Look at the numbers if you dare. We are going bankrupt.
How will you feel when the NHS cannot afford the drugs and other expensive treatments I know from your posts you rely on?
Because that situation will kill you a lot faster and a lot surer than COVID. And millions more beside you.
Clearly you’re just posting the contrarian position to highlight it’s illogicality, but ill bite. If Covid were not dealt with, the NHS would be unable to provide those other treatments as hospitals Etc would be full of Covid patients.
Unless you’re advocating some sort of Viking style solution where the Covid-infirm are sent into the mountains to die?
Surely we could combine this with other matters - send the oldies into battle against the Scots/French/Spanish?
There was a novel of the seventies, I think, a sort of Erewhon-like satire, where it was precisely the oldies that were sent over the top with rifles and in cheap biplanes. I forget the title and author - could it he Travels in Nihilon by Alan Sillitoe?
Sorry if I seem rude but I am fed up with this view and I consider it to be crassly selfish. The lives of young people have been fucked enough in the last 12 years to ensure asset prices and pension incomes for baby boomers and above are protected. If you have such a poor understanding of risk that you remain scared of your own shadow then lock yourself up by all means. But don’t you dare criminalise me for exhibiting entirely sensible risk based behaviour, or expect me to celebrate any further interruption to my kids lives so you can feel less scared at night.
Can I just say that at 81 and 76 my wife and I are not considering ourselves but the idea the NHS may well be overwhelmed with all the consequences for everyone needing urgent cancer and other care is a nightmare and everything should be done to stop us descending into that nightmare
And I am not criminalising you and to be honest your tone is a wee bit over the top
In my family, the kids are getting the presents, the tree etc.
No big family get together - but hey, a big family meal isn't that impossible to arrange, in say June.
I am having a lot of trouble seeing this as other than a bit annoying.
Mind you I *have* run out of Grand Cru. So I am left with Premier Cru for Christmas. And some ancient Tokaji...
Can I get compensation?
Premier Cru and ancient Tokaji some like reasonable compensation to me! I have several email adverts from local, and national, wine merchants, promising delivery before Christmas. Plus elder son has sent us 6 bottles of what looks like quite decent S. Italian red. And I picked up what appears to be a pleasant port yesterday. Plan ATM is that we meet Eldest Granddaughter (aged 31) and her father on Christmas Day, approx 40 mins. drive away, in the same county. Even if we can't keep to the plan, we should be able to manage over the festive season.
What is 'concerning' and 'worrying' is that we will spending GBP400bn pounds in a fiscal year more than we are gathering in taxes. At least. A year.
IF we carrying on like that for much longer, we won;t have a health service, a whole range of other public services or much of a life worth living at all for the 99.5% who survive covid, for ever.
I reckon voters know this. And that's the real reason they are starting to get restive, and starting to walk away from the main parties (judging from that poll).
The MMT fairy is out the box. A one off big bazooka of monetised government debt for something like a pandemic, might not seem a big deal. But it impoverishes those who rely on an earned income to live life and build wealth, and it enriches rent seekers. It’s a total catastrophe for our long term economic good fortune because it totally destroys the incentives structure and causes deep social division, as it happens on an old - young basis.
What is worse is people will now say let’s just do this for everything. Free Broadband! Water renationalisation! Aircraft carriers! Triple lock pensions! Third world aid! The next “killer pandemic” (which come every Parliament or two conveniently enough). Take your pick based upon your political stripes.
And people don’t realise that ultimately what you’re doing is causing huge asset price inflation. Which you can start to tax but it’s then a spiral down the toilet hole.
The BoE are still insulting our intelligence by saying QE is just a liquidity provision facility. Pull the other one. When will someone call out our betters on their total bullshit?
And here we come to today, yet more draconian anti economy health policy to be announced, when we are still hovering at only 15% above excess death for the time of year. Because who cares about money and debt. “Every life is precious and every death tragic, how dare you question us you ignorant fucking covidiot”.
I’m tired. Tired tired tired of this. People need to stop thinking that fate can be controlled and get on with it.
I agree with you about money printing. If you can do it in enormous size to pay for a pandemic why can't you do it to eradicate global poverty? Or just to increase everybody's standard of living? I smell a rat. But your last bit is nonsense. A terrible new virus hit. Without measures there would have been sickness & death on a scale that would have collapsed health services and led to social disorder and economic catastrophe. So "distancing" measures were taken around the World to buy the time to find a vaccine and allow normality to resume asap. It has worked and both the health and financial outcome will be better than they otherwise would have been. Well done World.
Where is your evidence? Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re wrong. Locking down a bunch of infected people with their family to “save the nhs” seems to be counter even to government’s very narrow goal of reducing death with covid. Taking infected people at gunpoint to a military “hospital” as was conducted in China? Now that’s a different thing. Locking your borders before there is widespread seeding as in NZ? Ditto.
Feels to me we are pissing on our own foot, celebrating and mourning the natural ebbs and flows of the virus through the seasons and each cluster increase and burnout the way the ancients prayed to the sun.
Show me EVIDENCE that lockdowns as practiced in western democracies makes a blind bit of difference.
The evidence is the Projection of what would would have occurred in the absence of Distancing Measures. It was based on what was actually happening, plus what was known of the virulence and velocity of the virus. There was not a precise certainty but there was ample to justify the Measures. I can't show you the counterfactual complete and utter disaster and that's great news. Because of the Measures it didn't happen. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of valid debate to be had on the detail of what was done by us and by all the various other countries, but on the Big Picture, horrible new virus, take Distancing Measures, hunker down, make and administer vaccine, normalize, there is not. It simply had to be done, more or less, like this.
Look at the numbers if you dare. We are going bankrupt.
How will you feel when the NHS cannot afford the drugs and other expensive treatments I know from your posts you rely on?
Because that situation will kill you a lot faster and a lot surer than COVID. And millions more beside you.
Clearly you’re just posting the contrarian position to highlight it’s illogicality, but ill bite. If Covid were not dealt with, the NHS would be unable to provide those other treatments as hospitals Etc would be full of Covid patients.
Unless you’re advocating some sort of Viking style solution where the Covid-infirm are sent into the mountains to die?
