The mistake the government are again making is pissing about. They introduce Tier system, then change some regions a couple of days later, and now debating with Burnham if to put Manchester in Tier 3 or not.
You make a decision, you do it, you get on with it. Not 2 weeks of discussions and debates, briefings to the media, public here we are going into it, no we aren't, yes we are. You decide, you enact it within the day.
All this stems from Bozo’s failure - or inability - to do the politics first time around.
Actually, I think there is another issue. For all the lying and flip flopping for personal advantage, I genuinely believe that one thing Boris really fundamentally has a problem with is taking away people's freedoms. I think he is philosophically against lockdown measures.
It is why he was too slow to start with, hoping we could get away with people taking it upon themselves and following some general advice. Why he released the brakes too much too quickly. And now trying to find some sort of fudge that allows as many people as possible not to be locked down.
The problem is for a pandemic that is totally the wrong impulses.
You need a clear decisive lead in a pandemic, and also ruthlessness with your own team if they've contravened guidelines. And that's the big difference between Sturgeon and Boris.
I think Boris also misjudged the British public, thinking good old common sense would really help. Instead we have had the media mudding the waters and publicizing loopholes and exceptions and too many of the public deciding it doesn't apply to them.
Boris fault is he then repeats this incorrect presumption time and time again.
In other words and for the umpteenth time, Brits aren't Swedes.
The mistake the government are again making is pissing about. They introduce Tier system, then change some regions a couple of days later, and now debating with Burnham if to put Manchester in Tier 3 or not.
You make a decision, you do it, you get on with it. Not 2 weeks of discussions and debates, briefings to the media, public here we are going into it, no we aren't, yes we are. You decide, you enact it within the day.
All this stems from Bozo’s failure - or inability - to do the politics first time around.
Actually, I think there is another issue. For all the lying and flip flopping for personal advantage, I genuinely believe that one thing Boris really fundamentally has a problem with is taking away people's freedoms. I think he is philosophically against lockdown measures.
It is why he was too slow to start with, hoping we could get away with people taking it upon themselves and following some general advice. Why he released the brakes too much too quickly. And now trying to find some sort of fudge that allows as many people as possible not to be locked down.
The problem is for a pandemic that is totally the wrong impulses.
You need a clear decisive lead in a pandemic, and also ruthlessness with your own team if they've contravened guidelines. And that's the big difference between Sturgeon and Boris.
I think Boris also misjudged the British public, thinking good old common sense would really help. Instead we have had the media mudding the waters and publicizing loopholes and exceptions and too many of the public deciding it doesn't apply to them.
Boris fault is he then repeats this incorrect presumption time and time again.
In other words and for the umpteenth time, Brits aren't Swedes.
Or Germans....
Or I think fairer would be to say, not a high enough percentage of us aren't. Many many people stuck to the rules, used common sense etc, but as we have seen too many people are happy to cut corners on isolation or when given an inch, take a mile, then complain the government have f##ked up.
This idea you can just "fix" track and trace to such an extent that it captures an incredibly high percentage of people is for the birds. When when cases were very low and PHE by all accounts did a good job, they couldn't stop the spread. You can't do this manually, its too slow, even if it was well run, people were more responsive to the alerts and complied with the advice.
By the nature of the disease, by the time you find somebody its been several days of spreading.
The only people doing this successfully over a long period are South Korea....and that involves the state spying on its population and an incredible level of IT / automation that they build out over many years due to SARS.
New Zealand did it too. Someone posted a link last night where they had managed to drive the gap between onset of symptoms to positive test result down from +7.2 days to -2.7 days - i.e. 2.7 days before developing symptoms.
That enables you to isolate people in the pre-symptomatic phase where they are infectious.
That's through speeding up testing, testing contacts, proactively hunting for the virus as advised by the WHO. It has been done. We can do it too.
And as Max says continually we can do more to make sure that people we know are probably infectious actually do isolate.
I recall when Sweden first took its divergent course on Covid certain parties considered that it shouldn't be compared to its close neighbours. Glad that's been cleared up.
Yes, the tweet is in response to the demand that it had to be compared to them, right enough, so it is
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
When people die of flu, is it the person they caught it off that killed them?
Yes. The person is the vector. . Like a malaria-carrying mosquito. It's another matter whether that is done with knowledge, understanding, and responsibility for the consequences, but in common sense ...
Charge people who the deceased caught flu off... with manslaughter!
I wouldn't go so far - and yet there is precedent in law, with HIV for instance, where someone has acted recklessly.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
You think paying people 2/3rds of their wages for sitting at home is on the cheap? What did the Indian Government pay people when it shut businesses?
By describing our Tier 2 Covid regime as "locking us all up" we create a problem for ourselves in describing something that locks us all up.
Its all politics now. Tier 3 is basically the same as a "circuit breaker", but some are spinning we need 2 week "circuit breaker" rather than a month of Tier 3, and mayors refusing to accept Tier 3 restrictions while backing a circuit breaker.
Then we have people spinning Tier 2 is a lockdown.
We have Sturgeon who won't even accept Hands, Face, Space, instead insists on FACTS, which then has to be spelt out in detail what it actually means. And use a different app that can't track English using going to Scotland and vice versa.
We have the Welsh saying the English mustn't come to Wales.
We haven't said you can't come to Wales. We have said you can't come if you live in a pox-ridden region, unfortunately the number of those regions seems to be growing exponentially.
I agree with Drakeford on this
Our Asia delivery driver this morning has been alarmed that the number of houses he is calling on have covid
He said it was particularly bad in Bangor
I think the UK wide advice should really be don't travel more than x miles unless for work etc. At the moment, we really don't need people just going on a jolly somewhere because they fancy it.
Completely agree. It is a no brainer. Unfortunately it looks like it will take four or five weeks for the government to enact what could be an easy restriction which would no doubt have widespread support
Well 6+ months and they still haven't taken proper action over airports / holidays, so I wouldn't hold your breath.
I never understood from the beginning why the rule was you must stay within x miles of your home unless for work etc. It is what Wales did, what France did, it seems very sensible to try and break spread.
When we came out of lockdown we had all the idiots charging 3hrs to a beach or up Snowdon....it should have been still restricted travel distance. We really didn't need 10,000s of people all descending on Brighton.
But it appears to have had little or no effect on the spread of the virus.
If you look at the various time-lapsed maps showing the infection rates, you can see epicentres from which the disease flows in and out - but its almost entirely a local effect, which ripples out into its surroundings, you don't get clusters suddenly developing in holiday areas.
For various good reasons, I'm in a support bubble with a household over 150 miles away. I won't see the funny side of that being messed about. Being honest, I've been largely compliant with the regs, but I'll just ignore any travel restrictions if they are imposed - I've a job which can fairly easily justify my being anywhere in the country, and I was well on my way to becoming a complete fruitloop during the original lockdown (I was furloughed for 4 weeks and almost went mad).
You really think that politicians enjoy imposing lockdowns?
I really do
London admissions going up around 16% a week, with cases rising by 64% a week. (2 weeks' occurrence/sample date data to 7/10, best fit) Indicative of a phase where mainly young people are catching it perhaps.
It broadly the pattern that as things develop case increase and admissions increase come into line. In the north of England, Scotland and NI these line up closely, in the Midlands, South and Wales, they don't. (mind you, Welsh data seems to have done entirely its own thing throughout).
Most likely young people are saying "Sod it, I'm living my life" and catching a mild disease no worse than a two day hangover, whilst old folk are being more cautious and staying in
With the result that our politicians are outbidding each other to take away our freedom
Not my 16-year-old lad. He's not that selfish or stupid. Yes, he'd like to be out partying, but he understands that this makes it more likely that he will catch covid and pass it on to me, and that I might then pass it on to, e.g, my housebound mother and kill her.
Is it a matter of obligation that, knowing there is a pandemic around, you go and see your mother without taking any precautions?
Do you go and see her now?
I have to go round to do jobs for her. Shopping, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, household repairs, etc. Obviously I wear a mask and keep my distance while I'm there, but these precautions don't completely eliminate the risk that I would pass covid on to her. Also, as a man in my 50s, I don't much fancy catching it myself, so I am doubly grateful that my son is such a sensible lad.
Your son and you have proven that people can be trusted. The government thinks that your common sense needs to be regulated.
Not really. I also drive sensibly, but that doesn't mean that traffic laws should be abolished. My son and I are not necessarily typical of the general population.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
You think paying people 2/3rds of their wages for sitting at home is on the cheap? What did the Indian Government pay people when it shut businesses?
Yes I do. We're not India and people aren't going to have 2/3rd of the bills.
80% worked because people aren't paying for commuting or eating out while working or spending as much on petrol etc so it worked. Two thirds is an insult to those who are being told they're not allowed to work. If you don't want people to work then you need to pay them not to work . . . or get out of their way and let them work!
