Westministenders: Lockdown continues

[BigChocFrenzy]

The UK has been on lockdown since 23 March,
with no end in sight.

The deaths peak is predicted to be around 17 April,
with the controversial IHME prediction that the UK will have considerably more total deaths - 66,000 - by summer than other European countries.

Supermarkets are struggling to satisfy demand for online slots for the vulnerable
and to keep shelves supplied for other customers

Like all countries, the UK economy is being hammered and heading for a deep recession.
Estimates are for UK GDP to fall 15% this year.

A million people have applied for Universal Credit
The self-employed and small - and some large - businesses are struggling to stay solvent.

They don't know how long to plan for.

The PM is in ICU and Raab has taken over as stand-in, but needs Cabinet approval for decisions.
Probably BJ will be unfit to resume his duties as PM for several weeks, if ever.

WIll he stand down soon and let the Cabinet choose a new PM,
or will the UK continue for weeks with a stand-in leader during the worst crisis since WW2

What's the plan, anybody?

Veteran Leave campaigner Richard North calls it the "Double Coffin Lid"

That if all the EU rules were removed after Brexit, that people would then find that many of those wrt trade & standards would remain, as would key rules re environment, safety etc
... because they were in fact just implementing international law from the UN etc or WTO rules

What could go because of Brexit are things like workers rights and consumers rights,
which have a much lower baseline protection in international law

The EU is insisting that these remain if the UK wants "near-frictionless" access to the Single market,
to give a Level Playing Field
Otherwise, abandoning these rights and laws would give UK businesses an unfair advantage,
but at the expense of ordinary Brits

If there’s any truth in that Telegraph article, it’s made me even more ragey

He changed the law expecting people to disobey it?

I thought Sunak was being an idiot with his financial proposals too.

Is Johnson going to appear on tv saying “u turn if you want to”?

Fucking state of it. Now they’ll have to keep it going to keep up appearances. We could have had exams etc.

What will kill the Tory party is their poor handling of this.

The EU is often called a "regulatory superpower"
because it is usually the high EU standards that are implemented into international law,
not lower standards from other trade blocs or powers

So leaving the EU means that many of the trade & standards rules remain, even under the ERG's Mombai-on-Thames dream,
but the UK has less influence on deciding those laws.

UK-US trade deal talks have been postponed indefinitely

They were due to begin on March 23, but obviously those talks were postponed

What will kill the Tory party is their poor handling of this.

Not while we have people like Cendrillon cheerleading for them, with whatever mess up they make excused.

BCF UK-US trade deal talks have been postponed indefinitely

Does't sound good. Leave the EU, and have no trade deal with US. Clusterfuck.

UK Lockdown = UK hunger crisis

Yes, some people were already going hungry, but not to this extent
This crisis has highlighted the inequality gap, how the poorest don't have reserves when crisis hits, let alone WFH and leafy gardens

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/11/uk-hunger-crisis-15m-people-go-whole-day-without-food

Just three weeks into the lockdown, the Food Foundation said that

1.5 million Britons reported not eating for a whole day because they had no money or access to food.

Some 3 million people in total were in households where someone had been forced to skip some meals

Not having a trade deal with the USA is not a problem
the EU does not have one

I’m new to this thread

I’m curious to know what posters think of the lockdown and the handling of this prior to that? I didn’t understand why were letting people come back from hotspots and just letting it spread
Didn’t want to upset the skiing types?

You would have thought that the C-19 experience would have left people in no doubt how crap capitalism is.

Not that it's a recent - or unknown or unstudied phenomenon.

One of Emperor Claudius more successful reforms was to build silos and improve the port at Ostia so that there was a steady reliable supply of grain, and avoiding the famines of previous years.

(From memory the builders tried to stiff him on the contract, but he was able to show they'd inflated the price and saved a fortune. Plus ca change indeed ...)

(One of the tunnels in my warren is YouTube history channels in between science and music ....)

I’m curious to know what posters think of the lockdown

It's not really, is it. "Latchdown". With the emphasis on "soft down".

"and the handling of this prior to that?"

)&^£$"&Q£Y$£&$£&Q$_£*Q$&

I didn’t understand why were letting people come back from hotspots and just letting it spread

Because - get this. That was "the plan"

Didn’t want to upset the skiing types?

I'd believe that.

I was reading an interesting thing on Twitter about how the crisis has been handled elsewhere. Portugal and Greece seem to have played a blinder in particular. Even Uganda FFS.

Yes, they haven't really deviated from their herd immunity "strategy" (if you can call doing nothing a strategy) but they realised fairly fast that the public didn't like it. Ever since the struggle has been how to let it happen whilst pretending they don't want it to. Poor communication has been key and this explains their over-reliance on Behavioural Scientists.