Surely we could combine this with other matters - send the oldies into battle against the Scots/French/Spanish?
There was a novel of the seventies, I think, a sort of Erewhon-like satire, where it was precisely the oldies that were sent over the top with rifles and in cheap biplanes. I forget the title and author - could it he Travels in Nihilon by Alan Sillitoe?
Found what I was looking for - 1:30 is what you want. For some reason the time tag isn't working
New virus strain - really not looking good at all.
Looks like Christmas cancelled. Can't see how we get out of this one - vaccines seem the only hope..
What does really not looking good at all mean?
Our liberty has to be destroyed and our country bankrupted because something 'really does not look good at all?''
It means lot more people are going to die.
If you want to see what the alternative looks like look across the Atlantic. The US has now lost more people than they lost in WW1 and the Vietnam war combined. They are now losing the equivalent of a 9/11 every day.
That is slightly misleading as many of those who will have died are over 80 and would have died even without Covid
Did you know that in April, in the UK, more than a third of all deaths in the age 20-29 bracket in that month were covid?
Because while a lot fewer people in their twenties die of covid, this is put into the context that a lot fewer people in their twenties die of anything at all. So death rates in that echelon jumped 50% and that jump was covid deaths.
In other news, a bunch of Tory monkeys with typewriters can't sort out the paperwork in time for people to use it when the aforesaid lower primates insist it will be needed.
Sorry if I seem rude but I am fed up with this view and I consider it to be crassly selfish. The lives of young people have been fucked enough in the last 12 years to ensure asset prices and pension incomes for baby boomers and above are protected. If you have such a poor understanding of risk that you remain scared of your own shadow then lock yourself up by all means. But don’t you dare criminalise me for exhibiting entirely sensible risk based behaviour, or expect me to celebrate any further interruption to my kids lives so you can feel less scared at night.
Can I just say that at 81 and 76 my wife and I are not considering ourselves but the idea the NHS may well be overwhelmed with all the consequences for everyone needing urgent cancer and other care is a nightmare and everything should be done to stop us descending into that nightmare
And I am not criminalising you and to be honest your tone is a wee bit over the top
In my family, the kids are getting the presents, the tree etc.
No big family get together - but hey, a big family meal isn't that impossible to arrange, in say June.
I am having a lot of trouble seeing this as other than a bit annoying.
Mind you I *have* run out of Grand Cru. So I am left with Premier Cru for Christmas. And some ancient Tokaji...
Can I get compensation?
Premier Cru and ancient Tokaji some like reasonable compensation to me! I have several email adverts from local, and national, wine merchants, promising delivery before Christmas. Plus elder son has sent us 6 bottles of what looks like quite decent S. Italian red. And I picked up what appears to be a pleasant port yesterday. Plan ATM is that we meet Eldest Granddaughter (aged 31) and her father on Christmas Day, approx 40 mins. drive away, in the same county. Even if we can't keep to the plan, we should be able to manage over the festive season.
Nero d’avola, aglianico, negroamaro - south Italy produces some of the best value reds nowadays. The time when what was on the label bore little relation to what might be in the bottle are thankfully behind us.
Look at the numbers if you dare. We are going bankrupt.
How will you feel when the NHS cannot afford the drugs and other expensive treatments I know from your posts you rely on?
Because that situation will kill you a lot faster and a lot surer than COVID. And millions more beside you.
Clearly you’re just posting the contrarian position to highlight it’s illogicality, but ill bite. If Covid were not dealt with, the NHS would be unable to provide those other treatments as hospitals Etc would be full of Covid patients.
Unless you’re advocating some sort of Viking style solution where the Covid-infirm are sent into the mountains to die?
Surely we could combine this with other matters - send the oldies into battle against the Scots/French/Spanish?
There was a novel of the seventies, I think, a sort of Erewhon-like satire, where it was precisely the oldies that were sent over the top with rifles and in cheap biplanes. I forget the title and author - could it he Travels in Nihilon by Alan Sillitoe?
Found what I was looking for - 1:30 is what you want. For some reason the time tag isn't working
New virus strain - really not looking good at all.
Looks like Christmas cancelled. Can't see how we get out of this one - vaccines seem the only hope..
What does really not looking good at all mean?
Our liberty has to be destroyed and our country bankrupted because something 'really does not look good at all?''
It means lot more people are going to die.
If you want to see what the alternative looks like look across the Atlantic. The US has now lost more people than they lost in WW1 and the Vietnam war combined. They are now losing the equivalent of a 9/11 every day.
That is slightly misleading as many of those who will have died are over 80 and would have died even without Covid
Everyone dies. Eventually.
Please read the statistics on life expectancy. COVID, even among the elderly has cut decades off peoples lives. Decades.
Sorry but in what universe can 80 somethings depend upon 'decades' of life.
This one.
That's provably untrue. Average life expectancy is only a couple of years over 80.
Untrue.
For an eighty-year-old male, it’s 9 years, for an eighty-year-old female, it’s 10 years.
Sorry if I seem rude but I am fed up with this view and I consider it to be crassly selfish. The lives of young people have been fucked enough in the last 12 years to ensure asset prices and pension incomes for baby boomers and above are protected. If you have such a poor understanding of risk that you remain scared of your own shadow then lock yourself up by all means. But don’t you dare criminalise me for exhibiting entirely sensible risk based behaviour, or expect me to celebrate any further interruption to my kids lives so you can feel less scared at night.
Can I just say that at 81 and 76 my wife and I are not considering ourselves but the idea the NHS may well be overwhelmed with all the consequences for everyone needing urgent cancer and other care is a nightmare and everything should be done to stop us descending into that nightmare
And I am not criminalising you and to be honest your tone is a wee bit over the top
In my family, the kids are getting the presents, the tree etc.
No big family get together - but hey, a big family meal isn't that impossible to arrange, in say June.
I am having a lot of trouble seeing this as other than a bit annoying.
Mind you I *have* run out of Grand Cru. So I am left with Premier Cru for Christmas. And some ancient Tokaji...
Can I get compensation?
