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

Much more interesting will be how the demographics stack up. It's long been obvious that the outcome of an election has very little relationship to peoples attitudes. You need to pass those through the UKs electoral mincing machine before you can get a winner.

I won't repeat my "ex post facto" analysis which Cendrillion so ex post facto dismissed, but we al know it's a fiction that the country decides the government. It's really a few thousand individuals in a few seats.

It's really a few thousand individuals in a few seats.

All very true, but......

I am just reading Bercow's autobiography, Unspeakable. I have got a point where Labour are about to win under Blair. Someone said to Bercow that it didn't really matter what efforts he put in, there was a time when people wanted change. As happened in 1945, when the Labour landslide took the toffs by surprise. Then again in 1964 after '13 years of Tory misrule', if I remember the slogan correctly. Then in 1979 with Thatcher or last year under Johnson. If the current majority leads to a one party state eventually enough people will get tired of the Tories and throw them out.

Already the 'Corbyn would have been worse' looks a bit silly and the 'Remoaners' thwarting the Will of the People no longer has any traction. I suspect that I will be disappointed in Starmer, but potentially he could be the right person at the right time - calm, measured, forensic contrasted with Lovable Boris and his waffle and piffle.

Speaking of demographics

COVID-19 Deaths by fine detail. ONS data

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19bylocalareasanddeprivation/deathsoccurringbetween1marchand17april#middle-layer-super-output-areas
Deaths involving COVID-19 by local area and socioeconomic deprivation: deaths occurring between 1 March and 17 April 2020
Provisional counts of the number of deaths and age-standardised mortality rates involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) between 1 March and 17 April 2020 in England and Wales. Figures are provided by age, sex, geographies down to local authority level and deprivation indices.

1.Main points
Between 1 March and 17 April 2020, there were 90,232 deaths occurring in England and Wales that were registered by 18 April; 20,283 of these deaths involved the coronavirus (COVID-19).

When adjusting for size and age structure of the population, there were 36.2 deaths involving COVID-19 per 100,000 people in England and Wales.

London had the highest age-standardised mortality rate with 85.7 deaths per 100,000 persons involving COVID-19; this was statistically significantly higher than any other region and almost double the next highest rate.

The local authorities with the highest age-standardised mortality rates for deaths involving COVID-19 were all London Boroughs; Newham had the highest age-standardised rate with 144.3 deaths per 100,000 population followed by Brent with a rate of 141.5 deaths per 100,000 population and Hackney with a rate of 127.4 deaths per 100,000 population.

The age-standardised mortality rate of deaths involving COVID-19 in the most deprived areas of England was 55.1 deaths per 100,000 population compared with 25.3 deaths per 100,000 population in the least deprived areas

In Wales, the most deprived areas had a mortality rate for deaths involving COVID-19 of 44.6 deaths per 100,000 population, almost twice as high as the least deprived area of 23.2 deaths per 100,000 population.

Statistician's comment
“By mid-April, the region with the highest proportion of deaths involving COVID-19 was London, with the virus being involved in more than 4 in 10 deaths since the start of March. In contrast, the region with the lowest proportion of COVID-19 deaths was the South West, which saw just over 1 in 10 deaths involving coronavirus. The 11 local authorities with the highest mortality rates were all London boroughs, with Newham, Brent and Hackney suffering the highest rates of COVID-19 related deaths.

“People living in more deprived areas have experienced COVID-19 mortality rates more than double those living in less deprived areas. General mortality rates are normally higher in more deprived areas, but so far COVID-19 appears to be taking them higher still.”

Nick Stripe, Head of Health Analysis, Office for National Statistics.

They won't build prisons out of anything. The British People, bless 'em, believe three things about prison:

• Everyone should be locked up forever, or longer if possible.
• This should cost nothing at all.
• There should be no prisons anywhere near anyone.

Driving past the local nick on a cold winter night, I once made a joke about the steam coming from a vent, about what a disgrace it was they had heating. Person in car agreed non-ironcally and launched into usual tirade about holidays camps with televisions etc.

It's really a few thousand individuals in a few seats [] All very true, but......

It's why the Cambridge Analytica story was bigger than people realised. It's indisputable they were trying to locate those few thousand as closely as possible to maximise their targeted ads and misinformation campaigns.

Or, (much more tinfoil hat territory) know which constituencies they needed to find some "spare" postal votes in.

It would be a fascinating exercise if there was a way for somebody to check whether the state thought they had voted last election. I really would not be surprised if there were a large number of people who are registered as voting, but who never did.

It will be interesting to see if attitudes have changed, no doubt about that. Have any of yours?

The demographic stuff is interesting, my first reaction would be that there is a population density element, as well as the reality that poorer people generally have poorer health outcomes across the board.

as well as the reality that poorer people generally have poorer health outcomes across the board.

