Westministenders: The Virus

[RedToothBrush]

Its like living in a Bad Disaster B Movie.

If you thought Brexit on your TV every day was Bad, The Virus is a whole new level.

The 5pm broadcast with Johnson and friends, and the public infomation video with the unblicking Chris Witty (who has such unfortunate mannerism he makes me think he's me a Dr Who alien akin to the Slitheen).

Who knows what will happen. Just that everything has changed and our entire economy is now on life support whilst we figure out how to deal with the crisis and what on earth our exit strategy is.

Johnson has however refused to join a joint EU purchase scheme designed to assist countries through the crisis.

Meanwhile the US is about to go nuts... so what does that do to a trade deal?

More money for the NHS? More hospitals?

Well its possible that might just happen...

Prompted by a thread title suggesting some parents might not send their children back to school after this, but continue home educating, I wonder if a wider result of these times will be a mass re-evaluation of the world where women find themselves going to work to effectively just pay for the childcare they need ... to go to work.

I apologise if that reads as unduly sexist, but it's based around the fact I can't recall hearing men complaining about needing childcare to do their job ...

Why on earth would Boris Johnson need to be persuaded to quit before an election unless it was obvious he was going to lose?

Really interesting to see the different ministers at the Covid 19 daily press briefings, some good performers, some less good.

Helpful instructions to other family members during WFH

Oooh banana and choc cake sounds nice!

It’s supposed to rise and fall - when it falls you feed it again.

Agreed. Shows you have a good active starter - that's now hungry

....which reminds me.... toddles off to feed my starter

"Why on earth would Boris Johnson need to be persuaded to quit before an election unless it was obvious he was going to lose?"

It may give the party a better chance

• especially if they can blame him for anything that went wrong -

.... but BJ might prefer staying PM and fighting the next GE, since PM was his lifelong ambition

Or he might be glad to get out
noone could have expected this kind of horrendous pressure & responsibility

Orban is more or less daring the EU to invoke Article 7 powers to suspend Hungary's membership of EU institutions. He might then choose to play the victim or play the system, promising to be good then seeking endless reviews of the sanctions, etc.

It is a wekness of the EU they have no mechanism for compelling member states to follow the rules, no provision for expulsion (which would require unanimity to introduce) and no EU Gendarmerie/Caribinieri to send in.

^btw, if we do end up with "only" 5-10,000
then BJ will probably be getting it in the neck from many Tory donors and also that significant chunk of their vote that is SE or micro-business owners^

Not necessarily.

It depends on what transpires across the rest of the world. Particularly the US.

It’s supposed to rise and fall - when it falls you feed it again.

Thank you!

DG I was trying to be kind and tolerant. It doesn't come easy, I need the practice.

It is a wekness of the EU they have no mechanism for compelling member states to follow the rules, no provision for expulsion (which would require unanimity to introduce) and no EU Gendarmerie/Caribinieri to send in.

Can you imagine the howls from Brexiteers if they did ?

The heart of the EU is "playing nice together". Incredibly lofty, ambitious and never seen before in human history, making historical comparisons of limited value.

There used to be an imaginary publication called The African Dictator's Handbook, such was the commonality of the behaviour of such rulers. One famous passage from it is where the young dictator phones his mentor the old President-For-LIfe-Or-Possibly-Longer in the neighbouring country:

"They're Coming! What do I do?"
"Calm down. Who's coming?"
"The People! They want to kill me! What do I do?"
"Calm down. Where are they coming?"
"Down the road. They say they want to kill me!"
"...There. Now didn't I tell you not to build roads?"

Etc.

Soon we may see a rival publication, The Populist Kleptocrat's Handbook, and Orban would be one of the principal contributors.

DGR ...women find themselves going to work to effectively just pay for the childcare they need ... to go to work.

I already know of women where nearly all of their salary is taken up by the cost of childcare.

Not caught up on the thread, but FML! Did anyone else hear the tone deaf pensioner on Money Box Live (R4) about half an hour ago? Three previous callers in dire financial straits - two whose businesses have gone down the toilet overnight and a devastated bloke with wife on mat leave, 7m old baby & toddler who changed jobs the day after the cut-off so doesn’t qualify for 80% salary deal. Next up: 84 year old David from Essex wanging on about how his pension isn’t affected, how he’s saving loads of money because he’s not going out & how he enjoyed a lovely two hour walk for the last 2 days. 🤯 I can’t believe he wasn’t a troll, but he sounded genuine - just clueless. Read the fucking room FFS.

