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.

The one bit of that report about Trump that doesn't ring true is "He’s pissed because he knows he messed up in those briefings” a Republican close to the White House reportedly told CNN.

Trump doesn't have that degree of self-awareness

Whats with the pepperoni shortage?? I can't get it anywhere, including wholesalers.

That's a Republican trying to assign vaguely normal motives and behaviour to Trump
Some of them still don't understand / let themselves admit the monster they have elected

Just as well the NHS never needed these shoddy goods after all .....

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/30/entire-order-of-250-chinese-ventilators-were-useless-despite

All of the devices in a consignment of 250 ventilators that arrived from Chinaa^ on 4 April posed such serious problems that they could not be used and were ditched.

Doctors in NHS hospitals in the West Midlands, among which the ventilators were shared, were so concerned that they wrote to Matt Hancockk^, the health secretary, warning that they could kill patients.
....
A senior official at one of the hospitals involved said:
“All of the ventilators failed. Nothing worked.
They didn’t have proper oxygen centres and the tubing didn’t fit.
We were irate.
All the hospitals tried to get them to work but we couldn’t."

Thanks listening. IMO, A plc using them to pay contractors is entirely different from a publicly funded broadcaster encouraging their use paying “talent” with our money. If the difference in cost to the employer is 30% as you state then the remuneration should be reduced by 30%.

Trump is pissed because he has been using the briefings as political rallies, and somewhere along the line he began to expose himself for the charlatan he is even in the eyes of many ardent fans. The virus is being felt in states that refused to expand Medicaid, a tragedy that the GOP brought on its own house.

Were it not for the heroic efforts of union workers in hospitals and Democratic and maverick GOP governors of big city states the number of deaths would be far higher.

Once the good ol boys in the South get over the chortling about the libtards in NYC dying like flies and start to look around at how counties with no doctors in their own states are faring, they will be forced to ask themselves a lot of searching questions. It's possible that many awkward questions have already filtered through to the White House.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/30/georgia-reopens-businesses-coronavirus-cases-rise

And aside altogether from deaths, the GOP governor of Georgia risks alienating a big bloc of GOP support:

When John Gianoulidis, owner of the Kafenio Greek Diner, heard the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, announce restaurants could offer dine-in services once again this week, he feared the worst for his restaurant and coffee shop in Atlanta.

Here’s the deal, he typed out on Facebook.

“Kemp mandates restaurants reopen, whether I reopen dining rooms or not. I file for business interruption insurance, it does not go through since I am ‘allowed’ to operate full capacity,” he hypothesized, adding further down in the now viral post, “If things blow up again, they are still on my tab not on the states, since they are no longer employed. Guys, this is about screwing the working class and small business, not about helping us.”

Economists are uncertain if Gianoulidis is entirely correct about the exact rationale behind the sudden announcement to reopen Georgia as coronavirus cases continue to rise, with nearly 25,000 confirmed in the state as of Tuesday afternoon. The state’s reopening has been so early that even Donald Trump urged Kemp not to do it.

But they can agree the most in danger from Kemp’s actions – both economically and healthwise – are those who open their businesses or return to work in Georgia’s new sudden easing of restrictions.

The state’s current count of positive virus cases makes it the tenth highest in the country as employees were cleared to serve meals in a restaurant, offer up tattoos or provide hair and nails services and check-in gym goers for Zumba class. In the last month, Georgia’s department of labor processed 1,090,536 claims, more than the last three previous years combined. Nearly a third of the claims came from the food and accommodation industry, many of whom can now – technically – go back to work as restaurants open.

Two links for your reading enjoyment and information today.

First, on the comparison of flu and COVID-19 death counts. Executive summary: the reported numbers from the first are statistical estimates, not confirmed cases, it's not a valid comparison. My take: excess deaths is going to be the only solid metric but it's a very lagging indicator and can't be used directly to inform policy. blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/

Second, a fantastic explainer on the biology of the SARS-Cov2 virus: www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/30/science/coronavirus-mutations.html (Hint: there are no "strains" )

And a third, which should be mandatory reading for those working on how to get and keep the outbreak controlled: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255847973797462016.html Prisons, meat packing plants, nursing homes.

Louise the government have now bought in stricter rules to stop personal service companies being used when people really should be employees.

The IR35 legislation has been around since the early nineties, but previously the onus was on the personal service company to apply it.

This was problematic because basically it's all a great big grey area, hence the vast amount of case law and a booming industry in writing contracts in a way that avoided IR35.

What the government have done is shifted the responsibility on to the 'employer' - starting with public funded services such as the NHS, universities and even Hmrc, and then extending it out this month to all larger businesses.

As a result, public bodies now appear to have pretty much adopted a blanket approach and are deducting tax and national insurance at source.

Many major industries have now started doing the same thing as the legislation for them came in April this month. Some of them have gone rather too far with it, in my view - rather than looking at individual contracts they have decided personal service company =IR35 when actually many of them would not fall under it.

