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.

It's perfectly possible to be labour/socialist/leftie and be well off 😄

Well I am very excited to see how Keir Starmer does....daily fail has a headline attacking him this morning, so he must be doing something right.....

The plan seems to be to convince enough people that Starmer is an Old Etonian toff, unlike BJ the self-made lad from a council flat.

Yeah - on that Panorama programme, the BBC has issued a statement in response to Tory criticism.

In summary:

• the specific PE issues raised by Panorama came from official documents / sources on advisory committee.
• the doctors featured in the programme were not the source for the new revelations.

- Dept Health was contacted and Government responses to the revelations were included in the programme (so there's your balance)

• If medical staff feel their lives are at risk while at work they have every right to speak out. Irrespective of any political affiliation.
• As some NHS trusts have discouraged staff from speaking publicly about the situation it is hardly surprising if those willing to appear on TV are more committed campaigners.

*

I think it's worth setting out those points as the Guido Fawkes meme of the four 'Labour' doctors contributing to the Panorama programme has got around far and wide. It was also raised in parliament.

I'm not aware that the British government has any less of a duty of care NHS staff depending on how they vote. Nor that it is only Conservative voting medics who are entitled to speak out in the public interest if they feel that duty of care is not met.

But perhaps I am wrong.

www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/statements/panorama-mon-27-apr

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/27/112-50000-uk-applicants-fruit-pickers-take-jobs-amid-farmers/

Efforts to recruit British fruit and veg pickers have been dealt a blow as it emerged only 112 people out of 50,000 applications have taken up roles.

Thousands who responded to the Government’s appeal for a new land army have dropped out as they have discovered the reality of the eight-hour a day job picking crops in all weathers potentially miles from home.

From the 50,000 applications expressing interest to the Alliance of Ethical Labour Providers, one of the main contract suppliers to farms, just 6,000 opted to complete the video interview for a role.

About 900 then explicitly rejected the roles the Alliance offered, with just 112 taking up the offer of the seasonal job on a UK farm.

Encouraging:
[[https://mobile.twitter.com/NateSilver538
Nate Silver]]r@NateSilver538* (US stats geek)

Korea now seems to think the so-called "re-infections" it found are actually just false positives.

A lot of smart epidemiologists thought this was likely the case all along, so not a huge surprise,
but passing this along for people who freaked out earlier.

That is encouraging, BCF.

Encouraging

Korea now seems to think the so-called "re-infections" it found are actually just false positives.

Only encouraging if (a) you are testing and (b) you are testing with decent test kits ....

DGR The fashion on MN atm is to claim that EE pickers in Britain are actually victims of "slavery" 🤦🏻‍♀️

rather than acknowledging that people experienced in doing a particular kind of hard manual job properly & quickly

will be more efficient than newbies
and hence able to earn reasonable money on piecework rates.

The "slavery" allegation is yet another tactic to explaining why British workers don't find such hard jobs attractive without high pay to compensate
and would especially hate to be forced to leave their homes to live onsite with strangers, to do 12-hour+ days over the picking season

Perfectly reasonable objections, but no need to fabricate "slavery" allegations

"encouraging" because people were believing the earlier Korean results

Irrelevant in this case how much HMG is testing in the UK

DGR The fashion on MN

I think if you saw my wardrobe, you'd not use the word "fashion" regarding me ever again ....

@HesterThrale Graham Norton is completely right.
Interestingly living in a country where the wealthy have to have huge walls and armed security guards but pay little tax did a great deal to persuade my more right leaning DH of the whole societal advantages of everyone paying a decent amount of tax.
Keeping all your wealth sounds great but your dc's LEGO houses and schools having cctv and security cars outside is depressing.

I forsee a mass riot by Grey Panthers is this is attempted in any country ....

and what about all the doctors and other essential workers aged 50+

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/29/over-50s-should-kept-coronavirus-lockdown-measures-longer-say/

The over-50s should be kept in lockdown for longer than younger groups and fined if they cannot prove their age when out and about,
researchers at the University of Warwick have suggested.

A new paper suggests the safest way out of the UK's coronavirus lockdownn is social distancingg combined with a "rolling age-release strategy"
that could allow younger and less vulnerable, people out earlier.

The controversial strategy is based on widely-reported data showing older age groups are at much greater risk of death if they contract the virus.
Fatalities among 50-year-olds are 20 times greater than those among 20-year-olds,
and fatalities among 60-year-olds would be approximately 50 times as great as people in their early 20s

< my opinion can be summed up in 2 words, the 2nd of which is OFF >

Interestingly living in a country where the wealthy have to have huge walls and armed security guards but pay little tax did a great deal to persuade my more right leaning DH of the whole societal advantages of everyone paying a decent amount of tax.

That could be another country, or England 600 years ago, when the Norman nobility were basically a bunch of mafia-style thugs, and the King was the biggest of them all.

I'm sure that the PM, MPs and the very wealthy would be exempt for some reason ....

The over-50s should be kept in lockdown for longer than younger groups and fined if they cannot prove their age when out and about,

OK, that's the shock-horror-up-in-arms end of the scale. Now what's the nasty unpleasantness we'll be grateful they get "knocked back" to ?

And the other question ... why do some people want so much money, more than they could ever possibly spend?

I've said it before, back in my home country my high earning BiL was in the 65% tax rate. He STILL managed to go on multiple holidays, have the car of his dreams, send his kids to university etc. How many super yachts does one person need?

Warwick really have a bee in their bonnet about age. It was they who also suggesting releasing the 20-30 year olds a few weeks ago.

Sorry to burst the “Graham Norton Bubble of Virtue” TM but I’m afraid he was identified years ago as a beneficiary of a personal services company to reduce his tax liabilities

www.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/05/bbc-presenters-tax

Warwick really have a bee in their bonnet about age. It was they who also suggesting releasing the 20-30 year olds a few weeks ago.

Proof there are as many wise men in the forests as madmen in the castle, as Walt Whitman might have said ...

I agree that most the public will ignore the fact that thousands of lives have been lost that could have continued had the government been competent. Also agree that if other countries close by start to ease restrictions but not UK then that will cause more uproar than the blatant incompetence at the top. Life in DK has a feeling of 'new normality'. Work has adapted , though there is concern that not enough kids are not coming to day care, people are still nervous.

Re: the warwick paper, it's the same author's... and the main author is an Economics Professor, not medical so coming at the solution to lockdown with quite a different mindset. The original paper a few weeks ago was not actually a research paper but a briefing note. Though qualifying it as 'research' certainly gives it much greater credence than is likely warranted.

www.andrewoswald.com/

Just looked at the 2nd paper being quoted in today's paper... it's essentially repeating the same argument and there is nothing there that isn't already known i.e. over 50's at greater risk than 20's. Not sure if the idea of a rolling age release has really been thought through, but it fits with the narrative to open the economy sooner than later.

Re: the warwick paper, it's the same author's... and the main author is an Economics Professor, not medical

And Google had someone on SAGE, apparently.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/30/google-executive-took-part-in-sage-meeting-coronavirus-tech-firm-confirms

I read that too DGR... the CEO of DeepMind. Not sure what to make of that!