Premier Cru and ancient Tokaji some like reasonable compensation to me! I have several email adverts from local, and national, wine merchants, promising delivery before Christmas. Plus elder son has sent us 6 bottles of what looks like quite decent S. Italian red. And I picked up what appears to be a pleasant port yesterday. Plan ATM is that we meet Eldest Granddaughter (aged 31) and her father on Christmas Day, approx 40 mins. drive away, in the same county. Even if we can't keep to the plan, we should be able to manage over the festive season.
My one sadness is that I can't do my traditional Boxing day ritual - serve my mother-in-law her favourite wine with the main course. Which is sweet white wine.
She knows nothing of wine, bless her. Just likes what she likes.
I give her the finest desert wines, without telling her what they are. The price would horrify her, I think, since she grew up very poor.
The other side of that is the family wine snob has to watch this, and hold his tongue. Otherwise he gets none, when desert comes.....
Look at the numbers if you dare. We are going bankrupt.
How will you feel when the NHS cannot afford the drugs and other expensive treatments I know from your posts you rely on?
Because that situation will kill you a lot faster and a lot surer than COVID. And millions more beside you.
Clearly you’re just posting the contrarian position to highlight it’s illogicality, but ill bite. If Covid were not dealt with, the NHS would be unable to provide those other treatments as hospitals Etc would be full of Covid patients.
Unless you’re advocating some sort of Viking style solution where the Covid-infirm are sent into the mountains to die?
Surely we could combine this with other matters - send the oldies into battle against the Scots/French/Spanish?
There was a novel of the seventies, I think, a sort of Erewhon-like satire, where it was precisely the oldies that were sent over the top with rifles and in cheap biplanes. I forget the title and author - could it he Travels in Nihilon by Alan Sillitoe?
Found what I was looking for - 1:30 is what you want. For some reason the time tag isn't working
New virus strain - really not looking good at all.
Looks like Christmas cancelled. Can't see how we get out of this one - vaccines seem the only hope..
What does really not looking good at all mean?
Our liberty has to be destroyed and our country bankrupted because something 'really does not look good at all?''
It means lot more people are going to die.
If you want to see what the alternative looks like look across the Atlantic. The US has now lost more people than they lost in WW1 and the Vietnam war combined. They are now losing the equivalent of a 9/11 every day.
That is slightly misleading as many of those who will have died are over 80 and would have died even without Covid
Everyone dies. Eventually.
Please read the statistics on life expectancy. COVID, even among the elderly has cut decades off peoples lives. Decades.
Sorry but in what universe can 80 somethings depend upon 'decades' of life.
This one.
That's provably untrue. Average life expectancy is only a couple of years over 80.
Untrue.
For an eighty-year-old male, it’s 9 years, for an eighty-year-old female, it’s 10 years.
Why is anyone on the motorway already? Given the window hasn't started yet?
And if the new strain is the reason then that is new information. When facts change people can change their minds.
That argument would be fine. Had Shagger not stood up in the Commons trying to score political points that the opposition wanted to Cancel Christmas and only He would Save Christmas.
Oh dear oh dear. Perhaps - as I keep suggesting to that knobber from Essicks - this virus has no interest in party political games. We could see a mile away that the big Christmas lockdown was irresponsibly dangerous. And yet having spent weeks setting this up - legislation, cancelled roadworks and rail engineering, cash for additional coach and rail seats, a media campaign about how good old Boris was saving Christmas - he'll have to pull the plug at the last minute.
See this @Philip_Thompson ? 9 or 10 years for an 80 year old. Not decades for eighty somethings.
10 is a decade. We are talking an order of magnitude of decades not a single year.
I never supported the contention that 80 year olds had 1 or 2 years of life expectancy. I just thought that saying they had "decadeS" was sloppy and inaccurate.
The alt right twitter mob accuses at least one of the behavioural people of being a 40-year member of the British Communist Party !!
No wonder 'Project Fear' went so well
The alt right is full of ex-communists.
What slightly puzzles me is that I don't think I've ever seen any of the grisly Living Marxism crew asked about their past or current attitudes to Marxism. Perhaps Liz Truss can make a speech asking some searching questions..
Why is anyone on the motorway already? Given the window hasn't started yet?
And if the new strain is the reason then that is new information. When facts change people can change their minds.
It'[s not new. According to the BMJ this "new strain" was found in September.
"Nick Loman, professor of microbial genomics and bioinformation at the University of Birmingham, told a briefing by the Science Media Centre on 15 December that the variant was first spotted in late September and now accounts for 20% of viruses sequenced in Norfolk, 10% in Essex, and 3% in Suffolk. “There are no data to suggest it had been imported from abroad, so it is likely to have evolved in the UK,” he said."
See this @Philip_Thompson ? 9 or 10 years for an 80 year old. Not decades for eighty somethings.
10 is a decade. We are talking an order of magnitude of decades not a single year.
I never supported the contention that 80 year olds had 1 or 2 years of life expectancy. I just thought that saying they had "decadeS" was sloppy and inaccurate.
It's not. 10+ is an order of magnitude of decades. 11+ is undeniably decades, 11 is 1.1 decades.
There is no reason why decades has to be a minimum of 2+ decades.
Why is anyone on the motorway already? Given the window hasn't started yet?
And if the new strain is the reason then that is new information. When facts change people can change their minds.
It'[s not new. According to the BMJ this "new strain" was found in September.
"Nick Loman, professor of microbial genomics and bioinformation at the University of Birmingham, told a briefing by the Science Media Centre on 15 December that the variant was first spotted in late September and now accounts for 20% of viruses sequenced in Norfolk, 10% in Essex, and 3% in Suffolk. “There are no data to suggest it had been imported from abroad, so it is likely to have evolved in the UK,” he said."
Oh dear oh dear. Perhaps - as I keep suggesting to that knobber from Essicks - this virus has no interest in party political games. We could see a mile away that the big Christmas lockdown was irresponsibly dangerous. And yet having spent weeks setting this up - legislation, cancelled roadworks and rail engineering, cash for additional coach and rail seats, a media campaign about how good old Boris was saving Christmas - he'll have to pull the plug at the last minute.
This is not difficult.
Everything BoZo says is not true.
Everything he does is a mistake.
One of the many reasons Brexit is such a monumental clusterfuck.
