Westminstenders: No pubs till Christmas?

[RedToothBrush]

Today the news has moved towards acknowledging covid-19 reality: Nicola Sturgeon has explicitly stated that some social distancing will carry on until the new year in all likelihood.

When Matt Hancock asked if this was true for England too, he refused to say yes but he said that Scotland was working from the same framework as England.

In case anyone does still need this spelling out, this means the outlook for the hospitality and leisure industries is bleak.

There are extremely unlikely to be many enjoying a holiday in the sun any time soon, whether it be in Devon or Spain.

We won't be celebrating birthdays in restaurants nor having a pint in the pub.

Conversations on the doorstep from a couple of metres away is as good as it gets.

That means if you can't adapt you may not survive.

To add into the mix changes to customs to those companies who are operating seems insanity. But that's a political not a scientific decision to be made.

Whether reality in this will kick in, in the next six weeks or so before EU budgetary decisions relating to an extension have to be made remains to be seen.

Until then, there is no news but covid-19.

Re Care home deaths
I see no evidence of any secrecy - they are reported each week in the ONS report.
Care homes are private businesses so not subject to NHS reporting chains.

Of more concern if significant numbers of homes experience significant deaths is that they will become financially unviable
(as they are rightly refusing to take in new people from hospitals
and families are not rushing to move relatives into homes at the moment.
UK Care homes are notoriously over leveraged and run on wafer thin margins.
If several go bust, then many more elderly and vulnerable people will be put even more at risk.

Before we even start on staff shortages due to Brexit
and agriculture stealing all the able bodied people it can.

I think future historians will look at the scramble to buy council houses, and the resulting housing shortage for the young whilst their grandparents have to sell those very houses to pay for their care, with great interest.

The ONS is reporting a fraction of actual care home deaths.

Has this been shared....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/nhs-warns-of-rise-in-children-with-new-illness-that-may-be-linked-to-coronavirus?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

The Boeing sst proposal was a swing wing, double droop nose beast with much more carrying capacity, higher speed and longer range than concorde - but at that time the US didn't have the materials or wing technology - so the risk profile was huge - the main reason Boeing decided it was a no go.

The US then chopped the rug from under Concorde by blocking the route for which it was designed (london/Paris - new York) after that the orders were never going to come and launch funding simply not recoverable. (Once those costs were written off, BA actually ran the thing at a healthy profit.)

The Paris crash and the way it exposed Concorde as a terrorist target ensured its return to service would only be a token. Airbus put the final nail in the coffin by withdrawing certification.

Decrying the programme as a failure is unfair, not only for the technology it spawned but because politics was the prime cause of its demise. The wing design technology that emerged from concorde is what allowed Airbus to become a boeing competitor. (and environmentally, no aircraft engines since have equalled the efficiency of the concorde engines)

Airbus recently had to shut down 380 production - the predicted market niche never materialised - in part because of the low cost carrier model.

Aircraft design is about predicting the future - people will get it wrong - the max debacle was because Boeing didn't bite the bullet on fly by wire soon enough so had to rush out a competitor to the airbus 320neo.

Aircraft design is about predicting the future - people will get it wrong - the max debacle was because Boeing didn't bite the bullet on fly by wire soon enough so had to rush out a competitor to the airbus 320neo.

Personally "the max debacle" is more about the fact that the FAA has a brief to promote the US aerospace industry over it's safety. Presumably coming to a CAA near you as a happy result of Brexit.

Not sure I'll want to fly anytime soon. Quite happy to die in pursuit of science on a one-way trip to Mars. Much less so in the pursuit of another island for Branson.

I think future historians will look at the scramble to buy council houses,

And the government edict that forbad councils from using the sale monies to invest in new properties - ( I'm not sure that has ever been rescinded - idealistic prohibition of social housing.)

The Concorde crash was the product of sloppiness at CDG, possibly deliberate by bolshie French workers. The day before, a plane carrying the Leeds United team back nearly suffered a similar fate from debris on the runway.

We also keep quiet about the Channel Tunnel fire, caused by one French lorry driver chucking a flare.

Tatiana
The ONS is reporting a fraction of actual care home deaths.
Not sure what you mean?
The weekly death certificate report is a standard one that has been part of regular reporting for years.
Why on earth would it be going wrong at the moment?

Frankie
Its always been mad that a council can borrow to buy the freehold of a Mercedes garage in a neighbouring county to generate a return
but cannot borrow to build homes for residents in its own patch to save a sodding fortune

Scottish councils can build council housing - although most do so via the housing associations. #justsaying

Its always been mad that a council can borrow to buy the freehold of a Mercedes garage in a neighbouring county to generate a return but cannot borrow to build homes for residents in its own patch to save a sodding fortune

Mad ? Depends what you were trying to achieve, really.

Tory fiscal policy is to ensure that the poor remain poor by subtle and no so subtle nudges towards "proper" morality. Hence the hypocritical fetish about marriage, for example.

Quite a good article outlining the differences.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/scotlands-housebuilding-boom-can-english-councils-emulate-it-60050

Prettybird
When English councils are given the opportunity to do good things they do
www.norwich.gov.uk/news/article/270/new_eco-houses_become_homes

DGR
Oh I totally agree that council housing sales are about creating opportunities for the rich landlords and developers
rather than anything about providing housing for essential workers

I'm sure they can, if/when they're allowed to

I've never bought into the "private sector = good, public sector = bad" mindset: there is good and bad management and I've experience both in both sectors.

