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.

Ahhh it's that nasty EU again - all their fault that Boris and friends are trashing the economy....... but hey, those tax advantages are really important for a select few.....

There is no precedent for a country not in the EEA being allowed the frictionless trade of th Single Market

There is no precedent for the UK to try to break the terms of an international agreement it has just signed, namely the NI Protocol

The other issues such as fishing are the normal negotiations between a country and a bloc,
which normally require quite a bit of time
and have never been conducted via vid conferencing / social distancing

There is no precedent for wanting to negotiate when both sides are so preoccupied by a pandemic that is killing tens of thousands of its citizens

It should be a no-brainer to agree an extension, but this govt has lost its brain and its mind wrt Brexit

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

Are we back to the fiction of "sovereign equals" ?

Of course, the nasty EU not doing exactly what Boris and co. want can easily be spun as the reason the UK didn't handle Covid as well as it might have, if needs be.

@ListeningQuietly

Because afaik ONS has a 3 week time lag and may not include covid as cause of death in elderly - could be pneumonia, heart attack, stroke, which covid can cause, or underlying conditions which covid exacerbated. And the CQC didn’t start asking care homes if covid was a cause of death until 9 April.

Boris is back, and comparing Covid19 to a mugger, rather than an Old Etonian fraudster conspiring to beat up a journalist.

Anyone heard of Mark Channon ? Just seen a heartbreaking series of tweets where he goes from fine 15/4/2020 to recovering from COVID-19 in hospital 25/4/2020, to dead 26/4/2020

As his brother tweeted on Marks twitter account ...

Real people. Real lives and tragically real deaths

TBH, I don't think the majority of the populace will notice or care about a no-deal Brexit it unless it directly affects them. As we are already looking at a recession and no travel abroad in the foreseeable future, the first inkling of a fuck-up will be in supermarket supplies and queues at customs for manufacturing parts.

It's going to be slow, corrosive and draining.

Which begs the question: who benefits from a poor and crippled country?

The only thing that you can take from the ons data is excess deaths.

I believe the care home association is trying to pull numbers together. Not something they would normally do, but will give an indication.

I still think it's an outrage that these elderly people are expected to die in care homes without palliative care. If there are still hospital beds available, they should be offering that. In-imaginally hard on the care home staff who don't have the training or indeed the support to deal with this. Emotional cost will be huge.

Why wouldn't they go for no deal brexit?

They can blame the subsequent recession on covid-19.

Talking about brexit and food shortages. Is everyone noticing difficulties in getting ingredients - other than flour and yeast ..... I am increasingly finding regular baking ingredients hard to find. I bake a lot so yes I can compare. For example - raisins......sign if things to come

"Why wouldn't they go for no deal brexit?

They can blame the subsequent recession on covid-19."

And it's hardly like the general media will hold them to account

I still think it's an outrage that these elderly people are expected to die in care homes without palliative care.

A friends mum is blind and has dementia.
To move her out of her room would cause her huge distress as she would not understand
but YYYYYY that there should be reliable palliative care available in all care homes (both elderly and disability)

Which begs the question: who benefits from a poor and crippled country?

Russia ? The US ?

The UK being a basket case isn't necessarily their end goal. Just collateral damage. The real aim is to reduce the growing power of the EU as an economic and geopolitical entity.

Russia's long stated aim is to keep the West destabilised through asymmetric warfare. Rather sportingly they actually told us they were going to do that half a century ago. I guess that's another "missing" email then. It's their strategy for protection against invasion which they seem rather preoccupied with for some reason.

The US aim is simple jealousy and an extension of their foreign policy post war which has been to ensure no other political bloc can emerge to rival it.

mrslaughan
For baking stuff I've found an online company who normally supply pubs and restaurants
16kg bag of flour and 500g of fresh yeast arrived this morning.
The newly baked bread looks AMAZING
1kg of figs and a 500g pack of prosciutto cheered my kids up too
Round here the merchant is Harvest Fine Foods but there are lots all over the country

I've got an order in for 16kg flour and assorted baking bits. It's due 13th May, I await it anxiously.

My Morrisons order for tomorrow assures me I can have self raising flour, golden caster sugar and raisins, I remain skeptical.

