Rishi is PM - coronation, unelected -GE Now

[MrsRobinsonsHandprints]

This is not democracy.

If you even mentioned locking down just the clinically vulnerable, then you were a sadist!

Furlough was not entirely necessary. No other country paid 80% of everyone's wages fgs. There were statutory benefits alright, but they were a fixed amount.

You do not vote for a person you vote for a party

Lockdown for a very short period of time. And ended as soon as it was blindingly obvious it wasn't necessary for all but the most vulnerable. A long drawn out lockdown has left us where we are now. Some of us footing a huge bill for those who massively benefited from it. The government didn't bother to follow the pandemic plans that had been in place for years for such an eventuality. They tore it up, printed more money and fucked the economy, people's lives and children's education instead.

It's true though. Any sensible country would have done this. Common sense isn't a popular thing these days though.

@Woodflower of course Labour have plans after GE. Haven't you heard of the Great British Energy plan?!

Furlough was not entirely necessary. No other country paid 80% of everyone's wages fgs. There were statutory benefits alright, but they were a fixed amount.

Yeah, it was necessary. As soon as the decision was taken to lock down, it became a requirement.

There are arguments to be had about amounts and eligibility, particularly later on when there isn't the excuse of having to cobble something together fast like there was in March 2020. But the principle of state support, there is no way of avoiding that once the state decides to prevent millions of people from earning a living.

The benefits system couldn't have accommodated millions of new claimants overnight, and arguably doesn't pay enough to keep a substantial chunk of the population at home and quiescent anyway. Which again, is what lockdown was implemented to do. It has to be not just enough to keep body and soul together, which let's be honest the benefits system doesn't necessarily provide anyway, but also enough to make sure the recipients are observing lockdown. That doesn't come cheap.

Me too. Never again.

I'll go for suicide by cop if I ever end up having to be locked down again in my lifetime.

Lockdown for a very short period of time. And ended as soon as it was blindingly obvious it wasn't necessary for all but the most vulnerable. A long drawn out lockdown has left us where we are now. Some of us footing a huge bill for those who massively benefited from it. The government didn't bother to follow the pandemic plans that had been in place for years for such an eventuality. They tore it up, printed more money and fucked the economy, people's lives and children's education instead.

Right.

So lockdown for any period of time means the state has to give people money to observe it. Not a loan. Money to live on while they're not able to earn it. Because that's what's needed to get people to actually lock down.

I agree with you about the downsides of lockdown, and this is one of the reasons I am lockdown questioning. But the idea that we could ever have had any lockdown at all without the state paying enough people to stay out of the way is fanciful. Don't confuse whether lockdown is a bad idea with whether it required certain things. What do you think would actually have happened if millions of people were told you can't work and the only help we're giving you is a loan that you'll have to pay back later?

I'll go for suicide by cop if I ever end up having to be locked down again in my lifetime.

I'll just opt out again like I did last time.

You don't pay 80% of peoples' salaries for them to sit on their arses at home baking banana bread and spying on the neighbours! No other country that I know of did that. That was sheer insanity.

Is that you Boris? 😁

What does opting out look like?

The only good thing to come out of covid was Tiktok.

Can we report her after the fact? I'm sure someone will lol.

No. Instead of eat out to help out, it could have been get another job to help out. We were crying out for workers in jobs that actually mattered.

😂

Why would you work when you're getting paid to sit at home?

I agree with the mass hysteria part etc but furlough was replicated by many countries. It’s a German thing - Kurzarbeit

For the first time in its august history of more than 100 years, the Adlon, a glitzy hotel within sight of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, used Kurzarbeit, a scheme in which the German government pays the bulk of wages of people who temporarily stop working or work reduced hours. “Our business was almost completely gone,” explains Daniela Welter, the hotel’s head of personnel, referring to the hard lockdown imposed last November that banned hotel stays for leisure travellers. Thanks to Kurzarbeit, the Adlon was able to save the jobs of all its 347 staff.

Kurzarbeit dates back over a century and has been mimicked round the world during the covid-19 crisis.

Again though, that's an argument about the amount rather than the principle. Sure, its possible it could've been less than 80% up to the threshold and still been enough to sustain lockdown. No argument there.

But what people are saying here is that direct state support didn't have to happen at all in lockdown, or could have been a loan instead. It could not. You cannot have lockdown without giving people money.

Oh yes, that was quite something. The NHS worker dance. And people running around doing voluntary work and 'acts of good' for likes. Great stuff indeed. 🤦‍♀️

Yawn.

Interesting that you can't actually refute any of this and have stopped trying.

No country paid a percentage of salary. It was a universal amount. That's what broke us. Last of the big spenders.

Strangely, the UK didn't even have the longest lockdown. For that, I can forgive Boris a few byob parties.