You're such a hate filled hypocrite you don't even realise your simultaneously quoting people complaining he is too quick to respond and too slow to do so.
Consistency is a good thing for normal circumstances, not necessarily crisis management. Crisis management needs adaptability and quick thinking and quick responses.
The alt right twitter mob accuses at least one of the behavioural people of being a 40-year member of the British Communist Party !!
No wonder 'Project Fear' went so well
The alt right is full of ex-communists.
What slightly puzzles me is that I don't think I've ever seen any of the grisly Living Marxism crew asked about their past or current attitudes to Marxism. Perhaps Liz Truss can make a speech asking some searching questions..
Would Adam Tomkins MSP perhaps be another good choice? I don't think he was in the CPGB, M-L or otherwise, but he was a leftie republican was he not?
How can the timing of their report be seen as anything other than telling the UK governmet negotiators "You MUST accept whatever is on the table from the EU"?
Once again Brexiteers outraged by a statement of the bleeding obvious.
We need a deal. It must be done now.
Neither of these statements is controversial, unless your head is up your ass.
But "it must be done now" is only because the Johnson/Cummings/Gove dream team refuse to even consider an additional extension due to the covid crisis.
Any half rational person facing the situation we are in would roll these discussions on until this time next year. It would still be completed well in time for 2024 when Johnson faces the voters again.
We needed a deal months ago. Even if one materialises tomorrow Q1 21 will be fucked.
Yep. When the deal is announced it will be clear it could easily have been done months ago. The last minute shenanigans aspect - and maintaining the public and commentariat fear of no deal - is to help Johnson politically. It will create relief and the optics of battling to the wire with the EU and late concessions being wrung. Also a deal announced a long time before end of Transition would have given more time for critical scrutiny of the detail, not something Johnson would welcome. So, sure, it makes sense from Johnson's point of view to do things this way. It's objectively crazy, though, and unfair on many people. As you say, and as Rochdale's post explains, the effect is to inject the "Deal" outcome with some of the chaos of "No Deal".
I could not disagree more.
Yes a deal "could" have been agreed months ago but more importantly one "could not" as without time pressure neither side would compromise. It is why to do it any other way is objectively crazy because to do it any other way means like May/Robbins you're the only one that compromises.
Asking for an extension as rottenborough and others have suggested is crazy too because again it would just remove the pressure and the can would be kicked.
I don't often agree with Guy Verhofstadt but completely agree with him the other day when he said compromises are only ever made at the last minute and "if you give extra time to politicians they will take all that extra time and still only compromise at the last minute".
No - THIS deal could have been done months ago. The reason it wasn't is primarily for the reasons I explained.
No.
THIS deal could NOT have been done months ago since the EU have moved in recent months under the time pressure. And they may likely still move again.
If we move back months ago how would you get the EU to move? Why wouldn't Barnier do what he did under Robbins and May and just take British movements while standing firm?
The narrative Johnson wants is exactly this. That by making the EU take "no deal" seriously and taking negotiations to the wire, we have forced them to make serious concessions which were otherwise not achievable. He'll be pleased - and not a little relieved - that Leavers such as yourself are buying into this. He'll be hoping that some agnostics and even some Remainers will too. We will see. Not long to wait now.
It is the truth.
How could he have gotten the EU to move prematurely? They never have done that? May failed to do that, Robbins failed to do that, Frost and Johnson were unable to do that months ago. It is only now that they're moving.
Mmm. As I say, it would be quite something if YOU didn't view the mainly fictional Johnson narrative as The Truth. More interesting will be how many of the less committed Johnsonite Leavers do. I predict take-up there will be significantly less than 100% - albeit still fairly high. But we're in the usual loop so I think "move" is indeed the word. For both of us. As in "on". TBC when the deal is announced.
Forget me let's talk about YOU.
Months ago the EU were adamant that there could be no change in quotas. In recent weeks they've accepted the idea of 18% but no more.
So if the final deal is 18% then that is movement from months ago isn't it?
Whereas if the final deal is over 18% that's movement in the final days of negotiations.
Do you accept that or are you denying that the EU have moved? Would you deny the EU have moved further?
Are you putting YOUR credibility on the line?
Sounding a bit frantic here, Philip. There's absolutely no rush on this. We'll give the Deal a really good thrashing, you and I, when it's announced. That's a promise. And don't worry, nobody's credibility is on the line. Not mine and certainly not yours. This is not about your credibility it's about your credulity.
So you aren't prepared to acknowledge where the EU are now or where they were months ago. Got you.
So let's rephrase. If the EU agree a deal with a different position to what they're saying month ago then that was not the deal available months ago - agreed?
The question must be worded neutrally and therefore will be -
When the deal is announced, does it look significantly better for the UK than the evidence indicates was achievable earlier in the year?
I look forward to you arguing the case for "Yes". You will, I think, need to strain every sinew to fail with honour. But one mustn't pre-judge.
See this @Philip_Thompson ? 9 or 10 years for an 80 year old. Not decades for eighty somethings.
10 is a decade. We are talking an order of magnitude of decades not a single year.
I never supported the contention that 80 year olds had 1 or 2 years of life expectancy. I just thought that saying they had "decadeS" was sloppy and inaccurate.
It's not. 10+ is an order of magnitude of decades. 11+ is undeniably decades, 11 is 1.1 decades.
There is no reason why decades has to be a minimum of 2+ decades.
We just established that it's 9 or 10 years, not 11. If you want to call 101 years "centuries", then go for it but you'll be wrong.
New virus strain - really not looking good at all.
Looks like Christmas cancelled. Can't see how we get out of this one - vaccines seem the only hope..
What does really not looking good at all mean?
Our liberty has to be destroyed and our country bankrupted because something 'really does not look good at all?''
It means lot more people are going to die.
If you want to see what the alternative looks like look across the Atlantic. The US has now lost more people than they lost in WW1 and the Vietnam war combined. They are now losing the equivalent of a 9/11 every day.
That is slightly misleading as many of those who will have died are over 80 and would have died even without Covid
Everyone dies. Eventually.
Please read the statistics on life expectancy. COVID, even among the elderly has cut decades off peoples lives. Decades.
