Is the UK now giving off strong Third World vibes?

Unflushable Turd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121215257#Comment_121215257

You ignored my points then.

someone who posts half truths and media gossip but accuses someone of having an ideology isn’t worth entering in to a sensible discussion with, so adios.

goodlad_ourvlad

so, seen as we're in a COVID row now.... a country which helped develop a vaccine and rolled out the fastest vaccine program in Europe is third world now?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121222564#Comment_121222564

Nitpick: It wasn't the fastest vaccine programme in Europe. It was one of the first to start but other countries, which started later, achieved their target vaccination rates before the UK did. Therefore, their programmes were faster.

goodlad_ourvlad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121226621#Comment_121226621

I forgot, it was that slow, the UK was one of the last countries opening up in Europe

**checks notes**

sorry, was one of the first to open up

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121226862#Comment_121226862

Which, coupled with the relatively slow rollout of vaccination, meant they got a higher second spike than they needed to have, and more deaths. Plus, in the context of this thread, rapid opening up isn't exactly something that would distinguish them from third world countries.

Honestly? There are lots of grounds on which you could argue that the UK is not, and is not like, a third world country. Pandemic management is not a particularly strong one. There are high points (you've already mentioned the UK's role in supporting the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and you're right) but there are certainly some aspects of their pandemic management — e.g. the huge amounts of money channelled to well-connected friends of the regime, given privileged access to government procurement contracts, to deliver product that was frequently second-rate — that. if we're honest, are reminiscent of third-world governance standards.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121226965#Comment_121226965

If I remember rightly there was so much chest thumping about the first vaccine shot that they hadn't enough shots for the second round to complete the dosage.

Added to that the messaging made a lot feel they didn't need a second shot.

goodlad_ourvlad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121226965#Comment_121226965

NPHET were right then?

swampgas

Why is it that the English (or maybe it's just the Bexiteers) want to treat reacting to a pandemic as some kind of international competition, like it was the world cup or something, desperately looking for any excuse to big themselves up, beat their chests, and slag off everyone else?

It's just ... immature? Childish? Pathetic? Irresponsible?

It was a pandemic, and most countries were looking to cooperate, to SAVE LIVES.

Johnson's Britain was odious in its desire to brag, to sneer, to point score - ABOUT PEOPLE DYING.

Not sure how that fits into "third world" categorization, but it really doesn't paint the UK in a good light.

Quitelife

Whatever about Covid , the biggest things wrong with the UK in recent years is the amount of working people using Food Banks to survive and the amount of knife murders on the streets of Uk cities , these would be two major issues making UK a unattractive place in many peoples eyes.

Unflushable Turd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227992#Comment_121227992

What an absolute load of rubbish. I think you'll find the ones on about the covid response are the usual slag off everything British/IRA supporters. The same ones like to use death rates to score points (but won't engage in an actual discussion). If I recall correctly, it was a certain EU president who decided that the UK was responsible for the EU's lacklustre vaccine programme and even went as far as to invoke article 16.

It is now kind of comical that a poster is describing the UK roll out of vaccines as slow and harping on about these imaginary contracts given to well connected people, but then a quick look at their posts on the Politics forum would explain that.

But hey, it's an Irish forum and being able to spin a good yarn is far more important than actual facts.

swampgas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121228201#Comment_121228201

Fair enough - but I've definitely picked up a pattern of posts, defensive of the UK, latching onto the UKs supposed superior response to COVID as being something to brag about, or something that marks the UK as better than the EU, and it's depressing. If ever there was a time for international cooperation, the COVID pandemic was it. It was a difficult time for every country, not every country got it right, and that's to be expected. Turning COVID into a political football doesn't sit well with me.

Unflushable Turd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121228342#Comment_121228342

I agree. No country got it right, with the possible exception of New Zealand, but being on an island thousands of kilometres from anywhere must surely have helped.

end of the road

the contracts to tory cronies and provision of sometimes second rate products were absolutely not imaginary but were absolute fact.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121228048#Comment_121228048

murders in uk? Actually Ireland has a higher rate than the UK.

Quote: " Ireland is 10th (1.59), two places above England and Wales (1.41) and three places higher than the north (1.33). Ireland has a significantly higher rate than most western European countries, including states with a significant problem with organised crime, such as Italy (1.06), the Netherlands (0.97) and Spain (0.77)"

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20081103.html#:~:text=Ireland%20is%2010th%20(1.59)%2C,)%20and%20Spain%20(0.77).

Unflushable Turd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121228948#Comment_121228948

Only in your simple view of the world.

the reality is far too nuanced for you to comprehend, but there is plenty of good reading on it, such as the national audit office report

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121229107#Comment_121229107

even if that is true, it would only be in percentage terms which is not the whole story.

but in pure numbers, britain has the highest murder rate in europe.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121229112#Comment_121229112

the contracts to tory cronies, some of the contracts going to entities unexperienced in providing the product they were contracted to provide, and provision of sometimes second rate products are absolute proven fact, in reality.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121229107#Comment_121229107

Is there a reason why you've gone for the 2006 data? Apart from anything else, it's hardly much use in defending the performance of the UK under the Tories, or in rebutting the OP's suggestion that the UK is now giving off third world vibes.

(I mean, I get that more recent figures don't support the case you want to make. But you could have just not posted on this point.)

yagan

Francis will be citing 1900 figures soon for the size of its naval fleet.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121229107#Comment_121229107

Ah, welcome back @Francis McM. Any chance now that you'll confirm your claim that the Irish Pandemic Payments facilitated "16 year olds living at home who had just worked one or two Saturdays" and "There were students going around that year with more money than they could spend / knew what to do with. Crazy waste of public money, no wonder our foreign debt increased by 20 billion"?

