BBC1 news tonight

[Pomegranatespompom]

Did anyone watch the poverty and covid report? It was incredibly sad, people living in absolutely awful circumstances. There was no SD/mask wearing,. An utterly depressing watch.

I did a shop for the foodbank at lunchtime thanks to this article. I've also shared it with friends who will do the same. It seems pitiful though, people shouldn't NEED foodbanks in this day and age.

@TheDailyCarbuncle there would have been +++ thousands of deaths without lockdown.
I do agree there have also been needless deaths due to chronic underfunding of health and social care.

[quote Pomegranatespompom]@TheDailyCarbuncle there would have been +++ thousands of deaths without lockdown.
I do agree there have also been needless deaths due to chronic underfunding of health and social care.[/quote]
No, there was a model that was based on no data at all that made a completely unfounded prediction that there would be many thousands of deaths without lockdown. The predictions of that model haven't shown to be true at all, not even once.

In order to prevent a scenario that was based on a guess, from a model based on no data at all, people were killed and plunged into poverty. All the while, people sitting in comfortable homes with 'safe' jobs bleated on about how it was 'selfish' not to go along with restrictions that were killing vulnerable people left right and centre. Next year there will be handwringing and 'sadness' (much like this ridiculous thread) about how awful it all is, when it was all entirely predictable and totally avoidable.

I work in the nhs - I have seen what covid can do, you have no idea at all.
Why are you posting if this thread is ridiculous?
If this thread raises awareness and encourages people to donate to food banks - that’s a very small good thing to happen.

Really sad. The thing is this is happening all over the world and if this is where we are at in a rich country, God only knows what's happening in the poor ones with no or little state aid. I find it astonishing that some people still think this is a hoax and some master plan to reset the world economies. We can't even agree on things in the 4 countries in the UK, let alone get 200 countries to agree to decimate their economies for a reset. Every country is feeling this. No country has all the answers, we are all just trying to do the best in an unprecedented times

@Pomegranatespompom

I work in the nhs - I have seen what covid can do, you have no idea at all. Why are you posting if this thread is ridiculous? If this thread raises awareness and encourages people to donate to food banks - that’s a very small good thing to happen.

I also work with the NHS, not as a clinician but in research. I am fully aware of what covid can do. I am also aware of what not being able to work for months on end, extreme loneliness and lack of access to proper mental healthcare can do. Covid can kill, but so can many many other things and prioritising covid over everything else is utter madness. It causes suffering and death.

I'm posting because this sort of shit pisses me off -people saying 'oh dear isn't it awful' as if there was no way of seeing this coming from a hundred miles away.

[quote LadyPenelope68]@Pomegranatespompom
There was no SD/mask wearing
No offence, but I’m assuming you’re from a middle class family (not a criticism or anything, please don’t take it the wrong way). I’ve worked with families like this throughout this whole Pandemic and it may be that the dreadful circumstances some of them are going through, that SD and masks are actually the last thing in their mind. It’s heartbreaking the situations people are currently in.[/quote]
This.
Welcome to Boris' Britain

@Farle29

Really sad. The thing is this is happening all over the world and if this is where we are at in a rich country, God only knows what's happening in the poor ones with no or little state aid. I find it astonishing that some people still think this is a hoax and some master plan to reset the world economies. We can't even agree on things in the 4 countries in the UK, let alone get 200 countries to agree to decimate their economies for a reset. Every country is feeling this. No country has all the answers, we are all just trying to do the best in an unprecedented times

Total bollocks.

It's not a hoax, I'll give you that.

But it is well-off people prioritising their fear of a single virus over the needs of others, while at the same time considering themselves to be extremely selfless and worthy and good.

Wearing a mask doesn't make you a saint. Preventing others from working and feeding themselves because you consider the lives of others to be more important than theirs is not a selfless act.

@TheDailyCarbuncle well obviously the thread wasn’t intended to piss anyone off.

I don’t think the manner in which you’re posting will encourage anyone to engage with you or change their perspective though. Perhaps your just having a rant - at the wrong people.

If this thread raises awareness and encourages people to donate to food banks - that’s a very small good thing to happen

No it fucking isn't, food banks are the worst thing ever, they let the tories off the hook for the years of austerity and under funding they support.

We (the UK generally) have all voted for these levels of inequality over many years & given how popular the tories despite the disastrous way they have handled this pandemic, i suspect they'll be back in again in 2024.

I am in the right place though because this is exactly the place where people who are in favour of lockdowns go to express their terrible sadness at the effects of the measures they supported and even demanded. It would be great if people who went on and on about how lockdowns are vital and we must all follow the rules etc etc could see and understand the effect of their attitudes but it seems that most people are a bit too dense to make the connection, so I'm making it for them. I doubt it'll make much difference - people are too brainwashed to see it (yet) but it keeps me somewhat sane because I am so infuriated at having to live with this nonsense day in and day out.

Of course there should not be a need for food banks ... but if people need food now, that’s something people can help with immediately. Would you rather people didn’t help?
I can’t imagine anyone voting Tory but yet here we are again.

@thecatsatonthewall

If this thread raises awareness and encourages people to donate to food banks - that’s a very small good thing to happen

No it fucking isn't, food banks are the worst thing ever, they let the tories off the hook for the years of austerity and under funding they support.

We (the UK generally) have all voted for these levels of inequality over many years & given how popular the tories despite the disastrous way they have handled this pandemic, i suspect they'll be back in again in 2024.

I totally agree.

