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Original poster

Idiots piling onto packed trains out of London

233 replies

User158340 · 19/12/2020 21:05

By doing this they're putting whatever family or friends they're staying with at huge risk, not to mention the wider communities.

Also, the mindset of "it's within the rules because it's not midnight yet". It's not within the rules to breach social distancing. For goodness sake the trains are still running tomorrow so if you're going to break or bend the rules do it then when you won't be stood on a carriage with scores of other people.

OP posts:
Tiletiletile1 · 19/12/2020 23:04

@ancientgran

It’s the last weekend before Christmas. People come to London to shop and socialise. Then they go home. They weren't supposed to were they, it was already tier 3.

Can't people just change their plans. My DD was due home on Wednesday, when Boris made his announcement she rushed out to get some food before he finished speaking and is staying where she is. She doesn't want to put us at risk.

How so? Shops remain open in Tier 3. People are also allowed to socialise in very small groups outside in Tier 3. If they were shopping or socialising outside, then they weren’t breaking any rules.

They could live anywhere along that train line - 30 mins away or wherever - and are going back home after a day of Christmas shopping for all we know.

SirVixofVixHall · 19/12/2020 23:06

@Butterymuffin

Are you seriously telling me I should be responsible for others, strangers?

You'll be expecting others in the form of medical professionals to be responsible for you if you need treatment, I would guess. Do you drive? You're expected to be responsible for all the strangers on the road at the same time as you, by not killing them to get to your destination faster...

I find it really shocking that there are people who don’t expect to have to think beyond their own family, who do not care at all about people in the wider community, country, world. When did we all get so incredibly selfish and individualistic ?
frumpety · 19/12/2020 23:06

@Charley50 I think that is what the Government are trying to do, manage the risk, yes they are a bit rubbish at it , but what they don't want to happen is loads of people suddenly need hospital treatment at the same time.
Being completely brutally honest, if you are dead you don't need a bed, but if you are sick and need support whilst your body fights off the virus, then you are probably going to be taking up one of the precious NHS beds for the time you need to recover, so a week to 14 days if you are lucky.
Which is of course fine, you need that support so the NHS will provide it, the issue arises when the number of people needing that support overtakes what the NHS usually can provide for all the other acute conditions, so trauma, heart attacks, strokes etc
Add to that the workforce being reduced because of self isolation or illness and you have a perfect storm.
Why add to it ?

SirVixofVixHall · 19/12/2020 23:08

It also makes no sense, even on a selfish level. We would not be in this mess now if more people had thought of themselves as part of a community, and acted in the best interests of everyone.

Tiletiletile1 · 19/12/2020 23:08

*PhilCornwall1
I'm sure there are a few second homers on their way down here as we speak.
Would be interested in stats on this

I reckon a high proportion of second homers will have legged it*

I’m a second-home’r and am absolutely not going to it. Didn’t even consider it for a second.

Honestly stop blaming PEOPLE and start blaming the government! Oh wait, that’s what the government wants you to do so that they can get away with making things up on the spot and fucking it up.

MarshaBradyo · 19/12/2020 23:11

@Tiletiletile1

*PhilCornwall1 I'm sure there are a few second homers on their way down here as we speak. Would be interested in stats on this

I reckon a high proportion of second homers will have legged it*

I’m a second-home’r and am absolutely not going to it. Didn’t even consider it for a second.

Honestly stop blaming PEOPLE and start blaming the government! Oh wait, that’s what the government wants you to do so that they can get away with making things up on the spot and fucking it up.

Well that’s one. But it’s not all about you is it
frumpety · 19/12/2020 23:12

@PhilCornwall1 I know the roads. They can be a little narrow in places.
Yep a teensy bit snug in parts, add in the hedges with rocks and a company car, very much squeaky bottom territory Grin

Took our own car down after that, the one that looks like we have been living in it for months, with a variety of carpark and child related dings Wink

Tiletiletile1 · 19/12/2020 23:13

@Hercwasonasnowball

It's not even the Christmas thing that makes it hard. It's having been promised an opportunity to see family/friends and then having that opportunity denied at the last minute due to government incompetence.

