Greater Manchester Police broke up a child’s birthday party

[Redolent]

They’ve been busy recently...

#UPDATE | Officers attended a property in #Swinton where 3 families were celebrating a child's birthday in a private garden. The homeowner has been issued with a fixed penalty notice.

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The rest of their Twitter exploits:

mobile.twitter.com/gmpolice

Draconian or justified?

The worst thing about this is some smug neighbour patting themselves on the back for dobbing in their neighbour and ruining a kids birthday

Surely the fault lies with those who decided to hold the party? Put the blame on those who deserve it.

The real news has been littered with people who had no pre-existing conditions and have died. Babies. Children. Teenagers. Men. Women. Every age group.
Also, sorry to respond to this again, but when did you last hear about a baby, child or teenager death from covid? Those which were recorded earlier in the pandemic were "with covid" not "due to covid" as noted here in this article from ONS. And now that the NHS is coping, the number of people dying has decreased significantly so if someone who was young and/or without underlying condition had it and was in danger they could get treatment more quickly. We also have better treatments available now.

@halcyondays

Because if we don’t follow the “draconian” rules there’ll soon be a lot more than 2 deaths a day.

This

@eaglejulesk

The worst thing about this is some smug neighbour patting themselves on the back for dobbing in their neighbour and ruining a kids birthday

Surely the fault lies with those who decided to hold the party? Put the blame on those who deserve it.

I disagree that they "deserve" anything

The Police would probably have easier pickings if they circulated round pubs and broke up groups of people with more than two households (or whatever the rule is in GM).

However, I wonder if those people who say “I went to the pub and it was packed” mean this in the sense that pubs were “packed” in way we’d have understood the term pre-March (i.e. people shoulder to shoulder and you have to weave slowly through a sea of closely packed people to get to the toilet), or post-June (i.e. the socially distanced tables all had people sitting at them).

"Politics: the art of using euphemisms, lies, emotionalism and fear-mongering to dupe average people into acceptingor even demandingtheir own enslavement."
Larken Rose

For those who say “cases may have gone up but hospitalisations are low, so there’s no justification for action”... (well, cases have gone up because they’re testing much more and it’s younger people who tend to be getting it.... for the moment), isn’t it better that the authorities are “preventative“, and taking action before things get worse, rather than “reactive“, and just letting things deteriorate until they are forced to take action much like what happened in places like Texas and Florida,
by which time cases have spread out from the younger people who seeded it.

For those rightly pressing for all non-Covid treatments to get back completely to normal (which I’m thinking they largely are now) and remain that way, a “preventative” approach is surely far, far better.

@Whatelsecouldibecalled

Should have booked it in the pub. Would be ok then

Not allowed to meet other households inside, only outside in public places. I feel sorry for the child but the parents were breaking the law. We live in GM and so fed up of people ignoring the rules and the rest of us get to be subject to tighter restrictions. I know people who are just back from France and not quarantining. Makes me so angry.

@Redolent That’s an area on increased lockdown, with clear rules what you can and can’t do. The Police did the absolute right thing and it was not the neighbours or the Police that spoilt the child’s birthday, it was the parents who were stupid enough to think they were above the rules. It’s people like them, and you for even starting a thread questioning it, who think the rules don’t apply to them, that will cause further lockdown. Selfish twats.

It’s interesting that many of those most opposed to any action being taken regarding social distancing breaches are also those most enthusiastic of Sweden’s approach (which I happen to think we could learn a lot from), without seeing that Sweden’s approach only worked because people did broadly follow social distancing guidelines!

Ironically, if Sweden was full of the Sweden-loving libertarians who are determined to paint Covid as “just the flu” and who believe we should have carried on mixing however we wanted, Sweden’s approach would likely have been a disaster!

The whole of Greater Manchester is restricted at the moment.

The rules are clear.

Someone may have linked upthread but if not, here are the current RULES.
Not ‘guidelines’

www.gov.uk/guidance/north-west-of-england-local-restrictions-what-you-can-and-cannot-do

Although having said that, when the GOV uses the word ‘guidelines’ people will forever more follow Cummings.

I live near a pub. By midnight, social distancing has gone- there are people falling about, shouting and hugging outside; this was never so before lockdown! The double standards are baffling.

@Imissmoominmama

If the Police are to take action, it should be those pubs first. However, those people who get drunk and hug each other outside pubs won’t stop doing those things if pubs close... They’ll just do it in their own homes, so I can understand the reluctance to come down too hard on pubs as at least there is a degree of control in place, albeit slim at midnight outside the premises!

@StealthPolarBear
3 families is likely birthday child's family and both sets of grandparents sad
What does it matter who it was? It still breaches the increased lockdown regulations, so shouldn’t be happening. That child’s birthday is no more important than anyone else’s.

What a shame GMP we're not so robust on Wilmslow rd last week, probably a bit easier for them a kids party.

Exactly. That's happened twice this month hasn't it?

I bet some mumsnetters just squealed with delight and wet themselves when they saw this post. A child's birthday broken up by the police, that's like heaven on Earth for a lot on here.

Draconian yes!

@walksen

My nephews and nieces had no party at all due to lockdown. This is undoubtedly true for thousands if not millions of people this year.

We should be blaming the selfish fuckwits who threw parties indoors putting greater Manchester back into lockdown instead of enjoying the freedoms the rest of the country still have including that to have kids parties in their gardens.

The police have to do something because people have blatantly ignored guidance and will continue to do so without some kind of enforcement. Let's not forget Oldham promised more enforcement to avoid a Leicester type lockdown.

And if this was "like North Korea" we'd have the army on the streets shooting people or throwing them in prison for breaking the rules instead of an under resourced and undermanned police force unable to do anything about hundreds of people at raves

You're the fuckwits

Well done them.

For all the cretins going on about police states- transmission is highest in the home. Which is why the first restriction to be put back is banning gatherings at home.

If you are desperate for schools to go back and for pubs to stay open then stop having fucking parties with loads of households. You can’t have it all.

@bingbong1970

What a huge level of maturity you’ve shown.

slow claps

My issue with this is that it almost certianylninvolveds a working class black/Asian family.

The rules need to be applied but you know that a nice white MC family would have just received "advice" and a larger gathering where breaking it up would have been more complex and actual risk is much higher would have been left to get on with it.

I bet some mumsnetters just squealed with delight and wet themselves when they saw this post. A child's birthday broken up by the police, that's like heaven on Earth for a lot on here.
Agreed I'm in greater Manchester and I saw the post on my Facebook yesterday. I think it's shocking , shocking that a) someone called the police b) that the police came out and c) they fined them . It was in the garden and yes I know it's against the rules but so are many things you know actual crimes .
I don't know where some people on mumsnet live but this is greater Manchester a very busy city with a lot of crime that you can't even get the police to come out for actual crimes like breaking into a car for example but they seam to be available to break up a child's party in a garden .
If it was me I wouldn't pay the fine .
I actually feel sorry for people on here that they think it's ok.

The rules are the rules and are the rules for a good reason, anyone thinking they are above the rules is a selfish idiot.

I’m torn on this one because I’m in Manchester and am following the rules so find it annoying that people aren’t.

BUT yes I do think it’s draconian that someone has actually gone to the trouble of reporting their neighbour and that the police have wasted their resources on this. Scary actually.

Coronavirus is still SO minuscule in number now, even in the NW that this feels like ‘using a sledgehammer to crack a tiny nut’.
I think it’s a political tactic by our ‘trustworthy’ government.