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Brexit

Westminstenders: Events...

968 replies

RedToothBrush · 13/03/2020 10:03

Events have taken over. EU / UK negotiation have been put on ice due to covid-19.

The US has banned all travel from Europe - apart from to the uk and Ireland - in a manner which is highly political to drive wedges.

The effects of leaving the European Medicines Agency may be much more serious than anyone could have anticipated.

There's a oil price war going on between Saudi Arabia and Russia which has further driven market fears led by covid-19.

There the crisis in Turkey with Syrian refugees which is also distracting the EU.

We are facing lockdown and economic turmoil over the next weeks and months.

Johnson is having his leadership moment with deaths projected to possibly exceed UK WW2 deaths.

We are desperately trying to recruit negotiators as it's suddenly become apparent we don't have enough to carry out all the trade deals we want.

The civil service will be stretched to its limited by covid-19. Yet we also have Brexit to consider.

Where next? How bad are things going to get?

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OhLookHeKickedTheBall · 17/03/2020 23:43

French PM warns France may feel obliged to bar UK citizens from entering France if UK doesn’t introduce more stringent measures to contain #coronavirus Quote”We wl find it hard to accept on our territory British citizens who move freely in their own country +then come to France".
We're meant to be going to France in April though looking very much off now anyway, but we were saying they'd be mad to let us in if they've been locking down and we're still jollying about in that time. What's the point in trying to contain a crisis to allow it to land on your doorstep again?

DoctorTwo · 18/03/2020 01:02

MarshaBradyo Tue 17-Mar-20 06:34:44

On R4 you cannot pump demand and spending.

Yes you can. Put QE where it will make a difference to ordinary people. Professor Steve Keen (watch his interview with Renegade Inc last week) posited, and has done for years, that QE going to the banks and large corporations only inflates asset prices. Issue what Steve called a Corona bond, the banks will buy them, then put £500 in every bank/building society in the UK, stipulating that rent/mortgage and other utilities come out of it first, after which the money could be spent on anything.

Every time I've explained this idea I got told it was "the magic money tree", which in a way I suppose it is. The reason Greece went tits up in 2010 is their Central Bank had to stick to EU rules. We don't, we have central bank who can print as much money as they like, which they do, but Osborne's economic plan was solely to protect asset prices, and it only worked for those who own tangible assets.

@squid4 I spent Sunday and Monday at Addenbrookes. I'm lucky a friend of mine asked if I needed a lift. We arrived at A&E at about 1350 and it was deadly quiet. About 1415 my cannula was fitted and they took bloods. after about 15 minutes the nurse brought along a wheelchair, told me to sit in it and raced along corridors to Resus and spent an hour pumping 2 litres of fluids into me. Every member of staff, not just the nurses etc treated me with the utmost respect.

About 6 hours after I'd staggered through th door I was on a ward with 7 beds, all of which were empty. I thought 'great, I'll get a decent night sleep'. Wrong, never slept a wink! :o

I love the NHS, it's brilliant, it's just a shame that our government is busily asset stripping it and lying about it.Also, I believe many new contracts are being awarded to for profit companies, the worst of which was a team of motorcyle volunteers who delivered blood all over the country. The only recompense they got was petrol money. This contract was awaded to a private company for megabucks.

And don't forget Hinchinbrooke, which had to taken back into the NHS.

I would like you and every one of your collleaguesto know is owed a massive thank you every time you look after one of us ordinary people. So @squid4, thank you thank you thank you. Thanks

BettyFilous · 18/03/2020 01:15

I had appointments with two different NHS consultants earlier this week in specialties not immediately in the front line, both looking spooked about what’s coming their way. I made a point of telling them how much I appreciated their care. Same for my GP ten days ago. You and your colleagues do such important work, squid. We might not always remember to say so, but we do appreciate it.

