Reopening on 2nd December: remember this.

[wanderings]

That is what our glorious leader said, that we waited three hours to hear, and we must hold him to account on it. Tier 4 restrictions will end on 2nd Dec, and will return to 3 or below on 2nd December. That is what he stated CATEGORICALLY, and yes, we did hear him right; he did not say that it would merely be "reviewed" on 2nd December, he said tier 4 restrictions would be REMOVED.

It's nice to have an end date to this new misery in sight, but unfortunately the oath came from a face with a nose longer than Pinocchio's. The single way in which our glorious leader is most likely to fuck up everybody this time round is by NOT keeping his word on this. After all, this is the man who promised "we can turn this virus around in twelve weeks" and "normalish by Christmas". Little was said about what they might achieve in this latest missile attack on people's livelihoods, but we could easily hear "we didn't achieve what we hoped, we never told you about it anyway, it's your fault anyway, so it's lasting longer" on 1st December.

Businesses need to plan for reopening on 2nd December, and be very public about it, so that if the government reneges on this promise, the damage done will be very clear indeed. The government is likely to spin their way out of allowing things back to how they are now on 2nd December: we must not be brainwashed into letting this happen.

If the government does actually keep their word on this, and it's business as usual (at least, as it is now) on 2nd December, they might actually do something to restore some public trust.

Remember also that if this lockdown is having the effect that it is supposed to have, many regions should be returning to LOWER tiers than they are in now. We do not expect areas which are in tier 2 or below now to find themselves in 3 on 2nd December.

Remember this. Watch the government, not your neighbours.

@blueangel19

*Poor Boris he is not a scientist etc blame anyone ? Blame China who silenced people, shut off Beijing and let others fly all over the world and also could any of you do better !!!! No government would have done better and all European countries are going through the same Rant over*

This

There are other governments that have managed this well (not just NZ). And while China did initially silence the people whistleblowing, they aren’t responsible for the mess we are in now. They locked down hard in January to buy the rest of the World time to deal with it. The WHO urged countries not to waste that time and we did.

China aren’t responsible for us seeing what happened to healthcare systems in China and then Italy and then Spain and then thinking we could get away with just washing our hands.
China are not responsible for us failing to lock down our border for another 5-6 months.
China aren’t responsible for our decision to stop testing once we realised there was community spread.
China are not responsible for the Conservative government paying huge sums of money to random new companies set up by their friends for very little return. China are not responsible for Dido Harding or Dominic Cummings.
Nor are they responsible for the scientific advisors recommending a lockdown in March and the government failing to act for another week. And then repeating that by recommending another lockdown in September and the government failing to act for over a month.

[quote vera99]@dollychops thanks for clarification I now know who to blame. Though since Johnson has royally ficked up everything he has ever done or grandstanded on other efforts I don't expect he has changed now. Let's t'celebrate Getting Brexit Done and all his other wonderful creations for t'Red Wall.[/quote]
Why are you posting photo shopped photos?

Reopening on 2nd December

I also disagree with "the government don't give a shit about what people post on social media". Has it not been their modus operandi throughout to leak their ideas to the press first, to gauge the public reaction? Presumably one way they're monitoring the public reaction is via social media. Take the introducing masks in shops: when they were toying with the idea (having previously told us "masks are useless"), Boris put on a mask for a shop in Uxbridge. The public then lapped it up, so the government thought "yep, we're onto a winner, it will make us look as if we're doing something". This is why I think we need to be putting our anger at their constant lies out there. Anger and fatigue with lockdown in general is old news now.

Maybe Boris has grasped the idea that people are fed up with slogans: the only slogan I remember from yesterday was "next slide, please".

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay if China had not released the virus we would not be having this conversation
End of

The PM definitely did not want to lock down. The fact that he has announced this 2nd lockdown after categorically stating he wouldn't lock down, in my opinion, is a sign of strength and humility. It is not an embarrassing U-turn.

The fact that he did not listen to the scientists 6 weeks ago, so that we will again have a much longer lockdown than would have been needed otherwise), costing untold billions more (and most likely 1000s of needless deaths; that is a sign of his stupidity.

@Youandmeareluckytobeus

The PM definitely did not want to lock down. The fact that he has announced this 2nd lockdown after categorically stating he wouldn't lock down, in my opinion, is a sign of strength and humility. It is not an embarrassing U-turn.

Exactly he was trying to keep the economy going things change each day with this fucking virus

He did not promise that we'd definitely come out of lockdown in a month. He said "it's my sincere hope" or something along those lines. It makes sense that they can't make concrete promises.

[quote dollychopss]@RafaIsTheKingOfClay if China had not released the virus we would not be having this conversation
End of [/quote]
End of what exactly?