This idea you can just "fix" track and trace to such an extent that it captures an incredibly high percentage of people is for the birds. When when cases were very low and PHE by all accounts did a good job, they couldn't stop the spread. You can't do this manually, its too slow, even if it was well run, people were more responsive to the alerts and complied with the advice.
By the nature of the disease, by the time you find somebody its been several days of spreading.
The only people doing this successfully over a long period are South Korea....and that involves the state spying on its population and an incredible level of IT / automation that they build out over many years due to SARS.
New Zealand did it too. Someone posted a link last night where they had managed to drive the gap between onset of symptoms to positive test result down from +7.2 days to -2.7 days - i.e. 2.7 days before developing symptoms.
That enables you to isolate people in the pre-symptomatic phase where they are infectious.
That's through speeding up testing, testing contacts, proactively hunting for the virus as advised by the WHO. It has been done. We can do it too.
And as Max says continually we can do more to make sure that people we know are probably infectious actually do isolate.
New Zealand have done really well, but it is a bit of an exception because of its circumstances.
However, isolation definitely, and yes with this disease you have to go looking for it, not wait for people to come to you with it. But virtually nobody is actually able to do this. A population and density of the UK, we would need Project Moonshine+++. I just don't think the tech is there to do 500k tests a day with turn around in hours.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
But this is the problem Philip. On the cheap is all the government have left. There is no more money. They spent it all.
When people die of flu, is it the person they caught it off that killed them?
Yes. The person is the vector. . Like a malaria-carrying mosquito. It's another matter whether that is done with knowledge, understanding, and responsibility for the consequences, but in common sense ...
Charge people who the deceased caught flu off... with manslaughter!
It is possible. If by wilful neglect they knew a person was vulnerable and they knew they had flu and yet behaved in a way that was very likely to infect that other person, then yes manslaughter could be possible I would think. Same applies to HIV or Covid
When people die of flu, is it the person they caught it off that killed them?
Yes. The person is the vector. . Like a malaria-carrying mosquito. It's another matter whether that is done with knowledge, understanding, and responsibility for the consequences, but in common sense ...
Charge people who the deceased caught flu off... with manslaughter!
I wouldn't go so far - and yet there is precedent in law, with HIV for instance, where someone has acted recklessly.
PS Edit: IANAL!
I was the Crown junior in the first of those cases. The charge was reckless endangerment as the victim was still alive (albeit HIV+) at the time of the trial. A fascinating case with some of the best expert witnesses I have ever come across, right at the front of their field but able to explain really complicated science in ways that were clear to the Jury.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
You think paying people 2/3rds of their wages for sitting at home is on the cheap? What did the Indian Government pay people when it shut businesses?
Yes I do. We're not India and people aren't going to have 2/3rd of the bills.
80% worked because people aren't paying for commuting or eating out while working or spending as much on petrol etc so it worked. Two thirds is an insult to those who are being told they're not allowed to work. If you don't want people to work then you need to pay them not to work . . . or get out of their way and let them work!
2/3rds for not working is generous, not on the cheap
You really think that politicians enjoy imposing lockdowns?
I really do
London admissions going up around 16% a week, with cases rising by 64% a week. (2 weeks' occurrence/sample date data to 7/10, best fit) Indicative of a phase where mainly young people are catching it perhaps.
It broadly the pattern that as things develop case increase and admissions increase come into line. In the north of England, Scotland and NI these line up closely, in the Midlands, South and Wales, they don't. (mind you, Welsh data seems to have done entirely its own thing throughout).
Most likely young people are saying "Sod it, I'm living my life" and catching a mild disease no worse than a two day hangover, whilst old folk are being more cautious and staying in
With the result that our politicians are outbidding each other to take away our freedom
Not my 16-year-old lad. He's not that selfish or stupid. Yes, he'd like to be out partying, but he understands that this makes it more likely that he will catch covid and pass it on to me, and that I might then pass it on to, e.g, my housebound mother and kill her.
Is it a matter of obligation that, knowing there is a pandemic around, you go and see your mother without taking any precautions?
Do you go and see her now?
I have to go round to do jobs for her. Shopping, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, household repairs, etc. Obviously I wear a mask and keep my distance while I'm there, but these precautions don't completely eliminate the risk that I would pass covid on to her. Also, as a man in my 50s, I don't much fancy catching it myself, so I am doubly grateful that my son is such a sensible lad.
Your son and you have proven that people can be trusted. The government thinks that your common sense needs to be regulated.
Not really. I also drive sensibly, but that doesn't mean that traffic laws should be abolished. My son and I are not necessarily typical of the general population.
One of you is obviously much brighter!
So never > 70mph on dual carriageways/motorways, then?
Part of the issue against repeating the full furlough scheme, lots of these jobs unfortunately aren't going to be there. We are in this for another year at least. If it was just about making it through another month or two, you could see the argument, however that isn't the reality of the situation.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
You think paying people 2/3rds of their wages for sitting at home is on the cheap? What did the Indian Government pay people when it shut businesses?
Yes I do. We're not India and people aren't going to have 2/3rd of the bills.
80% worked because people aren't paying for commuting or eating out while working or spending as much on petrol etc so it worked. Two thirds is an insult to those who are being told they're not allowed to work. If you don't want people to work then you need to pay them not to work . . . or get out of their way and let them work!
2/3rds for not working is generous, not on the cheap
It is not generous if people want to work.
It is generous if it is for people who do not want to work and anyone who wants to can continue, But if you're tellng people they're not allowed to by law then it is absolutely not generous.
When people die of flu, is it the person they caught it off that killed them?
Yes. The person is the vector. . Like a malaria-carrying mosquito. It's another matter whether that is done with knowledge, understanding, and responsibility for the consequences, but in common sense ...
Charge people who the deceased caught flu off... with manslaughter!
It is possible. If by wilful neglect they knew a person was vulnerable and they knew they had flu and yet behaved in a way that was very likely to infect that other person, then yes manslaughter could be possible I would think. Same applies to HIV or Covid
Happen often does it?
Any stats on the number of cases of someone being charged with manslaughter for passing on the flu?
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
But this is the problem Philip. On the cheap is all the government have left. There is no more money. They spent it all.
Unlike Brown who pissed it all up against the wall by spending when we should have been saving, this is a real emergency where spending was unavoidable. Brown could have avoided most of what befell Britain, but he was too arrogant.
I don't understand why Sunak is so adamant on 2/3 for regional lockdowns.
It would be cheaper to pay 80% (or even 100%) locally than going back into a national lockdown.
Don't cut corners or do a lockdown on the cheap, if you want it to work do it properly. Or don't do it and let people get to work.</blockquote On the cheap is all that is left. We are out of money and going backwards into a new recession
Mass destitution and unemployment are around the corner.
The mistake the government are again making is pissing about. They introduce Tier system, then change some regions a couple of days later, and now debating with Burnham if to put Manchester in Tier 3 or not.
You make a decision, you do it, you get on with it. Not 2 weeks of discussions and debates, briefings to the media, public here we are going into it, no we aren't, yes we are. You decide, you enact it within the day.
All this stems from Bozo’s failure - or inability - to do the politics first time around.
Actually, I think there is another issue. For all the lying and flip flopping for personal advantage, I genuinely believe that one thing Boris really fundamentally has a problem with is taking away people's freedoms. I think he is philosophically against lockdown measures.
It is why he was too slow to start with, hoping we could get away with people taking it upon themselves and following some general advice. Why he released the brakes too much too quickly. And now trying to find some sort of fudge that allows as many people as possible not to be locked down.
The problem is for a pandemic that is totally the wrong impulses.
You need a clear decisive lead in a pandemic, and also ruthlessness with your own team if they've contravened guidelines. And that's the big difference between Sturgeon and Boris.
I think Boris also misjudged the British public, thinking good old common sense would really help. Instead we have had the media mudding the waters and publicizing loopholes and exceptions and too many of the public deciding it doesn't apply to them.
Boris fault is he then repeats this incorrect presumption time and time again.
In other words and for the umpteenth time, Brits aren't Swedes.
Or Germans....
Or I think fairer would be to say, not a high enough percentage of us aren't. Many many people stuck to the rules, used common sense etc, but as we have seen too many people are happy to cut corners on isolation or when given an inch, take a mile, then complain the government have f##ked up.
Sure, but pols have constantly taken advantage and sometimes reveled in the apparently obstreperous and independent natures of Bits. Some of the dumb fcukers are still doing it...
'“There is an important difference between our country and many other countries around the world,” Johnson told the House of Commons yesterday. “Our country is a freedom-loving country.”
Johnson portrayed this as a primal impulse that resides deep in the national psyche, saying he was “deeply, spiritually reluctant to make any of these impositions, or infringe anyone’s freedom”. When it comes to liberty, if nothing else, the UK is world-beating. “Virtually every advance, from free speech to democracy, has come from this country,” claimed the self-proclaimed leader of the free world.'
You really think that politicians enjoy imposing lockdowns?
