The response to Coronavirus is the biggest policy mistake by any British government ever in the history of British governments. Lord North can now relax, wherever he is.
I got called hysterical for saying that on here yesterday. Reading what BoE governor Andrew Bailey says, that the economy will take a 35% hit and struggle to recover from that hit, perhaps some might like to dial down the criticism.
Panic reigns. I see one cabinet minister is even briefing journalists that the government never wanted lockdown but the public did so they went with it.
So its the public's fault, its the virus's fault, its....er....Lets see....Donald Trump's fault....its China's fault, it's the data collectors fault, when in fact it is the government's fault
We are utterly at sea. Rudderless, leaderless, with a broken compass giving us false information and drifting towards an economic whirlpool.
Its actually worse than that, I think. I am struggling to find words for how bad it is.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
So is everywhere else, and we have companies in the UK who can are are turning themselves over to manufacturing the stuff.
Any EU-led scheme is based on pooling of resources, with some bureaucrat in Brussels deciding which countries were prioritised for equipment, and with the UK almost certainly a net contributor in both money and equipment.
No, it was a procurement tender process, but it hasn't worked as they were unable to secure supplies, both schemes have gone back out to tender for June/July deliveries. The successful schemes have been national manufacturing ones in Germany and Italy for PPE and Germany and the UK for ventilators.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
Tbf, that situation is the same all over Europe. The solution wasn't the EU procurement scheme which hasn't delivered, it was replicating the ventilator scheme which has delivered.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
And Glasgow fortnight.
Global warming might see the very real return of the British seaside holiday, within our lifetimes. Cornwall is already super trendy.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
I went there for an FA cup away trip earlier in the season. Midweek. January.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Why not just admit that your view on issues is via the prism of Remain/Leave.
Definitely worth listening to. Sweden's approach could well be vindicated in the end. "We should have this discussion a year from now". ... "In the end there will be very little difference [between countries' experience]"
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
And Glasgow fortnight.
Global warming might see the very real return of the British seaside holiday, within our lifetimes. Cornwall is already super trendy.
We were supposed to be going there this summer. I guess that's off the menu now.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
Could be worse. Could be Skegness...
2, maybe 2 and a half miles up and down the coast, its genuinely great. Gib. point is worth a visit. Well, not by train, its a single track line from Grantham.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
And Glasgow fortnight.
Global warming might see the very real return of the British seaside holiday, within our lifetimes. Cornwall is already super trendy.
We were supposed to be going there this summer. I guess that's off the menu now.
We still have two weeks on the Lizard booked (if we can go).
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
Tbf, that situation is the same all over Europe. The solution wasn't the EU procurement scheme which hasn't delivered, it was replicating the ventilator scheme which has delivered.
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
It is worthy of note that our death rate is so high without the system being swamped outside a few hotspots.
I think the "stay at home if you are ill and don't seek medical help" policy is leading to cases presenting late in poorer condition than other countries, which do encourage early diagnosis and treatment. America may have the same problem for different reasons.
Indeed.
And it links in with the failure of the testing program.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
Tbf, that situation is the same all over Europe. The solution wasn't the EU procurement scheme which hasn't delivered, it was replicating the ventilator scheme which has delivered.
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
Tbf, that situation is the same all over Europe. The solution wasn't the EU procurement scheme which hasn't delivered, it was replicating the ventilator scheme which has delivered.
Ventilator challenge: Penlon device wins regulatory approvalwww.pesmedia.com › ventilator-challenge-uk-penlon-1... 2 days ago - Ventilator Challenge UK, led by Dick Elsy, CEO of High Value Manufacturing Catapult, is accelerating the production of a new ventilator design ...
Short to medium term - a deal of economic pain and unfortunately for some it will be the end of their business and I understand that, I really do. The problem is Sunak's long hands, shallow pockets policies will only take us so far and will only last for so long.
As no one really knows, the "experts" are floundering round between "everything will bounce back" and "nothing will ever be the same again" which covers most of the bases - the truth is likely, as always, to be somewhere between the two.
How much will this experience change us? Don't know but it will - there will be changes which don't last and changes that do. We can hope for some positive outcomes but there will be some negative ones too.
I'll just throw a thought or two out there - will we see more people opting to care for elderly relatives at home within the family? Initially, some speculated the big death toll in Italy was due to larger families living together but on the other hand you have care homes and they may be one of the big horror stories from this (quite apart from those who will be found to have died alone).
Second, will this give a big boost to home working? Talking to my colleagues we are all coping well with not being in office. There's talk of a monthly get together but that doesn't require an office - just a meeting room which you could rent on a daily or even hourly basis. That said, it requires different forms of management and leadership and it will cause organisations to evolve (and those that don't or can't may not survive).
Home working isn't possible for everyone but I wonder if we will see a move toward a more freelancing workforce with individuals offering their skills to each other or to other organisations - this won't happen overnight but it seems a plausible evolution.
My guess is that a lot of people will realise just how much money they were wasting on takeaways, rather than cooking for themselves.
I've actually started ordering takeaways again just because my wife and I became exhausted of cooking and clearing up on top of everything else we have to do, but still only twice a week or so.
Blimey, how busy can your home life be? It's just you, yer Mrs and nipper, isn't it?
We're both working full-time. That means (for me) 18-hour days, every day. Whenever I'm not working I'm looking after the 14-month old so my wife can work, or snatching a few minutes to cook some food, before going back to it.
So, to answer your question: very.
She is sleeping right now. It won't last more than another 30 minutes.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
And Glasgow fortnight.
Global warming might see the very real return of the British seaside holiday, within our lifetimes. Cornwall is already super trendy.
We were supposed to be going there this summer. I guess that's off the menu now.
We still have two weeks on the Lizard booked (if we can go).
Yep, we haven't cancelled. But I am assuming that we'll be getting vouchers for a future visit now. We're due to go in August so I have not yet given up all hope, but I guess I should really.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
And so has most of the rest of europe, in many cases a fortnight ago.
From what I hear they are nearly out of certain types of PPE
As you say it seems from North Essex the fact that this is a worldwide problem seems to have missed him
Anyone paying attention would have seen the tricks the US are playing ignoring Trump's attempts to steal PPE destined and already paid for by other countries.
Which is why you don’t turn your nose up at an alternative sourcing route. Unless you’re a crazed ideologue.
It's not an alternative sourcing route, the EU schemes have failed to deliver. Countries which were relying on them have now replicated the German and British schemes to manufacture their own ventilators and PPE.
You're the ideologue here thinking that the EU can magically make everything better when they are sourcing from the same suppliers as everyone else.
The response to Coronavirus is the biggest policy mistake by any British government ever in the history of British governments. Lord North can now relax, wherever he is.
I got called hysterical for saying that on here yesterday. Reading what BoE governor Andrew Bailey says, that the economy will take a 35% hit and struggle to recover from that hit, perhaps some might like to dial down the criticism.
Panic reigns. I see one cabinet minister is even briefing journalists that the government never wanted lockdown but the public did so they went with it.
So its the public's fault, its the virus's fault, its....er....Lets see....Donald Trump's fault....its China's fault, it's the data collectors fault, when in fact it is the government's fault
We are utterly at sea. Rudderless, leaderless, with a broken compass giving us false information and drifting towards an economic whirlpool.
Its actually worse than that, I think. I am struggling to find words for how bad it is.
How many deaths would you have accepted ?
How many deaths will a semi permanent 35% hit to our economy cause? How many of those will you accept to carry on with this policy?
i) Are you without severe covid-19 symptons. ii) Do you have a job still or means of supporting yourself. iii) Are your friends and family all still alive and able to eat with a roof over their heads.
If you can get near 3 out of 3, that's the best case scenario till a vaccine comes out.
I'm afraid it isn't because it could take 1-2 years for a vaccine to come out and be implemented and it doesn't take into account the economic consequences nor the social ones: if our economy is smaller we won't be able to pay the taxes to fund good healthcare meaning many others will die from things like cancer, dementia and other diseases and we will see a massive rise in mental health disorders and a traumatised generation of youth.
Then you have the social consequences of a society where a culture snitching on your neighbours and others to the rozzers becomes embedded, which is perhaps what worries me worst of all.
I understand the frustration but the die is already cast, most of us are going to have our living standards reduced significantly for the next 5 years or more. You may as well accept it now and adjust. Until there is a vaccine life or the economy are not going to return to anything like the old "normal".
I don't agree with your "snitching" point. If the vast majority of us are complying with the lockdown for the sake of the country we are going to get very piss*d off indeed with the arrogant and selfish idiots that think they can flout the rules.
I don't agree with accepting reduced living standards, which can rapidly feed into broader economic self-confidence and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We don't know yet how the world will collectively respond to the economic challenges this virus has thrown up in its aftermath yet and we shouldn't throw our hands up immediately in surrender.
On the snitching point: I disagree. We have seen plenty of examples of spectacularly misjudged public hectoring of people lawfully going about their business, curtain twitchers enjoying spying on their neighbours and shopping them far too much (in some instances out of previous jealously or in pursuit of a petty personal vendetta) and such reports then being enthusiastically pounced on by the rozzers. In the meantime unscrupulous employers who are insisting their employees come into work whilst failing to maintain social distancing are a far bigger issue for the spread of the dynamic, but the police aren't interested. It takes place behind closed doors out of sight and the only social drama people are interested in is the public one.
We see now why collaboration takes place so easily in occupied countries accompanied with a police state. People simply get off on the sense of power they can lever and they have to both see the "crime" and then the enforcement to get that satisfaction. It's like a real life soap where everyone can play.
I think it stinks. And I think defensive arguments like "we can't set a precedent", "if one does it everyone will do it" and similar clichés are just excusing authoritative behaviour and am shocked more people don't think the same.