Why do dumb people think that posting 'end of' at the end of there post that it trumps everything when it does precisely nothing at all. (OK, it does something, it makes the person look dumb)

@Youandmeareluckytobeus

The PM definitely did not want to lock down. The fact that he has announced this 2nd lockdown after categorically stating he wouldn't lock down, in my opinion, is a sign of strength and humility. It is not an embarrassing U-turn.

This !

He didn't lie. He tried to avoid a lockdown.

I'm not a Boris fan... but honestly I'm not sure anyone could please anyone judging by the various threads on here.

@wanderings

That is what our glorious leader said, that we waited three hours to hear, and we must hold him to account on it. Tier 4 restrictions will end on 2nd Dec, and will return to 3 or below on 2nd December. That is what he stated CATEGORICALLY, and yes, we did hear him right; he did not say that it would merely be "reviewed" on 2nd December, he said tier 4 restrictions would be REMOVED.

It's nice to have an end date to this new misery in sight, but unfortunately the oath came from a face with a nose longer than Pinocchio's. The single way in which our glorious leader is most likely to fuck up everybody this time round is by NOT keeping his word on this. After all, this is the man who promised "we can turn this virus around in twelve weeks" and "normalish by Christmas". Little was said about what they might achieve in this latest missile attack on people's livelihoods, but we could easily hear "we didn't achieve what we hoped, we never told you about it anyway, it's your fault anyway, so it's lasting longer" on 1st December.

Businesses need to plan for reopening on 2nd December, and be very public about it, so that if the government reneges on this promise, the damage done will be very clear indeed. The government is likely to spin their way out of allowing things back to how they are now on 2nd December: we must not be brainwashed into letting this happen.

If the government does actually keep their word on this, and it's business as usual (at least, as it is now) on 2nd December, they might actually do something to restore some public trust.

Remember also that if this lockdown is having the effect that it is supposed to have, many regions should be returning to LOWER tiers than they are in now. We do not expect areas which are in tier 2 or below now to find themselves in 3 on 2nd December.

Remember this. Watch the government, not your neighbours.

But what if the Great British Public pays no heed to this lockdown, continues to party, visit each other in their houses etc... then yes, it is their fault if lockdown has to be extended...

Boris said that tier 4 would end on 2nd December, and restrictions would return to the levels they are at now, or lower.

Well this is not true, because there is no such thing as Tier 4...

The Tier system lasted about a week, some places were in their Tier for about 2 days.
No time at all to show whether it was working or not. Cases in Liverpool, Manchester and Nottingham had actually started dropping anyway.

And Johnson said we wouldn’t have another lockdown. Things change.

I am expecting the lockdown to continue until Easter so if it does stop on the 2nd December, that will be a huge positive.

I agree with wanderings.
It's a shame it's so long until the next election.

@Mydogdoesntlisten Yes, it is a shame.

Do people really believe that this will all be over on 2nd December? Or are people just resigned to being lied to?

Do we expect people to not see their families or partners in some cases until potentially next year ? Because I don't think that's acceptable, pandemic or not.

He tried to avoid a lockdown.

Refusing to start a lockdown that's been looking inevitable for weeks is not avoiding one. It's creating a longer lockdown than we might otherwise have needed. A lesson he apparently didn't learn in March.

Since when has boris been held to account to for anything he says or promises ?

People already did it for several months this year, it's not ok for them to have to do it again. Ban large parties yes, but not basic rights.

It's explicitly not being called Tier 4.

This is what Boris said (taken from transcript of his address)
"They [these measures] will end on Wednesday 2 December, when we will seek to ease restrictions, going back into the tiered system on a local and regional basis according to the latest data and trends."

Nothing to stop the addition of a Tier 4 (or 5 or 6 or ...) when we go back into the tiered system :)

I don't think the fact that we will more than likely continue beyond 2 Dec is the problem, it's that he keeps making promises he knows he has no intention of keeping. Why say categorically that we'll be back to how we are now on 2Dec when he can't possibly know if that will be the case?

Why are we tolerating this? FFS @Wanderings were tolerating it so we don’t see more people die, the NHS can function and people can still access cancer care! They can’t if the hospitals are overrun with covid

Since when has boris been held to account to for anything he says or promises ?
This is exactly the problem. Prime ministers and other politicians keep getting away with it. Tony Blair's not in prison for his war crimes; and all the other times he promised the moon on a stick. He was a more crafty liar than Boris, who doesn't sound believable at all. Was there a time when lying politicians had their heads chopped off for treason?

@Dustballs Are people resigned to being lied to? Again, this is the problem. It's become the political normal. We must stop accepting it, and we must make more noise when they do it.

Once again, I did not say "he said it would be all over" on 2nd Dec. It's this latest round of restrictions that we should be holding him to account about easing; if we are then back in tiers 1, 2 or 3 thereafter, that is what he led us to believe would happen. He could do a whole lot of good for public trust if he made good on his word about this, even if it would feel very uncomfortable for him.

Why should the whole nation have to restrict their lives because the NHS is not up to scratch ?