MarshaBradyo · 18/03/2020 04:24

Still low there but

Taiwan closes its borders after wave of new infections

Kathrin Hille in Taipei

Taiwan is closing its borders to practically all foreigners, as the country battles to stem a wave of new infections imported mainly from Europe.

MarshaBradyo · 18/03/2020 04:25

From FT

RedToothBrush · 18/03/2020 07:38

Robert Peston @peston
There has never in my lifetime been a law that so encroached on our civil liberties and basic rights as the Coronavirus Bill, scheduled to become law by end of month. It is all aimed at keeping us safe. But the transfer of unchallengeable power to the state for two years is...

huge. It covers everything from burials, to holding those who threaten national security for longer, to closing borders, to detaining those with mental health issues, to empowering the police to quarantine those with the virus, and much more. This is...

wartime stuff. I recommend you read about it here.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-bill-what-it-will-do/what-the-Coronavirus-Bill-will-do

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QuestionMarkNow · 18/03/2020 07:47

misti I agree about the fact that testing is one thing that is making a huge difference (in numbers but also in how you are tackling the issue).

Does anyone know why the Uk (and france' spain etc) doesn’t routinely check people? Is it because there isn’t enough tests available? Cost? Or politicians putting their head in the sand and hoping to not scare their population?

RedToothBrush · 18/03/2020 07:48

Robert Peston @peston
There has never in my lifetime been a law that so encroached on our civil liberties and basic rights as the Coronavirus Bill, scheduled to become law by end of month. It is all aimed at keeping us safe. But the transfer of unchallengeable power to the state for two years is...

huge. It covers everything from burials, to holding those who threaten national security for longer, to closing borders, to detaining those with mental health issues, to empowering the police to quarantine those with the virus, and much more. This is...

wartime stuff. I recommend you read about it here.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-bill-what-it-will-do/what-the-Coronavirus-Bill-will-do

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QuestionMarkNow · 18/03/2020 07:50

Red Yep that is very worrying.
It also makes me wonder
1- why is it that the U.K. has put that law into place when other countries have been able to deal with the issue wo such law (incl putting everything in place for 2 years)? I am thinking there laws that exist in France decreeing the state of emergency.

2- seeing who we have as politicians, what’s the risk of them abusing those laws?

BigChocFrenzy · 18/03/2020 07:51

Looks no more encroaching than what most other countries have done,
with the exception that it has not banned activities to increase social distancing, but instead has given itself powers to do so (which I thought the CCA 2004 already did)

Mistigri · 18/03/2020 07:55

Does anyone know why the Uk (and france' spain etc) doesn’t routinely check people? Is it because there isn’t enough tests available? Cost? Or politicians putting their head in the sand and hoping to not scare their population?

I think in Europe it is largely logistic: lack of personnel and equipment, like analysers, reagents and swabs. It takes time to ramp up capacity.

South Korea and other Asian countries which have tested widely had recent experience of SARS/MERS outbreaks which may explain the difference in readiness, but I think also that a month ago there wasn't the same shortage of basic supplies. It takes time to build manufacturing capacity and ship reagents etc.

Mistigri · 18/03/2020 08:01

Taiwan is closing its borders to practically all foreigners, as the country battles to stem a wave of new infections imported mainly from Europe.

Closing borders makes sense where you have no or limited community transmission - many African countries have done this and I sincerely hope that it enables them to escape the worst (many have recent experience of controlling Ebola, but this is a more dangerous foe in many ways).

If doesn't really make sense in Europe tbh, because all countries have community transmission already. Possible exception in the case of the U.K. and Netherlands which don't have effective coronavirus strategies. Closing borders risks cutting supply chains at a moment when efficient supply chains are very important. I saw reports of a 41km queue of lorries at the Polish EU border yesterday.

QuestionMarkNow · 18/03/2020 08:02

We had our first cases more than a month ago though. And they still decided not to routinely test people. Rather they said that people should self isolate instead.

