England the only country that dissects and criticises everything the government say or do?

[Whatsthis1515]

So many other countries have schools back, various shops etc etc open.
Do you think people living in those countries also were up in arms when told they could return, dissecting and slagging off everything said?
Everyone here seems to think lockdown should either last forever or until September. I'm not quite sure what September will bring that June can't

So just wondering, is this criticism unique to England or do other countries do the same? I can't help but feel the people of England are so negative

I think the OP really spend some time needs to reading some foreign press...to think that the English are the only people that criticise and dissect what their government says smacks, frankly, of exceptionalism

This

Its absolutely ridiculous to think that Britain is the only country to complain about its government

@CloudsCoveredTheSky sorry.

I said we are in a pandemic. Deaths happen.

You requoted me and said - oh well that’s fine then! Implying that I was saying that was in any way fine when I was just simply stating the fact.

@RufustheLanglovingreindeer
If you could point me in the right direction, I would love to read some foreign press

@MamaKarmaLlama I sincerely hope herd immunity works because if not a vaccine is not possible. It’s how none of us catch measles anymore. We have herd immunity against measles.

We should all be very happy we received such clear and concise instructions by the government Yesterday on how to move forward. Such Stirling leadership has definitely boosted my confidence and morale.

@Bool

But they really aren’t following scientists advice (as has been shown by government documents). They failed to follow advice which is why the death toll is far higher than it needs to be. Countries with similar populations and densities have managed far better results.

Agree Mama
Just be alert and all will be fine

@Bool as an educated scientist, maybe best to read some of the research and articles related to herd immunity. They are very different diseases. It ‘may’ work, eventually, but not for a very long time...if at all. It’s not something we should be clinging on to as our saviour....

It's like this in Ireland. Every single thing they do, Corona virus or NOT, their motives are given the worst possible interpretation, when sometimes, it might be the case that they wanted as few people to die/suffer as possible.

@lavenderbongo I would wait and look at deaths when this pandemic is finally over and we have a standardised way of assessing it. We are 2 months in and have a long long way to go.

@MamaKarmaLlama you get herd immunity through a vaccine as well. You know that right.

I've been finding all the moaning very depressing. I'm trying personally to stay stoical and positive but my last week or so it's been hard work to stay motivated. I'm with my two late teen DC and find it hard working full time and keeping the household going.

But everything I read and hear is very negative. I had a group call with a bunch of friends on Saturday and all they did was moan about the government. I'm not a fan but I do realise how it's so much easier to order a lockdown than manage the relaxation of it and there is no path that everyone will agree with. In the end we are going to be living with this virus for a long time and will have to get used to the risk it poses.

No, it is not only England.
No, it is not every country.
It happens in countries where the Government dealt with this poorly.
I know for a fact people in the US and Spain are not happy and very vocal.

@Bool - the country I live in has only had just over 20 deaths so far - Vietnam has had none with a population of 95million!
The UK has not done well + the fact the actual death toll is probably not accurate.

Maybe other countries arent run by fuckwits?

Anyway, poor Boris. He should have become PM of someplace nicer.

Agree with everything bovary has said

Cheers @Beerincomechampagnetastes! The current situation is unsustainable. Lockdown can't continue. The government can't continue to bankroll half the working population to stay at home. The lack of outrage about the millions of cancelled operations and delayed cancer treatments is astounding. But the entire perverse, cultish behaviour towards the NHS is also bizarre.

@Whatsthis1515 why not start w the Washington Post and NY Times. Both available in English. Also the Nigerian Post.

Which languages do you speak?

@whatsthis1515

This is LUXEMBOURG news in English
today.rtl.lu/

I don't think anyone should be able to do an across the board whinge of Government decisions or whatever - without following up with THEIR SOLUTION.
I include opposing party members - The gov had done this this and this wrong, what they should have done is this............... It never happens. Except in some vague way, eg schools must not put teachers at risk, yeah, so you are saying schools cannot go back for the whole duration of the pandemic, but of course they don't get asked that part.