I really do
London admissions going up around 16% a week, with cases rising by 64% a week. (2 weeks' occurrence/sample date data to 7/10, best fit) Indicative of a phase where mainly young people are catching it perhaps.
It broadly the pattern that as things develop case increase and admissions increase come into line. In the north of England, Scotland and NI these line up closely, in the Midlands, South and Wales, they don't. (mind you, Welsh data seems to have done entirely its own thing throughout).
Most likely young people are saying "Sod it, I'm living my life" and catching a mild disease no worse than a two day hangover, whilst old folk are being more cautious and staying in
With the result that our politicians are outbidding each other to take away our freedom
Not my 16-year-old lad. He's not that selfish or stupid. Yes, he'd like to be out partying, but he understands that this makes it more likely that he will catch covid and pass it on to me, and that I might then pass it on to, e.g, my housebound mother and kill her.
Is it a matter of obligation that, knowing there is a pandemic around, you go and see your mother without taking any precautions?
Do you go and see her now?
I have to go round to do jobs for her. Shopping, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, household repairs, etc. Obviously I wear a mask and keep my distance while I'm there, but these precautions don't completely eliminate the risk that I would pass covid on to her. Also, as a man in my 50s, I don't much fancy catching it myself, so I am doubly grateful that my son is such a sensible lad.
Your son and you have proven that people can be trusted. The government thinks that your common sense needs to be regulated.
Not really. I also drive sensibly, but that doesn't mean that traffic laws should be abolished. My son and I are not necessarily typical of the general population.
One of you is obviously much brighter!
So never > 70mph on dual carriageways/motorways, then?
Occasionally, yes. But the fact that I may break the law in minor ways doesn't mean that the law shouldn't exist! Nor, of course, does the fact that I normally obey the law. I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here.
This idea you can just "fix" track and trace to such an extent that it captures an incredibly high percentage of people is for the birds. When when cases were very low and PHE by all accounts did a good job, they couldn't stop the spread. You can't do this manually, its too slow, even if it was well run, people were more responsive to the alerts and complied with the advice.
By the nature of the disease, by the time you find somebody its been several days of spreading.
The only people doing this successfully over a long period are South Korea....and that involves the state spying on its population and an incredible level of IT / automation that they build out over many years due to SARS.
New Zealand did it too. Someone posted a link last night where they had managed to drive the gap between onset of symptoms to positive test result down from +7.2 days to -2.7 days - i.e. 2.7 days before developing symptoms.
That enables you to isolate people in the pre-symptomatic phase where they are infectious.
That's through speeding up testing, testing contacts, proactively hunting for the virus as advised by the WHO. It has been done. We can do it too.
And as Max says continually we can do more to make sure that people we know are probably infectious actually do isolate.
New Zealand have done really well, but it is a bit of an exception because of its circumstances.
However, isolation definitely, and yes with this disease you have to go looking for it, not wait for people to come to you with it. But virtually nobody is actually able to do this. A population and density of the UK, we would need Project Moonshine+++. I just don't think the tech is there to do 500k tests a day with turn around in hours.
It's certainly true that Britain is not New Zealand, but we share some of their advantages. We're an island. We're a wealthy country with an established health infrastructure. We're a democracy with a well-educated population.
There are lots of countries that have beaten this virus. We're different to all of them, so we'd have to find our own exact method - but we can learn from them. We can aim a bit higher than preventing the hospitals from collapsing by isolating most of the country for most of the winter.
I don't understand why Sunak is so adamant on 2/3 for regional lockdowns.
It would be cheaper to pay 80% (or even 100%) locally than going back into a national lockdown.
Don't cut corners or do a lockdown on the cheap, if you want it to work do it properly. Or don't do it and let people get to work.
I agree with you, rarely. And this is precisely what Burnham and other northern leaders (including Tories) are saying.
It's particularly important because the sectors worst hit, notably hospitality, are very low wage sectors, where any pay cut is a hammer blow. Airline pilots could survive on 66%; bar workers not so much. Especially when people want to work but are legally banned from doing so.
The mistake the government are again making is pissing about. They introduce Tier system, then change some regions a couple of days later, and now debating with Burnham if to put Manchester in Tier 3 or not.
You make a decision, you do it, you get on with it. Not 2 weeks of discussions and debates, briefings to the media, public here we are going into it, no we aren't, yes we are. You decide, you enact it within the day.
All this stems from Bozo’s failure - or inability - to do the politics first time around.
Actually, I think there is another issue. For all the lying and flip flopping for personal advantage, I genuinely believe that one thing Boris really fundamentally has a problem with is taking away people's freedoms. I think he is philosophically against lockdown measures.
It is why he was too slow to start with, hoping we could get away with people taking it upon themselves and following some general advice. Why he released the brakes too much too quickly. And now trying to find some sort of fudge that allows as many people as possible not to be locked down.
The problem is for a pandemic that is totally the wrong impulses.
You need a clear decisive lead in a pandemic, and also ruthlessness with your own team if they've contravened guidelines. And that's the big difference between Sturgeon and Boris.
I think Boris also misjudged the British public, thinking good old common sense would really help. Instead we have had the media mudding the waters and publicizing loopholes and exceptions and too many of the public deciding it doesn't apply to them.
Boris fault is he then repeats this incorrect presumption time and time again.
Out of interest, I presume in Sweden and Germany the media don't spend hours on end explaining how if you do x and y you can avoid these particular rules applying to you.
Boris Johnson is a ditherer. It isn't his only problem, but it is one of his main lack-of-leadership-capability traits. He is permanently worried that whatever he does might make him unpopular. Margaret Thatcher was not encumbered by such a problem. That is why the latter was a leader and the former is not.
I recall when Sweden first took its divergent course on Covid certain parties considered that it shouldn't be compared to its close neighbours. Glad that's been cleared up.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
But this is the problem Philip. On the cheap is all the government have left. There is no more money. They spent it all.
Unlike Brown who pissed it all up against the wall by spending when we should have been saving, this is a real emergency where spending was unavoidable. Brown could have avoided most of what befell Britain, but he was too arrogant.
It was a real emergency for about two months.
Since then, it is just the biggest policy mistake by any British government, ever. And every day they double down and make it worse.
Only complete economic meltdown will stop Hancock and co now. Never mind. It is coming.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
Nor indeed to attempt to have the Mayor "own it'. If HMG wants a Tier 3 in GM then they will have to impose it.
I have something to say! About independence and Scottish Labour...
Independence - 58% support, if it holds up, is getting into consensus territory. It isn't close, unlike the Brexit referendum, nor is it particularly "divisive" - the soundbite of Tory reaction. The discussion moves from the Whether to the How.
I have issues with the wording of the other polling where 75% would vote Yes, leaving aside economic concerns. Nevertheless this does suggest Project Fear is baked into the 58% overall support figure. People may be over sanguine about the consequences of independence, but they are taking consequences as they perceive them into account.
Scottish Labour - desperately need independence to go away as an issue. Based on polling that suggests independence actually happens.
It is misleading, once Scottish voters are reminded that independence after the UK has left the single market and customs union and rejoining the EU means tariffs on all Scottish exports to England (where 70% of Scottish exports go) and likely the loss of sterling too they switch to 56% backing Remaining in the UK to only 44% wanting to Leave the UK and declare independence
The question is whether the 58% support for independence is really all there or whether it's still at 45-48% and the rest is "Boris is a twat" signalling that will go once someone like Kier is PM and does a new constitutional settlement and shows more respect for Scotland in the UK. The fundamentals on currency and Eurosceptic attitudes north of the border still show there is something to work with for 54-56% of Scots.
I am not quite as depressed today as I was yesterday.
That's good. But still, I would wager, pondering the wisdom of your Leave vote in the face of warnings that Brexit would jeopardize the Union that I sense you are more attached to than most who voted Leave.
The Union is much more important than Brexit to me but I am not convinced that it is relevant. Anyone who thinks that the SNP are ever, ever going to be short of a grievance clearly hasn't had the pleasure.
I think Sindy might have been coming anyway but Brexit is likely to accelerate and help it along. It provides the "material change in circumstances" to justify another referendum and it has delivered exactly the sort of UK government and PM that is anathema up there.
I don't understand why Sunak is so adamant on 2/3 for regional lockdowns.
It would be cheaper to pay 80% (or even 100%) locally than going back into a national lockdown.
Don't cut corners or do a lockdown on the cheap, if you want it to work do it properly. Or don't do it and let people get to work.
I agree with you, rarely. And this is precisely what Burnham and other northern leaders (including Tories) are saying.
It's particularly important because the sectors worst hit, notably hospitality, are very low wage sectors, where any pay cut is a hammer blow. Airline pilots could survive on 66%; bar workers not so much. Especially when people want to work but are legally banned from doing so.
Precisely. It is not "generous" to tell someone on minimum wage you're going to ban them by law from working, you're not going to pay their wages - and if they are caught working then they could face a £1000 fine.