Yes listening - I have found one locally , and have ordered bulk - but they couldn't do delivery until the 12th May (that was 10 days ago) . Was very excited to find I could buy bulk callebaut chocolate for baking 😜
I had heaps of yeast - so don't need that yet, and we have a flour mill in town so local farm shop has flour (not organic unfortunately- which is my preference as I don't like crops sprayed with roundup just before harvest).......

More that we are told supplies are fine - but clearly aren't. The lack of supply of flour I get - mills used to packaging in bulk and not for the at home market.

But it's the things around the fringes - that are imported - like coconut milk..... I have plenty as about 6 months ago I accidentally ended up with a huge amount from Ocado and most curries I cook without coconut. But have discovered a recipe for coconut pannacotta that is lovely and refreshing and whole family lives (reminds them of coconut jelly at Yum Cha I think) - so wondered if I should get some more.....

Add no deal brexit on top of coronavirus- and things could get tricky.....

On the topic of people dying in case homes / end of life care:

mobile.twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1254457546905210882

Honeysuckle I got dememera sugar cubes (which DH is lovely in his espresso) instead of golden castor sugar!!! So it is a bit if a lottery?

My other thing about the lack of supplies in the supermarket is the great swathes of people who can't afford to buy in bulk and also don't have the space to store it. ( like my friend who lives in a council house - the one she has now is amazing - but still v v limited storage space)

Talking about brexit and food shortages. Is everyone noticing difficulties in getting ingredients - other than flour and yeast ..... I am increasingly finding regular baking ingredients hard to find. I bake a lot so yes I can compare. For example - raisins......sign if things to come

It's not a problem with the food supply (raisins?), it's a huge spike in demand from recreational home bakers during the lockdown - kids making buns.

Ok small axe - and coconut milk?

Just PMK again.

Found you! - v. late PMK, will go back and read thread now.

this IS Anecdata I know but:

I live very very rural North England, so in a real little 'bubble'.
My neighbour works for the NHS and I understand his job involves ensuring elderly patients don't 'bed block' by arranging their moving into care homes and then back to their own home if possible.
he works part time with two others in a senior role and between them they manage 5,000 (whether staff or clients wasn't clear).

He dropped by today with some eggs. From a distance of at least 10ft I asked him how he was. He got a bit tearful and said it was: 'very hard indeed right now, we have NO PPE and I'm getting emails from Govt warning us about legal consequences of not sending staff in so I am but they are dropping like flies as we have paper towels, some gloves but little else'. He told me he'd done a 150m round trip to collect some hand sanitiser that a local agri firm has just converted to make in a desperate attempt to get some provision for his staff.
he said that 1/3 of all Trusts have staff 'down' at any one time.
I asked if he thought the Govt was lying about the PPE situation and he said: I dont know, I just know the need is enormous and we cant get any anywhere'. I asked about the situation in care homes and he actually started to cry and told me about a middle aged staff member who'd gone to bed last Friday night and told his wife he felt a bit rough and was dead by morning. I wanted to hug him, but of course couldn't.

I dont know him VERY well. It is possible he is a person who exaggerates. But I didn't get that impression. He looked exhausted and weepy and looks like he's lost 2st in weeks.
Hope it's okay to post this here. I'm not trying to be alarmist or upset any one - but, goodness, it really shook me up!

My FIL was moved from hospital back to his care home room when it became clear that he had lost the ability to swallow would mean repeated chest infections as food got into his lungs, that is sadly the common progression of dementia and care homes are used to nursing patients through those last days with the help of GPs and district nurses . There are DNR pathways, he was sedated on a syringe driver and given only sips of water to keep him comfortable, he was more relaxed and peaceful in his room and his death was a good one. Of course we were there and it does not take away from the scandal of the culpable neglect. But the process of dying in a care home is one they are used to managing.

As you can see from this article www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/without-a-plan-its-not-going-to-stop-care-homes-fear-worst-yet-to-come-covid-19 those GP teams are still supporting care homes, of course as with the small labs testing for local hospitals and everything else, in spite of not because of government.

What did I say about who the Brexiters would blame for the talks failing?
Nasty EU, I recall.