Whereas you seem to wish - in a highly principled way - to turn a blind eye. Is that how you feel about corporate manslaughter too?

But that is his point. Last year Cummings was a liar now he must be believed. Before today's appearance some of the experts have already denied his claim about herd immunity.

What we now need is someone to pick through the lies and denials and determine the truth.

No one in the country will be surprised that the government failed to act swiftly and was certainly shambolic at the start. Don't forget Public Health England had a big part to play in this shambles.

Corporate manslaughter is a serious charge that needs to be backed up.

Edited by Badger11 (26 May 2021 5.38pm)

One more point

mmmm – technically accurate, but not contextually accurate. I would have thought was pretty obvious but never mind.

Herd immunity in this context, back in March/April, was the strategy of 'letting it rip' through the populous as was. i.e. natural spread, no vaccination, no protection, just get the pox parties going and see what happens.

Obviously, a terrible idea. And rightly and continuously being called out as so.

So when you say 'why is everyone losing their s***', this is why.

To your point, herd immunity will be the outcome of vaccination, yes, but the original strategy was herd immunity without vaccination, and with no proof at that time that people would even build up adequate antibodies naturally to achieve it. Obvious and important difference. Hence losing s***.

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

Isn't the debate around the percentage of those millions that could reasonably have been avoided, not a binary 'some' or 'none'.

Things appear to have gone worse than they should have done due to a blonde spaffer doing what he does best and floundering around like a fat, aged golden retriever. And that's without the benefit of hindsight. People at the time were seemingly pushing back on decisions that were being made against the advisory consensus. You don't need hindsight to tell you that should have been done differently.

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

There were plenty of people in these meetings including experts and civil servants so at some point I assume we will hear from them as well as Hancock. As you say it is a serious allegation so let's wait for what others will say.

Public Health England should not be left off the hook. That agency was set up exactly for this reason to plan and prepare for major health scares. Where was the plan and why no stores of PPE?

Ultimately the buck stops with the government and Boris but in the end PHE was so incompetent that it was sidelined and is being abolished.

We seemed to start to get a grip when SAGE was formed but even then I am not happy about keeping the airports open.

There is lots to come out and plenty of blame to go around but before some of you reach for the tar and feathers lets hear from a few other people first who will either confirm or deny Cummings rather lurid remarks.

One more point

Herd Immunity was the official policy of Sweden and there were plenty of experts in the media last year advocating we should follow them.

I am not saying we should have done but with the benefit of hindsight the media and some politicians are now implying it was like genocide when it was actually a perfectly valid strategy that has been used before in other situations.

One more point