It is madness. Just pay the 80% in full, or don't do a localised lockdown but then that'd cost more. It is a complete false economy trying to cut corners here and will really build up resentment.
It is madness and I can't see this madness surviving past Wednesday lunchtime as it would be a total gift to Kier for this to be next wednesday's PMQs topic.
I know I am a bore on this, but why the hell aren't a team from Dept of Health and SAGE in Sweden now asking for all the detail on how they are managing this? Because we aren't.
Why Sweden? That's a nice bit of cherry-picking by isam, but overall Sweden has done quite badly to date, with a high number of deaths per million. We'd do better looking at Norway, or Greece, or Australia, or Germany, or Japan, or Taiwan, or any number of other places for that matter.
Because Sweden appears to have taken a big hit upfront, but is now managing close to normal life, whilst most other countries have taken smaller upfront hits and are now mired in eternal half-lockdown. Many people are now advocating countries like the UK also face the music, take the hit and then return to some form of normality, rather than staggering on in an indefinite purgatory.
If one is unsure of the merits or otherwise of this approach, then studying Sweden to try to understand what worked, what didn't work, and in both cases why, makes a certain amount of sense.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
You think paying people 2/3rds of their wages for sitting at home is on the cheap? What did the Indian Government pay people when it shut businesses?
Yes I do. We're not India and people aren't going to have 2/3rd of the bills.
80% worked because people aren't paying for commuting or eating out while working or spending as much on petrol etc so it worked. Two thirds is an insult to those who are being told they're not allowed to work. If you don't want people to work then you need to pay them not to work . . . or get out of their way and let them work!
2/3rds for not working is generous, not on the cheap
For us self employed 1/3rd for working looks to be the future. I have been working flat out since August, but the penny has dropped that these were clients set up before March. Meagre pickings since lockdown was eased.
I don't understand why Sunak is so adamant on 2/3 for regional lockdowns.
It would be cheaper to pay 80% (or even 100%) locally than going back into a national lockdown.
Don't cut corners or do a lockdown on the cheap, if you want it to work do it properly. Or don't do it and let people get to work.
I agree with you, rarely. And this is precisely what Burnham and other northern leaders (including Tories) are saying.
It's particularly important because the sectors worst hit, notably hospitality, are very low wage sectors, where any pay cut is a hammer blow. Airline pilots could survive on 66%; bar workers not so much. Especially when people want to work but are legally banned from doing so.
Precisely. It is not "generous" to tell someone on minimum wage you're going to ban them by law from working, you're not going to pay their wages - and if they are caught working then they could face a £1000 fine.
It is madness. Just pay the 80% in full, or don't do a localised lockdown but then that'd cost more. It is a complete false economy trying to cut corners here and will really build up resentment.
It is madness and I can't see this madness surviving past Wednesday lunchtime as it would be a total gift to Kier for this to be next wednesday's PMQs topic.
The mistake the government are again making is pissing about. They introduce Tier system, then change some regions a couple of days later, and now debating with Burnham if to put Manchester in Tier 3 or not.
You make a decision, you do it, you get on with it. Not 2 weeks of discussions and debates, briefings to the media, public here we are going into it, no we aren't, yes we are. You decide, you enact it within the day.
All this stems from Bozo’s failure - or inability - to do the politics first time around.
Actually, I think there is another issue. For all the lying and flip flopping for personal advantage, I genuinely believe that one thing Boris really fundamentally has a problem with is taking away people's freedoms. I think he is philosophically against lockdown measures.
It is why he was too slow to start with, hoping we could get away with people taking it upon themselves and following some general advice. Why he released the brakes too much too quickly. And now trying to find some sort of fudge that allows as many people as possible not to be locked down.
The problem is for a pandemic that is totally the wrong impulses.
Fine, but whether or not the northern mayors could be got on side, what concessions they might need to support the move to tier three or, conversely, if they could not be got onside, whether the government felt powerful enough to proceed, and if so what compensatory measures might ameliorate the protests, were all obvious factors back on Monday. There is no new information available now that changes the essential dynamics of the government’s choices.
What we actually saw was a government that wanted to move the north to tier three, failed to engage in any meaningful discussion with the mayors to secure their support, then retreated from the decision in the face of concerted opposition from Burnham and others last weekend, stuck Liverpool in anyway just because tier three had to mean something somewhere, tried to claim the mayor’s support in Parliament only to have this promptly denied, tried to claim their own Tory Birmingham mayor’s support for the broader policy only to have him deny this too.
Then no sooner was the decision announced on Monday, they leaked that they were looking at the whole question again, went into a new round of discussions with the mayors (with a reported attitude that pretty much guaranteed failure), and now face precisely the same decision they might have made last weekend.
Similar for London.
Thus, once again, Bozo’s inability to rise to the challenges of his role has undermined the clarity and credibility of the government’s new three tier flagship policy. Just as we saw with the previous five-level strategy that died a death the minute Bozo was entrusted with explaining it to us.
Truly, it is a pitiful display of a government well out of its depth.
You really think that politicians enjoy imposing lockdowns?
I really do
London admissions going up around 16% a week, with cases rising by 64% a week. (2 weeks' occurrence/sample date data to 7/10, best fit) Indicative of a phase where mainly young people are catching it perhaps.
It broadly the pattern that as things develop case increase and admissions increase come into line. In the north of England, Scotland and NI these line up closely, in the Midlands, South and Wales, they don't. (mind you, Welsh data seems to have done entirely its own thing throughout).
Most likely young people are saying "Sod it, I'm living my life" and catching a mild disease no worse than a two day hangover, whilst old folk are being more cautious and staying in
With the result that our politicians are outbidding each other to take away our freedom
Not my 16-year-old lad. He's not that selfish or stupid. Yes, he'd like to be out partying, but he understands that this makes it more likely that he will catch covid and pass it on to me, and that I might then pass it on to, e.g, my housebound mother and kill her.
Is it a matter of obligation that, knowing there is a pandemic around, you go and see your mother without taking any precautions?
Do you go and see her now?
I have to go round to do jobs for her. Shopping, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, household repairs, etc. Obviously I wear a mask and keep my distance while I'm there, but these precautions don't completely eliminate the risk that I would pass covid on to her. Also, as a man in my 50s, I don't much fancy catching it myself, so I am doubly grateful that my son is such a sensible lad.
Your son and you have proven that people can be trusted. The government thinks that your common sense needs to be regulated.
Not really. I also drive sensibly, but that doesn't mean that traffic laws should be abolished. My son and I are not necessarily typical of the general population.
One of you is obviously much brighter!
So never > 70mph on dual carriageways/motorways, then?
Occasionally, yes. But the fact that I may break the law in minor ways doesn't mean that the law shouldn't exist! Nor, of course, does the fact that I normally obey the law. I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here.
You ignore the law when it suits you is the point. As will people with the Covid laws.
The law is saying you can't meet someone from a different household in a garden if you are 20m apart. That is like a law saying you must drive at 20mph on the M1.
The mistake the government are again making is pissing about. They introduce Tier system, then change some regions a couple of days later, and now debating with Burnham if to put Manchester in Tier 3 or not.
You make a decision, you do it, you get on with it. Not 2 weeks of discussions and debates, briefings to the media, public here we are going into it, no we aren't, yes we are. You decide, you enact it within the day.
All this stems from Bozo’s failure - or inability - to do the politics first time around.
Actually, I think there is another issue. For all the lying and flip flopping for personal advantage, I genuinely believe that one thing Boris really fundamentally has a problem with is taking away people's freedoms. I think he is philosophically against lockdown measures.
It is why he was too slow to start with, hoping we could get away with people taking it upon themselves and following some general advice. Why he released the brakes too much too quickly. And now trying to find some sort of fudge that allows as many people as possible not to be locked down.
The problem is for a pandemic that is totally the wrong impulses.
You need a clear decisive lead in a pandemic, and also ruthlessness with your own team if they've contravened guidelines. And that's the big difference between Sturgeon and Boris.
I think Boris also misjudged the British public, thinking good old common sense would really help. Instead we have had the media mudding the waters and publicizing loopholes and exceptions and too many of the public deciding it doesn't apply to them.
Boris fault is he then repeats this incorrect presumption time and time again.
In other words and for the umpteenth time, Brits aren't Swedes.
Or Germans....
Or I think fairer would be to say, not a high enough percentage of us aren't. Many many people stuck to the rules, used common sense etc, but as we have seen too many people are happy to cut corners on isolation or when given an inch, take a mile, then complain the government have f##ked up.
Sure, but pols have constantly taken advantage and sometimes reveled in the apparently obstreperous and independent natures of Bits. Some of the dumb fcukers are still doing it...
'“There is an important difference between our country and many other countries around the world,” Johnson told the House of Commons yesterday. “Our country is a freedom-loving country.”
