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?

Moscow hospitals see 'huge influx' of patients as Covid-19 spreads in Russia

Where is their bot centre ?

I don't care how morally wrong it is, but I hope CV gets Putin - the whole world would be much safer without that ex-KGB thug.
If Hitler & Stalin were still around, I'd wish CV on them too

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/moscow-hospitals-see-huge-influx-of-patients-as-covid-19-spreads-in-russia

Long tailbacks of ambulances seen at a hospital in the capital as mayor warns the outbreak is only in the ‘foothills’

Once infestation sets in, they'd eat the foundations

Words the police could do with considering in the current climate BCF

Isn't Boris Johnson still in hospital, but presumably out of the wood health wise now?

Let's see him make good on those promises of 40 new hospitals (not old ones with a lick of paint, or one new one replacing three old but still functional ones.) Let's see those 50,000 new nurses, or even the 39,00,0 because Nicky Morgan thinks keeping older ones on equates to new. When Johnson pushes "sedulously" for that then his thanks will be seen to be heartfelt.

I smell corruption charges there as it is

Just out of interest when was the last time you can recall any corruption going before UK (or even just England and Wales) courts ?

Seriously ?

The last one I can recall was BAe Systems - over 2 decades ago ? Only that never got to court. The government waved a wand and all of a sudden bribery was merely "off books balancing".

In the same way there are no homosexuals in Russia, there is no corruption in the UK.

(Cue a slew of ToryBots pointing to other countries as a "but what about ..." for the lolz).

Re the number of medical staff dying. Do the total numbers announced include those in Scotland and NI or only those in the PHE area?

I don't know about Scotland and NI, but it did include the death of a Doctor in Wales who also have their own Health organisation.

As far back as Home Secretary Reginal Maudling (Tory, but they all do it),
corruption charges have been stopped - by politicians, if the judiciary and police don't do it for them by wilful avoidance.

Or at most a token sacrificial lamb is offered up

That's as far back as my personal observations go, but of course check the history books for previous corruption scandals

Cramped living conditions may be accelerating UK spread of coronavirus

But of course the virus doesn't stay in the poorest areas:
it spreads eventually to hit the mc and the wealthy - anyone without their own private island is at risk

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/virus-hitting-hardest-modern-equivalent-victorian-slums

Analysis shows Covid-19 disproportionately affecting those living in ‘the equivalent of Victorian slums’

Fears are growing that coronavirus could be ripping through some of the poorest and most overcrowded parts of Britain’s cities
as new research suggests cramped living conditions might be accelerating the spread of the virus.

Analysis by the New Policy Institute shows that even after allowing for the much higher infection rates in London,

the top five most-crowded areas in the country have seen 70% more coronavirus cases than the five least-crowded,

where better-off homeowners are likely to live in larger homes with spare bedrooms and more than one bathroom.

Interestingly apparently Johnson is shocked that the public have accepted the lock down to the extent they have.

Which would certainly explain the crayon-written laws that have managed to tie the police in knots ... they were never intended to be used ...

The last one I can recall was BAe Systems - over 2 decades ago ? Only that never got to court.

Rolls-Royce were investigated by the SFO for bribery allegations and had to pay a fair wedge to keep things out of the courts in 2016.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38644114

*2017.

Rolls-Royce were investigated by the SFO for bribery allegations and had to pay a fair wedge to keep things out of the courts in 2016.

Kind of proves my point.

I am wryly amused by Johnson's reported "shock" that Britons for the most part are happy to follow the rules. Over the decades I've lived here, my (very lower middle class Tory) FIL's proud declaration over 20 years ago that "the English are a solidly small-c conservative people," has held pretty true. Which doesn't mean they're all reactionary, or right wing - just generally slow to change, keen on tradition, and respectful of authority.

Boris owes his majority to the public's willingness to follow the rules and accept his public school tics as stand-ins for leadership ability, for heaven's sake. If he's reached his point without understanding that his social bubble is even worse than I'd feared.

Rolls-Royce were investigated by the SFO for bribery allegations and had to pay a fair wedge to keep things out of the courts in 2016.

Kind of proves my point.

It doesn't, unless you think that the only worthwhile outcome is jail rather than behaviour change.

It doesn't, unless you think that the only worthwhile outcome is jail rather than behaviour change.

Well we had neither, so it's all moot.

Peregrina deaths have occurred in Scotland (among medical and care staff) and are announced and reported daily in Scotland. Just wasn't sure if they have been included or excluded from the totals announced at the daily UK briefings.

No idea, but since the Tory Government seems to think England and UK are interchangeable terms, it wouldn't surprise me if they weren't.

An Interesting article about how inequality may help cause pandemics.

DGR, I don't actually believe you've looked into what behaviours did or didn't change at RR, so the entire example is moot.

Back to my earlier point about the general amenability of the British public to following the rules, the only person I know personally who's been attempting to bend them and encourage others to do so as well is a privately educated (Harrow) Englishman in his early 60s. He was quite scathing yesterday when we told him we didn't think it was appropriate to "accidentally" meet up in a local park to let our children play together.

Perhaps it's one of those "public school confidence" things - rules are for bending if you're sufficiently elite and can expect to be cushioned from the fallout of your flagrant risk-taking, or something like that. That, plus the public's willingness to give the benefit of the doubt to people who learned how to sound like leaders at public school, would go some way to explaining the last 4 years and the mishandling of the current crisis.

Peregrina it was one of my most eye-rolled at arguments of Brexit that we had to give aid, or pandemics would be recurring every decade rather than century with global travel as it is. I wish someone would ask Priti Pantleoons about this.

"unless you think that the only worthwhile outcome is jail rather than behaviour change."

Jail, or probation, community service, fines are all used for ordinary criminal individuals,
as distinct from wealthy people running billion-pound businesses

Most large-scale criminals don't get a pat on the head and a free pass

Businesses dont commit crimes, only the people running them do
So those individuals should pay the penalty, not just the businesses

When Roy Jenkins was Home Secretary, he naively agreed to let some outside forces investigate corruption in the Met before his civil servnats could stop him

When the report came back that about 1,500 Met officers could be prosecuted, he quietly buried it

Then there was Operation Countryman .....

Then there was Operation Countryman .....

Where the investigating officers refused to be based in London for fear that the Met (who were supposed to be policemen, let's remember) would arrange for them to be "offed".

Luckily for the establishment, Lord Denning was on hand to say that courts should never be allowed to hear evidence of police misconduct ... "appalling vista" ... which these days sounds like one of Philip Greens yachts.