On curtain twitchers I think this outbreak has given people who instinctively are already curtain twitchers the feeling they have the right/responsibility to be even more twitchery and obnoxious than they would be normally.
Anecdote but my wife (healthcare worker) takes the bus to work everyday. Since just before the lockdown rules were changed that she needed to come into work in casual clothes then get changed at work.
She said that since just after the lockdown an old man has been sat in his garden by the bus stop and has been shouting at people who go to the bus stop demanding to know why they're out and about, but the old man hadn't shouted at her despite not wearing her uniform and she wasn't sure why. I suggested he'd probably been watching the street before this began and recognised her from wearing her uniform in the past and has seen her travel daily.
The response to Coronavirus is the biggest policy mistake by any British government ever in the history of British governments. Lord North can now relax, wherever he is.
I got called hysterical for saying that on here yesterday. Reading what BoE governor Andrew Bailey says, that the economy will take a 35% hit and struggle to recover from that hit, perhaps some might like to dial down the criticism.
Panic reigns. I see one cabinet minister is even briefing journalists that the government never wanted lockdown but the public did so they went with it.
So its the public's fault, its the virus's fault, its....er....Lets see....Donald Trump's fault....its China's fault, it's the data collectors fault, when in fact it is the government's fault
We are utterly at sea. Rudderless, leaderless, with a broken compass giving us false information and drifting towards an economic whirlpool.
Its actually worse than that, I think. I am struggling to find words for how bad it is.
Whether right or wrong or somewhere in between (!) I do commend you for sticking to this line throughout.
I am far more sympathetic to it than the one pushed by others on here that the government is not to be questioned and we should just follow blindly and keep our mouths shut.
We still have two weeks on the Lizard booked (if we can go).
Between us Mrs DA and I have bought five return flights to India so far this year and been able to use none of them! I'm giving up going anywhere until Xmas.
Short to medium term - a deal of economic pain and unfortunately for some it will be the end of their business and I understand that, I really do. The problem is Sunak's long hands, shallow pockets policies will only take us so far and will only last for so long.
As no one really knows, the "experts" are floundering round between "everything will bounce back" and "nothing will ever be the same again" which covers most of the bases - the truth is likely, as always, to be somewhere between the two.
How much will this experience change us? Don't know but it will - there will be changes which don't last and changes that do. We can hope for some positive outcomes but there will be some negative ones too.
I'll just throw a thought or two out there - will we see more people opting to care for elderly relatives at home within the family? Initially, some speculated the big death toll in Italy was due to larger families living together but on the other hand you have care homes and they may be one of the big horror stories from this (quite apart from those who will be found to have died alone).
Second, will this give a big boost to home working? Talking to my colleagues we are all coping well with not being in office. There's talk of a monthly get together but that doesn't require an office - just a meeting room which you could rent on a daily or even hourly basis. That said, it requires different forms of management and leadership and it will cause organisations to evolve (and those that don't or can't may not survive).
Home working isn't possible for everyone but I wonder if we will see a move toward a more freelancing workforce with individuals offering their skills to each other or to other organisations - this won't happen overnight but it seems a plausible evolution.
My guess is that a lot of people will realise just how much money they were wasting on takeaways, rather than cooking for themselves.
I've actually started ordering takeaways again just because my wife and I became exhausted of cooking and clearing up on top of everything else we have to do, but still only twice a week or so.
Blimey, how busy can your home life be? It's just you, yer Mrs and nipper, isn't it?
Indeed - we are only 2 and the cooking and cleaning [2 adults 4 bed 4 bath house] takes up less than 10% of the day max. It's really not rocket science.
If you haven't missed my posts I've laid out my personal circumstances on a couple of threads over recent days, including re-iterating them this morning.
I'm only half-hoping for them to be taken on board. It's more likely I get a four yorkshiremen response.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
Tbf, that situation is the same all over Europe. The solution wasn't the EU procurement scheme which hasn't delivered, it was replicating the ventilator scheme which has delivered.
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
Also, understanding of CV with respect to ventilators has changed. Initially it was thought, we need to stick as many people as possible on a ventilator to save them. Now there is growing evidence that isn't the case. In fact, for some types of patients you make the situation even worse.
You want people on these CPAP masks, and if you do put somebody on a ventilator there are some very specific things that need to happen. Its not spin to say requirements for what a ventilator for CV needs to do has changed.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
Tbf, that situation is the same all over Europe. The solution wasn't the EU procurement scheme which hasn't delivered, it was replicating the ventilator scheme which has delivered.
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
And going back to this, given this was a successful scheme overall which has resulted in new ventilator design and manufacturing, the question that needs answering is why there wasn't the same scheme for PPE. That's where the failure is, questions from the press about not signing up to the EU scheme for PPE actually distracted from this much larger failure.
1. Firstly, why is PPE in such short supply and in too many cases, of inadequate quality?
A. Despite a global shortage hundreds of millions of pieces of PPE HAVE been distributed and UK manufacturing is doing a magnificent job of producing equipment at short notice.
2. Secondly, why was the decision to lock down delayed as long as it was, despite the evidence from elsewhere and the knowledge of how many cases had been identified in the UK at the time?
A. The scientific advisors recommended this course of action...and indeed the original plan could turn out to have been the better one with hindsight.
3. And thirdly, why does the UK lag behind so many other comparable countries in the proportion of its citizens tested, with even key healthcare workers – who could be spreading the disease round to very vulnerable people – unable to access testing?
A. Frontline healthcare workers definitely do need to be tested.
Opening up testing to the general public however needs to be thought about very, very carefully...there are some serious unintended consequences lurking behind that decision.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
And so has most of the rest of europe, in many cases a fortnight ago.
From what I hear they are nearly out of certain types of PPE
As you say it seems from North Essex the fact that this is a worldwide problem seems to have missed him
Anyone paying attention would have seen the tricks the US are playing ignoring Trump's attempts to steal PPE destined and already paid for by other countries.
Which is why you don’t turn your nose up at an alternative sourcing route. Unless you’re a crazed ideologue.
It's not an alternative sourcing route, the EU schemes have failed to deliver. Countries which were relying on them have now replicated the German and British schemes to manufacture their own ventilators and PPE.
You're the ideologue here thinking that the EU can magically make everything better when they are sourcing from the same suppliers as everyone else.
EU tender/sourced ventilators expected to be available in French hospitals in July.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Why not just admit that your view on issues is via the prism of Remain/Leave.
Since it isn’t, I won’t. I continue to await your apology for lying about me previously.
i) Are you without severe covid-19 symptons. ii) Do you have a job still or means of supporting yourself. iii) Are your friends and family all still alive and able to eat with a roof over their heads.
If you can get near 3 out of 3, that's the best case scenario till a vaccine comes out.
I'm afraid it isn't because it could take 1-2 years for a vaccine to come out and be implemented and it doesn't take into account the economic consequences nor the social ones: if our economy is smaller we won't be able to pay the taxes to fund good healthcare meaning many others will die from things like cancer, dementia and other diseases and we will see a massive rise in mental health disorders and a traumatised generation of youth.
Then you have the social consequences of a society where a culture snitching on your neighbours and others to the rozzers becomes embedded, which is perhaps what worries me worst of all.
I understand the frustration but the die is already cast, most of us are going to have our living standards reduced significantly for the next 5 years or more. You may as well accept it now and adjust. Until there is a vaccine life or the economy are not going to return to anything like the old "normal".
I don't agree with your "snitching" point. If the vast majority of us are complying with the lockdown for the sake of the country we are going to get very piss*d off indeed with the arrogant and selfish idiots that think they can flout the rules.
I don't agree with accepting reduced living standards, which can rapidly feed into broader economic self-confidence and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We don't know yet how the world will collectively respond to the economic challenges this virus has thrown up in its aftermath yet and we shouldn't throw our hands up immediately in surrender.
On the snitching point: I disagree. We have seen plenty of examples of spectacularly misjudged public hectoring of people lawfully going about their business, curtain twitchers enjoying spying on their neighbours and shopping them far too much (in some instances out of previous jealously or in pursuit of a petty personal vendetta) and such reports then being enthusiastically pounced on by the rozzers. In the meantime unscrupulous employers who are insisting their employees come into work whilst failing to maintain social distancing are a far bigger issue for the spread of the dynamic, but the police aren't interested. It takes place behind closed doors out of sight and the only social drama people are interested in is the public one.
We see now why collaboration takes place so easily in occupied countries accompanied with a police state. People simply get off on the sense of power they can lever and they have to both see the "crime" and then the enforcement to get that satisfaction. It's like a real life soap where everyone can play.
I think it stinks. And I think defensive arguments like "we can't set a precedent", "if one does it everyone will do it" and similar clichés are just excusing authoritative behaviour and am shocked more people don't think the same.
Whether you "accept" reduced living standards is beside the point. Taxation and inflation are going to rise, the only question is by how much. Unemployment is going to rise steeply even after lockdown ends, many businesses particularly in the retail and leisure will never reopen. For example, I don't see myself going to a restaurant for the rest of this year at least and we used to 3 or 4 times a week.
The bill for all this is going to be gigantic and we are the ones who are going to paying for it one way or another. You are kidding yourself if you think you are going to be maintaining your pre-virus living standard.
You are itching for the lockdown to end so are egging on people breaking it a la Trump. Obviously some people will over step the mark in telling off others, there have always been people like that but comparing the vast majority of people who just want to see the rules fairly apply to everyone to wartime collaborators is ridiculous.
I'd like to say I'm disappointed with such a tetchy response - that also misrepresents what I said - but for you, I'm afraid, it's entirely within character.