Johnson portrayed this as a primal impulse that resides deep in the national psyche, saying he was “deeply, spiritually reluctant to make any of these impositions, or infringe anyone’s freedom”. When it comes to liberty, if nothing else, the UK is world-beating. “Virtually every advance, from free speech to democracy, has come from this country,” claimed the self-proclaimed leader of the free world.'
Yes, it made me cringe. One aspect of so-called Britishness that I have always liked was that educated British people normally show distaste at boasting about being British. If you are confident in yourself or your identity you don't need to vocalise a pretence of superiority.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
Nor indeed to attempt to have the Mayor "own it'. If HMG wants a Tier 3 in GM then they will have to impose it.
I'm amazed that they haven't compromised on the 80% furlough. Burnham called for that last week and he was right to do so, on Monday they could have compromised, Burnham and the other northern leaders could have claimed that as a victory earlier this week and everyone in the region could agree to move forward in Tier 3.
Considering the cost differential would be in the millions not the billions unlike most things Covid-related it seems an absolute no brainer.
It is absolutely immoral to tell people they're not allowed to work for a living and you're going to leave them out of pocket as a result - and you'll fine them if you find them working.
I don't understand why Sunak is so adamant on 2/3 for regional lockdowns.
It would be cheaper to pay 80% (or even 100%) locally than going back into a national lockdown.
Don't cut corners or do a lockdown on the cheap, if you want it to work do it properly. Or don't do it and let people get to work.
And that is the compromise they could offer. Yes. we're shuttering your business again. Here's some cash. Problem is that Cummings doesn't do compromise and Shagger won't agree to it if Dishi wants it.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
Nor indeed to attempt to have the Mayor "own it'. If HMG wants a Tier 3 in GM then they will have to impose it.
I'm amazed that they haven't compromised on the 80% furlough. Burnham called for that last week and he was right to do so, on Monday they could have compromised, Burnham and the other northern leaders could have claimed that as a victory earlier this week and everyone in the region could agree to move forward in Tier 3.
Considering the cost differential would be in the millions not the billions unlike most things Covid-related it seems an absolute no brainer.
It is absolutely immoral to tell people they're not allowed to work for a living and you're going to leave them out of pocket as a result - and you'll fine them if you find them working.
I genuinely think that Sunak realises that for a large number of those furloughed it is all over and that they are not going back to their "jobs" and hence he is trying to taper the support to preserve current (but of course not future) government finances.
I recall when Sweden first took its divergent course on Covid certain parties considered that it shouldn't be compared to its close neighbours. Glad that's been cleared up.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
Nor indeed to attempt to have the Mayor "own it'. If HMG wants a Tier 3 in GM then they will have to impose it.
I'm amazed that they haven't compromised on the 80% furlough. Burnham called for that last week and he was right to do so, on Monday they could have compromised, Burnham and the other northern leaders could have claimed that as a victory earlier this week and everyone in the region could agree to move forward in Tier 3.
Considering the cost differential would be in the millions not the billions unlike most things Covid-related it seems an absolute no brainer.
It is absolutely immoral to tell people they're not allowed to work for a living and you're going to leave them out of pocket as a result - and you'll fine them if you find them working.
2/3 of minimum wage just is not acceptable. Amazingly HMG appears to have achieved consensus with all the GM politicians. They're all against them.
I have something to say! About independence and Scottish Labour...
Independence - 58% support, if it holds up, is getting into consensus territory. It isn't close, unlike the Brexit referendum, nor is it particularly "divisive" - the soundbite of Tory reaction. The discussion moves from the Whether to the How.
I have issues with the wording of the other polling where 75% would vote Yes, leaving aside economic concerns. Nevertheless this does suggest Project Fear is baked into the 58% overall support figure. People may be over sanguine about the consequences of independence, but they are taking consequences as they perceive them into account.
Scottish Labour - desperately need independence to go away as an issue. Based on polling that suggests independence actually happens.
It is misleading, once Scottish voters are reminded that independence after the UK has left the single market and customs union and rejoining the EU means tariffs on all Scottish exports to England (where 70% of Scottish exports go) and likely the loss of sterling too they switch to 56% backing Remaining in the UK to only 44% wanting to Leave the UK and declare independence
The question is whether the 58% support for independence is really all there or whether it's still at 45-48% and the rest is "Boris is a twat" signalling that will go once someone like Kier is PM and does a new constitutional settlement and shows more respect for Scotland in the UK. The fundamentals on currency and Eurosceptic attitudes north of the border still show there is something to work with for 54-56% of Scots.
I am not quite as depressed today as I was yesterday.
That's good. But still, I would wager, pondering the wisdom of your Leave vote in the face of warnings that Brexit would jeopardize the Union that I sense you are more attached to than most who voted Leave.
The Union is much more important than Brexit to me but I am not convinced that it is relevant. Anyone who thinks that the SNP are ever, ever going to be short of a grievance clearly hasn't had the pleasure.
This is a very myopic argument. The question isn't whether the SNP have a grievance, but whether those grievances have purchase in wider society, and you have personally contributed to the clearest one they could ever have wished for.
Sigh. Unlike JRM I will try to give a substantive answer. Scotland is a part of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is the body that had membership of the EU. The United Kingdom, as a whole, was the correct body to decide whether or not we should leave. We voted to leave. Over 1m Scots voted to leave. They were in the minority in Scotland but that was of as little relevance as the majority in a particular housing estate within a constituency. What mattered was the overall result.
If it were not so then there is no Union. Scotland does not have a special status within the Union that entitles its views to override the views of the majority. It is entitled to express its opinion as a part of the whole and it did that. That's it.
So you can identify as Scottish and British, but as part of the union, your Scottish identity has no constitutional meaning. You are absolutely correct that this is how the UK union works, but is it sensible to highlight this fact to people in such a blatant way?
I have something to say! About independence and Scottish Labour...
Independence - 58% support, if it holds up, is getting into consensus territory. It isn't close, unlike the Brexit referendum, nor is it particularly "divisive" - the soundbite of Tory reaction. The discussion moves from the Whether to the How.
I have issues with the wording of the other polling where 75% would vote Yes, leaving aside economic concerns. Nevertheless this does suggest Project Fear is baked into the 58% overall support figure. People may be over sanguine about the consequences of independence, but they are taking consequences as they perceive them into account.
Scottish Labour - desperately need independence to go away as an issue. Based on polling that suggests independence actually happens.
It is misleading, once Scottish voters are reminded that independence after the UK has left the single market and customs union and rejoining the EU means tariffs on all Scottish exports to England (where 70% of Scottish exports go) and likely the loss of sterling too they switch to 56% backing Remaining in the UK to only 44% wanting to Leave the UK and declare independence
The question is whether the 58% support for independence is really all there or whether it's still at 45-48% and the rest is "Boris is a twat" signalling that will go once someone like Kier is PM and does a new constitutional settlement and shows more respect for Scotland in the UK. The fundamentals on currency and Eurosceptic attitudes north of the border still show there is something to work with for 54-56% of Scots.
I am not quite as depressed today as I was yesterday.
That's good. But still, I would wager, pondering the wisdom of your Leave vote in the face of warnings that Brexit would jeopardize the Union that I sense you are more attached to than most who voted Leave.
It was a risk I considered and factored in. My analysis was that Scots weren’t that much less eurosceptic than the rest of the UK (as polling even now on the Euro shows) and my assumption was that a practical exit would be negotiated and implemented which could take the whole of the UK with it. This is a big reason why I supported May’s deal.
The alternative to that was that the UK (as a whole) could never take a fundamental foreign policy decision that Scotland might disagree with because it would break the Union. If that was the case - that attachment to the EU was stronger than the UK - then the Union was already doomed in the medium-long term as it was too fragile to survive any serious disagreement.
There’s the antithesis of this. Gibraltar, for instance, voted overwhelmingly to Remain but it’s sense of Britishness is so strong that it immediately accepted it and prepared for a full break. There is not the remotest of a hint that it might opt for, say, joint sovereignty with Spain as a solution to largely stay in.
The May deal would have changed things. Don't know how much but it would have done. As it is, we have these guys and we have "Boris". He makes MY blood boil so god knows how he's going down up there. I bet 5 points of the 58 is due to that.
I know I am a bore on this, but why the hell aren't a team from Dept of Health and SAGE in Sweden now asking for all the detail on how they are managing this? Because we aren't.
Why Sweden? That's a nice bit of cherry-picking by isam, but overall Sweden has done quite badly to date, with a high number of deaths per million. We'd do better looking at Norway, or Greece, or Australia, or Germany, or Japan, or Taiwan, or any number of other places for that matter.
Because Sweden appears to have taken a big hit upfront, but is now managing close to normal life, whilst most other countries have taken smaller upfront hits and are now mired in eternal half-lockdown. Many people are now advocating countries like the UK also face the music, take the hit and then return to some form of normality, rather than staggering on in an indefinite purgatory.
