Tag Archives: pandemic

The Prince Rupert Hotel for the Homeless: Review

By Andy Boddington | Sun 10th July 2022 - 1:30 pm

“We gave them hope, but they gave us much more,” Mike Mathews owner of the Prince Rupert Hotel.

This book begins with Mike Mathews, owner of the Prince Rupert Hotel, contemplated lockdown while Boris Johnson continued as nothing was happening in the world. He saw the writing on the wall as the Covid-19 ravaged Italy. Expecting the Shrewsbury events that drew people to his historic hotel would be cancelled, he spent the next day trying to find a use for his hotel. But there were no takers and the future of the hotel looked bleak.

Boris Johnson’s held his first live news conference. His message was avoid social contact and don’t go to pubs and restaurants. The country, and the world, began to shut down. Hotel guests began to cancel bookings everywhere.

As the outlook seemed bleak, Tim Compton, Shropshire Council’s rough sleeper officer rang. The government had ordered that councils must get all rough sleepers by the weekend (Everyone In). Could the council use the Prince Rupert?

The Prince Rupert Hotel for the Homeless is an inspirational book about people facing new challenges in their professional lives. About rough sleepers struggling to accommodate the help they were offered.

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Brexit preparations hindered a government unprepared for pandemic

By Andy Boddington | Fri 19th November 2021 - 10:34 am

A report from the National Audit Office published this morning reveals Brexit preparations hindered the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic how badly prepared the government was a major health emergency. :

This pandemic has exposed a vulnerability to whole-system emergencies – that is, emergencies that are so broad that they engage the entire system. Although the government had plans for an influenza pandemic, it did not have detailed plans for many non-health consequences and some health consequences of a pandemic like COVID-19. There were lessons from previous simulation exercises that were not fully implemented and would have helped prepare for a pandemic like COVID-19. There was limited oversight and assurance of plans in place, and many pre-pandemic plans were not adequate. In addition, there is variation in capacity, capability and maturity of risk management across government departments.

Ed Davey call on Boris Johnson to apologise: “That failure has cost many lives and contributed to an economic collapse the scale of which we are yet to understand. Most hurt of all will be a generation of school children left behind by the Conservatives.”

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 15 Comments
Mark Valladares

20 March 2021 – the day’s press releases (part 2)

By Mark Valladares | Mon 22nd March 2021 - 5:15 pm
  • Government must fix its response to the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Liberal Democrats review to plot paths to closer relationship with EU
  • We must get serious on Russia for the sake of our democracy

Government must fix its response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Liberal Democrats have called on the Government to fix its response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the Party’s Spring conference.

The proposals include plans to fix the Government’s approach to self-isolation through better and more generous support; ensure Test and Trace makes better use of local government; and securing the rollout of surplus vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.

The party also called for an immediate independent public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic, as promised by the Prime Minister last autumn.

Munira Wilson MP, Lib Dem Spokesperson for Health, said:

The Government failed to learn the lessons of the first wave of the virus and they did not act to stop the pain and suffering this terrible disease inflicted on the UK in the second.

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George Cunningham

Everything we do now as a party must have an international dimension

By George Cunningham | Mon 13th April 2020 - 9:47 am

As if Brexit was not enough of an economic self-inflicted wound, the pandemic has struck at our very soul.

It is predicted that the world will have changed after the pandemic with the irony that China, where the virus originated, strengthened economically (although not in perfect shape because of “Belt and Road Initiative” debts owed by others and global supply chains broken), the USA weakened and Britain and the European Union, divided from each other, struggling not to become a plaything of those two superpowers.

However, this is not to say Tom Arms’ recent LDV articles on the crisis should be panda-ring …

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 3 Comments
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