I already know of women where nearly all of their salary is taken up by the cost of childcare.

But this is usually time limited but may be worthwhile if it's to keep your foot in the jobs market. It does depend on what you do though.

Fair point BigChoc I don’t doubt for a minute that if the party thought they’d stand a better chance of staying in office by dumping Boris than by keeping him on then that’s what they would do. They do seem to like him though, picking him over Jeremy Hunt by a wide margin when the latter was (IMO anyway) more competent by a mile.

I also get the point about the job possibly losing its appeal for Boris himself, but just for now I think he’ll want to get through CV-19 and carry on. Of course he might find himself dumped by the electorate but that should be a way off yet.

Loiuse - who do you mean by the party? The paid up members, mostly elderly white men are the ones who picked Johnson. They are also in the more high risk group. They might be having second thoughts now.

I could easily see the MPs deciding that they need to get rid of Johnson.

It astonishes me how few people can get their heads around the fact that there are loads of us with NO MONEY coming into the bank
which makes lockdown a permanent stressful juggle to pay bills and manage overdraft charges.
A business that took 20 years to build has been destroyed in a month. Retraining from scratch is a tad tricky when well over 50.
And Brexit will make it even worse.

And on a cheerier note

"It is a weakness of the EU they have no mechanism for compelling member states to follow the rules"

This is where Article 7 of the Lisbon treaty comes in, allowing suspension of membership rights

Unfortunately, the treaty didn't envisage having at least 1 other country blocking this, because they want to head the same way
i.e. Poland
Also, the UK was angling for votes after the ref and shielded Hungary to some extent.

The EU fell down badly by not bringing the hammer down early, before both countries got so far along that way

However, last year the EU managed to take the first step in Article 7 and may be able to carry it through,
especially without UK blocking
unfortunately, they will have other priorities for years

Listening

listening A good chunk of the lowest paid precariat live from day to day,
with sometimes almost no income

They have no savings and just go hungry and cold when the pay stops
They are a mix of young, middle-aged and 60s waiting desperately for pension age

This is their normal

People who have spent 20 years building up a business, or being SE, will have substantial savings to tide them over barren periods
unless they were foolish or just have a hobby business

Yes, they will lose savings, as will many employed people
and some pensioners relied on dividends from stocks & shares

We are almost all losers from this

• especially the dead and the bereaved

I hope also we don't see more people losing their pensions, as was feared in the recent Flybe crash

QUOTE
There used to be an imaginary publication called The African Dictator's Handbook, such was the commonality of the behaviour of such rulers. One famous passage from it is where the young dictator phones his mentor the old President-For-LIfe-Or-Possibly-Longer in the neighbouring country:

"They're Coming! What do I do?"
"Calm down. Who's coming?"
"The People! They want to kill me! What do I do?"
"Calm down. Where are they coming?"
"Down the road. They say they want to kill me!"
"...There. Now didn't I tell you not to build roads?"^

END QUOTE

Netflix subscribers might like to enjoy the amusing and educational Vir Das latest comedy special "For India"

www.netflix.com/gb/title/80995996

Towards the end, he portrays how the Indian authorities must have had a similar response to the 2012 Delhi gang rape protests.

Bigchoc
I and lots of my other SE friends have a bit of savings and a decent pension pot.
But you cannot access pension pots below a certain age
and NONE of us expected work to absolutely stop completely in the space of 3 weeks.

People who have incurred expenditure to run their business for the next few years (cars, equipment, training courses, premises) are absolutely stuffed.
Retirement is something you plan for over a period of years, not hours.

And as for the lives lost - yes, lives are being lost eg that family in Sussex. The mental health damage of lockdown is going to cause a surge in suicide and domestic violence and mental health problems in the young. For many years after a Covid vaccine is in place.

I still want to know how many extra deaths Covid is causing.
We will know in a year or two.
But the 2003 heatwave that killed tens of thousands did not make people sit up and take notice.
Covid won't either if the pain is greater than the gain.