I like the use of "reality" there, suggesting that nothing can be done which pretty quickly becomes "let's not bother doing anything".

Gravity is reality. Drop a hammer on your foot and the outcome is rigorously predictable every time.

Poverty is not. It's a man made construct.

Not my intention. The population density point was a supposition on my part, the health outcomes point I know is true. I didn’t suggest that nothing could be done, nor that nothing should.

Since obesity is related to deprivation and we have some of the highest inequality and social deprivation in Europe we SHOULD have one of the highest mortality rates in Europe.

This seems to be being massively overlooked in favour of PPE shortages and lockdown timing.

It shouldn't be.

It was Victor hugo who said build a school and close a prison.

It should be no surprise that there is a link with poverty and deprivation. Poorer health outcomes are one measure of poverty.

What interests me now is how the Tory party are going to deal with it. A lot of those so called Red Wall seats are in very deprived areas. What is Johnson going to do to retain their votes? I can't see that tax cuts for the wealthy will offer much, which has been the standard Tory offer for the last 40 years. A return to Keynesian economics would be fine for most of us, but this will expose the splits in the Tory party.

It was Victor hugo who said build a school and close a prison

It was Boris Johnson that said get prisoners to build a private school, and charge people to let their children attend while the shareholders count the money.

Re judge a country by it's prisons = Dostoevsky
Obesity is also arguably a man made construct, with obesogenic environments being contentious with big business...McDonalds next to a school, anyone? Unclear nutritional content on food packaging? Glamourising of alcohol and not putting empty calories on labels?

I was appalled when I read that the US cuts off water to anyone who can't pay their bill. I don't know why, but that really did seem to me to be the absolute lowest thing anyone could do to a family already struggling - to deprive them of water. And now they can't even wash their hands.

I was appalled when I read that the US cuts off water to anyone who can't pay their bill. I don't know why, but that really did seem to me to be the absolute lowest thing anyone could do to a family already struggling - to deprive them of water. And now they can't even wash their hands.

Averaged out, the US reflects the UK about 150 years ago. And is pulling us back, rather than the other way round.

Hearsay, admittedly, but apparently the CEO of a number of care homes. after complaining that they'd been left to source their own PPE at 3 times cost, rather than through the NHS, dropped a little bombshell that a lot of care homes are going to need the mother of all bail outs, or just go under. He was chatting about all sorts really and then he said government will need to bail us out as we can't operate under 80% capacity or we make a loss, he said if a home makes a loss they just shut the home so thus creating a shortage on places in an already overstretched care system. Reason for the

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/revealed-nhs-procurement-official-privately-selling-ppe/ar-BB13t2yO

A head of procurement for the NHS has set up a business to profit from the private sale of huge quantities of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, an undercover investigation by the Guardian can reveal.

David Singleton, 42, a senior NHS official in London who has been working at the capital’s Covid-19 Nightingale hospital, launched the business two weeks ago to trade in visors, masks and gowns.

Asked about the findings of the investigation, Singleton said he disclosed his business to superiors in the NHS, in accordance with the rules, and was told there was “unlikely to be a conflict”.

(contd)

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

I think it is very unlikely that a conservative government which is to the right will suddenly start doing this in the UK.
JRM isn't going to vote to make himself poorer for example.
It is possible they will look at tax law but I would expect that they would also continue to look at smaller government and less regulation in the workforce.

I heard that care home CEO on the World at One today DGR.
His words were something like “many people are working from home so are able to look after their elderly at home”. And I thought, well, there’s the future for many women.

I heard that care home CEO on the World at One today DGR. His words were something like “many people are working from home so are able to look after their elderly at home”. And I thought, well, there’s the future for many women.

Past more like it.

“many people are working from home so are able to look after their elderly at home”.

By that logic, surely it's OK to take granny to work ? Or the kids ?

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

I get the point here, my concern is that I wouldn’t be confident there are enough super-rich and hyper-rich people to cover this? no matter how the government ‘went after’ them.

I get the point here, my concern is that I wouldn’t be confident there are enough super-rich and hyper-rich people to cover this

What's that breakdown ? 1% of worlds population own 99% of the wealth.

You need to look harder ...

I am inclined the agree with Louise about this.
Also the hyper rich as individuals are extremely globally mobile.
I can see that taxes on companies could be adjusted particularly within groupings such as the EU but individuals have considerable freedom.

I was talking to a client today
She is working PT from home (as normal)
Her husband is working FT from home (not normal, HR, lots of secure phone calls)
They have three children. Secondary age one is getting set lots of work and getting on with it.
Two primary age children are really struggling to focus and massively missing their friends.
She has frail parents who she is trying to arrange food etc for.
She is absolutely at breaking point

• I swear she's aged five years in the last few weeks.

The traffic was MUCH heavier on the roads today
but the buses are completely empty