What is happening in France (and Italy)

[Northernsoullover]

Does anyone know why their cases are soaring? I know that areas of France and Italy are back in lockdown but does that mean they had limited restrictions before? I have googled but wondered if there were any resident mumsnetters who might be able to shed some light?

I think others are mostly only commenting on politics elsewhere when it affects the uk
Like suggesting if withholding exports of vaccines, undermining of a vaccine as that could also affect uptake here.
Otherwise the vast majority don't care that much

@StepOutOfLine I am not criticising italy and france and the thread was to ask would we see the same in the uk
Im not writing to french or italian newspapers asking them to correct their stories etc etc as I am sure they also print stories that may not be wholly accurate but I don't go and scroll through them
If I leave a country to live elsewhere why I may take a small interest about what happens back home , its not for me to interfere as I chose to live elsewhere and make somewhere else my home
Im also not saying about their leaders as its nothing to do with me about who they vote for
Not that you actually know wether I am part french or italian etc

@AuldAlliance you must have a lot of time on your hands writing to all these newspapers
Do you also write to the newspapers in the country you reside or just uk as I am pretty sure at some point all newspapers have printed something inaccurate

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

I think others are mostly only commenting on politics elsewhere when it affects the uk Like suggesting if withholding exports of vaccines, undermining of a vaccine as that could also affect uptake here. Otherwise the vast majority don't care that much

Well, quite. Which explains a lot about how events in the UK have been allowed to unfold over the last five years.

I have written three letters to the Guardian in the last ten years, and two to Le Monde.
I managed to fit it in somehow.

@AuldAlliance bu thats for the british public fo vote for , wether you agree or not .
People really need to move on , you still live in an eu country so its not your problem

@AuldAlliance your earlier post implied more as mentioned dm etc as though you had written a fair fee

I really don't care about the politics at this point in time. The fact is, China's infection control procedures were much more effective once they realised they had a novel virus on their hands than ours have been. Throughout the last lockdown in the UK people were still.allowed to go to work, streets were full of people working on houses, builders were on building sites etc. A short period with zero economic activity would have been more effective and less damaging to people's wallets than month of half-arsedness, which is what the UK and the whole of Europe have been engaged in.

What has the vaccine rollout been like in Chinense cities? Efficient, I'd guess.

Then we have Cheltenham last year and Feb half term where the middle class masses still went skiing. Shutting down international travel before Feb half term last year, as I'm sure China would have done, would clearly have made a massive difference to spread. But we didn't have the balls.

It is beyond dangerous to fall into the trap of believing that anything is permissible as long as it stops covid. That the ends justify the means. You cannot do what the Chinese government have done without a compliant population.

You don't get such a compliant population without a consistent and widespread regime of fear and suppression.

I honestly just can't believe that anyone who has any awareness of pretty much anything would hold up China as an example to be aspired to.

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@StepOutOfLine I am not criticising italy and france and the thread was to ask would we see the same in the uk
Im not writing to french or italian newspapers asking them to correct their stories etc etc as I am sure they also print stories that may not be wholly accurate but I don't go and scroll through them
If I leave a country to live elsewhere why I may take a small interest about what happens back home , its not for me to interfere as I chose to live elsewhere and make somewhere else my home
Im also not saying about their leaders as its nothing to do with me about who they vote for
Not that you actually know wether I am part french or italian etc [/quote]
And nor do I care.
I pointed out the unpleasant dig at a fellow poster.
What's your opinion on the international pages of newspapers? Or International Studies courses at universities?
You sound very insular. Wherever you live. Education about other countries is rarely a bad thing.

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@AuldAlliance bu thats for the british public fo vote for , wether you agree or not .
People really need to move on , you still live in an eu country so its not your problem [/quote]
QED.

However, a quick AS shows you quite often get accusations of being a Little Englander levelled at you.
I suppose you see that as something to be proud of.

Maybe like me, AA lives abroad but pays a fuckton of taxes to the UK govt?

Auldalliance why do you pay tax in UK if you live abroad? I thought one paid taxes where one was resident.

It depends where you are domiciled for tax purposes and where your employer is. I have the double pleasure of paying tax in Italy for the job I do here, and in the UK for the job I do there.

To try to offer thoughts on the OPs question. Housing in most of the parts of France with restrictions is much denser, much more several stories high, even in more affluent areas especially in Paris. There is also the much slower vaccine rollout.

Cannot speak for Italy though.

I pay tax where the money is earned. My U.K. income is taxed in the U.K. even though I don’t live there. I also only have a vote in the U.K. so take an interest in British politics and can contact my British mp should the need arise. I assume it’s the same for several hundred thousand other people.

I pay tax in the UK on assets held in the UK.

This thread is about coronavirus not Brexit which is the real issue for some posters here.
The NHS, army, volunteers etc jabbed over 800,000 people yesterday.
That is definitely something to be proud of. The more people that are vaccinated in the UK the safer we will be.
I would like the EU to do the same so they are equally safe. And so I can go there on holiday.
This thread is not about our Government, Boris, our media (or the media in the EU).