BigChocFrenzy · 18/03/2020 08:02

Misti I'm damn sure many cases are being missed in Germany - just not as many as in the UK -
particularly because an unknown % may not even know they have it

That 40% "mild" may be a huge underestimation, as people with no symptoms aren't normally tested here unless they are contacts of a confirmed case

VERY tentative good news locally is that the last 2 days in my state (pop 6.2 million) the number of new cases has fallen

  • it may just be a statistical blip, so I won't believe the curve is starting to flatten until I see a full week with smaller increase

Anyway, I'll have to hunt up the charts for the neighbouring German states, because afaik people are not being prevented from travelling between states

QuestionMarkNow · 18/03/2020 08:04

On a different subject, DH was talking to some manufacturers around where we live. They manufacture the alcohol hand gel.
They say they have the capacity to produce enough of the hand gel to meet the demand. They dint because they dint have enough of the pumps that go on the top of the bottles. These are coming from China...

RedToothBrush · 18/03/2020 08:10

Euro 2020 postponed for a year

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Mistigri · 18/03/2020 08:11

Misti I'm damn sure many cases are being missed in Germany - just not as many as in the UK

Oh for sure, just not nearly so many. You can basically use the deaths to cases ratio as a rough proxy for relative testing rate.

Germany has a much lower deaths to cases rate than the U.K. so they are probably testing many times more people. And the U.K. hasn't done terribly at testing compared with some other countries.

The other indicator is the number of positive to negative cases, the lower this is the bigger the testing programme because it means they are not just testing "obvious" cases.

It's still true to say that most people who think they have coronavirus probably don't. My DS and DH have just had a bad cold/sore throat/cough but I am 100% certain it wasn't CV. And CV paranoia about hand washing means that so far I haven't got it.

RedToothBrush · 18/03/2020 08:15

Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn
Boris Johnson has set up a five-strong war Cabinet to fight coronavirus. Meets daily, chaired by him, made up by Rishi Sunak, Matt Hancock, Michael Gove and Dominic Raab, plus officials. To be known as ‘C-19’.

Westminstenders: Events...
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prettybird · 18/03/2020 08:17

Can't find the link again but they explained that in Scotland they were moving to community (random?) testing, in the way that they do for flu, to be able to understand its spread through the community better.

And instead of doing this via the specified 40 odd GP surgeries which give a good sample across the country, it would be extended to over 200 surgeries around Scotland. That way they would be able to identify if there are any specific hotspots.

BigChocFrenzy · 18/03/2020 08:17

WIth 100,000 tests weekly, Germany is probably manufacturing its own reagents etc now even if it didn't before

  • huge chemical & pharmaceutical firms here, so looks doable to massively ramp up production.

The hospital drive-thru testing will have helped efficiency

The UK has similar capacity I thought - maybe testing manpower ?

I haven't heard yet of new corona hospitals being quickly built in the UK
Surely this must have started, or are the army building tent hospitals ?
Must surely be some activities there

MarshaBradyo · 18/03/2020 08:18

Misti agree it doesn’t make sense it’s just homegrown instead

BigChocFrenzy · 18/03/2020 08:20

"Boris Johnson has set up a five-strong war Cabinet"

The Infamous Five

HesterThrale · 18/03/2020 08:25

I wonder if it’s possible some people have a natural immunity?
Or do you think every single person is susceptible?

lonelyplanetmum · 18/03/2020 08:27

I've been looking at some of the stuff from Jeremy Hunt and thinking this could be the making of him, then giving my head a wobble and remembering this is the result of him too.

I know. I thought this too. He was articulate and sensible on TV with gravitas. He was calmly criticising with the govt's initial herd immunity nonsense. Then being a bit more supportive now.. and being really sensible about looking at South Korea containment strategies and learning from global expertise and experience.

AuldAlliance · 18/03/2020 08:31

Well, we adjusted our mindsets to Michael Heseltine emerging as a rare voice of reason over Brexit. Now we have to adapt to Hunt being similar.

And he must be shitting himself about the parlous state he knows the NHS is in...