Sorry but in what universe can 80 somethings depend upon 'decades' of life.
This one.
That's provably untrue. Average life expectancy is only a couple of years over 80.
Untrue.
For an eighty-year-old male, it’s 9 years, for an eighty-year-old female, it’s 10 years.
Ask yourself what the human cost of preserving those years in their entirety are, years that no generation in history has ever had.
They are massively, massively too high. Generations are going to have their entire lives blighted by the consequences.
People talk in this pandemic about selfishness. That's selfishness right there, writ large.
The economic and human costs of NOT doing that are, as has been explained to you time and time again, as the IMF have said, as economist after economist have said, as the entire branch of study of pandemic economics have shown, WORSE than the route of restrictions and lockdown.
You just don't want to accept it. Unfortunately reality doesn't care what you want to accept.
The problem is that in politics we expect people to be definite even when there is uncertainty. As another example, we wanted politicians to guarantee a Brexit deal when the outcome is subject to negotiation and therefore inherently uncertain. If Boris had said, "we don't know if you are going to be able to have Christmas, these are the current plans but be prepared for them to change" he would have been ridiculed. But it would have been a correct description of the circumstances.
Ordinary PB’ers (if such a thing is possible) see stuff coming days before this desperately inept government does. That says it all.
I'd wait and see what is said later, as I don't think anyone here was saying a new mutation of the virus was increasing transmission. If that's what NERVTAG have concluded this is a significant new event, and not something we could have seen coming, and it's bad news for at lot more than just the South East.
Just got a message from the school that our children need to isolate for ten days from the 15th due to a positive test for one of their classmates.
So isolating on Christmas either way for us now.
I had to deliver that message to several students last week.
It was not fun.
You have my sympathy. I hope your family stay well.
Thanks.
We are ok. We had already decided we weren't seeing anyone old, but were planning on seeing my sister in law on the 23rd. I'm not going to lose any sleep about missing out on that.
My thoughts are with whichever of her classmates is positive. We are healthy even if now stuck at home, I more hope they and their family aren't suffering. It's not fun being sick at Christmas.
You're such a hate filled hypocrite you don't even realise your simultaneously quoting people complaining he is too quick to respond and too slow to do so.
Consistency is a good thing for normal circumstances, not necessarily crisis management. Crisis management needs adaptability and quick thinking and quick responses.
It need whackamole.
This new varient of Covid was identified in late September and, it appears, was beginning to spread rapidly out of the Kent side of the Thames Estuary from late November. Yet as late as PMQs on Wednesday the buffoon the gods have afflicted upon the 57% of us that did not vote for his party was taunting the Leader of the Opposition for doing what he is now proposing. That is not adaptability. That is poor leadership. Poor leadership that is costing lives. Even this regionalised Tier 4 is too late. R is going up everywhere, the genie is out of the bottle.
Sorry if I seem rude but I am fed up with this view and I consider it to be crassly selfish. The lives of young people have been fucked enough in the last 12 years to ensure asset prices and pension incomes for baby boomers and above are protected. If you have such a poor understanding of risk that you remain scared of your own shadow then lock yourself up by all means. But don’t you dare criminalise me for exhibiting entirely sensible risk based behaviour, or expect me to celebrate any further interruption to my kids lives so you can feel less scared at night.
Can I just say that at 81 and 76 my wife and I are not considering ourselves but the idea the NHS may well be overwhelmed with all the consequences for everyone needing urgent cancer and other care is a nightmare and everything should be done to stop us descending into that nightmare
And I am not criminalising you and to be honest your tone is a wee bit over the top
In my family, the kids are getting the presents, the tree etc.
No big family get together - but hey, a big family meal isn't that impossible to arrange, in say June.
I am having a lot of trouble seeing this as other than a bit annoying.
Mind you I *have* run out of Grand Cru. So I am left with Premier Cru for Christmas. And some ancient Tokaji...
Can I get compensation?
Premier Cru and ancient Tokaji some like reasonable compensation to me! I have several email adverts from local, and national, wine merchants, promising delivery before Christmas. Plus elder son has sent us 6 bottles of what looks like quite decent S. Italian red. And I picked up what appears to be a pleasant port yesterday. Plan ATM is that we meet Eldest Granddaughter (aged 31) and her father on Christmas Day, approx 40 mins. drive away, in the same county. Even if we can't keep to the plan, we should be able to manage over the festive season.
My one sadness is that I can't do my traditional Boxing day ritual - serve my mother-in-law her favourite wine with the main course. Which is sweet white wine.
She knows nothing of wine, bless her. Just likes what she likes.
I give her the finest desert wines, without telling her what they are. The price would horrify her, I think, since she grew up very poor.
The other side of that is the family wine snob has to watch this, and hold his tongue. Otherwise he gets none, when desert comes.....
The wine snob is wrong. Fine Sauternes and Barsac can pair very well with some meat or poultry courses, especially if the dishes are quite rich. In Bordeaux they do this quite often, especially at the sweet-wine chateaux.
Johnson's handling of this - and the man himself - is becoming a rank embarrassment. The mix of hubris and incompetence is quite astonishing. I have big bets on him staying the course but I hope I lose them.
Look at the numbers if you dare. We are going bankrupt.
How will you feel when the NHS cannot afford the drugs and other expensive treatments I know from your posts you rely on?
Because that situation will kill you a lot faster and a lot surer than COVID. And millions more beside you.
Clearly you’re just posting the contrarian position to highlight it’s illogicality, but ill bite. If Covid were not dealt with, the NHS would be unable to provide those other treatments as hospitals Etc would be full of Covid patients.
Unless you’re advocating some sort of Viking style solution where the Covid-infirm are sent into the mountains to die?
Surely we could combine this with other matters - send the oldies into battle against the Scots/French/Spanish?
There was a novel of the seventies, I think, a sort of Erewhon-like satire, where it was precisely the oldies that were sent over the top with rifles and in cheap biplanes. I forget the title and author - could it he Travels in Nihilon by Alan Sillitoe?
Found what I was looking for - 1:30 is what you want. For some reason the time tag isn't working
The alt right twitter mob accuses at least one of the behavioural people of being a 40-year member of the British Communist Party !!