Maybe you've sensed there's a danger of making you think too much.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
Tbf, that situation is the same all over Europe. The solution wasn't the EU procurement scheme which hasn't delivered, it was replicating the ventilator scheme which has delivered.
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
And going back to this, given this was a successful scheme overall which has resulted in new ventilator design and manufacturing, the question that needs answering is why there wasn't the same scheme for PPE. That's where the failure is, questions from the press about not signing up to the EU scheme for PPE actually distracted from this much larger failure.
And for testing...and now we need similar "challenges" for production of masks for the general population and for rapid testing machines.
The UK put a lot of eggs in the basket of antibody testing. Two Chinese firms who said they had one that worked and a British company, who says it will take several months. The Chinese ones have been found to be billy bullshitting, so then we got down to hoping that the British company might get somewhere, but they haven't.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
Tbf, that situation is the same all over Europe. The solution wasn't the EU procurement scheme which hasn't delivered, it was replicating the ventilator scheme which has delivered.
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
Not least because the principal failure, if I recall correctly, is a design that only turned out to be unsuitable as doctors learned more about the specific requirements of ventilating Covid-19 patients - information which, since this is obviously a novel disease, would not have been available when the project began.
It seems to me that our manufacturers have done a great deal better by offering a proliferation of designs, some of which transpired to be useless and others of which have moved into mass production and have started to be delivered, rather than sitting on their hands and waiting three or six months for more forward planning and data gathering before getting started - so that all of the breathing apparatus thus produced would be of an ideal standard, but also meaning that it would all be delivered past the point at which the additional treatment capacity that it generated would be of any likely use.
The same thing is now happening with vaccine research. Nearly all of the projects that have already been initiated will result in no treatment, but with many teams working on the problem from slightly different angles at the same time we ought to get to a workable solution much more quickly. Thus, at the end of all this, all the well-meaning but failed projects that didn't arrive at a solution first are not to be criticized - they were a form of insurance and it was right that they went ahead.
Short to medium term - a deal of economic pain and unfortunately for some it will be the end of their business and I understand that, I really do. The problem is Sunak's long hands, shallow pockets policies will only take us so far and will only last for so long.
As no one really knows, the "experts" are floundering round between "everything will bounce back" and "nothing will ever be the same again" which covers most of the bases - the truth is likely, as always, to be somewhere between the two.
How much will this experience change us? Don't know but it will - there will be changes which don't last and changes that do. We can hope for some positive outcomes but there will be some negative ones too.
I'll just throw a thought or two out there - will we see more people opting to care for elderly relatives at home within the family? Initially, some speculated the big death toll in Italy was due to larger families living together but on the other hand you have care homes and they may be one of the big horror stories from this (quite apart from those who will be found to have died alone).
Second, will this give a big boost to home working? Talking to my colleagues we are all coping well with not being in office. There's talk of a monthly get together but that doesn't require an office - just a meeting room which you could rent on a daily or even hourly basis. That said, it requires different forms of management and leadership and it will cause organisations to evolve (and those that don't or can't may not survive).
Home working isn't possible for everyone but I wonder if we will see a move toward a more freelancing workforce with individuals offering their skills to each other or to other organisations - this won't happen overnight but it seems a plausible evolution.
My guess is that a lot of people will realise just how much money they were wasting on takeaways, rather than cooking for themselves.
I've actually started ordering takeaways again just because my wife and I became exhausted of cooking and clearing up on top of everything else we have to do, but still only twice a week or so.
Blimey, how busy can your home life be? It's just you, yer Mrs and nipper, isn't it?
We're both working full-time. That means (for me) 18-hour days, every day. Whenever I'm not working I'm looking after the 14-month old so my wife can work, or snatching a few minutes to cook some food, before going back to it.
So, to answer your question: very.
She is sleeping right now. It won't last more than another 30 minutes.
I struggle to believe that anyone can work 18 hour days let alone every day.
And if they try to do so I'm pretty certain that they're on the way to a major health collapse.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
Tbf, that situation is the same all over Europe. The solution wasn't the EU procurement scheme which hasn't delivered, it was replicating the ventilator scheme which has delivered.
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
I get that people are struggling under lockdown, but what do protesters believe that the various governments are up to? Turning us into a police state? Killing us off so they don't have to spend too much on us? Do they think the virus is a government plot?
It's difficult not to conclude that America has vastly more than its fair share of moronic idiots. Evidence lies in the fact they might reelect Trump.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
That was a hundred years ago, and most people living in the 1920s were not enjoying upmarket lifestyles.
I think you have an accumulation of factors working against the travel and tourism sector coming out of all this. A lot of people are going to see their finances hit very hard and won't be able to afford to travel, or at any rate to travel abroad, for years. There will be the lingering folk memory of the disasters that have befallen a great many people - and not just cruise ship passengers - who found themselves stuck abroad at the wrong time. Air transportation is bound to become significantly dearer if much of the competition on air routes is removed through collapse or merger of airlines, and if aircraft are taking off half-empty (through lack of available customers and/or the imposition of social distancing measures.) And the environmental lobby loathes air travel above almost all else, and will want green taxes on aviation held in place and ideally extended.
In short, if there isn't a major ongoing recession in air travel and international tourism, even after the coronavirus is finally brought under control, then that might be considered something of a surprise?
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
I'd rather be in lockup than go to Blackpool ...
The great benefit of being in lockdown in Blackpool is that you wouldn't be allowed to go out to Blackpool.
Even that may not save you. Last time I stayed in a hotel in Blackpool, the couple (I say couple, there may have been several in there) in the next room were having the most extraordinarily loud sex....
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
That was a hundred years ago, and most people living in the 1920s were not enjoying upmarket lifestyles.
I think you have an accumulation of factors working against the travel and tourism sector coming out of all this. A lot of people are going to see their finances hit very hard and won't be able to afford to travel, or at any rate to travel abroad, for years. There will be the lingering folk memory of the disasters that have befallen a great many people - and not just cruise ship passengers - who found themselves stuck abroad at the wrong time. Air transportation is bound to become significantly dearer if much of the competition on air routes is removed through collapse or merger of airlines, and if aircraft are taking off half-empty (through lack of available customers and/or the imposition of social distancing measures.) And the environmental lobby loathes air travel above almost all else, and will want green taxes on aviation held in place and ideally extended.
In short, if there isn't a major ongoing recession in air travel and international tourism, even after the coronavirus is finally brought under control, then that might be considered something of a surprise?
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
I'd rather be in lockup than go to Blackpool ...
The great benefit of being in lockdown in Blackpool is that you wouldn't be allowed to go out to Blackpool.
Even that may not save you. Last time I stayed in a hotel in Blackpool, the couple (I say couple, there may have been several in there) in the next room were having the most extraordinarily loud sex....
Was a 24-year old wife involved?
In Blackpool it's more like to be a prozzy that's been round the clock twice and will take her glass eye out for a tenner if you fancy something different.
Mr. Royale, sorry for the slow response, been out.
I played England as Eleanor of Aquitaine and had Scotland right next to me. We actually got on incredibly well, even after my supreme cultural power made every city (even the capital) swear loyalty to me. The only exception was a far flung little city in the middle of nowhere.
Lol!
England as Eleanor of Aquitaine is an interesting one.. wasn't aware that was an option.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
That was a hundred years ago, and most people living in the 1920s were not enjoying upmarket lifestyles.
I think you have an accumulation of factors working against the travel and tourism sector coming out of all this. A lot of people are going to see their finances hit very hard and won't be able to afford to travel, or at any rate to travel abroad, for years. There will be the lingering folk memory of the disasters that have befallen a great many people - and not just cruise ship passengers - who found themselves stuck abroad at the wrong time. Air transportation is bound to become significantly dearer if much of the competition on air routes is removed through collapse or merger of airlines, and if aircraft are taking off half-empty (through lack of available customers and/or the imposition of social distancing measures.) And the environmental lobby loathes air travel above almost all else, and will want green taxes on aviation held in place and ideally extended.
In short, if there isn't a major ongoing recession in air travel and international tourism, even after the coronavirus is finally brought under control, then that might be considered something of a surprise?
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
I'd rather be in lockup than go to Blackpool ...
The great benefit of being in lockdown in Blackpool is that you wouldn't be allowed to go out to Blackpool.
Even that may not save you. Last time I stayed in a hotel in Blackpool, the couple (I say couple, there may have been several in there) in the next room were having the most extraordinarily loud sex....
Was a 24-year old wife involved?
In Blackpool it's more like to be a prozzy that's been round the clock twice and will take her glass eye out for a tenner if you fancy something different.
There's a certain longstanding pber regular who wouldn't necessarily turn his nose up at that either.
Short to medium term - a deal of economic pain and unfortunately for some it will be the end of their business and I understand that, I really do. The problem is Sunak's long hands, shallow pockets policies will only take us so far and will only last for so long.
As no one really knows, the "experts" are floundering round between "everything will bounce back" and "nothing will ever be the same again" which covers most of the bases - the truth is likely, as always, to be somewhere between the two.
How much will this experience change us? Don't know but it will - there will be changes which don't last and changes that do. We can hope for some positive outcomes but there will be some negative ones too.
I'll just throw a thought or two out there - will we see more people opting to care for elderly relatives at home within the family? Initially, some speculated the big death toll in Italy was due to larger families living together but on the other hand you have care homes and they may be one of the big horror stories from this (quite apart from those who will be found to have died alone).
Second, will this give a big boost to home working? Talking to my colleagues we are all coping well with not being in office. There's talk of a monthly get together but that doesn't require an office - just a meeting room which you could rent on a daily or even hourly basis. That said, it requires different forms of management and leadership and it will cause organisations to evolve (and those that don't or can't may not survive).
Home working isn't possible for everyone but I wonder if we will see a move toward a more freelancing workforce with individuals offering their skills to each other or to other organisations - this won't happen overnight but it seems a plausible evolution.
