A 10 year prison sentence?

[Redbrickwall]

This government has well and truly lost the plot now. It’s terrifying.

It sounds ridiculous but having said that by breaking the rules and spreading COVID has the potential to both kill people and damage the economy so in that context is it really OTT.

10 years for - intentionally - potentially killing/causing serious harm to a lot of people doesn’t seem unreasonable 🤷‍♀️

It’s never going to happen, but they need some way to curtail the rich arseholes who treat the world like a playground. A fine is only a punishment for the poor. If they can buy their way out of trouble, they’ll see it as the cost of enjoying themselves.

Its a toothless, unenforceable threat

Ah, but it makes a good headline, which after all seems to be the most important thing

Personally I'm looking forward to the quarantine hotels and 4,600 rooms which Hancock claims to have sourced, with thumbs up and clapping pics for the press ... too bad they'll probably be as much use as the Nightingales

The 10 year sentence is the maximum for the specific offense of a false declaration on a passenger locator form to conceal that you have visited a country on the red list in the previous 10 days - thus avoiding the enhanced "hotel" quarantine.

For example you could fly in from Qatar (not on the red list) and fail to declare you spent a week in the UAE (on the red list) then 2 days in Qatar before flying home.

If you bring home a new Covid variant that is more transmissable, more dangerous and current vaccines have much less effect, and this leads to thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths, then a 10 year sentence is easily justified.

At last. New Zealand did this and now they're covid free.

@fevdec

So where would you draw a line? When we become like Nazi Germany?

It is absolutely insulting to all those who lost their lives in fascist regimes to begin to compare these two situations.

It scares me how easily the government can make laws now. I'm presuming it's due to the Coronavirus Act, so will they automatically be repealed once the Act is no longer in force.

What scares me even more is how many people are happy that this can happen.

What a fucking joke

@SonnetForSpring

Gosh, it seems so many people don't understand the seriousness of these variants. 10 years is completely understandable in terms of the absolute havoc being caused by people being irresponsible. I know it seems to be difficult for some people to accept but this virus is very serious and it is really happening. The government are finally understanding what drastic action needs to be taken to ensure people stop dying in such great numbers.

This exactly

But Cummings...

many people don't understand the seriousness of these variants

The horse has well and truly bolted on these 'serious variants'.

All this 'losing our freedoms' is such bollocks. It's against the law to do loads of things that would put fellow citizens at risk.

Not being able to do what the hell you like despite the consequences to anyone else is somewhat necessary in civilised societies.

Should be a mandatory 20 year sentence.

I'm sure some people won't be happy until we're like North Korea

@tanguero I hope that's sarcasm or you have lost the plot.

My god and people are applauding this.
What a horrible society. Why the fuck would I care about protecting any of you.
You'd all cheer sodding Franco or Mussilini.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Its a toothless, unenforceable threat

Ah, but it makes a good headline, which after all seems to be the most important thing

Personally I'm looking forward to the quarantine hotels and 4,600 rooms which Hancock claims to have sourced, with thumbs up and clapping pics for the press ... too bad they'll probably be as much use as the Nightingales

They haven’t released the names of the hotel chains yet, have they?

Maybe it IS the Nightingales! Might as well put somebody in them!

I wonder how long you'd get for spending tax payers money "irresponsibly"???
goodlawproject.org/update/government-in-breach-of-the-law/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social%20media&utm_campaign=uc%20update%200402

@MaxNormal

My god and people are applauding this. What a horrible society. Why the fuck would I care about protecting any of you. You'd all cheer sodding Franco or Mussilini.

This. I'm scared of what the future holds, not because of the virus but because of what society has become.

This is pure theatre for when we inevitably end up with vaccine-resistant variants. Instead of people getting angry with the government for letting covid run rampant, for failing to introduce travel/quarantine restrictions a year ago, for abandoning test and trace, for encouraging people to eat out, for encouraging Christmas as normal, for delaying lockdown again and again, for ignoring the science and delaying second doses... the list goes on. Instead there will be one or two high profile cases (they couldn’t prosecute or afford to imprison them all) of some poor bugger being given a “deterrent” sentence. Then when we’re in the eleventieth wave, we can all join in the Daily Hate and blame that one individual for our country’s woes.

For what it’s worth... I absolutely think we should have been enforcing quarantine a year ago.

But.... 10 years is ridiculous. Even the argument “but what about all the people they’ll kill when they import a variant”.... well then let’s start by locking up Dido Harding who has “killed” 50,000+ people with her sheer incompetence.

But Cummings..

Yea but that's okay because he was doing the right thing. The PM said.so

This. I'm scared of what the future holds, not because of the virus but because of what society has become

Agree

Great news. This is probably the only way to get people to take this seriously and break the chain of spread.

Ultimately, if they can afford to travel in a pandemic, then they can afford to isolate. If not then they get 10 years for not managing the 10 days.

I hope it extends to all covid rule breakers who don't see to give a damn about the fines.

@Redbrickwall

This government has well and truly lost the plot now. It’s terrifying.

Yes And police knocking on doors to investigate breaches Police state and we let it happen

@MotherExtraordinaire

Great news. This is probably the only way to get people to take this seriously and break the chain of spread.

Ultimately, if they can afford to travel in a pandemic, then they can afford to isolate. If not then they get 10 years for not managing the 10 days.

I hope it extends to all covid rule breakers who don't see to give a damn about the fines.

Absolutely agree