General Chat

Does anyone on here think Boris and cohorts are going to go round the country locking down one region then moving to lockdown the next when opening the first locked-down one and so forth one after the other to see whether that will work rather than lock down the whole country in one fell swoop?

All in a bid to save the economy going down the chute altogether?

I have a feeling that someone has put that proposal to him.

Also some factorys in Scotland are making PPE who otherwise would be redundant.

It was all hands on deck to produce PPE. Several manufacturing companies, closed due to the lockdown, had people in to make various parts of the kit.

I don't believe some comments on here The Army are there to do a job were law & order needs help surely it didn't matter what rank you were in the olden days saying that it's wrong the way youth can run rings round the police .as perhaps aren't enough police about on the streets that's the problem .the police need protective clothing but not guns surely sprays to disarm someone or you know what hose pipes to soak the Plonkers causing trouble get firemen in trucks the poor B wouldn't know what hit them wet their clothes soon runaway me thinks but I myself just waiting to see what Doris J does next to help clear the confusion :-S Barbara

They (and the RAF) are currently going door to door in Birmingham, giving out, and collecting testing kits.
Unfortunately, yesterday, they were given used kits to hand out :-0
Army medics are on stand-by in case of another spike in cases, but not sure whether they would be processing the kits.
There are plenty of NHS hospital labs that have been ignored, in favour of private 'Money for chums' 'labs', perhaps, as the private ones are doing so badly, the NHS ones will be used next time.

Don't forget - the services also helped build the Nightingale Hospitals, and made some of the PPE.

And process them themselves, Maggie?

I believe the UK Army is ready to give covid tests,

Now that is a good idea, Sylvia, to use medics in the way you've told us.

Just over 50 years ago in Canada ............. October 10, 1970, to be precise ............ there began what came to be called the Quebec Crisis.

Canadian rules and laws are pretty much the same as in the UK, after all we follow the Westminster principle of government, so what happened here at that time might give you an idea of how Britain (Boris!) could respond.

There were a large number of Quebecers who wanted separatism from Canada (there are still), and there was a lot of agitating for self-government, etc etc. Quebec already had a lot of freedom .......... they use French laws, the school system is French, etc etc. But things were not moving fast enough for a small group of very angry people formed the Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ) which developed into a true terrorist group. They had conducted a reign of bombings for several years ..... letter boxes, military bases, a stock exchange, banks, etc etc

In an attempt to force events to happen, they had already kidnapped James Cross, the British Trade Commissioner, and issued a manifesto demanding that what they wanted should happen. The Federal Government under Pierre Elliott Trudeau refused point-blank and stated they would never give in to terrorists.

Sounds very British, doesn't it???

So on October 10 they kidnapped Pierre LaPorte, Labour Minister in the Quebec Government, who was a federalist supporter. Negotiations and threats followed, and on October 15, the Quebec Premier asked for military troops to be deployed in the province.

On October 16, the Federal Cabinet proclaimed the War Measures Act, which suspended civil liberties. This allowed the police in Quebec to execute searches and arrest suspects and FLQ sympathizers, without any warrants being issued by judges.

The response ...................

On October 17, LaPorte's body was found in the trunk of a car left near the Montreal airport.

That's when we, in the rest of Canada, really sat up and took notice ......... the terrorists' assassination of a public figure stunned everyone.

It took another 6 weeks before the police found and released James Cross, and the terrorrists negotiated themselves a free trip to Cuba.

James Cross is still alive, in the UK.


Do you really want the War Measures Act to be declared, whether that is in Liverpool, a part of Manchester, a county, or the whole country???

Is the behaviour of bloody idiots equatable to terrorists?



Yes, Canada called in the troops to help in March ............... when provinces requested help. They were sent to care homes in two provinces to help with major outbreaks that had overwhelmed staff and led to a lot of deaths. They were unarmed, dressed in their work-day uniforms, as many trained medics as possible, others were quickly trained in how to care for sick people.

Quebec and Ontario were the only two provinces to in such dire need.

Troops in Britain could be called in for the same purpose.

The whole world is in a mess. This is the nature of a worldwide pandemic!

It will take riots to get the Army involved I can see them happening befote long this country is in a mess Covid has brought the best & worse in people young & older folk not being told to do this that or whatever wait & see before we are in total lock down .it beggers belief that people are not learning how many deaths before we say hay it's a problem :-S

Well then I dont know what the answer is these people you think they are going to be ok and the virus is not going to get them I can just see the numbers going up and up and us older ones who have not seen family for nearly a year because of this will have a lonely christmas

So it's only the UK that is in a 'terrible mess' then? :-S

What about Europe, the US in fact come to that, the rest of the world?

Linda, it is my hometown and I still have cousins living and working there.

An army presence could have exacerbated the situation and, anyway, I think the police approach was the right one.

Once, when OH and I were walking from the Plaka to the Acropolis, we rounded the corner to be greeted by numerous armed police and assault vehicles and large numbers of police (some could well have been soldiers incognito - it happens, not just in Greece) donning riot gear. As OH and I made our way through them I wondered what massive uprisings were due to happen..

It transpired that all it was was a demonstration by Greek islanders who had banded together to protest at something the government wanted to impose on them. It was not at all a big demonstration as we discovered as we returned. A massive overkill by the authorities. Fortunately, Liverpool was not goaded into taking such action.

I'm sure I saw Pat among the island protesters. ;-)

McAlpine's Fusilliers?

Gosh, what regiment were you a captain in. Rollo?

Bloody good aim with an orange!

Even the army when asked on TV were nonplussed at what they could do to help with covid , other than stating the b obvious, that they could not help with crowds of inebriate cross people.

I wore three pips on my shoulder but I don't let it get me down.

Boris Johnson is a cueless moron who says the first thing that comes into his head. He is entirely to blame for the terrible mess that the UK is in right now from "over ready" brexit to "moonshot" testing and inability to lead or make decisions. "Ask the army" is typical of his nonsense.

The Scots are walking towards the door and who can blame them.

My daughter lives on the wirral and s.i.l . often has to go into liverpool on work and has I visit them often before this I know the area I did not mean the army to be armed but just their presence on the street might help after all we are living in very difficult times

Rollo I understand exactly what goes on. I have actually served, I was in the forces for 5 years and married to someone who spent 25 yrs as a serviceman. We stood up for democracy.

I saw Boris twice say the army was there to help if required. I was just making a statement of what has happened and not happened.

No one suggest they would or should be armed. It might be interesting to do a head count of the police who are ex service - you may be surprised how many service people go into the emergency services.

I am proud of our service people.

Where I live has no bearing on what I know about UK as we watch UK television programmes.

I just made a statement and will not be shot down by someone who is supercilious and thinks he's got a right to snipe at everyone on this board.