My guess is that a lot of people will realise just how much money they were wasting on takeaways, rather than cooking for themselves.
I've actually started ordering takeaways again just because my wife and I became exhausted of cooking and clearing up on top of everything else we have to do, but still only twice a week or so.
Blimey, how busy can your home life be? It's just you, yer Mrs and nipper, isn't it?
We're both working full-time. That means (for me) 18-hour days, every day. Whenever I'm not working I'm looking after the 14-month old so my wife can work, or snatching a few minutes to cook some food, before going back to it.
So, to answer your question: very.
She is sleeping right now. It won't last more than another 30 minutes.
I struggle to believe that anyone can work 18 hour days let alone every day.
And if they try to do so I'm pretty certain that they're on the way to a major health collapse.
Um. Yeah.
Why do you think I'm so keen for schools and nurseries to re-open?
The only saving grace is that it only applies Monday to Friday.
Another problem with regards lack of PPE. Dentistry. It has totally shut down. Now unless you are in grave immediate danger, you can't see a dentist, even with severe tooth pain. Only with severe infection, and even then you have to go to a specialist centre.
As it seems we are going to be locked down for at least another 2 months, going to be lots of stored up problems.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
Tbf, that situation is the same all over Europe. The solution wasn't the EU procurement scheme which hasn't delivered, it was replicating the ventilator scheme which has delivered.
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
And going back to this, given this was a successful scheme overall which has resulted in new ventilator design and manufacturing, the question that needs answering is why there wasn't the same scheme for PPE. That's where the failure is, questions from the press about not signing up to the EU scheme for PPE actually distracted from this much larger failure.
And for testing...and now we need similar "challenges" for production of masks for the general population and for rapid testing machines.
The UK put a lot of eggs in the basket of antibody testing. Two Chinese firms who said they had one that worked and a British company, who says it will take several months. The Chinese ones have been found to be billy bullshitting, so then we got down to hoping that the British company might get somewhere, but they haven't.
We don't all need masks, we need a face covering. The woman with the thong weeks ago nailed it.
I get that people are struggling under lockdown, but what do protesters believe that the various governments are up to? Turning us into a police state? Killing us off so they don't have to spend too much on us? Do they think the virus is a government plot?
It's difficult not to conclude that America has vastly more than its fair share of moronic idiots. Evidence lies in the fact they might reelect Trump.
America is heading into a very deep, dark place. The minority control the majority, and are set to do so for many more years to come. Just as we need to build deep scepticism about the Chinese regime into all our future planning, so we need to factor in hasterning US decline and isolation. Trump is as inherently unreliable as President Xi, though the latter is more rational.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
That was a hundred years ago, and most people living in the 1920s were not enjoying upmarket lifestyles.
I think you have an accumulation of factors working against the travel and tourism sector coming out of all this. A lot of people are going to see their finances hit very hard and won't be able to afford to travel, or at any rate to travel abroad, for years. There will be the lingering folk memory of the disasters that have befallen a great many people - and not just cruise ship passengers - who found themselves stuck abroad at the wrong time. Air transportation is bound to become significantly dearer if much of the competition on air routes is removed through collapse or merger of airlines, and if aircraft are taking off half-empty (through lack of available customers and/or the imposition of social distancing measures.) And the environmental lobby loathes air travel above almost all else, and will want green taxes on aviation held in place and ideally extended.
In short, if there isn't a major ongoing recession in air travel and international tourism, even after the coronavirus is finally brought under control, then that might be considered something of a surprise?
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
I'd rather be in lockup than go to Blackpool ...
The great benefit of being in lockdown in Blackpool is that you wouldn't be allowed to go out to Blackpool.
Even that may not save you. Last time I stayed in a hotel in Blackpool, the couple (I say couple, there may have been several in there) in the next room were having the most extraordinarily loud sex....
Was a 24-year old wife involved?
In Blackpool it's more like to be a prozzy that's been round the clock twice and will take her glass eye out for a tenner if you fancy something different.
We still have two weeks on the Lizard booked (if we can go).
Between us Mrs DA and I have bought five return flights to India so far this year and been able to use none of them! I'm giving up going anywhere until Xmas.
Come stay on the Golden Mile of the Belgrave Road. Its like Gujerat without the sun...
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
It is worthy of note that our death rate is so high without the system being swamped outside a few hotspots.
I think the "stay at home if you are ill and don't seek medical help" policy is leading to cases presenting late in poorer condition than other countries, which do encourage early diagnosis and treatment. America may have the same problem for different reasons.
Yes, I wonder if this is British stoicism and reserve at work. Mustn’t grumble, never mind, keep calm and carry on, OK it might be a heart attack, I don’t want to make a fuss, let’s have a cup of tea, oh I’m dead.
A lot of Brits are like that, and in many ways it is admirable (and will serve us well in future) but it might mean people are dying at home who should really be in the (underused) A&Es.
There is no internationally recognised approved standard for a coronavirus death. we could simply be more conscientious or liberal than some others.
Even Piers Morgan is cottoning on to this. As I understand it there may be no distinction in Britain between dying of Corona and dying with Corona. It gets recorded as a Corona death.
And so we are making crucial policy decisions based on completely unreliable data.
So what should we be basing these crucial decisions on? Gut instinct? Anecdotes?
The response to Coronavirus is the biggest policy mistake by any British government ever in the history of British governments. Lord North can now relax, wherever he is.
I got called hysterical for saying that on here yesterday. Reading what BoE governor Andrew Bailey says, that the economy will take a 35% hit and struggle to recover from that hit, perhaps some might like to dial down the criticism.
Panic reigns. I see one cabinet minister is even briefing journalists that the government never wanted lockdown but the public did so they went with it.
So its the public's fault, its the virus's fault, its....er....Lets see....Donald Trump's fault....its China's fault, it's the data collectors fault, when in fact it is the government's fault
We are utterly at sea. Rudderless, leaderless, with a broken compass giving us false information and drifting towards an economic whirlpool.
Its actually worse than that, I think. I am struggling to find words for how bad it is.
"I see one cabinet minister is even briefing journalists that the government never wanted lockdown but the public did so they went with it."
What is the source for this?
I`ve long suspected that this was the case, so interesting that a minister has voiced it. I`d add that it was the media as much as the public, and the international response to the pandemic set a powerful precedent that the UK government found impossible to resist.
Very disturbing news that the governement has extended the three months support to four months. Has set a precedent for extensions now.
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
Wow. That’s quite a correction. In context, its a sackable offence.
I will tell you what is a sackable offence.
Running out of gowns meaning rationing of intubation and ventilation.
Stop your pathetic whataboutery
But you were whatabouting Japan just now, and Japan has fucked up ten times as badly as us on the PPE gowns front. Recriminations are not at this stage all that fruitful.
That's also 'whataboutery'.
Almost all debate features Whataboutery. The key is to get in first and then you're in a powerful position. For example, harking back to Olden Times, if I want to talk about the utter scandal of Islamophobia in the Tory Party, I need to do it apropos of nothing (ideal) or (next best) launch it as a non sequitur off the back of a discussion about, say, the optimal rate for basic rate income tax. Then if somebody comes back with the sterile and oh so predictable "at least they are not being investigated for racism by the ECHR like Labour are", I can shoot this down in flames with the killer charge of Whataboutery. By the same token if they have nipped in first with a highly critical comment about antisemitism in Labour, I'm stuffed. All I can do is either let it go or (if it is not too extreme and ridiculous) agree with it. What I can't now do is mention the utter scandal of Islamophobia in the Tory Party. I've lost the right to do that. If I try it I will get zapped as engaging in Whataboutery, or even worse in shameless Whataboutery, seeking to excuse Labour antisemitism by pointing to the utter scandal of Islamophobia in the Tory Party. So it's win win or it's lose lose, depending exclusively on who is making the running. This is why it matters so much in politics which side the media is on.
Definitely worth listening to. Sweden's approach could well be vindicated in the end. "We should have this discussion a year from now". ... "In the end there will be very little difference [between countries' experience]"
Fascinating interview.
Either these outlier guys are going to be spectacularly wrong or in a year's time there are going to be some very serious questions about why we dynamited our own economy.
The response to Coronavirus is the biggest policy mistake by any British government ever in the history of British governments. Lord North can now relax, wherever he is.
"Biggest policy mistake by any British Government ever" - perhaps but it's up against some pretty stiff competition.
I'd offer Churchill's decision to put us on the Gold Standard in 1925 as a real shocker - Suez is right up there as well. Not as much Munich as that bought us time to prepare.
My favourite is the Corn Laws which were stupendously foolish.
The response to Coronavirus is the biggest policy mistake by any British government ever in the history of British governments. Lord North can now relax, wherever he is.
I got called hysterical for saying that on here yesterday. Reading what BoE governor Andrew Bailey says, that the economy will take a 35% hit and struggle to recover from that hit, perhaps some might like to dial down the criticism.
Panic reigns. I see one cabinet minister is even briefing journalists that the government never wanted lockdown but the public did so they went with it.
So its the public's fault, its the virus's fault, its....er....Lets see....Donald Trump's fault....its China's fault, it's the data collectors fault, when in fact it is the government's fault
We are utterly at sea. Rudderless, leaderless, with a broken compass giving us false information and drifting towards an economic whirlpool.
Its actually worse than that, I think. I am struggling to find words for how bad it is.
Whether right or wrong or somewhere in between (!) I do commend you for sticking to this line throughout.
I am far more sympathetic to it than the one pushed by others on here that the government is not to be questioned and we should just follow blindly and keep our mouths shut.
Appreciated.
