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.

To be honest, I think the government really needs to be charging people to live through this - given that people pay to play laserquest.

DGR don't give them ideas, we know the tabloids read MN!

Oh, and DW got her "Vulnerable ? You must be joking !" letter today. To be fair, when you go through each bullet point, they don't apply. However, I felt it a tad insensitive that "- Being Prime Minister" was the last point. After all, when is the UK ever going to have a blind, wheelchair bound PM in the next 1,000 years ?

DGR don't give them ideas, we know the tabloids read MN!

I thought they just looked the pictures ?

If you were Carrie, would you let a nanny anywhere near Pfeffle?
I'm not sure Carrie is my yardstick for sound judgement, TBH...

Cook resigned in principle over Blair’s poor decision.

If, in parenthesis he doesn’t hold a grudge against Blair, and acknowledges the difficulties of being PM that’s up to him.

It's from another era, the idea of ministers resigning on principle because the disagree with the government's course of action. Can you imagine any of the current shower doing such a thing? Look what happened to the back benchers when they showed principled objections.

The Saj showed principle,
Or good judgement. Maybe he foresaw the juggernaut hurtling round the corner.

Someone in govt needs to be planning what happens after lockdown ends,
i.e. doing their job

The UK needs to organise mass testing, contact tracing and of course PPE supplies

• BJ may think that a used condom and a paper towel suffices for emergency kit, but Hancock & Gove should know better

The govt can't extend lockdown merely because they haven't worked out what happens next
They only need to copy Macron or Merkel; it's not that original thought is required of them

The govt can't extend lockdown merely because they haven't worked out what happens next

They did with Brexit ...

And we know they like "thinking out of the box" aka herd immunity/euthanasia.

If we want to give them the benefit of the doubt, you might wonder if there hasn't been enough of their desired effect yet, hence the lack of pretty much any action whatsoever...

I've just seen that annoymous sources are claiming that Dominic Cummings was an active participant in the SAGE meeting, not merely a bystander, and pushed scientists to lock down earlier.

My first thought is you sneaky, conniving bastards. Rewriting the narrative that government did everything they could to save lives, but they were following the scientists, who couldn't be swayed. Not the governments fault that so many died.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/top-aide-to-u-k-s-johnson-pushed-scientists-to-back-lockdown

A flight from the Ukraine to UK, carrying over 100 people to pick our crops, was stopped from taking off.

Excellent - another 100 jobs that are available to British people. Don't all rush at once.

I wonder what a strategy to eliminate the weak and vulnerable from controlled environments first, before moving onto the wider society would look like in the UK ?

DGR, do you have a window?

DGR, do you have a window?

Yes. But it's interesting to note ...

I was working in a very elderly part of the country again today.
The WORST for social distancing were the OAPs

• standing around chatting in groups, no spacing in the supermarket.

OK its an area that has so far had very few cases but its waist deep in nursing homes if they do not have the habits now, lots of them will get sick when the tourists are allowed back

As a fan of Westworld, I think we could make something of converting the UK into a series of themed parks: Downtonworld. Camelotworld. Byeckitsgrimupnorthworld. Etc.

It's a winner.

Lewis Goodall@lewisgoodall (BBC Newsnight)

US GDP shrank a 4.8% annual rate in Q1. Worst since financial crash.
Bad.
But Q1 misses the worst of the economic hit of the lockdown.

Q2 expected to show annual rate GDP decline of 30%.

Wish I had joined the Tory party now. At least I'd have got a test ...

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has written to members of a Conservative Party email list inviting them to apply for a coronavirus test, as ministers struggle to hit their target of 100,000 tests a day.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-test-matt-hancock-conservative-party-email-tory-members-a9490261.html

We can't consider COVID without also considering the economic pressures around the world on government strategies for COVID

fortune.com/2020/04/23/us-unemployment-rate-numbers-claims-this-week-total-job-losses-april-23-2020-benefits-claims/

"At the highest of levels of unemployment following the 2008 financial crisis, there were 15.3 million jobless Americans.

But in the past five weeks a staggering 26.5 million workers have already filed jobless claims."

US workers seem to have been hit worse than nywhere in the West - maybe having bugger all safety net or employment tights actually matters .....

DGR
One of the testing centres is near here - lots of cones no people ....

Tory Party members are mostly over 65 and many are high risk so its not a big leap to add them to the list
but not sure how many there really are ;-)

We can't consider COVID without also considering the economic pressures around the world on government strategies for COVID

One strategy is to recast the concept of the capitalist economy so that rather than relying on endless unsustainable and ultimately species-culling growth, it's predicated upon keeping the planet in good shape whilst the human species fulfils it's genetic destiny and moves to other planets.

That's if people accept the "as below, so above" view of nature.

DGR now you're even further down the list for testing

US workers seem to have been hit worse than nywhere in the West - maybe having bugger all safety net or employment tights actually matters

This is what I enjoy about working from home. Nobody cares what I wear and my employment tights can stay in the drawer

They are trying to make excuses for the fact that we have the second highest deathrate in the world for Covid and the second highest even going by size of population. It's not positive though they are trying to say it is!😡
Also it only includes deaths outside hospital that were tested not those that died untested!