Iirc, the housing built for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014 was eco friendly and then transferred to social housing after the Games finished.

We can't return to all that previous "normal", or it will eventually destroy us:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/halt-destruction-nature-worse-pandemics-top-scientists

The coronavirus pandemic is likely to be followed by even more deadly and destructive disease outbreaks unless their root cause – the rampant destruction of the natural world – is rapidly halted,
the world’s leading biodiversity experts have warned.
....
“Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture, intensive farming, mining and infrastructure development,
as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a ‘perfect storm’ for the spillover of diseases.”

These activities cause pandemics by bringing more people into contact and conflict with animals,
from which 70% of emerging human diseases originate,
they said.

Combined with urbanisation and the explosive growth of global air travel, this enabled a harmless virus in Asian bats to bring “untold human suffering and halt economies and societies around the world.

This is the human hand in pandemic emergence.
Yet [Covid-19] may be only the beginning.”

“Future pandemics are likely to happen more frequently, spread more rapidly, have greater economic impact and kill more people if we are not extremely careful about the possible impacts of the choices we make today,”

I've never bought into the "private sector = good, public sector = bad" mindset: there is good and bad management and I've experience both in both sectors.

Was it you (or indeed on this thread ?) that noted for all the rhetoric coming from the Tories over the private sector, it turns out vanishingly few MPs had actually worked in a truly private company ?

The coronavirus pandemic is likely to be followed by even more deadly and destructive disease outbreaks unless their root cause – the rampant destruction of the natural world – is rapidly halted,

Didn't I say that 5 weeks ago ?

Anyway, no point wasting any time reading nonsense like that. The People will be told what they want, and then be given it. But in the spirit of free enterprise, I'm working on compartmentalised graves, so when the next member of your family pops their clogs, it's the work of a minute to pop the frame out, slide another coffin in, and pop it back again. And DS had a great idea of putting letters on the base of the coffins to spell words when they are all lifted up.

So pleased to see the young are getting into the swing of things now.

Hey - has anyone sounded out football clubs about Club Colour Caskets ? There's an idea waiting for it's time.

Who said there's nothing to look forward too ?

it turns out vanishingly few MPs had actually worked in a truly private company ?

The distances in the US make air travel more necessary than it is in Europe.

That's a bit of a sweeping generalisation....Prior to Brexit etc we had some company staff told to relocate from the UK to eastern europe, a distance of about 900 miles. The choice they were faced with was either uproute family or leave them in the UK and to/from home on a weekly basis..We've had people had their jobs relocated two or three hundred miles within the UK and given a similar choice..Contrast that with the US,... yes you do have the Trans-continental commuters but OTOH you do also have those who regularly fly the 250 ish miles between LAX-LAS or the 200'ish miles between New York and Boston..

As an aside I see the thread has provided "The French killed Concorde" brigade with a platform..not a thought or comment about whose maintenance led to the piece of metal ending up on the runway to start with, no mention that there were some aspects of Concorde's legacy design that led to a certain vulnerability (e.g. the paired engine installation) and no mention of previous incidents with tyre bursts..just "bolshie workers"......but I digress..

Pretty patronising tone.... "in case anyone needs this spelling out" Wow! You must feel ever so superior!!!

Wasn't me DGR - but I have talked about my own experience on previous threads, having worked in ICI, KPMG, the NHS, a part of British Rail in the process of being privatised, an FE college, a telecoms firm and self-employed consultancy over my career.

My worst experience of bad management was working for the telecoms company (the latter years of working for them): a nasty, bullying environment which did nothing to promote transparency and efficient working (my good results were despite them not because of them). Although my best experience was also in the private sector (my first boss, working for ICI - who encouraged the practices that gave me the good results later in the telecoms company), my 2nd best experience was working for the NHS, where I had a "rough diamond" for a boss.

The (English) NHS scheme that I joined through was called the Executive Development Programme, a pilot project bringing in supposed "high flyers" from industry into NHS management at a level below Chief Exec in order to expose them to the best of NHS thinking and groom them to become Chief Execs. Less dangerous than recruiting them direct in to Chief Exec roles (a lesson overnment does not seem to have learnt, with, for example its appointment re NHS procurement ). Unfortunately, the scheme petered out as it was at the time of the Purchaser-Provider split and a joined-up view of career progression was never going to work....

Looks like that time again ...

and Brexit time again - Groundhog Day ......

The govt seem to think that acknowledging the Uk as an independent state

• which of course it has always been within the EU - means the EU have to give them cake

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/apr/27/uk-coronavirus-live-news-boris-johnson-back-at-work-amid-talk-of-easing-lockdown?page=with:block-5ea6c9d88f08ae2593ba7a79#block-5ea6c9d88f08ae2593ba7a79

"We are ready to keep talking but that does not make us any more likely to agree the EU’s proposals in areas where they are not taking into account the UK’s status as an independent state. All we are seeking is an agreement based on precedent which respects the sovereignty of both sides."

But precedent doesn't exist for the UK as a 3rd country in its relationship with the EU