“Covid marshals to be introduced”

[Funkypolar]

To enforce social distancing.

No doubt they will find many volunteers on Mumsnet!

heresme innit!!!

I think this thread, on top of the various government announcements today, is enough to convince me that there is now absolutely fuck all about English society that's worth protecting.

@HMSSophie

This government, this Tory, right wing government that so many people voted for, is a government I despise beyond words. But if there was a way to keep the economy going and sod the lives of the people, it is this very government who would do that. The fact that a right wing government is trying - abominably badly, and incompetently, but trying none the less - to minimise the damage to the health of the nation, means to me that Covid is actually far more of a risk. If that moron Johnson could get way with a few thousands dying, but a strong economy, he would. The fact has to be that if there were not measures in place, the death rate would be such that his party would be unelectable for a thousand years.

I see this reasoning all the time, and it is entirely beside the point.

I despise this Tory government, and I voted for it. For this I'm really sorry (although you probably like it for reasons I don't, so maybe not).

Britain's lockdown really solidified the moral case for the lockdown. Before this it was one Spain, Italy and France following China's dubious footsteps. It really could have gone either way.

Johnson famously wanted to go the way of Sweden, but he succumbed to the Twitter mob. Emboldened, Trump would have almost certainly done the same, which would have probably yielded the same results (Democrat governors are incentivised to maximise economic damage in the run up to the election, there's no central control so there would have been a red/blue divide).

Who knows what might have happened in Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe and India - other than they could have entertained the not-locking down option. Now we know their supply chain/lockdown-related disruptions are the far bigger humanitarian disaster.

Johnson will not pay the price for his overreaction to C19; if it's demonstrated that a comparable level of deaths could have been achieved for 10 or 20 or 30 billion rather than 500 billion (or whatever the tab is now that our children will pick up), the public has been trained to say 'if it saved just one life, it's worth it'.

@1dayatatime

But we need to very very clear Covid cannot be eliminated. It is here to stay in the same way that every year people catch the same virus from the 1953 and 1968 epidemics and some still die from it, it's just that the vast vast majority of us have already been exposed and have built up a resistance.

The flu viruses that causes the 1957 and 1968 pandemics have long since mutated into different strains, many, many times. You can’t catch the 1957 or 1968 strains now, only a long distant descendent.

@Nixon am intrigued why the marshals need to be construction skills certification scheme checked ? is this a multi task force , checking social distancing and rebuilding Britain in one foul swoop ?

@Nestme

Well lets see what the covid marshals do with it shall we?

Let's hope they won't hassle rape survivors, as you want them to.

@Nixen So even the recruiters can't spell marshal? (Clearly the important thing here.) We are all doomed, I tell ye.

Ah well, we'll apparently all be dead by November so we may as well enjoy ourselves.

@HeresMe

It's funny how people keep laughing at the nazi comparisons, but want people who are exempt to wear identifing lanyards labels ect, no paraells at all

Yep!

@BamboozledandBefuddled

I think this thread, on top of the various government announcements today, is enough to convince me that there is now absolutely fuck all about English society that's worth protecting.

I wish I had never gotten worked up over Brexit or austerity or even Iraq, because I had no idea how incredibly wonderful our lives were. (hollow laugh at Iraq, our previous barometer for 'disaster'.

None of these matter anymore, because what has happened now is utterly tragic. I don't see how Britain will ever recover from this fuckery.

Actually might be some mileage in that idea, they already have the Hi-vis and are trained to work in all weather conditions, they have the signage and cones a plenty

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'WTF? This is about instituting non-police personnel, about whom there is no information about their training, vetting, etc to be able to police' Oh calm down fgs. It was only mentioned today. I'm sure more info will be forthcoming, don't fret.

'Calm down'. Yep, the strawman appears. I'll never calm down when it comes to making civil liberties illegal.

Emboldened, Trump would have almost certainly done the same, which would have probably yielded the same results (Democrat governors are incentivised to maximise economic damage in the run up to the election, there's no central control so there would have been a red/blue divide).

. That’s nonsense.... The surge in infections over the summer largely occurred in Republican run states! It was their Trump supporting governors who, albeit only reluctantly when hospitals were becoming overrun, tightened up and advocated masks. Do you honestly think Trump needs Boris to do something to be emboldened?!

frumpetry you’ve made me proper chuckle

I think the adverts were actually for building site COVID marshals hence the CSCS card requirements - a mumsnet crossover reaction?

@Derbygerbil

Emboldened, Trump would have almost certainly done the same, which would have probably yielded the same results (Democrat governors are incentivised to maximise economic damage in the run up to the election, there's no central control so there would have been a red/blue divide).

. That’s nonsense.... The surge in infections over the summer largely occurred in Republican run states! It was their Trump supporting governors who, albeit only reluctantly when hospitals were becoming overrun, tightened up and advocated masks. Do you honestly think Trump needs Boris to do something to be emboldened?!

I'm talking about February/March, but the reasoning stands.

Southern states just happen to be Republican and it landed in the South later.

DeSantis never mandated masks, their hospitals were not overrun in the same way that they are every third year in a flu pandemic, and New York and New Jersey remain the front runners for maximum deaths by about a three-fold margin.

The point is that Trump is an irrelevance to all this, and this is pretty much how the US is set up - health care decisions are meant to be handled by the states. The CDC can set broad standards, but the states have very broad power of execution.

The gestapo were authoritarians who enforced 'correct' behaviour through social control and a regime of terror.

Now covid marshals certainly arent like that but they are intended to be an authoritarian tool of the state to enforce 'correct behaviour' through social control.

Generally speaking if we are talking about enforcement its because there has been a failure to convince the public by other means that a policy is in their best interests and society as a whole.

At the start of the crisis we had all this talk about more community and bringing people together and how people had missed thst sense of purpose and belonging and important in the last couple of decades and how this growth in self individualism had won the argument and dominated the lives of others.

Now we are seeing disillusionment, a sense of being failed and not looked after in hard times and a growing hostility to others growing again, perhaps to a worse level than pre covid.

It smacks of earlier policy failure and mismanagement by government who now seek to regain control through force as they lack other forms of earned snd respected moral authority.

Its an act of desparation by otherwise weak leaders out of their depth.

@DurhamDurham

My next door neighbour will be in his element. He was timing us all when we went out for walks at the start of lockdown. He was trying to impose his own belief that we had to be back in an hour.

Shouldn't laugh but .. unfortunately loads of them about

@Batshitbeautycosmeticsltd
Civil liberties can't be illegal by definition!
What about civil responsibility?

@Refractory

None of these matter anymore, because what has happened now is utterly tragic. I don't see how Britain will ever recover from this fuckery.

I guess it depends on which Britain you are talking about ?

Of course it's happening all over the world - it's the New World Order, goddammit! Duh! Wake UP, sheeple!
You nearly had me until the grin at the end.

That's the logic I've seen on my Facebook feed 🤣

Look at the advert again I'm pretty sure it relates to building site COVID marshals only!

Just google CSCS!

Fucking ridiculous.

But the people who have been on MN since march calling for the Army on the streets, or a "proper lockdown like they had in Spain", or snitching on their neighbours, or berating people for having a packet of crisps on a park bench will be practically wetting themselves in excitement.

It's horrendous. Perhaps we could get all the infectious people to wear a yellow star and live in a certain part of town?

@sockyarn
A lot of people with COVID ended up stored in the same area just not living there. Maybe it's best not to over react to control measures.

@Refractory I agree with you wholeheartedly. There really aren't words to describe how I feel about the future right now.