Also if you voted Tory and then look at this situation and think 'how awful,' then it's high time you looked in the mirror and asked yourself what sort of person you really are. Because if you voted Tory, you voted for this suffering, and for all the suffering that lies ahead for you and your children, post restrictions and post Brexit. If you voted Tory you have no right to claim any sort of sympathy for anyone because you voted for a hatred of anyone who isn't like Boris and his cronies (which ironically might even include the voter themselves - which always baffles me).

It really moved me and I’m not one that’s moved easily. I tried to find it again on the BBC site to find the place but no info. Was it Birmingham?

The lack of SD was shocking but when people are hungry and you are over worked and exhausted I can see how it happens. Really sad when broken people fall through the gaps. Some people have literally nobody looking out for them.

The mention of the lack of social distancing just shows how entirely out of touch some people are and how little they understand the reality of people's lives. If you're starving, you're not going to be worried about a less than 1% chance of dying from an illness that the people around you might not even have FFS. It's fucking ludicrous to think that a person hasn't eaten for days is going to hang back and risk starving to death because there's a tiny tiny chance of getting a fucking virus.

I also think people don't have a clue how massively privileged it is to be able to sit in your warm home with a full belly and say 'oh yes it's important for shops and pubs to close, it'll save lives.' How much of an idiot do you have to be to see that yes closing pubs might be good for you (in the short term, in the long term you'll pay for it, don't worry) but for many others not as fortunate as you it's a complete disaster?

Add to that the sheer arrogance of saying 'oh dear it's a pandemic, it's necessary' - I wonder how necessary they would think it is if they were the ones starving to death? To say that it's vital to save lives from covid but deaths from lockdown are just an unfortunate side effect takes a level of - what - stupidity? psychopathy? that I can't quite fathom.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

I also think people don't have a clue how massively privileged it is to be able to sit in your warm home with a full belly and say 'oh yes it's important for shops and pubs to close, it'll save lives.' How much of an idiot do you have to be to see that yes closing pubs might be good for you (in the short term, in the long term you'll pay for it, don't worry) but for many others not as fortunate as you it's a complete disaster?

Agree, the 1000s of ex workers at Debenhams and Arcadia will soon be on UC, with little chance of re employment, using the very same food banks you all support, claiming fsm's this xmas.

Welcome to Victorian Britain

So would you rather people didn’t talk about it ? Didn’t try to help?
I think you so keen to promote your opinion (a lot of which I agree with) that you alienate people, this thread was started with good intentions. You are part of the problem, so angry you don’t want people to help. You need to change your style of communication.

If someone saw the news last night/ this thread and voted Tory, maybe it would influence their vote on the future.

The comment the mask wearing was purely as getting covid would make their lives worse. It was not a criticism. I felt scared for them tbh I have seen people die purely from being in the same meeting as someone who was positive but asymptomatic. I’d feel the same if I saw any group of people without masks.

I've just given a money donation to my local food bank and was thinking it would be great it we could also somehow donate utilities prepayments that could be collected along with food parcels.

I know this would be difficult in practice as there are so many utilities providers out there and so many different styles of payment but there is so much fuel poverty at the moment too, so many families economizing and putting up with being cold and uncomfortable in their own homes.

I am in a tier 3 working class area of Northern England. My husband is a cleaner/caretaker/litter picker for the council and sees daily people walking up to him and other colleagues asking if there are jobs for them, often with hear breaking desperation in their voice. The poor have been so left behind in all of this. My friend works for a children's charity doing similar work as shown on the film. She is regularly in tears at what she sees daily.
The thing is, the working class (like my husband) have gone out to work every day in this crisis, meaning they are more exposed to the virus, so the cases rise in the working class areas, so then we're put into tier 3, so more businesses suffer, and so it goes on. This is the crisis we're in now. The lockdowns save the middle class and let everyone else suffer. I don't want to sound like I've got a chip on my shoulder, far from it, but coming on MN and hearing people worry about whether they should still be having/paying their cleaner/nanny gardener when where I am there is unimaginable suffering right outside our door, it just feels a world away from my experience and like the class divide is getting bigger and bigger throughout this pandemic.
I am also not against lockdown as the NHS where we are is on it's knees. Someone I know's wife broke her leg the other day and there was no ambulance for her. BUT there should have been more to help the poorest and most vulnerable. And the amount of self employed people falling through the gaps into bankruptcy is unforgiveable. I am fortunately covered by the scheme, but so so many people just haven't qualified for it at all. If you registered self employed after 2018 you don't get a penny, and I have no idea what the justification is for this.

There's another thread on here at the moment wondering whether it is ok to go shopping tomorrow, I say please get out there and support the economy if you can. There is this holier than thou attitude coming across of 'oh no of course I won't go out shopping' when like I say, the working class have had no choice but to be out there every day throughout this, please go out and support the businesses that they work for. If you clapped for key workers, now is the time to show your appreciation by supporting the economy.

The crazy thing is that the people in Burnley, where this was filmed and which is one of the poorest areas in the country, voted in a Tory MP last December.

@thedaytodayyesterday Thanks for your post. Absolutely agree we need to try to save jobs.

I don't vote Tory but I dont think forcing people to put themselves in harm's way because they cant afford not to is the way to go. And if you look at the anti-lockdown USA that's just what's happening. The poor getting sick and dying to make money for big business.

God that made me cry. Awful awful lives. Made worse by COVID, yes, but this is what this country is, a sickeningly unequal shitshow, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a personal family wealth of millions and millions. This goes far beyond the current crisis. Horrific. And then to read these poor fuckers voted Tory. Everything is so screwed up.