If one is unsure of the merits or otherwise of this approach, then studying Sweden to try to understand what worked, what didn't work, and in both cases why, makes a certain amount of sense.
Sweden is also a far different country to the UK, in terms of population density and behaviour of the population. And I'd say Denmark is a bit more Northern European than Scandinavian on both counts.
When people die of flu, is it the person they caught it off that killed them?
Yes. The person is the vector. . Like a malaria-carrying mosquito. It's another matter whether that is done with knowledge, understanding, and responsibility for the consequences, but in common sense ...
Charge people who the deceased caught flu off... with manslaughter!
It is possible. If by wilful neglect they knew a person was vulnerable and they knew they had flu and yet behaved in a way that was very likely to infect that other person, then yes manslaughter could be possible I would think. Same applies to HIV or Covid
Happen often does it?
Any stats on the number of cases of someone being charged with manslaughter for passing on the flu?
Nope, absolutely none that I am aware of, though I think most decent people would think the idea of behaving in such a way as to negligently pass a potentially lethal virus to someone else with little concern to the consequences as abhorrent.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
But this is the problem Philip. On the cheap is all the government have left. There is no more money. They spent it all.
Cobblers. There was no money left when Liam Byrne left his comedy note in 2010 when we were £1tn in debt. We still managed to find enough cash to be £2tn+ in debt now and we'll find yet more to be £3tn in debt.
All the fiscally sovereign nations are adrift on the same shit creek. We'll all print money together.
I know I am a bore on this, but why the hell aren't a team from Dept of Health and SAGE in Sweden now asking for all the detail on how they are managing this? Because we aren't.
Why Sweden? That's a nice bit of cherry-picking by isam, but overall Sweden has done quite badly to date, with a high number of deaths per million. We'd do better looking at Norway, or Greece, or Australia, or Germany, or Japan, or Taiwan, or any number of other places for that matter.
Sweden with (when I last looked) the twelfth worst fatality rate in the world isn't an obvious role model for the UK (sixth worst at the time), when you have a couple of hundred other countries to choose from.
I don't think many countries have done everything right, and certainly not Sweden. I think they made the right decision on keeping universities closed. Also their furlough scheme was/is more sustainable than ours (but not necessarily better than Germany etc). They made the same mistake as us on care homes. I also think they made a mistake not locking down when it became apparent the epidemic was going out of control. Ultimately, a lot of people died in Sweden who would still be alive with better virus management, as is the case here.
I am going to make a call out for Rwanda's approach to the epidemic. Genuinely impressive for a not at all wealthy country, as evidenced by a very low death rate.
I have something to say! About independence and Scottish Labour...
Independence - 58% support, if it holds up, is getting into consensus territory. It isn't close, unlike the Brexit referendum, nor is it particularly "divisive" - the soundbite of Tory reaction. The discussion moves from the Whether to the How.
I have issues with the wording of the other polling where 75% would vote Yes, leaving aside economic concerns. Nevertheless this does suggest Project Fear is baked into the 58% overall support figure. People may be over sanguine about the consequences of independence, but they are taking consequences as they perceive them into account.
Scottish Labour - desperately need independence to go away as an issue. Based on polling that suggests independence actually happens.
It is misleading, once Scottish voters are reminded that independence after the UK has left the single market and customs union and rejoining the EU means tariffs on all Scottish exports to England (where 70% of Scottish exports go) and likely the loss of sterling too they switch to 56% backing Remaining in the UK to only 44% wanting to Leave the UK and declare independence
The question is whether the 58% support for independence is really all there or whether it's still at 45-48% and the rest is "Boris is a twat" signalling that will go once someone like Kier is PM and does a new constitutional settlement and shows more respect for Scotland in the UK. The fundamentals on currency and Eurosceptic attitudes north of the border still show there is something to work with for 54-56% of Scots.
I am not quite as depressed today as I was yesterday.
That's good. But still, I would wager, pondering the wisdom of your Leave vote in the face of warnings that Brexit would jeopardize the Union that I sense you are more attached to than most who voted Leave.
The Union is much more important than Brexit to me but I am not convinced that it is relevant. Anyone who thinks that the SNP are ever, ever going to be short of a grievance clearly hasn't had the pleasure.
This is a very myopic argument. The question isn't whether the SNP have a grievance, but whether those grievances have purchase in wider society, and you have personally contributed to the clearest one they could ever have wished for.
Sigh. Unlike JRM I will try to give a substantive answer. Scotland is a part of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is the body that had membership of the EU. The United Kingdom, as a whole, was the correct body to decide whether or not we should leave. We voted to leave. Over 1m Scots voted to leave. They were in the minority in Scotland but that was of as little relevance as the majority in a particular housing estate within a constituency. What mattered was the overall result.
If it were not so then there is no Union. Scotland does not have a special status within the Union that entitles its views to override the views of the majority. It is entitled to express its opinion as a part of the whole and it did that. That's it.
So you can identify as Scottish and British, but as part of the union, your Scottish identity has no constitutional meaning. You are absolutely correct that this is how the UK union works, but is it sensible to highlight this fact to people in such a blatant way?
Quite. One can only be Scottish by residence (e.g. for student fees [edit] or the indy referendum).
The other point that strikes me about your comments today is the chap/chapess who denied you had right to comment on Scotland because you were an "English European" - as if only British imperialists like HYUFD were the only English folk with any right to comment on Scotland
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
Nor indeed to attempt to have the Mayor "own it'. If HMG wants a Tier 3 in GM then they will have to impose it.
I'm amazed that they haven't compromised on the 80% furlough. Burnham called for that last week and he was right to do so, on Monday they could have compromised, Burnham and the other northern leaders could have claimed that as a victory earlier this week and everyone in the region could agree to move forward in Tier 3.
Considering the cost differential would be in the millions not the billions unlike most things Covid-related it seems an absolute no brainer.
It is absolutely immoral to tell people they're not allowed to work for a living and you're going to leave them out of pocket as a result - and you'll fine them if you find them working.
But Philip, this strategy is all the government has left. They spent all the money. All of it. They are running on empty. As Hancock casually shuts down more vast swathes of the economy.
Some of us have been pointing out the total insanity of this for months. Can you now see it too?
I have something to say! About independence and Scottish Labour...
Independence - 58% support, if it holds up, is getting into consensus territory. It isn't close, unlike the Brexit referendum, nor is it particularly "divisive" - the soundbite of Tory reaction. The discussion moves from the Whether to the How.
I have issues with the wording of the other polling where 75% would vote Yes, leaving aside economic concerns. Nevertheless this does suggest Project Fear is baked into the 58% overall support figure. People may be over sanguine about the consequences of independence, but they are taking consequences as they perceive them into account.
Scottish Labour - desperately need independence to go away as an issue. Based on polling that suggests independence actually happens.
It is misleading, once Scottish voters are reminded that independence after the UK has left the single market and customs union and rejoining the EU means tariffs on all Scottish exports to England (where 70% of Scottish exports go) and likely the loss of sterling too they switch to 56% backing Remaining in the UK to only 44% wanting to Leave the UK and declare independence
The question is whether the 58% support for independence is really all there or whether it's still at 45-48% and the rest is "Boris is a twat" signalling that will go once someone like Kier is PM and does a new constitutional settlement and shows more respect for Scotland in the UK. The fundamentals on currency and Eurosceptic attitudes north of the border still show there is something to work with for 54-56% of Scots.
I am not quite as depressed today as I was yesterday.
That's good. But still, I would wager, pondering the wisdom of your Leave vote in the face of warnings that Brexit would jeopardize the Union that I sense you are more attached to than most who voted Leave.
It was a risk I considered and factored in. My analysis was that Scots weren’t that much less eurosceptic than the rest of the UK (as polling even now on the Euro shows) and my assumption was that a practical exit would be negotiated and implemented which could take the whole of the UK with it. This is a big reason why I supported May’s deal.
The alternative to that was that the UK (as a whole) could never take a fundamental foreign policy decision that Scotland might disagree with because it would break the Union. If that was the case - that attachment to the EU was stronger than the UK - then the Union was already doomed in the medium-long term as it was too fragile to survive any serious disagreement.
There’s the antithesis of this. Gibraltar, for instance, voted overwhelmingly to Remain but it’s sense of Britishness is so strong that it immediately accepted it and prepared for a full break. There is not the remotest of a hint that it might opt for, say, joint sovereignty with Spain as a solution to largely stay in.
The May deal would have changed things. Don't know how much but it would have done. As it is, we have these guys and we have "Boris". He makes MY blood boil so god knows how he's going down up there. I bet 5 points of the 58 is due to that.
Yes Scots Nationalists (and Putin) must desperately hope that Johnson is not replaced. He is to their cause what Corbyn was to Brexit. A most useful of useful idiots.
This chart would suggest that we are reaching a peak in the case numbers. Caveats: would want to check there isn't an increasing delay in processing tests, or an increase in the positivity rate.