Or were you (as I suspect) posting yet more anti-Irish nonsense?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121206697#Comment_121206697

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121229339#Comment_121229339

Wrong. Actually, in the 12 months ending March 2022, the homicide rate over there was only 11.7 per million population

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/march2022

By contrast, there were 69 homicide offences recorded in the Republic of Ireland in 2022, so Ireland's homicide rate was higher / worse than UK.

There were 5,149,139 people in the State in April 2022, so Ireland's homicide rate was approx 13.4 per million.

This is just to refute the claim a poster made yesterday about murder rate UK. I think it is not exceptionally dangerous over there.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/945262/homicides-in-ireland/

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121205830#Comment_121205830

To answer your question "Can you confirm the approx amount that went to students who worked a couple of Saturdays.", the government scheme of €350 a week, introduced in a panic in 2020, was extremely well known and availed of. The age was 18, not 16 as I mistakenly typed. I thought you would have heard of the PUP ( Pandemic Unemployment Payment) scheme before. Never mind.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231192#Comment_121231192

You're being deliberately obtuse givern that my question has been phrased in a number of ways yet you choose to interpret is as how much did each student receive (which was never the context or phrasing).

So, to make it easy to understand: how much in total did the government spend towards PUP for "16 (or now 18) olds living at home who had just worked one or two Saturdays"? In other words, how many 16 (or now 18) year olds living at home who had just worked one or two Saturdays received the (as you claim) €350?

It really shouldn't be a difficult question to answer unless you know that your nonsense is clearly being called out on.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231149#Comment_121231149

You've chosen you periods carefully, Frank. Your UK (actually, England and Wales) figures are for the 12 months to March 2022; the Irish figures for calendar year 2022.

This makes a big difference, since the E&W figures are for a period, most of which fell in calendar year 2021. And the number of murders recorded in Ireland in calendar year 2021, the period that most overlaps with the UK period you have selected, was just 39. So the Irish murder rate in the period most closely corresponding to 12 months to March 2022 was substantially lower than the E&W murder rate for that period - less than half.

What's going on here? The pandemic. Crime rates - including murder - fell hugely during and after lockdown, for obvious reasons. The E&W period you have chosen is strongly affected by this.

You need to look at this over a period of several years to filter out effects like this.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231253#Comment_121231253

Not the point. The point was that Ireland national debt rose from 203 billion just prior to the pandemic to a whooping 237 billion now, despite all the windfall taxes we get from a handful of foreign companies laundering their worldwide profits through Ireland.

Giving €350 to everyone, even part time workers / student workers in 2020 has to be one the things which contributed to our national debt increasing? You tell me how much it cost if you like.

Quote " Public debt increased by more than 11 per cent at the end of 2022 to around €44,000 for every person in the country, which is one of the highest per capita debt burdens in the world, figures from the Department of Finance show."

ihttps://www.irishtimes.com/business/2023/02/03/irelands-public-debt-rises-to-one-of-highest-in-the-world-per-capita/#:~:text=Public%20debt%20increased%20by%20more,just%20prior%20to%20the%20pandemic.

Seth Brundle

So @Francis McM, you're not answering my question which directly challenged a claim you made.

I therefore take it that you cannot back up your claim and I'm assuming that this is purely because your claim (as everyone suspects) was complete nonsense posted because you wanted create an opportunity to criticise the Irish government's approach to pandemic payments when you saw that the UK approach was being criticised.

If you're going to post something, at least have the balls to back it up rather than try avoid the question for days and then waffle on about something else when you're called up on it after you show your face again.

AllForIt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227992#Comment_121227992

Well, initially Johnson's government was heavily criticized for it's inaction in the early days of the pandemic, particularly about it's decision not to suspend the Cheltenham horse racing event and the like, so it's not surprising they wanted to counter that criticism with a narrative of how well they were handling it.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231644#Comment_121231644

You again missed the point and went off on a tangent. If you look back, my post was in reply to someone who was complaining about the UK response to Covid and the government there making panic contracts etc.

I wrote

"Johnsons response was reasonable enough you say? His country, partly thanks to the UK government, was the first in the world to develop and roll out a vaccine, showing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel for the rest of the world. Tests on their AstraZenica carried out in 2020 showed that the efficacy of the vaccine is 76.0% at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 beginning at 22 days following the first dose, and 81.3% after the second dose."

I then pointed out the situation in Ireland with our Pandemic Unemployment scheme ( which you had never heard of ) where our government increased the national debt by billions unnecessarily by, for example, giving €350 per week to even part time workers . And I wrote "And you talk about "panic contracts"!"

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231953#Comment_121231953

Again with misleading posts trying to rewrite history. My questioning direclty challenged this (posted here)...

Here our government increased the national debt by billions unnecessarily by, for example, giving every 15 or 16 year old who had worked a Saturday job for a few Saturdays automatic entitlement to €350 per week. And you talk about "panic contracts"!

This is an clear lie - no other way to describe it.

You've deflected from my direct questions on this. You then tried to correct what you said a by changing the age (you even got your correction wrong "The age was 18, not 16 as I mistakenly typed."). You are doing your absolute best to be disingenuous in a weaseling manner in order to avoid having to say that you deliberately lied. You answered questions that you know I didn't ask and then claimed (and are still claiming that I didn't understand the individual pandemic payment amounts (which you know I never asked about)). All to deflect from your lie being caught out.

As I said earlier, you are doing your best to appear as if you don't have the balls to stand over what you claim. Not only that you are trying to make it sound like you said something else and that your original lie was not what you said despite my questions containing your quoted posts. Honestly, if you can't post without being honest and assuming that you're not trolling then why bother coming here?

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231149#Comment_121231149

nope not wrong.

your figures were from 2006.

so ultimately in percentage and pure number terms, britain now has the highest murder rate in europe.