No wonder 'Project Fear' went so well
The alt right is full of ex-communists.
What slightly puzzles me is that I don't think I've ever seen any of the grisly Living Marxism crew asked about their past or current attitudes to Marxism. Perhaps Liz Truss can make a speech asking some searching questions..
Would Adam Tomkins MSP perhaps be another good choice? I don't think he was in the CPGB, M-L or otherwise, but he was a leftie republican was he not?
He was, shared a stage with Tommy Sheridan bellowing 'Windsors Oot' and all sorts.
Of course he also had very strong views on EU membership and independence. Never let it be said that Adam is consistent to a fault.
Taking this from the bottom up.. I would scrap the all UK free for all but I can't see any reason to not allow those already in Tier 1 to meet anyone else in Tier 1 - as planned from 23rd to the 27th. I think Tier 2 could have an Eve/Xmas Day/Boxing Day thing with up to one overnight stay only with two households only. Tier 3 Xmas Day only with two households only. Tier 4 Zoom only. Edit: the rules of the highest Tier apply if you're planning to mix with a household of a higher Tier.
I suspect, patronisingly, we'll get some guff about how that's all too much and confusing. As if the existing restrictions within each Tier weren't clearly understood (and they are) as it is.
Sorry if I seem rude but I am fed up with this view and I consider it to be crassly selfish. The lives of young people have been fucked enough in the last 12 years to ensure asset prices and pension incomes for baby boomers and above are protected. If you have such a poor understanding of risk that you remain scared of your own shadow then lock yourself up by all means. But don’t you dare criminalise me for exhibiting entirely sensible risk based behaviour, or expect me to celebrate any further interruption to my kids lives so you can feel less scared at night.
Can I just say that at 81 and 76 my wife and I are not considering ourselves but the idea the NHS may well be overwhelmed with all the consequences for everyone needing urgent cancer and other care is a nightmare and everything should be done to stop us descending into that nightmare
And I am not criminalising you and to be honest your tone is a wee bit over the top
In my family, the kids are getting the presents, the tree etc.
No big family get together - but hey, a big family meal isn't that impossible to arrange, in say June.
I am having a lot of trouble seeing this as other than a bit annoying.
Mind you I *have* run out of Grand Cru. So I am left with Premier Cru for Christmas. And some ancient Tokaji...
Can I get compensation?
Premier Cru and ancient Tokaji some like reasonable compensation to me! I have several email adverts from local, and national, wine merchants, promising delivery before Christmas. Plus elder son has sent us 6 bottles of what looks like quite decent S. Italian red. And I picked up what appears to be a pleasant port yesterday. Plan ATM is that we meet Eldest Granddaughter (aged 31) and her father on Christmas Day, approx 40 mins. drive away, in the same county. Even if we can't keep to the plan, we should be able to manage over the festive season.
My one sadness is that I can't do my traditional Boxing day ritual - serve my mother-in-law her favourite wine with the main course. Which is sweet white wine.
She knows nothing of wine, bless her. Just likes what she likes.
I give her the finest desert wines, without telling her what they are. The price would horrify her, I think, since she grew up very poor.
The other side of that is the family wine snob has to watch this, and hold his tongue. Otherwise he gets none, when desert comes.....
This made me smile.
It reminded me of my dear old Dad who equated sweetness in wine with quality. He would swig the sauternes appreciatively with the roast beef. Offer him the finest bordeaux and he'd spit it out - 'Vinegar!
Why is anyone on the motorway already? Given the window hasn't started yet?
And if the new strain is the reason then that is new information. When facts change people can change their minds.
That argument would be fine. Had Shagger not stood up in the Commons trying to score political points that the opposition wanted to Cancel Christmas and only He would Save Christmas.
Oh dear oh dear. Perhaps - as I keep suggesting to that knobber from Essicks - this virus has no interest in party political games. We could see a mile away that the big Christmas lockdown was irresponsibly dangerous. And yet having spent weeks setting this up - legislation, cancelled roadworks and rail engineering, cash for additional coach and rail seats, a media campaign about how good old Boris was saving Christmas - he'll have to pull the plug at the last minute.
Why is anyone on the motorway already? Given the window hasn't started yet?
And if the new strain is the reason then that is new information. When facts change people can change their minds.
That argument would be fine. Had Shagger not stood up in the Commons trying to score political points that the opposition wanted to Cancel Christmas and only He would Save Christmas.
Oh dear oh dear. Perhaps - as I keep suggesting to that knobber from Essicks - this virus has no interest in party political games. We could see a mile away that the big Christmas lockdown was irresponsibly dangerous. And yet having spent weeks setting this up - legislation, cancelled roadworks and rail engineering, cash for additional coach and rail seats, a media campaign about how good old Boris was saving Christmas - he'll have to pull the plug at the last minute.
Why is anyone on the motorway already? Given the window hasn't started yet?
And if the new strain is the reason then that is new information. When facts change people can change their minds.
That argument would be fine. Had Shagger not stood up in the Commons trying to score political points that the opposition wanted to Cancel Christmas and only He would Save Christmas.
Oh dear oh dear. Perhaps - as I keep suggesting to that knobber from Essicks - this virus has no interest in party political games. We could see a mile away that the big Christmas lockdown was irresponsibly dangerous. And yet having spent weeks setting this up - legislation, cancelled roadworks and rail engineering, cash for additional coach and rail seats, a media campaign about how good old Boris was saving Christmas - he'll have to pull the plug at the last minute.
He cannot unless he recalls Parliament
I assume it is therefore advice
But surely he can use emergency legislation, the CCA. If he weren't so terrified of the DM and the ERG.
Sorry if I seem rude but I am fed up with this view and I consider it to be crassly selfish. The lives of young people have been fucked enough in the last 12 years to ensure asset prices and pension incomes for baby boomers and above are protected. If you have such a poor understanding of risk that you remain scared of your own shadow then lock yourself up by all means. But don’t you dare criminalise me for exhibiting entirely sensible risk based behaviour, or expect me to celebrate any further interruption to my kids lives so you can feel less scared at night.