Boris' approach throughout has been reactive rather than proactive. He knew about this strain at least 6 days ago. Why not do something then? Instead he was busy instructing his mates to sue councils that tried to close schools to slow the spread.

Completely agree.
PhilCornwall1 · 19/12/2020 23:15

@Tiletiletile1

*PhilCornwall1 I'm sure there are a few second homers on their way down here as we speak. Would be interested in stats on this

I reckon a high proportion of second homers will have legged it*

I’m a second-home’r and am absolutely not going to it. Didn’t even consider it for a second.

Honestly stop blaming PEOPLE and start blaming the government! Oh wait, that’s what the government wants you to do so that they can get away with making things up on the spot and fucking it up.

Errr, if you are having a go at me saying I'm having a pop at second homers coming down, do one!!

I don't care if they do and I'm sure they're on their way. Although god knows why, the weathers crap.

Charley50 · 19/12/2020 23:16

[quote frumpety]@Charley50 I think that is what the Government are trying to do, manage the risk, yes they are a bit rubbish at it , but what they don't want to happen is loads of people suddenly need hospital treatment at the same time.
Being completely brutally honest, if you are dead you don't need a bed, but if you are sick and need support whilst your body fights off the virus, then you are probably going to be taking up one of the precious NHS beds for the time you need to recover, so a week to 14 days if you are lucky.
Which is of course fine, you need that support so the NHS will provide it, the issue arises when the number of people needing that support overtakes what the NHS usually can provide for all the other acute conditions, so trauma, heart attacks, strokes etc
Add to that the workforce being reduced because of self isolation or illness and you have a perfect storm.
Why add to it ?[/quote]
@frumpety - what happened to the Nightingale Hospitals? Can't we use private hospitals if capacity is an issue?

People's lives are being
destroyed economically to 'save the (shitshow that the government had already made the) NHS.
I'm alright personally. I'm public sector and have already lost my parents. I just don't quite understand the decimation of this county vs average amounts/ age of deaths. I really don't.

Tiletiletile1 · 19/12/2020 23:23

PhilCornwall1 sorry if I misunderstood. I thought you were claiming all of London’s second home’rs would be fleeing after the news. Being one, I felt affronted. But I apologise!

Trouble is, the govt should be able to take human behaviour into account, and yet it doesn’t seem to be able to. But then, as you can tell by my other posts, I don’t think very highly of this govt at all Grin

Actually maybe the govt IS good at predicting human behaviour. It has done a great job of having people turn on each other, and not it!

carlaCox · 19/12/2020 23:27

Stop blaming individual people. You don't know what circumstances these people are in, there could be all kinds of reasons they could be legging it back up North.

The people to blame here are the government. A few days ago London was tier 2 - people were going to bars and restaurants and piling into Oxford Street. All of it was within "the rules". This tier 4 cancel-Christmas U-turn highlights a serious fuck up by the government. Why don't people see this?

frumpety · 19/12/2020 23:30

@Charley50 Honestly ? I am glad we haven't got to the point where we needed the Nightingales, because we would have been in deep doo doo if we had used them to full capacity. So keep your fingers crossed it remains that way.

Charley50 · 19/12/2020 23:31

I imagine most people with a second home drive there, rather than get the train.

ReceptacleForTheRespectable · 19/12/2020 23:33

what happened to the Nightingale Hospitals?

Ah, yes, the Nightingale hospitals which are obviously unaffected by the current staff shortages, because they're staffed by magical NHS fairies......

Dongdingdong · 19/12/2020 23:33

I don’t think very highly of this govt at all

And I don’t think very highly of second home owners pricing locals out of the property market. Hey ho.