When people die of flu, is it the person they caught it off that killed them?
Yes. The person is the vector. . Like a malaria-carrying mosquito. It's another matter whether that is done with knowledge, understanding, and responsibility for the consequences, but in common sense ...
Charge people who the deceased caught flu off... with manslaughter!
It is possible. If by wilful neglect they knew a person was vulnerable and they knew they had flu and yet behaved in a way that was very likely to infect that other person, then yes manslaughter could be possible I would think. Same applies to HIV or Covid
Happen often does it?
Any stats on the number of cases of someone being charged with manslaughter for passing on the flu?
Nope, absolutely none that I am aware of, though I think most decent people would think the idea of behaving in such a way as to negligently pass a potentially lethal virus to someone else with little concern to the consequences as abhorrent.
Yes, but we are talking about young people not being able to socialise in case they get the disease, pass it on to their parents, who then pass it on to theirs, not people deliberately infecting others. I think at least the young should be allowed to have some fun
The ship named 'Economic Catastrophe' is already sailing and the wind is behind it.
Rocks and hard places spring to mind. It is bad if you look to the left or right.
Oh its lethal. For the 80 plus with two co-morbidities. We have bankrupted ourselves for decades to try to (unsuccessfully) save a cohort of citizens who never even existed as a cohort at any other point in human history. Because they never got to that age.
Its not unlike Bill Murray in Groundhog Day trying to save the old tramp guy, But Murray got to start again. We cannot. Our wealth is gone.
Specimen day data has updated, it still looks like we're in a gradual levelling off.
It was the almighty forensic ones threat to lock us up via a Circuit Break that scared the disease back into it's box
If Corbyn or Boris had suggested it, Covid would have just laughed
Indeed. The London decision looks very short sighted, the doubling period is still getting longer. The government is going to destroy the London economy to make it look like they aren't targeting the north. Fucking bullshit.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
But this is the problem Philip. On the cheap is all the government have left. There is no more money. They spent it all.
Unlike Brown who pissed it all up against the wall by spending when we should have been saving, this is a real emergency where spending was unavoidable. Brown could have avoided most of what befell Britain, but he was too arrogant.
Nonsense on stilts as regards Brown and the global financial crisis but also, if you read the papers, as regards now because the IMF has just reminded governments there is no need for austerity to get out of this hole.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
But this is the problem Philip. On the cheap is all the government have left. There is no more money. They spent it all.
Cobblers. There was no money left when Liam Byrne left his comedy note in 2010 when we were £1tn in debt. We still managed to find enough cash to be £2tn+ in debt now and we'll find yet more to be £3tn in debt.
All the fiscally sovereign nations are adrift on the same shit creek. We'll all print money together.
The issue here is not the debt created by this current crisis its if we continue to build up and run a massive deficit once the immediate crisis is past.
I will be very pleasantly surprised if a mixture of tiers 1, 2 and 3 is sufficient to bring this under control, but that does look possible today. Here's hoping tomorrow doesn't shatter this optimism.
Specimen day data has updated, it still looks like we're in a gradual levelling off.
It was the almighty forensic ones threat to lock us up via a Circuit Break that scared the disease back into it's box
If Corbyn or Boris had suggested it, Covid would have just laughed
Indeed. The London decision looks very short sighted, the doubling period is still getting longer. The government is going to destroy the London economy to make it look like they aren't targeting the north. Fucking bullshit.
Did we not lockdown the whole country to save London in March?
Specimen day data has updated, it still looks like we're in a gradual levelling off.
It was the almighty forensic ones threat to lock us up via a Circuit Break that scared the disease back into it's box
If Corbyn or Boris had suggested it, Covid would have just laughed
Indeed. The London decision looks very short sighted, the doubling period is still getting longer. The government is going to destroy the London economy to make it look like they aren't targeting the north. Fucking bullshit.
They couldn't handle Burnham trolling them about it so caved. As usual.
And you and I both voted for this shit shower. Then again, not sure what Jezza would have done....
Specimen day data has updated, it still looks like we're in a gradual levelling off.
It was the almighty forensic ones threat to lock us up via a Circuit Break that scared the disease back into it's box
If Corbyn or Boris had suggested it, Covid would have just laughed
Indeed. The London decision looks very short sighted, the doubling period is still getting longer. The government is going to destroy the London economy to make it look like they aren't targeting the north. Fucking bullshit.
Just try and tell me that's a clinical decision. It isn't. Its political. And ffs what kind of politics is it. Its the politics of the effing madhouse.
In case anyone hasn't noticed I don't like Mr Johnson much, but imagine if his prevarication and procrastination coincided with a downturn in the virus, or at least in lower than expected deaths, or a sudden announcement of a substantial roll out of a vaccine? He will then spin it all as deliberate and be seen as a hero. Can he be that lucky? Unlikely but even I would raise a glass to his lack of decisiveness if that resulted!
The ship named 'Economic Catastrophe' is already sailing and the wind is behind it.
Rocks and hard places spring to mind. It is bad if you look to the left or right.
This. The plague is real enough, and so are long term effects from it. The incoming economic devastation is very real too.
These are surely the effects of the the brutal propaganda the government has pumped into people
If you tell people a plague is serious, the will feel 'effects' from it. Of course they will. How could it be otherwise?
Nothing to do with the Gov't, personal anecdote from people I know that have had it.
It is undoubtedly very serious and can be so for anyone that gets it. The issue is the policy response to it. Calling it a "plague" is not helping, nor will it help when, finally, the government does want us to get back to Pret.
Another cracking long read from Politico's Tim Alberta. A flavour: ...He shook his head. “There’s a lot of racism in Arizona, man. People have always been afraid of the government here. That’s why a lot of my Chicano friends never even bothered before,” Morales said. “But now, with Trump, it’s like they don’t give a shit anymore. I talk to all my Chicano friends, and they’re all registered, they’re all voting, they’re all voting against Trump. And the weird thing is, some of them even gave him credit for getting the economy going—which, I disagree with, but whatever—and it’s still not enough. They’re still voting his ass out.”...
Specimen day data has updated, it still looks like we're in a gradual levelling off.
It was the almighty forensic ones threat to lock us up via a Circuit Break that scared the disease back into it's box
If Corbyn or Boris had suggested it, Covid would have just laughed
Indeed. The London decision looks very short sighted, the doubling period is still getting longer. The government is going to destroy the London economy to make it look like they aren't targeting the north. Fucking bullshit.
Did we not lockdown the whole country to save London in March?
We locked down the whole country in March to "save" the whole country.
Deputy leader of Manchester actually saying the people will not comply with these restrictions
Encouraging law breaking is a disgrace
It has descending into tribal politics now. Dan Jarvis was the same yesterday when interviewed, government restrictions bad, terrible awful, will kill businesses, Starmer plan, mhhhh yes well, government restrictions bad.
Is it tribal or have Sir Graham Brady and William Wragg joined the Labour party?
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the PA news agency: “The case has not been made for Greater Manchester to move into a Tier 3 ‘lockdown’.
“There is widespread concern amongst Members of Parliament, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, all resisting the suggestion that Tier 3 should be introduced.”
Hazel Grove’s William Wragg said: “I have news from Greater Manchester where the impossible has been achieved.
“All of the Members of Parliament, the leaders of the councils and indeed the mayor, surprisingly, are in agreement with one another, the meeting we had earlier today was entirely pointless.
“I may as well have talked to a wall, quite frankly.”
Because Burnham does not like local lockdown he wants to damage the parts of the country where covid is a lesser threat
Sorry but that's ridiculous. Burnham represents his own area he doesn't represent the whole country.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
But this is the problem Philip. On the cheap is all the government have left. There is no more money. They spent it all.
Cobblers. There was no money left when Liam Byrne left his comedy note in 2010 when we were £1tn in debt. We still managed to find enough cash to be £2tn+ in debt now and we'll find yet more to be £3tn in debt.
All the fiscally sovereign nations are adrift on the same shit creek. We'll all print money together.
The issue here is not the debt created by this current crisis its if we continue to build up and run a massive deficit once the immediate crisis is past.
I will be very pleasantly surprised if a mixture of tiers 1, 2 and 3 is sufficient to bring this under control, but that does look possible today. Here's hoping tomorrow doesn't shatter this optimism.
We are very much in a one day at a time situation. I think positivity rates should start falling soon too.
In case anyone hasn't noticed I don't like Mr Johnson much, but imagine if his prevarication and procrastination coincided with a downturn in the virus, or at least in lower than expected deaths, or a sudden announcement of a substantial roll out of a vaccine? He will then spin it all as deliberate and be seen as a hero. Can he be that lucky? Unlikely but even I would raise a glass to his lack of decisiveness if that resulted!