Can I just say that at 81 and 76 my wife and I are not considering ourselves but the idea the NHS may well be overwhelmed with all the consequences for everyone needing urgent cancer and other care is a nightmare and everything should be done to stop us descending into that nightmare
And I am not criminalising you and to be honest your tone is a wee bit over the top
In my family, the kids are getting the presents, the tree etc.
No big family get together - but hey, a big family meal isn't that impossible to arrange, in say June.
I am having a lot of trouble seeing this as other than a bit annoying.
Mind you I *have* run out of Grand Cru. So I am left with Premier Cru for Christmas. And some ancient Tokaji...
Can I get compensation?
Premier Cru and ancient Tokaji some like reasonable compensation to me! I have several email adverts from local, and national, wine merchants, promising delivery before Christmas. Plus elder son has sent us 6 bottles of what looks like quite decent S. Italian red. And I picked up what appears to be a pleasant port yesterday. Plan ATM is that we meet Eldest Granddaughter (aged 31) and her father on Christmas Day, approx 40 mins. drive away, in the same county. Even if we can't keep to the plan, we should be able to manage over the festive season.
My one sadness is that I can't do my traditional Boxing day ritual - serve my mother-in-law her favourite wine with the main course. Which is sweet white wine.
She knows nothing of wine, bless her. Just likes what she likes.
I give her the finest desert wines, without telling her what they are. The price would horrify her, I think, since she grew up very poor.
The other side of that is the family wine snob has to watch this, and hold his tongue. Otherwise he gets none, when desert comes.....
The wine snob is wrong. Fine Sauternes and Barsac can pair very well with some meat or poultry courses, especially if the dishes are quite rich. In Bordeaux they do this quite often, especially at the sweet-wine chateaux.
Indeed, Richard. Sauternes are traditionally paired with Foie Gras, but I could see the logic to pairing it with any rich meat dish with a fruit-based coulis.
Why is anyone on the motorway already? Given the window hasn't started yet?
And if the new strain is the reason then that is new information. When facts change people can change their minds.
That argument would be fine. Had Shagger not stood up in the Commons trying to score political points that the opposition wanted to Cancel Christmas and only He would Save Christmas.
Oh dear oh dear. Perhaps - as I keep suggesting to that knobber from Essicks - this virus has no interest in party political games. We could see a mile away that the big Christmas lockdown was irresponsibly dangerous. And yet having spent weeks setting this up - legislation, cancelled roadworks and rail engineering, cash for additional coach and rail seats, a media campaign about how good old Boris was saving Christmas - he'll have to pull the plug at the last minute.
He cannot unless he recalls Parliament
I assume it is therefore advice
But surely he can use emergency legislation, the CCA. If he weren't so terrified of the DM and the ERG.
New virus strain - really not looking good at all.
Looks like Christmas cancelled. Can't see how we get out of this one - vaccines seem the only hope..
What does really not looking good at all mean?
Our liberty has to be destroyed and our country bankrupted because something 'really does not look good at all?''
It means lot more people are going to die.
If you want to see what the alternative looks like look across the Atlantic. The US has now lost more people than they lost in WW1 and the Vietnam war combined. They are now losing the equivalent of a 9/11 every day.
That is slightly misleading as many of those who will have died are over 80 and would have died even without Covid
Everyone dies. Eventually.
Please read the statistics on life expectancy. COVID, even among the elderly has cut decades off peoples lives. Decades.
Sorry but in what universe can 80 somethings depend upon 'decades' of life.
This one.
That's provably untrue. Average life expectancy is only a couple of years over 80.
Untrue.
For an eighty-year-old male, it’s 9 years, for an eighty-year-old female, it’s 10 years.
Ask yourself what the human cost of preserving those years in their entirety are, years that no generation in history has ever had.
They are massively, massively too high. Generations are going to have their entire lives blighted by the consequences.
People talk in this pandemic about selfishness. That's selfishness right there, writ large.
How many times does it have to be explained that if you let rip then lots lots more will die because the hospitals won't be able to cope (both from Covid and other stuff like cancer and accidents) and the economic consequences will probably be far worse.
And we are not preserving those years in their entirety as you say because at no time have we had a complete and utter lockdown and people are clearly still dying. It is a balancing act between sensible precautions and carry on living and those precautions are changed as things get worse or better.
Sorry if I seem rude but I am fed up with this view and I consider it to be crassly selfish. The lives of young people have been fucked enough in the last 12 years to ensure asset prices and pension incomes for baby boomers and above are protected. If you have such a poor understanding of risk that you remain scared of your own shadow then lock yourself up by all means. But don’t you dare criminalise me for exhibiting entirely sensible risk based behaviour, or expect me to celebrate any further interruption to my kids lives so you can feel less scared at night.
Can I just say that at 81 and 76 my wife and I are not considering ourselves but the idea the NHS may well be overwhelmed with all the consequences for everyone needing urgent cancer and other care is a nightmare and everything should be done to stop us descending into that nightmare
And I am not criminalising you and to be honest your tone is a wee bit over the top
In my family, the kids are getting the presents, the tree etc.
No big family get together - but hey, a big family meal isn't that impossible to arrange, in say June.
I am having a lot of trouble seeing this as other than a bit annoying.
Mind you I *have* run out of Grand Cru. So I am left with Premier Cru for Christmas. And some ancient Tokaji...
Can I get compensation?
Premier Cru and ancient Tokaji some like reasonable compensation to me! I have several email adverts from local, and national, wine merchants, promising delivery before Christmas. Plus elder son has sent us 6 bottles of what looks like quite decent S. Italian red. And I picked up what appears to be a pleasant port yesterday. Plan ATM is that we meet Eldest Granddaughter (aged 31) and her father on Christmas Day, approx 40 mins. drive away, in the same county. Even if we can't keep to the plan, we should be able to manage over the festive season.
My one sadness is that I can't do my traditional Boxing day ritual - serve my mother-in-law her favourite wine with the main course. Which is sweet white wine.
She knows nothing of wine, bless her. Just likes what she likes.
I give her the finest desert wines, without telling her what they are. The price would horrify her, I think, since she grew up very poor.
The other side of that is the family wine snob has to watch this, and hold his tongue. Otherwise he gets none, when desert comes.....