My reasoning is simply this. Misfortunes of one sort have befallen the British people down the centuries, but nobody running the country has even sought to wilfully destroy an enormous part of the economy as a policy response to those misfortunes. No government or king, ever.
Short to medium term - a deal of economic pain and unfortunately for some it will be the end of their business and I understand that, I really do. The problem is Sunak's long hands, shallow pockets policies will only take us so far and will only last for so long.
As no one really knows, the "experts" are floundering round between "everything will bounce back" and "nothing will ever be the same again" which covers most of the bases - the truth is likely, as always, to be somewhere between the two.
How much will this experience change us? Don't know but it will - there will be changes which don't last and changes that do. We can hope for some positive outcomes but there will be some negative ones too.
I'll just throw a thought or two out there - will we see more people opting to care for elderly relatives at home within the family? Initially, some speculated the big death toll in Italy was due to larger families living together but on the other hand you have care homes and they may be one of the big horror stories from this (quite apart from those who will be found to have died alone).
Second, will this give a big boost to home working? Talking to my colleagues we are all coping well with not being in office. There's talk of a monthly get together but that doesn't require an office - just a meeting room which you could rent on a daily or even hourly basis. That said, it requires different forms of management and leadership and it will cause organisations to evolve (and those that don't or can't may not survive).
Home working isn't possible for everyone but I wonder if we will see a move toward a more freelancing workforce with individuals offering their skills to each other or to other organisations - this won't happen overnight but it seems a plausible evolution.
My guess is that a lot of people will realise just how much money they were wasting on takeaways, rather than cooking for themselves.
I've actually started ordering takeaways again just because my wife and I became exhausted of cooking and clearing up on top of everything else we have to do, but still only twice a week or so.
Blimey, how busy can your home life be? It's just you, yer Mrs and nipper, isn't it?
We're both working full-time. That means (for me) 18-hour days, every day. Whenever I'm not working I'm looking after the 14-month old so my wife can work, or snatching a few minutes to cook some food, before going back to it.
So, to answer your question: very.
She is sleeping right now. It won't last more than another 30 minutes.
I struggle to believe that anyone can work 18 hour days let alone every day.
And if they try to do so I'm pretty certain that they're on the way to a major health collapse.
Um. Yeah.
Why do you think I'm so keen for schools and nurseries to re-open?
The only saving grace is that it only applies Monday to Friday.
Are you really saying in the other six hours you manage to do all your housework, shopping, family things, cook, eat, wash and sleep ?
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
I went to a local government lawyers’ conference in Blackpool during the terrible rain and floods of Autumn 2000. I no longer fear the pits of Hades as I have seen worse.
Man, I just need two more trains to "do" the normal everyday National Rail network:
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh Inverness to Thurso and Wick
So very close! I was hoping to do them, via a three-night stay in Inverness, some time this month or next month
And then for reasonably significant lengths of "rare" National Rail routes in England, just got Dale Rail left to do, ie. the Sunday-only service from Clitheroe to Hellifield. Which I could just about do as a day-trip from London Euston via Preston.
Anyway, my last few conquests were: Aberdeen to Inverness in early March Halton Curve between Runcorn and Frodsham in January Chinnor & Princes Risborough (heritage railway) in January Stockport to Guide Bridge in December Grand Central to Birmingham Library (Midland Metro) in December Gainsborough to Barnetby in November
A key problem in current response is it is blanket and national. Which makes no sense, the virus doesn't understand boundaries. And the experience is very different sub-nationally and so needs sub-national solutions. The solution is to partition up of the UK into natural neighbourhoods, stop travel between them, and impose locally appropriate solutions and controls.
So split UK into ~8000 neighbourhoods based on access to services, natural boundaries, urbanity, existing travel patterns and virus load. Then in each of them you can any one of super-hard lockdown, hard lockdown, soft lockdown, and no action. This way you can contain the spread, allow live to continue where appropriate, and minimise the god-awful economic damage.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
It is worthy of note that our death rate is so high without the system being swamped outside a few hotspots.
I think the "stay at home if you are ill and don't seek medical help" policy is leading to cases presenting late in poorer condition than other countries, which do encourage early diagnosis and treatment. America may have the same problem for different reasons.
Yes, I wonder if this is British stoicism and reserve at work. Mustn’t grumble, never mind, keep calm and carry on, OK it might be a heart attack, I don’t want to make a fuss, let’s have a cup of tea, oh I’m dead.
A lot of Brits are like that, and in many ways it is admirable (and will serve us well in future) but it might mean people are dying at home who should really be in the (underused) A&Es.
There is no internationally recognised approved standard for a coronavirus death. we could simply be more conscientious or liberal than some others.
Even Piers Morgan is cottoning on to this. As I understand it there may be no distinction in Britain between dying of Corona and dying with Corona. It gets recorded as a Corona death.
And so we are making crucial policy decisions based on completely unreliable data.
So what should we be basing these crucial decisions on? Gut instinct? Anecdotes?
No government in history ever sought to deliberately destory its own economy in response to a crisis, ever. Not like this government is doing.
Perhaps there's a reason why. Perhaps our policy response should start there.
Those who do not learn the lessons of history etc etc etc.
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
If it's a failure the UK needs to fail like that more often.
Insight into the Swedish thinking...when people complain that Swedes can come across in rather unemotional and a bit blunt way, this guy appears to have that in spades.
Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy).
We still have two weeks on the Lizard booked (if we can go).
Between us Mrs DA and I have bought five return flights to India so far this year and been able to use none of them! I'm giving up going anywhere until Xmas.
I've stopped planning. My long trip to Russia obviously isn't happening, but I'd not yet spent any money - I have booked a hotel in St Petersburg but it's on free cancellation. A delay in having the leave approved by work meant I couldn't apply for a visa until I got back from Cyprus in March. Which obviously I didn't do.
Ryanair have just offered me a refund on my flight to NL for May Bank Holiday and when I find out if the Dutch have extended restrictions beyond 28 April I will see if I can cancel my hotel.
Anything else I will book closer to the event, if I can. IBut the possibility is that even if travel becomes possible, as I have an underlying medical condition, I either shouldn't take the risk, or may not get travel insurance.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
Quite near the start of this, Boris said words to the effect of ‘a lot of people are going to die, but if we do xyz, we can keep the nhs running’. Seems to me this is what’s happened. You could call it ‘dying in an orderly way’ couldn’t you?
The great benefit is that if they need to change it over, it can be done in 2.2 seconds.....
Yeah, its a real shame that the F1 teams in the UK are not known for their rapid design, prototyping and innovative production methods against tight deadlines, and definitely can't iterate a concept ten times a week until they find the one that works best and can get approval. < /sarcasm >
The response to Coronavirus is the biggest policy mistake by any British government ever in the history of British governments. Lord North can now relax, wherever he is.
I got called hysterical for saying that on here yesterday. Reading what BoE governor Andrew Bailey says, that the economy will take a 35% hit and struggle to recover from that hit, perhaps some might like to dial down the criticism.
Panic reigns. I see one cabinet minister is even briefing journalists that the government never wanted lockdown but the public did so they went with it.
So its the public's fault, its the virus's fault, its....er....Lets see....Donald Trump's fault....its China's fault, it's the data collectors fault, when in fact it is the government's fault
We are utterly at sea. Rudderless, leaderless, with a broken compass giving us false information and drifting towards an economic whirlpool.
Its actually worse than that, I think. I am struggling to find words for how bad it is.
Whether right or wrong or somewhere in between (!) I do commend you for sticking to this line throughout.
I am far more sympathetic to it than the one pushed by others on here that the government is not to be questioned and we should just follow blindly and keep our mouths shut.
Appreciated.
My reasoning is simply this. Misfortunes of one sort have befallen the British people down the centuries, but nobody running the country has even sought to wilfully destroy an enormous part of the economy as a policy response to those misfortunes. No government or king, ever.
"Wilfully" is putting it a bit strongly. As has been said, the panic response was purely health-driven - understandably - with, it is clear, little regard for the destruction of the economy and our liberty. But the government - politically - had no option. And getting us out of lockdown is going to be even more problematic for the government.
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
If it's a failure the UK needs to fail like that more often.
Indeed. People who look at everything through the "everything the UK does is shit, everything the EU does is great" are grasping at straws right now. You can see it here.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
That being true, why is HYUFD still selling us statistics claiming the death rates in the UK are not as bad as Italy and Spain, without adding any caveats, namely the UK might be ten to fourteen days behind Spain and Italy along the curve.
As far as I can see, HYUFD has been calm and cogent, pointing out that we have made mistakes but we’re not a total outlier, in terms of Western European nations.
I cannot see anyone who fits Mr Meeks’ caricature: someone who would rather see extra deaths than admit an error by the Tory govt
Colour me stupid, but I don't believe Mr Meeks is generally suggesting anything more than a constructive critique of any hitherto deficiencies to the plan seems to be off limits amongst some PBers.
I have a great deal of time for Mr HYUFD, however late in the evening whilst you are taking your constitutional to Cosmeston Lakes along Whitecliffe Drive or to the headland overlooking Cardiff Bay, Mr HYUFD throws in an incendiary graph and the suggestion that we are doing better than Italy and Spain because we have seen fewer cases reported and fatalities realised. A fact that is incontrovertible, but nonetheless out of context, so of limited value unless party political point scoring is its aim.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
Dunno about that, there's a not insignificant group of people in the West of Scotland who go to Blackpool AND Benidorm every year (or used to). Whether Benidorm represents the Med very much is another thing.
A sagacious header. I suspect the government's high polling may turn out to be a chimera. I personally harbour some concerns about its performance, but if polled would probably say that it was doing 'bloody great'. This would be partly to reassure myself (if I say it' so then it somehow makes it closer to being the case) and partly because any other response would feel churlish during a period of collective doom. Do others feel the same?