I was reading an interesting thing on Twitter about how the crisis has been handled elsewhere. Portugal and Greece seem to have played a blinder in particular. Even Uganda FFS.

You will never ever demonstrate anything by trying to use foreigners as an example in England. In fact I can't think of a better way to ensure something never happens.

Yes, they haven't really deviated from their herd immunity "strategy" (if you can call doing nothing a strategy) but they realised fairly fast that the public didn't like it.

The couldn't give a shit what the public do or do not like. Never have, and never will.

The only demographic they need to pander(emic) to is their own voters. Or enough to get/stay in power. The rest of us are mere cannon fodder. As we have always been ... didn't Kipling say something similar ?

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I didn’t understand why were letting people come back from hotspots and just letting it spread

Because people like Johnson and Cummings thought it wouldn't affect them. They would get the mild doses and only the old and already sick would die, and for a eugenicist like Cummings that is acceptable.

The only demographic they need to pander(emic) to is their own voters. Or enough to get/stay in power.

But they have potentially misjudged this because Tories tend to be older people, so more susceptible. Including those new Tories of the once Red Wall, who tended to be older because the younger people have moved to find work.

But they have potentially misjudged this because Tories tend to be older people, so more susceptible. Including those new Tories of the once Red Wall, who tended to be older because the younger people have moved to find work.

So, phase 2. Just tell people you did all you could. There's a complaint media that has a vested interest in keeping the Tories in, so not a big deal. And the English have been well-trained in their partisan dog whistles. Certainly enough to ensure elections can be won by a few hundred voters if you know who they are.

And even if that isn't the case, the UK is currently enjoying or struggling (you choose) a government that was put into power by the process of blowing up the status quo. So there is a certain laissez-faire about playing with fire. After all - they got away with it once.

Cummings is not a Tory, not even a party member
(unless he joined recently for show)

He's an equal-opportunity Social Darwinist

• and most traditional Tory politicians disagree with him; even the later austerity spivs like Cameron were hostile to him

2014 - PM Cameron re Dominic Cummings:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/18/david-cameron-dominic-cummings-career-psychopath

The prime minister suggested there is now a path from special adviser to "career psychopath" in what was interpreted as a pointed remark about Gove's former right-hand man.

This ties in to what we were saying earlier

https://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-politics-of-covid-19-busy-parks-and-public-blame/

In terms of their demographics, many people 50+ are furious about the attack on basic rights and certainly the local pensioners are out in force in my area.

Cummings will get the boot after this.

I think, worst of all, they weren’t really going for herd immunity. They were putting as much thought in as the bloody Garden Bridge.

Cummings is not a Tory, not even a party member

Which is all the more weird - you would think they wanted a True Believer.

Talking about Henning Wehn:
I liked his joke about Brexit fulfilling Otto Von Bismark's 150 year old policy of isolating Britain.
So true !

The only demographic they need to pander(emic) to is their own voters. Or enough to get/stay in power.

But they have potentially misjudged this because Tories tend to be older people, so more susceptible.

So, phase 2. Just tell people you did all you could. There's a complaint media that has a vested interest in keeping the Tories in, so not a big deal. And the English have been well-trained in their partisan dog whistles. Certainly enough to ensure elections can be won by a few hundred voters if you know who they are.

So how does this conspiracy theory work? A dastardly plan by the Tories to, er, kill off their own core vote? A plan they then completely undermine by keeping most people safe at home at the cost of umpteen billions of government cash? That sounds plausible.

I’m also not sure which elections you think have been won by a few hundred voters. The last one was won by 3.7 million votes . Which I suppose is close to a few hundred, in the same way that Ashby-de-la-Zouch is close to Ulaanbaatar...

Lilac - I haven't been out much , other than to get food , and I am avoiding supermarkets.
But a friend of mine is still working - he works on his own , so he drives the couple of miles to work every day. He is on the herts Essex border in a very blue/brexit area. He can't get over the number of white 60+ people (mostly male) he sees out on his drive to work. It appears that walking to pick up your paper in the morning has replaced the golf club, outside the store being the place to catch up for chat. It's fair to say the sight fills him with rage......
I am hoping that the eugenics theory back fires on the Tory party, removing a large proportion of there base..... however if we "only" have a death toll of 20k that's a faint hope.

Having said that when I was cooking dinner last night - I was listening to the news and there was someone on from the National statistics department (I didn't catch the name?) and they were saying that their early indications from the data they collect (total deaths registered) was they declared number of deaths looked to be 70-80% less than the real number - did anyone else hear that? I did wonder if I heard it wrong.....