The wine snob is wrong. Fine Sauternes and Barsac can pair very well with some meat or poultry courses, especially if the dishes are quite rich. In Bordeaux they do this quite often, especially at the sweet-wine chateaux.
Indeed, Richard. Sauternes are traditionally paired with Foie Gras, but I could see the logic to pairing it with any rich meat dish with a fruit-based coulis.
One can go even further over-the-top with wine snobbery than with arguing about Brexit!
Comments
No wonder 'Project Fear' went so well
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1340282032769929219?s=20
https://twitter.com/MarinaHyde/status/1340299682757619715
I have several email adverts from local, and national, wine merchants, promising delivery before Christmas. Plus elder son has sent us 6 bottles of what looks like quite decent S. Italian red. And I picked up what appears to be a pleasant port yesterday.
Plan ATM is that we meet Eldest Granddaughter (aged 31) and her father on Christmas Day, approx 40 mins. drive away, in the same county.
Even if we can't keep to the plan, we should be able to manage over the festive season.
Our lives are being destroyed by scientific supposition, and modelling.
This
https://youtu.be/NBHHFnUqo5o?t=153
Because while a lot fewer people in their twenties die of covid, this is put into the context that a lot fewer people in their twenties die of anything at all. So death rates in that echelon jumped 50% and that jump was covid deaths.
https://twitter.com/ITVJoel/status/1340295959272669185
So much for the glorious Union.
Why is anyone on the motorway already? Given the window hasn't started yet?
And if the new strain is the reason then that is new information. When facts change people can change their minds.
And how on earth has that not been resurrected in recent years with Brexit looming?!
For an eighty-year-old male, it’s 9 years, for an eighty-year-old female, it’s 10 years.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/articles/lifeexpectancycalculator/2019-06-07
She knows nothing of wine, bless her. Just likes what she likes.
I give her the finest desert wines, without telling her what they are. The price would horrify her, I think, since she grew up very poor.
The other side of that is the family wine snob has to watch this, and hold his tongue. Otherwise he gets none, when desert comes.....
There have been a number of Brexit related spoof videos based on it...
This is why some schools and MATs argued for making the final week of term online.
And the government went all ten tonne gorilla on them.
Foolishness or arrogance form the government would be bad enough. It's when they are foolish and arrogant at the same time that it really sucks.
Ask yourself what the human cost of preserving those years in their entirety are, years that no generation in history has ever had.
They are massively, massively too high. Generations are going to have their entire lives blighted by the consequences.
People talk in this pandemic about selfishness. That's selfishness right there, writ large.
Oh dear oh dear. Perhaps - as I keep suggesting to that knobber from Essicks - this virus has no interest in party political games. We could see a mile away that the big Christmas lockdown was irresponsibly dangerous. And yet having spent weeks setting this up - legislation, cancelled roadworks and rail engineering, cash for additional coach and rail seats, a media campaign about how good old Boris was saving Christmas - he'll have to pull the plug at the last minute.
On came Salah who got the sixth and seventh goals.
Ruthless.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1340308521871667200
He ends up pleasing nobody.
All side of this argument are now utterly infuriated by what he is doing.
As a conservative PM you are not doing your job if certain people in the commentariat are not permanently incensed.
"Nick Loman, professor of microbial genomics and bioinformation at the University of Birmingham, told a briefing by the Science Media Centre on 15 December that the variant was first spotted in late September and now accounts for 20% of viruses sequenced in Norfolk, 10% in Essex, and 3% in Suffolk. “There are no data to suggest it had been imported from abroad, so it is likely to have evolved in the UK,” he said."
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857
There is no reason why decades has to be a minimum of 2+ decades.
Everything BoZo says is not true.
Everything he does is a mistake.
One of the many reasons Brexit is such a monumental clusterfuck.
You're such a hate filled hypocrite you don't even realise your simultaneously quoting people complaining he is too quick to respond and too slow to do so.
Consistency is a good thing for normal circumstances, not necessarily crisis management. Crisis management needs adaptability and quick thinking and quick responses.
It need whackamole.
It was not fun.
You have my sympathy. I hope your family stay well.
When the deal is announced, does it look significantly better for the UK than the evidence indicates was achievable earlier in the year?
I look forward to you arguing the case for "Yes". You will, I think, need to strain every sinew to fail with honour. But one mustn't pre-judge.
You just don't want to accept it.
Unfortunately reality doesn't care what you want to accept.
We are ok. We had already decided we weren't seeing anyone old, but were planning on seeing my sister in law on the 23rd. I'm not going to lose any sleep about missing out on that.
My thoughts are with whichever of her classmates is positive. We are healthy even if now stuck at home, I more hope they and their family aren't suffering. It's not fun being sick at Christmas.
28
37
42
46
49
52
53
55
56
57
58
60
61
62
63
64
65
65
66
67
68
69
69
70
70
71
71
72
72
73
73
74
74
75
75
75
76
76
76
77
77
77
78
78
78
79
79
79
80
80
80
81
81
81
82
82
82
83
83
83
84
84
84
84
85
85
85
85
86
86
86
86
87
87
87
87
88
88
88
88
89
89
89
89
90
90
90
90
91
91
91
91
92
92
92
92
93
93
93
93
94
The mean number of years lost on that distribution is 13.1 years of life, ranging from 4 years to 59 years.
20% would lose multiple decades (20 years+)
(10% would lose 30 years+)
Of course he also had very strong views on EU membership and independence. Never let it be said that Adam is consistent to a fault.
https://twitter.com/Zarkwan/status/1328341544911466497?s=20
I suspect, patronisingly, we'll get some guff about how that's all too much and confusing. As if the existing restrictions within each Tier weren't clearly understood (and they are) as it is.
It reminded me of my dear old Dad who equated sweetness in wine with quality. He would swig the sauternes appreciatively with the roast beef. Offer him the finest bordeaux and he'd spit it out - 'Vinegar!
I assume it is therefore advice
And we are not preserving those years in their entirety as you say because at no time have we had a complete and utter lockdown and people are clearly still dying. It is a balancing act between sensible precautions and carry on living and those precautions are changed as things get worse or better.