Flowersinthewindowstill · 19/12/2020 23:36

@frumpety

Imaging you're early 20s, been living in London alone all through lockdown. Your one light at the end of the tunnel was seeing family at Christmas.

If you can afford to live in London alone in your early 20's you are minted. Other than that, Christmas day spent in your jimjams eating takeaway and watching crap telly versus travelling in a human soup to eat a roast dinner with people who you moved 200 miles away from given the first opportunity Hmm

The ignorance is off the scale. Many people in their 20s live in flatshares with complete strangers precisely because they can't afford to live alone. I live in London and my take home-income after rent is around £300 a month. I'm totally minted Hmm

As for moving 200 miles away - umm sometimes people are looking for these things called jobs (particularly hard to find during a pandemic, funnily enough.) The job I currently do I could not find in my hometown.

I'm pretty sure this post is also coming from someone who doesn't live alone or in a flat share with strangers Smile

Charley50 · 19/12/2020 23:40

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable

what happened to the Nightingale Hospitals?

Ah, yes, the Nightingale hospitals which are obviously unaffected by the current staff shortages, because they're staffed by magical NHS fairies......

So the Nightingale hospitals were an expensive waste of money fantasy from the beginning? So people are blaming each other off our government's running down of the NHS? What about living with risk? Is this just unimaginable to Westerners now?
bibbidybobbidyboo · 19/12/2020 23:40

I'd bet that a lot of them are young people living in house shares who face spending Christmas alone (if their housemates were among the many that already left this week) or with people they barely know. They don't technically qualify for a support bubble but it's still a dreadful position to be in.

HateIsNotGood · 19/12/2020 23:42

I much agree with Tile in that most 2nd Homers aren't 'legging it and spreading it'. I disagree with finding a source to blame - disregard the blame game and take personal responsibility is my pov.

They'll be some that abso farkin lutely feel the need to go their own way and these 'types' are usually accounted for in most analyses.

RosesforMama · 19/12/2020 23:47

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Hercwasonasnowball · 19/12/2020 23:50

disregard the blame game and take personal responsibility is my pov

Personal responsibility can also include looking after your own wellbeing by seeing family/friends.

Tiletiletile1 · 19/12/2020 23:51

@Dongdingdong

I don’t think very highly of this govt at all

And I don’t think very highly of second home owners pricing locals out of the property market. Hey ho.

I hear you. Me neither. It was my granny’s house in the seaside town where I grew up (for some of my childhood). I could have sold it, but it was too life-changing a gift for me to take the moral high ground over. Not saying that makes me any better, it doesn’t - and I am morally opposed to inherited wealth, too, but I would find it hard to give money away if I was gifted it.
LynetteScavo · 19/12/2020 23:56

@ElephantWhaleRabbit

You mean the people who’ve been told they “face arrest” if they leave London after midnight?

If only the government could have foreseen this entirely unpredictable response.

Exactly

As somywho lives just north of tomorrow's tier four, I expect there will be lots of people travelling to tier three and spreading the new strain northwards. This sudden introduction of tier 4 really hasn't been thought through very well.

frumpety · 19/12/2020 23:57

I'm pretty sure this post is also coming from someone who doesn't live alone or in a flat share with strangers

You are absolutely correct, I no longer live alone or in a flat share with strangers, I did for most of my 20's though. How long do you flatshare with 'strangers' before they are no longer 'strangers' ? days, weeks, months or years ? In my Northern town, it was about a week or so, once you had worked out everyone elses showering routine and which day of the week suited most people to drag the twintub out of the cellar.
But most people don't live alone in London because they can't afford to, if they can afford their own flat in the private market, all by themselves without sharing, they are probably doing OK.
And yes I appreciate the Capital provides far more opportunity for better paid employment should you have the skillset to apply for such a job.
But it is one Christmas, if the worst that happens is you spend it in your jimjams eating takeaway and watching crap telly, well there are going to be a hell of a lot of people all over the country who are facing worse.

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