@BovaryX

You characterise libertarianism as being “small state, small taxes”. That’s a fair characterisation of right-libertarianism as it operates in the US and the UK, but not left-libertarianism or libertarianism as a whole. Libertarianism as a whole simply holds freedom to be the most important political value.

Furthermore, I didn’t say that the EU or any particular UK state was libertarian.

What I did say was that the politics in the UK have gone from a rather libertarian to a more authoritarian one round Brexit.

This is round talk of “taking back control” i.e. taking back authority to the British government judiciary. The key matter that ultimately obedience is due to the British state rather than the EU.

The talk has not been of reducing taxes but diverting them (e.g. from EU to NHS) and there is a pressing need to make some arms of UK state apparatus bigger not smaller (e.g. customs, trade negotiation) in order to navigate Brexit and afterwards.

The British state will, arguably, have a greater degree of de jure freedom (it’s not clear that this will translate to de facto freedom). It’s also not clear that individuals in the UK will have any greater freedom than before- they will just be obeying UK authority only rather than a mix of UK and EU.

I do think that there is a significant democratic deficit in the EU so it could be argued that people in the UK have a greater degree of control over the UK government than EU electors have over the EU, so they have more ability to influence government, and therefore they will be more free post Brexit.

But, with a FPTP system, usually only 40% of the British electorate are represented by the government, so it could just be a case of tyranny of the electoral majority (an actual minority) with no higher legal authority to enforce freedoms as enshrined in the rule of law.

Yes, there is a an avowedly free trade element to some Brexit messaging e.g. the ability to secure trade deals independently. But there has also been a lot of messaging that veers towards limiting freedoms rather than increasing them e.g. withdrawing from ECHR.

This shift to a more authoritarian position was key in breaking down the Red Wall. The traditional northern Labour heartlands tended toward being Left Authoritarian. And a a time when the Labour Party was not catering to that section of the electorate, finding commonality in the Authoritarian part became more important.

You can read bits of the front pages of many newspapers without subscribing.

Yay democracy!

We seem to want to say "why didnt we do this or that" well after the event!

Actually I think the public (or large swathes of it at least) have been way ahead of the government. My family and most of those we know were practicing social distancing, working from home where possible, avoiding shops etc at least one week before the government instruction was given. Many parents (us included) had removed their children from nursery. So no, I don't see people moaning after the event. I have seen all along people asking why the government aren't taking proactive steps and holding them to account for the avalanche of mistakes and delays. Do you really want to live in a country where the government are not held to account by the people? And actually, I think we are very weak at that. We elect leaders who we know are liars. We are very passive as a nation.

I'm also getting tired of the accusations of paranoia when people express very legitimate concerns over the reasons for the government's mismanagement of the pandemic. For example, I'm sure some PPs would think I'm paranoid for my views on yesterday's announcement, coming as it did after a week of hints (in the run up to a sunny bank holiday weekend and national celebration) that there would be big news on Sunday evening regarding plans to release the country from "lockdown". Now, either Boris Johnson is a simpleton who did not understand that these hints would give people the impression that social distancing and following the guidelines was not important over the weekend since they had been told to anticipate changes to the lockdown instructions, OR he knew exactly how people would receive the hints and leaks, and he deliberately timed his anti-climactic announcement to come after a weekend during which he knew full well that many would flout the rules. A kind of 'herd immunity by stealth', whereby he gets to neatly place the blame with the public if/when we see a spike in a couple of weeks.

@Bool we are a long way off getting a vaccine. You know that right?

@JessicaDay yes but it’s not possible to be left wing and liberal though is it? The U.K. (all major parties) is very keen on the kinds of policies that make large majorities dependent on the state as opposed to more liberal countries where governments try to prevent that or at least the appearance of that as much as possible. There are no truly liberal parties in the U.K. There haven’t been since thatcher.