Yesterday morning THE main headline on the BBC website was that the head of an NHS trust had phoned the BBC to get Burberry's phone number to get gowns...
It turned out to be a procurement manager for a number of trusts.
so very close indeed, they will turn down UK companies but order the procurement teams to call their pals Burberry at their Chinese factories. Bung Bung
There's one approved design which will begin deliveries next week, it also resulted in the modified CPAP machine. There were failures in the process, definitely, but overall it's been a success. To characterise it as otherwise is incorrect.
If it's a failure the UK needs to fail like that more often.
Indeed. People who look at everything through the "everything the UK does is shit, everything the EU does is great" are grasping at straws right now. You can see it here.
Nearly annoying as the idiots moaning "why did you build those hospitals?"
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Can you name these delusional PB-ers? With all respect, they appear to be in your still befogged and Brexity head.
Even HYUFD is expressing some doubts about the government’s handling of corona
There's also a big difference between suggesting with hindsight that the government may have planned better and taken decisions differently, and suggesting that the decisions were made the way they were out of deliberate malice.
No one has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation why the government is refusing to cooperate in any way with the EU over the pandemic other than blind dogma. I seen a lot of “well it wouldn’t matter anyway”, and “the EU have been incompetent” and such like, but no explanation you might actually call rational. It seems very likely that people will die as a result of that decision.
The rest I will willingly accept is woeful incompetence rather than malice.
Because the governments strategy, as opposed to the EU strategy, is actually delivering the equipment?
You might not have noticed from Dubai, but the NHS is now just about out of PPE.
His Tory head is too far up his you know what to notice.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
I went to a local government lawyers’ conference in Blackpool during the terrible rain and floods of Autumn 2000. I no longer fear the pits of Hades as I have seen worse.
It could have been in the Maldives. You would still have been in a room full of local government lawyers.
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Why not just admit that your view on issues is via the prism of Remain/Leave.
Since it isn’t, I won’t. I continue to await your apology for lying about me previously.
Alastair you do seem to have a blind spot when it comes to leave and Boris that you won’t acknowledge even when it pointed out.
You said Remain was a good bet at 1/4 Boris was a good lay at 5/1 for Tory Leader and 11/1 to make the final two.
We all have terrible bets, but they were such bad calls, for a clever person to confidently make them can only be explained by some blind prejudice. I’ve seen odds compilers make this mistake hundreds of times, not having a dig at you
Frankly Sweden's approach seems to make an amount of sense to me, but only time will tell and I struggle to criticise individual nations for going other routes when most of them are doing so, and the scientific and health advice they have been receiving is advising a different course to that of Sweden.
Time for daily exercise I think, while it is not raining.
I saw somewhere earlier today that the approach isn't working. Sweden has had far more deaths per capita than Norway.
Mind you that's not to say it's the best approach as being frank we will only know what approaches actually worked in 3-5 years time if and when we have a vaccine / herd immunity and can look back and see what methods worked best long term.
Sweden has had more deaths per capita than Norway, Denmark and Finland combined hasn't it?
Short to medium term - a deal of economic pain and unfortunately for some it will be the end of their business and I understand that, I really do. The problem is Sunak's long hands, shallow pockets policies will only take us so far and will only last for so long.
As no one really knows, the "experts" are floundering round between "everything will bounce back" and "nothing will ever be the same again" which covers most of the bases - the truth is likely, as always, to be somewhere between the two.
How much will this experience change us? Don't know but it will - there will be changes which don't last and changes that do. We can hope for some positive outcomes but there will be some negative ones too.
I'll just throw a thought or two out there - will we see more people opting to care for elderly relatives at home within the family? Initially, some speculated the big death toll in Italy was due to larger families living together but on the other hand you have care homes and they may be one of the big horror stories from this (quite apart from those who will be found to have died alone).
Second, will this give a big boost to home working? Talking to my colleagues we are all coping well with not being in office. There's talk of a monthly get together but that doesn't require an office - just a meeting room which you could rent on a daily or even hourly basis. That said, it requires different forms of management and leadership and it will cause organisations to evolve (and those that don't or can't may not survive).
Home working isn't possible for everyone but I wonder if we will see a move toward a more freelancing workforce with individuals offering their skills to each other or to other organisations - this won't happen overnight but it seems a plausible evolution.
My guess is that a lot of people will realise just how much money they were wasting on takeaways, rather than cooking for themselves.
I've actually started ordering takeaways again just because my wife and I became exhausted of cooking and clearing up on top of everything else we have to do, but still only twice a week or so.
Blimey, how busy can your home life be? It's just you, yer Mrs and nipper, isn't it?
We're both working full-time. That means (for me) 18-hour days, every day. Whenever I'm not working I'm looking after the 14-month old so my wife can work, or snatching a few minutes to cook some food, before going back to it.
So, to answer your question: very.
She is sleeping right now. It won't last more than another 30 minutes.
I struggle to believe that anyone can work 18 hour days let alone every day.
And if they try to do so I'm pretty certain that they're on the way to a major health collapse.
Um. Yeah.
Why do you think I'm so keen for schools and nurseries to re-open?
The only saving grace is that it only applies Monday to Friday.
Are you really saying in the other six hours you manage to do all your housework, shopping, family things, cook, eat, wash and sleep ?
Because I know nobody who works that hard.
And yours is a genuinely dangerous lifestyle.
No. I am working from 5am to 11pm on either salaried work, childcare or cooking meals. I have no time for housework. We sometimes get an hour or two before we go to bed if we're lucky but then we often fill this with work deliverables that have deadlines. I sleep from 11pm to 5am.
I'm not interested in arguing with you. It's the truth. If you don't want to accept it that's your business.
A sagacious header. I suspect the government's high polling may turn out to be a chimera. I personally harbour some concerns about its performance, but if polled would probably say that it was doing 'bloody great'. This would be partly to reassure myself (if I say it' so then it somehow makes it closer to being the case) and partly because any other response would feel churlish during a period of collective doom. Do others feel the same?
I’ve noticed. Tuned back into the news yesterday to see that we’re moving into Italy, Spain territory. The difference with Germany is stark.
Hasn't that always been the case? Certainly it might have been hoped our numbers would end up better than Spain or Italy, but there was a lot of talk about being 1-2 weeks 'behind' them, so I thought it was less a case of us 'moving' into that territory as always being in it.
You’ll find that exactly the same pbers who think Britain is doing just fine now were particularly hostile three weeks ago to the idea that Britain was treading the same path as Italy and Spain.
Rather depends on what is meant by fine I should think. We're not doing uniquely badly, or facing unique problems in most cases and that is worthy of note in any assessment. But we, along with those two, do appear to be closer to the badder end of the spectrum unfortunately.
The resistance among the pb mainstream to the idea that Britain, which had the opportunity to learn from those two and failed to do so, has made any significant mistakes is extraordinary.
I would presume we've made different mistakes, considering our capacity seems to have been managed better, so we may well have learnt some things from it while still making mistakes.
I suppose helping people die in an orderly way counts as a win. I suspect they’d have preferred to have been kept alive.
You don't think a more overwhelmed system would not have resulted in an even worse result? Things can be bad, even terrible, without everything that has happened having been bad or useless. It doesn't mean problems or mistakes are to be ignored, but unless you think things not being overwhelmed has literally had no effect I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you would respond in such a way, as you surely cannot believe that, even in a badly managed situation, everything has been bad.
I have repeatedly said I don’t think it has been all bad. I have this amazing idea that we ought to focus on fixing the mistakes. What I have come to realise is that many pbers would literally prefer to see people die than admit that the Conservative government has made serious mistakes.
Why not just admit that your view on issues is via the prism of Remain/Leave.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
Dunno about that, there's a not insignificant group of people in the West of Scotland who go to Blackpool AND Benidorm every year (or used to). Whether Benidorm represents the Med very much is another thing.
There is a lot of snobbishness in the disdain for Blackpool and Benidorm it’s what some people want and enjoy, I wouldn’t go to Benidorm May to October but four days out of season it can be good fun and good value for money. It’s not a cultural appreciation trip just a very affordable change of scenery and a break from routine.
We still have two weeks on the Lizard booked (if we can go).
Between us Mrs DA and I have bought five return flights to India so far this year and been able to use none of them! I'm giving up going anywhere until Xmas.
I've stopped planning. My long trip to Russia obviously isn't happening, but I'd not yet spent any money - I have booked a hotel in St Petersburg but it's on free cancellation. A delay in having the leave approved by work meant I couldn't apply for a visa until I got back from Cyprus in March. Which obviously I didn't do.
Ryanair have just offered me a refund on my flight to NL for May Bank Holiday and when I find out if the Dutch have extended restrictions beyond 28 April I will see if I can cancel my hotel.
Anything else I will book closer to the event, if I can. IBut the possibility is that even if travel becomes possible, as I have an underlying medical condition, I either shouldn't take the risk, or may not get travel insurance.
We are meant to be going to France on May 30th. We have free cancellation until May 10th. Macron is announcing the review of the lockdown on the 11th...
The hotel said there is a govt scheme that gives us a credit for 18 months to stay there anytime, and money back if we don’t. I wonder if our 5 nights might only be worth 2 when this is all over though, and prices soar.
Frankly Sweden's approach seems to make an amount of sense to me, but only time will tell and I struggle to criticise individual nations for going other routes when most of them are doing so, and the scientific and health advice they have been receiving is advising a different course to that of Sweden.
Time for daily exercise I think, while it is not raining.
I saw somewhere earlier today that the approach isn't working. Sweden has had far more deaths per capita than Norway.
Mind you that's not to say it's the best approach as being frank we will only know what approaches actually worked in 3-5 years time if and when we have a vaccine / herd immunity and can look back and see what methods worked best long term.