- Half term - R is between 1.2 and 1.4 - SAGE (apparently) estimates that without schools R drops 0.2-05
I will be very pleasantly surprised if a mixture of tiers 1, 2 and 3 is sufficient to bring this under control, but that does look possible today. Here's hoping tomorrow doesn't shatter this optimism.
Local lockdowns are problematic. Germany, with much more powerful local fiefs, has the same issue. You end up with the centre imposing on the locality. This doesn't go down well.
OTOH you are trying to match the measures to the circumstances on the ground, which is a good thing.
Comments
Or I think fairer would be to say, not a high enough percentage of us aren't. Many many people stuck to the rules, used common sense etc, but as we have seen too many people are happy to cut corners on isolation or when given an inch, take a mile, then complain the government have f##ked up.
That enables you to isolate people in the pre-symptomatic phase where they are infectious.
That's through speeding up testing, testing contacts, proactively hunting for the virus as advised by the WHO. It has been done. We can do it too.
And as Max says continually we can do more to make sure that people we know are probably infectious actually do isolate.
A national lockdown, or a properly funded local one, would be best for his reason. He's right to call for it. If the rest of the country doesn't want a national lockdown then the logical decision is to pay properly for a localised one. Not try to get one on the cheap.
PS Edit: IANAL!
If you look at the various time-lapsed maps showing the infection rates, you can see epicentres from which the disease flows in and out - but its almost entirely a local effect, which ripples out into its surroundings, you don't get clusters suddenly developing in holiday areas.
For various good reasons, I'm in a support bubble with a household over 150 miles away. I won't see the funny side of that being messed about. Being honest, I've been largely compliant with the regs, but I'll just ignore any travel restrictions if they are imposed - I've a job which can fairly easily justify my being anywhere in the country, and I was well on my way to becoming a complete fruitloop during the original lockdown (I was furloughed for 4 weeks and almost went mad).
80% worked because people aren't paying for commuting or eating out while working or spending as much on petrol etc so it worked. Two thirds is an insult to those who are being told they're not allowed to work. If you don't want people to work then you need to pay them not to work . . . or get out of their way and let them work!
However, isolation definitely, and yes with this disease you have to go looking for it, not wait for people to come to you with it. But virtually nobody is actually able to do this. A population and density of the UK, we would need Project Moonshine+++. I just don't think the tech is there to do 500k tests a day with turn around in hours.
So never > 70mph on dual carriageways/motorways, then?
It is generous if it is for people who do not want to work and anyone who wants to can continue, But if you're tellng people they're not allowed to by law then it is absolutely not generous.
Any stats on the number of cases of someone being charged with manslaughter for passing on the flu?
Also latest Monmouth poll for Arizona isn’t good for Trump and this pollster had tended to have weaker numbers for the Dems over the last few months .
Biden 50
Trump 44
They have two turnout models low turnout isn’t going to happen, that narrows the lead to 49 to 47 . Higher turnout increases to 51 to 44 .
'“There is an important difference between our country and many other countries around the world,” Johnson told the House of Commons yesterday. “Our country is a freedom-loving country.”
Johnson portrayed this as a primal impulse that resides deep in the national psyche, saying he was “deeply, spiritually reluctant to make any of these impositions, or infringe anyone’s freedom”. When it comes to liberty, if nothing else, the UK is world-beating. “Virtually every advance, from free speech to democracy, has come from this country,” claimed the self-proclaimed leader of the free world.'
https://tinyurl.com/y3rp3lbe
There are lots of countries that have beaten this virus. We're different to all of them, so we'd have to find our own exact method - but we can learn from them. We can aim a bit higher than preventing the hospitals from collapsing by isolating most of the country for most of the winter.
It's particularly important because the sectors worst hit, notably hospitality, are very low wage sectors, where any pay cut is a hammer blow. Airline pilots could survive on 66%; bar workers not so much. Especially when people want to work but are legally banned from doing so.
https://twitter.com/terrefebiruk/status/1313887653574651907
Since then, it is just the biggest policy mistake by any British government, ever. And every day they double down and make it worse.
Only complete economic meltdown will stop Hancock and co now. Never mind. It is coming.
If HMG wants a Tier 3 in GM then they will have to impose it.
That’s two very bad state polls for him today. The NC one I posted earlier is doubly worrying given in-person early voting has started there.
It is madness. Just pay the 80% in full, or don't do a localised lockdown but then that'd cost more. It is a complete false economy trying to cut corners here and will really build up resentment.
It is madness and I can't see this madness surviving past Wednesday lunchtime as it would be a total gift to Kier for this to be next wednesday's PMQs topic.
If one is unsure of the merits or otherwise of this approach, then studying Sweden to try to understand what worked, what didn't work, and in both cases why, makes a certain amount of sense.
This is going to be brutal.
But in practice it is other people's complaints, rathern than surveillance, which will be the main trigger for any cases.
What we actually saw was a government that wanted to move the north to tier three, failed to engage in any meaningful discussion with the mayors to secure their support, then retreated from the decision in the face of concerted opposition from Burnham and others last weekend, stuck Liverpool in anyway just because tier three had to mean something somewhere, tried to claim the mayor’s support in Parliament only to have this promptly denied, tried to claim their own Tory Birmingham mayor’s support for the broader policy only to have him deny this too.
Then no sooner was the decision announced on Monday, they leaked that they were looking at the whole question again, went into a new round of discussions with the mayors (with a reported attitude that pretty much guaranteed failure), and now face precisely the same decision they might have made last weekend.
Similar for London.
Thus, once again, Bozo’s inability to rise to the challenges of his role has undermined the clarity and credibility of the government’s new three tier flagship policy. Just as we saw with the previous five-level strategy that died a death the minute Bozo was entrusted with explaining it to us.
Truly, it is a pitiful display of a government well out of its depth.
The law is saying you can't meet someone from a different household in a garden if you are 20m apart. That is like a law saying you must drive at 20mph on the M1.
Considering the cost differential would be in the millions not the billions unlike most things Covid-related it seems an absolute no brainer.
It is absolutely immoral to tell people they're not allowed to work for a living and you're going to leave them out of pocket as a result - and you'll fine them if you find them working.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1316765367851798531
Amazingly HMG appears to have achieved consensus with all the GM politicians.
They're all against them.
If Corbyn or Boris had suggested it, Covid would have just laughed
The ship named 'Economic Catastrophe' is already sailing and the wind is behind it.
Rocks and hard places spring to mind. It is bad if you look to the left or right.
All the fiscally sovereign nations are adrift on the same shit creek. We'll all print money together.
I don't think many countries have done everything right, and certainly not Sweden. I think they made the right decision on keeping universities closed. Also their furlough scheme was/is more sustainable than ours (but not necessarily better than Germany etc). They made the same mistake as us on care homes. I also think they made a mistake not locking down when it became apparent the epidemic was going out of control. Ultimately, a lot of people died in Sweden who would still be alive with better virus management, as is the case here.
I am going to make a call out for Rwanda's approach to the epidemic. Genuinely impressive for a not at all wealthy country, as evidenced by a very low death rate.
The other point that strikes me about your comments today is the chap/chapess who denied you had right to comment on Scotland because you were an "English European" - as if only British imperialists like HYUFD were the only English folk with any right to comment on Scotland
Some of us have been pointing out the total insanity of this for months. Can you now see it too?
https://mobile.twitter.com/RP131/status/1316768463864635393
Its not unlike Bill Murray in Groundhog Day trying to save the old tramp guy, But Murray got to start again. We cannot. Our wealth is gone.
IMF says austerity is not inevitable to ease pandemic impact on public finances
Nations that can borrow freely can stabilise debt without fiscal adjustment
https://www.ft.com/content/722ef9c0-36f6-4119-a00b-06d33fced78f
If you tell people a plague is serious, the will feel 'effects' from it. Of course they will. How could it be otherwise?
And you and I both voted for this shit shower. Then again, not sure what Jezza would have done....
https://twitter.com/Jim_Cornelius/status/1316734167049265152
Siena have one at 2000hrs.
After decades of lackluster turnout, Hispanics could turn Arizona blue.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/10/15/letter-to-washington-from-phoenix-429433
Another cracking long read from Politico's Tim Alberta.
A flavour:
...He shook his head. “There’s a lot of racism in Arizona, man. People have always been afraid of the government here. That’s why a lot of my Chicano friends never even bothered before,” Morales said. “But now, with Trump, it’s like they don’t give a shit anymore. I talk to all my Chicano friends, and they’re all registered, they’re all voting, they’re all voting against Trump. And the weird thing is, some of them even gave him credit for getting the economy going—which, I disagree with, but whatever—and it’s still not enough. They’re still voting his ass out.”...
mental illness does not just affect the mind. It can have profound effects on the body too. Ask anybody who is prone to anxiety or depression.
And this government has created a torrent of both.
- R is between 1.2 and 1.4
- SAGE (apparently) estimates that without schools R drops 0.2-05
OTOH you are trying to match the measures to the circumstances on the ground, which is a good thing.