@Andante57..

why do you pay tax in UK if you live abroad? I thought one paid taxes where one was resident

Another one here saying to point out that yes you can.

It's very definitely possible in some circumstances/some jobs to be living outside the UK and yet be paying full UK NI, some (lots) of income tax to HMRC..and also some income tax in country of residence..

Even though I haven't been resident in the UK for several years I'm yet again looking forward to having to complete a tax return for the UK HMRC as well as one for the authorities in my country of residence...

And I need to add - FWIW I think the NHS has done a brilliant job with their vaccine program, but like yellowhammer I'd very much like the EU to do similar.

Thank you everyone for answering my question about tax.

current overt efforts to make the BBC more Tory-friendly are not encouraging

The BBC should be neutral (and it currently appears not to be). That's worrying. See the example regarding the flag tweets below - this should not be allowed

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56453949

Lies, though, are different from bias, and the DM, etc. peddle those with impunity

It's not ok to generalise

It's not ok to generalise

Specific examples of inaccuracies in various UK media sources, and some further reading (in no particular order).

In 2017, the Daily Mail had 37 complaints for inaccuracy upheld by IPSO. IPSO is under no obligation to investigate all complaints and does not do so.
The Mail's inaccuracy does not affect its readership, hence my remark about impunity.
In Nov 2016, a Mail headline approved by Paul Dacre called High Court judges "Enemies of the people". Boris Johnson has suggested that Dacre, who is opposed to press regulation, would be a good choice to chair Ofcom.
The Telegraph is regularly the newspaper that IPSO most often finds in breach of regulations for inaccuracy. Its reports on climate change, for instance, are frequently inaccurate. (e.g.: climatefeedback.org/evaluation/telegraph-article-misleads-with-false-balance-mixing-in-unsupported-and-inaccurate-claims-sarah-knapton/)
In 2017, Wikipedia suspended the Daily Mail as a source of information on the grounds that it was "generally unreliable." They reversed that decision after discussions with the paper.
In 2015, the Telegraph was fined for sending an unsolicited email to subscribers telling them to vote Conservative.

Some sources on the reliability of UK newspapers/media:
www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2012/orwellian-prize-for-inaccuracy-awarded-to-the-daily-mail/

www.pressgazette.co.uk/survey-finds-that-uk-written-press-is-by-some-way-the-least-trusted-in-europe/

www.pressgazette.co.uk/ipso-rules-against-daily-mail-in-powder-keg-paris-report-claiming-300000-illegal-migrants-lived-in-one-suburb/

ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/resources/publications/ethics-in-the-news/media-lies-and-brexit

UN Human Rights Chief urges U.K. to tackle tabloid hate speech

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/professor-brian-cathcart/pcc-complaint-statistics_b_4701685.html

The tweet about flags by the BBC journalist is appalling. Totally biased. I have already complained t the BBC about it.
The other biased reporting was Emily Maitlis on newsnight reporting about Dominic Cummings.
The BBC are totally left wing, woke and anti Brexit.
Bring back John Humphrys.

Sorry about my rant. I should stick to commenting on the vaccines.

What has the vaccine rollout been like in Chinense cities? Efficient, I'd guess.

Nope.

The general pattern is that the countries that were quick to shut down the virus are slow to roll out the vaccine (well.... okay, it's OFTEN true that this is the case. Much of the EU and some the Americas appear to have done a pisspoor job of both things).

China has shut down the virus effectively, but the vaccine progress there is slow. The estimates I'm seeing suggest it will take till end 2022 to get the whole population vaxed. Admittedly, it's a big country, but then they've also got a big bureocracy to support a vax program.

It seems like public trust in the Chinese COVID vaccines is low, and the Chinese state has been associated with numerous dodgy vaccine scandals over the years.

State authoritarianism goes both ways---it can force through the implementation of policies as we have seen... but it also creates a lower level of trust, and means that the higher levels of government and of state organizations often fail to get efficient feedback on things that they are trying to do, meaning that if you have a problem brewing, the government has a harder time turning the ship around until the problems have become serious. Meanwhile, the fact that the state has to be taken seriously by everyone and will not brook any kind of defiance or questioning from the public means that attempting policy changes can result in loss of face.

Take the one-child policy as an example. It should have been obvious for years that this was going to cause demographic issues, but it took decades for China to finally shift policies; it's now a bit late, because the one-child family concept has burned itself into the Chinese mind as the "ideal family," and so the fertility rate has continued to fall even as the restrictions are being progressively removed.

My point here is not to say that the West has done a great job either--merely that all styles of government have upsides and downsides.

Also, a lot of Chinese are adopting a wait-and-see policy on the grounds that they are not sure about vaccination safety and also worry that immunity may not be lasting, so given the lack of urgency many feel that they'd rather have a last-minute vax when the borders finally open.