I actually think in principle it was a damn good idea - however it does raise rather a few employment law questions...initially, someone working under IR35 has all the cons of being employed and none of the advantages - holiday pay, sick pay, employment rights etc. I believe (although this is not my area!) that things are changing via case law re this - I know a case has been won on holiday pay last year...but there could have been better protections in place before hand.

Government has apparently reached the 100k testing target. Am I supposed to cheer?

Meantime we've exceeded Spain's deaths and are very close to Italy's.

Anthony Costelloe (a paediatrician) reported as saying 'history will not look favourably' on how we dealt with this in the UK.

Just my response to DG's article about the recommendations/warning by American chamber of commerce..... problem is Bozo is such a lazy c**t that he won't educate on stuff like this - and then is going to be completely surprised about the shower of shit he rains down on all of us.

Did anyone watch the briefing yesterday ? Maybe because it's such a serious situation- but his appalling ability to communicate well is just laughable. After dinner repartee doesn't work in life and death situations...... and his analogies - well we're just fucking stupid.

And while I am ranting - what is the point of the stupid phone in questions from listeners ...... they just muddy they water - which I guess is the point.

Lots of things being shared on Facebook attacking the media - which is really disturbing..... at the speed at which they are shared and the emotion (anti-media , pro government) that they stir up is scary....... without people not actually engaging their brain.

Thatcherism and its mutant offspring punishment-austerity are dead. They know they can't make this deficit up by screwing the poor. They are going to have to go after the super-rich and hyper-rich in particular and redress the shift in balance of the share of wealth across society.

No one else has any money, except maybe the Chinese.

It's very Trumpian and aimed at BBC, tied with the #BeKind that seems to only apply to Boris and ends up with no accountability or enquiry. Although there is going to be a UK enquiry into how it began in China. I'm sure that one will have a lot more to say than anything published on our govt. failings

I've still not grasped why key workers across the board don't have PPE. It's weird enough having construction workers out and about (men, over 40, lots of obesity and comorbidities) but not giving some protection to delivery drivers/bin men? Obviously we can't even protect healthcare workers atm so it's a moot point, but still...

Go after the super rich ...

Why does that give me a nice warm feeling

My Brexiteer/Bozo loving fb posters are busy sharing "psychology" posts, such as "Why are so many people so ANGRY?" with a handy diagram showing anger stems from, fear, guilt, shame, hurt, confusion, isolation etc. Of course, none of them are similarly afflicted in their blissful states

MrsL Those posters must be frustrated & disappointed ... or working to orders:

YouGov: No, trust in the media has not collapsed because of coronavirus

yougov.co.uk/topics/media/articles-reports/2020/04/29/no-trust-media-has-not-collapsed-because-coronavir

They know they can't make this deficit up by screwing the poor.

It won't stop them trying.

They know they can't make this deficit up by screwing the poor.

Screwing the poor has nothing - nothing - to do with making up any deficit. It's an ideological position. It's "morality" dressed in economics clothing.

"Austerity" was and is only a meaningless slogan for the weak-of-conscience (plenty of those about) to hang their ignorance on.

We return to the paradigm of the Bedroom Tax. Even if it cost money (which is has) it had to be implemented to teach the scum their place in life. This is an ideology that would build prisons out of bricks made of gold, and bar the windows with sticks of purest diamond before ever giving a single penny to the undeserving poor.

That's not hyperbole. That's just a straightforward conclusion from teh fact that the worlds 6th richest country still has people sleeping rough. It's clearly a deliberate policy. Like hungry children, and ill equipped medics. None of those things happened "by accident". They happened because they were meant to happen.

They know they can't make this deficit up by screwing the poor.

Didnt stop them last time and certainly wont this time especially when you realise the narrative has now changed in some quarters that the recently furloughed just arent doing enough

On the subject of prisons ... copying the USA and getting their retaliation in first ....

I'm amazed this is apparently LEGAL - since the report calls on it to be banned

It IS illegal outside prisons, e.g. don't do this to a burglar or pickpocket, or you may be facing charges too

UK prison officers punching compliant inmates, report says

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/30/uk-prison-officers-punching-inmates

Human rights delegation finds ‘reprehensible practice’ in three male prisons^
....

In its report, the committee highlights a “new and deeply concerning” finding of unjustified violence by staff on prisoners
– particularly in Liverpool and Wormwood Scrubs –
in the form of preventive strikes, described as “preventively punching compliant prisoners whom staff perceived might, at some point in the future, become a threat”.
< WTF ?? Horrendous risk of abuse & prejudice, not to mention ECHR surely ?>
....
The committee interviewed the use-of-force coordinator at Liverpool prison who confirmed that, in his view,
it was legitimate for staff to use “preventive” strikes against a compliant prisoner if,
based on previous knowledge of the inmate, they anticipated that he might pose a threat.

US prisons are merely a replacement for the slave plantations of the pre civil war era.

Can't recall who said it, but there is a quote that if you want to know what a society is like, visit the prisons, not the schools. How a society treats it's prisoners is the true measure of how it treats all it's citizens. (Or in our case, subjects).

Quite so DGR and enough people were happy to vote for them to continue to do so.

It will be interesting to see whether attitudes have changed when all this is over.