-boris-johnson-being-mayor-has-actually-cost-london-10491163.html P.S A National Audit Office Report on Crossrail said "By 2015, problems started to emerge on Crossrail and opportunities to change approach were missed,” said the report, adding that the sponsors, the UK’s Department for Transport and Transport for London, “had few effective contractual levers to enable them to take action as they had provided Crossrail Ltd with a high degree of autonomy”  (Boris was Mayor of London until May 2016 and The Department of Transport was a government department under Tory control in 2015)
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  21.  @fatherandyknowles7035  Absolutely.
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  22.  @TheZackkary1  Careful. You could be done for libel like Tommy since the court case ruled against this version of events for lack of evidence.
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  23. What discrimination? They don't ask questions because of bigotry but for health and safety reasons.
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  24. I think it may be because Ireland had to fight to be an independent nation which seems like something to be celebrated whereas England as a nation is associated with creating an Empire which exploited people of other nations, so it's a bit more embarrassing to celebrate its national day. Also the Celts love any excuse for a celebration.
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  25.  @danielcox5096  That's because England occupied and settled it starting from the 12th century and eventually let go of part of it but not the other. From then on oppressive laws were enacted and the native population was denied the right to own land, to have an education, to practise their religion, to speak their language to wear native dress, to hold any position of authority, or to vote. This kept them poor. Any improvements made to the land and cabins they rented meant rent rises. Any failure to pay rent meant eviction, even during the famine.
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  26.  @danielcox5096  No. I've not 'just googled that' . I've read books on Irish history. I can recommend some if you wish, or you can google the facts I've mentioned to check.
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  27. Traitor to whom or what?
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  28.  Rehan  I'm not trying to please racists but to add some facts where they is only prejudice.
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  29. No it's not. Why state this divisive rubbish? The Tories have a raft of bad measures they want to impose on London to recoup their money. The Tories have backed down over no support for tier 2 areas, (London is one of those) but they only do that when the Tory MPs whinge that it's going to hit their Tory constituencies, otherwise they're be o.k about hitting Labour areas like London, Manchester and Liverpool.
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  30.  @X774M  No, Boris was worse.
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  31.  @user-ug8wx5er1w  You are easily pleased it seems.
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  32. That's because you are a turkey.
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  33.  @fentonfairway5793  Don't be silly. You've been reading too much trash media.
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  34. The Tory government wants this strike, to try and break the RMT union, to attack Labour and as a great distraction from what else they are getting up to.
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  35.  @osric1730  I knew the head was a supporter but even former supporters of Putin have been criticising the war recently and have paid with their lives but if the head of the church felt that Christmas was not being respected, unfavourable words from him could influence a lot of people. However you are probably right. If Putin sincerely cared at all about religion, and what it means, he wouldn't be engaged in such a murderous enterprise. Besides, Putin is a constant and devious liar and his word cannot be trusted.
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  36. Where did you get that figure from? The government announced that it was £22m if I recall correctly and that works out at £29 per person. Other councils got £29 or £28 per person also.
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  37.  @andyshepherd4120  So was this Daily Mail article wrong? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8860289/Boris-Johnson-plunges-Greater-Manchester-Tier-Three-lockdown.html
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  38.  @andyshepherd4120  P.S. O.k. The BBC seems to have the latest info. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-54628770
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  39. This is not compassion. Putin has shown he has none, but this is Christmas in the calendar of the Russian orthodox Church. Putin wants to keep them onside. 'Nazis' is just the fake excuse Russia used to justify the invasion of Ukraine. Putin is now behaving like a fascist dictator.
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  40.  @kevinhughes720  I certainly do, do you? There are plenty of examples from history, if you do not.
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  41. They tried to send a relative of mine home though his wife was not allowed to visit him in hospital as he had Covid. What they said to her was ' the government wants us to free up beds' so you can see who was pulling the strings on that one. The government guidance on their website even acknowledges that they were sending infected patients from hospitals to care homes but it said that care homes were equipped to deal with sick patients. At that time that was not true.
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  42.  @SnowofLight  The 'rules' about those hospitals was that if patients were transferred from other hospitals, they would only be accepted if the transferring hospital sent staff to care for them. Hospitals could not afford to split up their staff like that. Also I understand it was difficult if not impossible to get patients from care homes admitted to those new hospitals or elderly patients from their own homes - probably for the same reason - no staff to care for them there.
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  43.  @SnowofLight  Hospitals stopped non urgent work so that they could transfer sufficient staff to look after Covid patients. Those staff were already fully busy with Covid patients at those hospitals. There was no spare capacity. When you think that there were thousands of new Covid patients every day and they might be in hospital for as much as 2 weeks or longer, you're looking at hospitals nationwide coping with over 100,000 Covid patients at any one time.
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  44.  @arthurdick9553  Knock it off, Arthur!
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  45.  @paulrogers2711  No I'm not. just google images of Williamson Square in Liverpool. Make sure you see all sides of the square.
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  46. Which type of English would that be?
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  47.  @CJ4YRD  Cultures always change over time and always have. Britain has been highly influenced, historically, by the cultures that traded with or or conquered it or that it conquered. If a culture is good and strong people will be influenced by it. If it is not, if it is exclusive and intolerant, people will reject it.
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  48.  @CJ4YRD  Corbyn is more English than Bojo.
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  49.  @CJ4YRD  Like the British Empire did for instance?
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  50.  @CJ4YRD  So are you including black British in the term British, or is it your code word for white British only?
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