Sweden has had more deaths per capita than Norway, Denmark and Finland combined hasn't it?
On yesterday's figures Sweden had 118 fatalities per million, compared to 182 in the UK, but we may not be at the same part of the epidemic.
There are the usual concerns about accuracy of data, and governments wanting to play down deaths.
I think the national procurement vs EU procurement has a lot of lessons in it. The EU procurement scheme was basically mass collective purchasing and it relied on companies being able to cycle up production capacity and export them. The national procurement schemes were directed capitalism where specific companies were incentivised to manufacture these products to a timetable.
It has become clear that in these kinds of situations relying on market forces isn't the correct approach and both of the EU schemes are in that category. The EU hasn't got the power to direct or incentivise specific companies to manufacture certain products without getting into a political nightmare of where the jobs are created etc...
Honestly, I'm glad that we avoided the whole scheme, it would have been a disaster for us and left us scrambling to get national production in place just as we are now for PPE.
In Blackpool it's more like to be a prozzy that's been round the clock twice and will take her glass eye out for a tenner if you fancy something different.
I think I remember that being a line about a La Rochelle dockside hooker in the novel upon which Das Boot was based. Glass eyed prostitutes are obviously an internationally recognised unit of naval patter.
Frankly Sweden's approach seems to make an amount of sense to me, but only time will tell and I struggle to criticise individual nations for going other routes when most of them are doing so, and the scientific and health advice they have been receiving is advising a different course to that of Sweden.
Time for daily exercise I think, while it is not raining.
I saw somewhere earlier today that the approach isn't working. Sweden has had far more deaths per capita than Norway.
Mind you that's not to say it's the best approach as being frank we will only know what approaches actually worked in 3-5 years time if and when we have a vaccine / herd immunity and can look back and see what methods worked best long term.
Sweden has had more deaths per capita than Norway, Denmark and Finland combined hasn't it?
On yesterday's figures Sweden had 118 fatalities per million, compared to 182 in the UK, but we may not be at the same part of the epidemic.
There are the usual concerns about accuracy of data, and governments wanting to play down deaths.
Isn't one of the issues that Sweden isn't admitting many cases to hospitals and they, like us, only count hospital deaths in the daily statistics.
The days of popping on and off planes like buses are, sadly, gone and we should get with the program.
You may very well be right, in which case international tourism also becomes an expensive luxury. Think of a Eurostar trip to Paris or Amsterdam as a reasonably affordable treat, but two weeks sunning oneself on Rhodes or the Algarve as something that most people on reasonably good incomes only do once every three or four years.
Britain's tourism sector might be able to make good most of the losses from staycationers, but the likes of Spain and Greece will be absolutely fucked.
I doubt that’s true. People and countries will just factor in the risk. Air travel boomed when air travel was still quite dangerous. And what came after ww1 and Spanish flu? The Roaring Twenties
That was a hundred years ago, and most people living in the 1920s were not enjoying upmarket lifestyles.
I think you have an accumulation of factors working against the travel and tourism sector coming out of all this. A lot of people are going to see their finances hit very hard and won't be able to afford to travel, or at any rate to travel abroad, for years. There will be the lingering folk memory of the disasters that have befallen a great many people - and not just cruise ship passengers - who found themselves stuck abroad at the wrong time. Air transportation is bound to become significantly dearer if much of the competition on air routes is removed through collapse or merger of airlines, and if aircraft are taking off half-empty (through lack of available customers and/or the imposition of social distancing measures.) And the environmental lobby loathes air travel above almost all else, and will want green taxes on aviation held in place and ideally extended.
In short, if there isn't a major ongoing recession in air travel and international tourism, even after the coronavirus is finally brought under control, then that might be considered something of a surprise?
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
I'd rather be in lockup than go to Blackpool ...
The great benefit of being in lockdown in Blackpool is that you wouldn't be allowed to go out to Blackpool.
Even that may not save you. Last time I stayed in a hotel in Blackpool, the couple (I say couple, there may have been several in there) in the next room were having the most extraordinarily loud sex....
Was a 24-year old wife involved?
In Blackpool it's more like to be a prozzy that's been round the clock twice and will take her glass eye out for a tenner if you fancy something different.
In Blackpool it's more like to be a prozzy that's been round the clock twice and will take her glass eye out for a tenner if you fancy something different.
I think I remember that being a line about a La Rochelle dockside hooker in the novel upon which Das Boot was based. Glass eyed prostitutes are obviously an internationally recognised unit of naval patter.
A sagacious header. I suspect the government's high polling may turn out to be a chimera. I personally harbour some concerns about its performance, but if polled would probably say that it was doing 'bloody great'. This would be partly to reassure myself (if I say it' so then it somehow makes it closer to being the case) and partly because any other response would feel churlish during a period of collective doom. Do others feel the same?
I think it's really hard to read. Outside the US, ruling parties and leaders are almost all seeing very big boiunces in support; but there is a sense that something has shifted in the UK. The damage done to the Labour brand over the last few years has been very severe and it is going to take a hell of a lot for many previously sympathetic voters to take another look. To that extent, I believe a good deal of the Tory support is pretty solid. However, I also think we are moving into such an unprecedented time when just about all previous assumptions - at home and abroad - are going to come under such severe pressure that it woud be very foolsih indeed to predict how public opinion is going to move over the medium to longer term.
Frankly Sweden's approach seems to make an amount of sense to me, but only time will tell and I struggle to criticise individual nations for going other routes when most of them are doing so, and the scientific and health advice they have been receiving is advising a different course to that of Sweden.
Time for daily exercise I think, while it is not raining.
I saw somewhere earlier today that the approach isn't working. Sweden has had far more deaths per capita than Norway.
Mind you that's not to say it's the best approach as being frank we will only know what approaches actually worked in 3-5 years time if and when we have a vaccine / herd immunity and can look back and see what methods worked best long term.
Sweden has had more deaths per capita than Norway, Denmark and Finland combined hasn't it?
Sadly yes. The three other states combined are at 104 deaths per million of population whilst Sweden is at 139.
That said there is something else at play there because the rates of infection per million for Norway (1290) and Denmark (1221) are pretty much on a par with those of Sweden (1309). So the same proportion of the population appear to be getting the disease in Norway, Denmark and Sweden but the death rate in Sweden is much higher.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
Dunno about that, there's a not insignificant group of people in the West of Scotland who go to Blackpool AND Benidorm every year (or used to). Whether Benidorm represents the Med very much is another thing.
There is a lot of snobbishness in the disdain for Blackpool and Benidorm it’s what some people want and enjoy, I wouldn’t go to Benidorm May to October but four days out of season it can be good fun and good value for money. It’s not a cultural appreciation trip just a very affordable change of scenery and a break from routine.
Blackpool is quite good fun, but you do need to enter into the spirit of things. Buy a scouser wig/viking helmet according to the fashion of the week. Drink beer, eat fish and chips and play arcade games, and be generally raucous.
Blackpool has never been for sophisticated fun, just simple pleasures.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
Blackpool only looks like a holiday destination to somebody who has never been to the Mediterranean (or even seen the Mediterranean on telly). Its heyday was based on mass emigrations from the Lancashire mill towns by people who fitted those criteria. Itr's not coming back.
Dunno about that, there's a not insignificant group of people in the West of Scotland who go to Blackpool AND Benidorm every year (or used to). Whether Benidorm represents the Med very much is another thing.
There is a lot of snobbishness in the disdain for Blackpool and Benidorm it’s what some people want and enjoy, I wouldn’t go to Benidorm May to October but four days out of season it can be good fun and good value for money. It’s not a cultural appreciation trip just a very affordable change of scenery and a break from routine.
Oh sure, I was probably coming over a bit snobbishly. I know at least one person who does both and she's one of the best people I know.
We still have two weeks on the Lizard booked (if we can go).
Between us Mrs DA and I have bought five return flights to India so far this year and been able to use none of them! I'm giving up going anywhere until Xmas.
I've stopped planning. My long trip to Russia obviously isn't happening, but I'd not yet spent any money - I have booked a hotel in St Petersburg but it's on free cancellation. A delay in having the leave approved by work meant I couldn't apply for a visa until I got back from Cyprus in March. Which obviously I didn't do.
Ryanair have just offered me a refund on my flight to NL for May Bank Holiday and when I find out if the Dutch have extended restrictions beyond 28 April I will see if I can cancel my hotel.
Anything else I will book closer to the event, if I can. IBut the possibility is that even if travel becomes possible, as I have an underlying medical condition, I either shouldn't take the risk, or may not get travel insurance.
We are meant to be going to France on May 30th. We have free cancellation until May 10th. Macron is announcing the review of the lockdown on the 11th...
The hotel said there is a govt scheme that gives us a credit for 18 months to stay there anytime, and money back if we don’t. I wonder if our 5 nights might only be worth 2 when this is all over though, and prices soar.
I think Macron has pretty much ruled out bars, restaurants and hotels reopening until July.
The most concerning element for me, is that his model is run on 13 year old undocumented code, which hasn't been peer reviewed.
When I was in academia, if I had written totally undocumented code that couldn't be released, because nobody would know how to use it, I would have got a huge amount of grief. And my work, didn't involve estimating deaths of 10,000s of people.
In Blackpool it's more like to be a prozzy that's been round the clock twice and will take her glass eye out for a tenner if you fancy something different.
I think I remember that being a line about a La Rochelle dockside hooker in the novel upon which Das Boot was based. Glass eyed prostitutes are obviously an internationally recognised unit of naval patter.
"now you can really eye me" was the line IIRC.
I remembered it as being 'I'll keep an eye out for you' or some variation thereof.
The air travel and tourism industry is going to be totally screwed by this, there's going to be an awful lot of bankruptcies and redundancies across the sector. Not a good time to be an airline or a plane manufacturer.
There's going to be a general aversion to being very close to others for a long time to come, and that definitely includes queues to check in, clear the security theatre and sit in an economy-class seat for hours on end. Countries that rely on inbound tourism (Spain and Greece again) are going to suffer massively in the aftermath as people choose to holiday locally rather than fly abroad.
Business travel will also be down, as people have quickly adapted to remote working and realise that Skype and Webex can achieve the majority of what an in-person meeting can do, for a fraction of the cost. Conferences and exhibitions are also going to be very difficult for the next few years.
On the positive side, it will be good news for old, neglected seaside towns such as Blackpool and Southend.
Only for a couple of weeks. Once someone you know has been to Blackpool I suspect their stories will stop any friends, acquaintances and even mortal enemies from go there.
I went to a local government lawyers’ conference in Blackpool during the terrible rain and floods of Autumn 2000. I no longer fear the pits of Hades as I have seen worse.
It could have been in the Maldives. You would still have been in a room full of local government lawyers.
They have floods in the Maldives. too, don't they?
Comments
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1251434219139665920
Pubs closed.
Streets absolutely deserted.
"We should have this discussion a year from now". ... "In the end there will be very little difference [between countries' experience]"
And it links in with the failure of the testing program.
Ventilator challenge: Penlon device wins regulatory approvalwww.pesmedia.com › ventilator-challenge-uk-penlon-1...
2 days ago - Ventilator Challenge UK, led by Dick Elsy, CEO of High Value Manufacturing Catapult, is accelerating the production of a new ventilator design ...
So, to answer your question: very.
She is sleeping right now. It won't last more than another 30 minutes.
You're the ideologue here thinking that the EU can magically make everything better when they are sourcing from the same suppliers as everyone else.
If we can't go to Spain in August we'll go visit my brother in Aberdeenshire. Not go to Blackpool. Or Skeggy - a description as well as a name.
I am far more sympathetic to it than the one pushed by others on here that the government is not to be questioned and we should just follow blindly and keep our mouths shut.
I'm only half-hoping for them to be taken on board. It's more likely I get a four yorkshiremen response.
You want people on these CPAP masks, and if you do put somebody on a ventilator there are some very specific things that need to happen. Its not spin to say requirements for what a ventilator for CV needs to do has changed.
A. Despite a global shortage hundreds of millions of pieces of PPE HAVE been distributed and UK manufacturing is doing a magnificent job of producing equipment at short notice.
2. Secondly, why was the decision to lock down delayed as long as it was, despite the evidence from elsewhere and the knowledge of how many cases had been identified in the UK at the time?
A. The scientific advisors recommended this course of action...and indeed the original plan could turn out to have been the better one with hindsight.
3. And thirdly, why does the UK lag behind so many other comparable countries in the proportion of its citizens tested, with even key healthcare workers – who could be spreading the disease round to very vulnerable people – unable to access testing?
A. Frontline healthcare workers definitely do need to be tested.
Opening up testing to the general public however needs to be thought about very, very carefully...there are some serious unintended consequences lurking behind that decision.
EU tender/sourced ventilators expected to be available in French hospitals in July.
Maybe you've sensed there's a danger of making you think too much.
The UK put a lot of eggs in the basket of antibody testing. Two Chinese firms who said they had one that worked and a British company, who says it will take several months. The Chinese ones have been found to be billy bullshitting, so then we got down to hoping that the British company might get somewhere, but they haven't.
It seems to me that our manufacturers have done a great deal better by offering a proliferation of designs, some of which transpired to be useless and others of which have moved into mass production and have started to be delivered, rather than sitting on their hands and waiting three or six months for more forward planning and data gathering before getting started - so that all of the breathing apparatus thus produced would be of an ideal standard, but also meaning that it would all be delivered past the point at which the additional treatment capacity that it generated would be of any likely use.
The same thing is now happening with vaccine research. Nearly all of the projects that have already been initiated will result in no treatment, but with many teams working on the problem from slightly different angles at the same time we ought to get to a workable solution much more quickly. Thus, at the end of all this, all the well-meaning but failed projects that didn't arrive at a solution first are not to be criticized - they were a form of insurance and it was right that they went ahead.
And if they try to do so I'm pretty certain that they're on the way to a major health collapse.
https://twitter.com/Daimler/status/1251178676584153090
I haven't seen any evidence of this on here.
Name names.
England as Eleanor of Aquitaine is an interesting one.. wasn't aware that was an option.
Why do you think I'm so keen for schools and nurseries to re-open?
The only saving grace is that it only applies Monday to Friday.
As it seems we are going to be locked down for at least another 2 months, going to be lots of stored up problems.
What is the source for this?
I`ve long suspected that this was the case, so interesting that a minister has voiced it. I`d add that it was the media as much as the public, and the international response to the pandemic set a powerful precedent that the UK government found impossible to resist.
Very disturbing news that the governement has extended the three months support to four months. Has set a precedent for extensions now.
Either these outlier guys are going to be spectacularly wrong or in a year's time there are going to be some very serious questions about why we dynamited our own economy.
I'd offer Churchill's decision to put us on the Gold Standard in 1925 as a real shocker - Suez is right up there as well. Not as much Munich as that bought us time to prepare.
My favourite is the Corn Laws which were stupendously foolish.
My reasoning is simply this. Misfortunes of one sort have befallen the British people down the centuries, but nobody running the country has even sought to wilfully destroy an enormous part of the economy as a policy response to those misfortunes. No government or king, ever.
Because I know nobody who works that hard.
And yours is a genuinely dangerous lifestyle.
Where's Worgate? At the bottom of wor garden!
Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh
Inverness to Thurso and Wick
So very close! I was hoping to do them, via a three-night stay in Inverness, some time this month or next month
And then for reasonably significant lengths of "rare" National Rail routes in England, just got Dale Rail left to do, ie. the Sunday-only service from Clitheroe to Hellifield. Which I could just about do as a day-trip from London Euston via Preston.
Anyway, my last few conquests were:
Aberdeen to Inverness in early March
Halton Curve between Runcorn and Frodsham in January
Chinnor & Princes Risborough (heritage railway) in January
Stockport to Guide Bridge in December
Grand Central to Birmingham Library (Midland Metro) in December
Gainsborough to Barnetby in November
A key problem in current response is it is blanket and national. Which makes no sense, the virus doesn't understand boundaries. And the experience is very different sub-nationally and so needs sub-national solutions. The solution is to partition up of the UK into natural neighbourhoods, stop travel between them, and impose locally appropriate solutions and controls.
So split UK into ~8000 neighbourhoods based on access to services, natural boundaries, urbanity, existing travel patterns and virus load. Then in each of them you can any one of super-hard lockdown, hard lockdown, soft lockdown, and no action. This way you can contain the spread, allow live to continue where appropriate, and minimise the god-awful economic damage.
Perhaps there's a reason why. Perhaps our policy response should start there.
Those who do not learn the lessons of history etc etc etc.
Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2JWifLCY
Ryanair have just offered me a refund on my flight to NL for May Bank Holiday and when I find out if the Dutch have extended restrictions beyond 28 April I will see if I can cancel my hotel.
Anything else I will book closer to the event, if I can. IBut the possibility is that even if travel becomes possible, as I have an underlying medical condition, I either shouldn't take the risk, or may not get travel insurance.
Yeah, its a real shame that the F1 teams in the UK are not known for their rapid design, prototyping and innovative production methods against tight deadlines, and definitely can't iterate a concept ten times a week until they find the one that works best and can get approval. < /sarcasm >
I have a great deal of time for Mr HYUFD, however late in the evening whilst you are taking your constitutional to Cosmeston Lakes along Whitecliffe Drive or to the headland overlooking Cardiff Bay, Mr HYUFD throws in an incendiary graph and the suggestion that we are doing better than Italy and Spain because we have seen fewer cases reported and fatalities realised. A fact that is incontrovertible, but nonetheless out of context, so of limited value unless party political point scoring is its aim.
(As do Trip Advisor - new reports have been a bit thin the past month!)
You said Remain was a good bet at 1/4
Boris was a good lay at 5/1 for Tory Leader and 11/1 to make the final two.
We all have terrible bets, but they were such bad calls, for a clever person to confidently make them can only be explained by some blind prejudice. I’ve seen odds compilers make this mistake hundreds of times, not having a dig at you
I'm not interested in arguing with you. It's the truth. If you don't want to accept it that's your business.
The hotel said there is a govt scheme that gives us a credit for 18 months to stay there anytime, and money back if we don’t. I wonder if our 5 nights might only be worth 2 when this is all over though, and prices soar.
There are the usual concerns about accuracy of data, and governments wanting to play down deaths.
It has become clear that in these kinds of situations relying on market forces isn't the correct approach and both of the EU schemes are in that category. The EU hasn't got the power to direct or incentivise specific companies to manufacture certain products without getting into a political nightmare of where the jobs are created etc...
Honestly, I'm glad that we avoided the whole scheme, it would have been a disaster for us and left us scrambling to get national production in place just as we are now for PPE.
That said there is something else at play there because the rates of infection per million for Norway (1290) and Denmark (1221) are pretty much on a par with those of Sweden (1309). So the same proportion of the population appear to be getting the disease in Norway, Denmark and Sweden but the death rate in Sweden is much higher.
https://twitter.com/SpecCoffeeHouse/status/1251477073098661889
Blackpool has never been for sophisticated fun, just simple pleasures.
When I was in academia, if I had written totally undocumented code that couldn't be released, because nobody would know how to use it, I would have got a huge amount of grief. And my work, didn't involve estimating deaths of 10,000s of people.