Westminstenders: Operation Shock and Awe

[RedToothBrush]

The government is launching its get ready for the end of transition campaign which has been dubbed a 'shock and awe' campaign.

In this campaign we will learn all about what Brexit means and what amazing opportunities lie for having increased customs and borders, beaucracy and increased costs. Bet you are all really excited and looking forward to this.

We will also get a 'Farage Garage' in Kent to cope with these wonderful opportunities in traffic jams. This will be something that businesses throughout the country will be super excited to plan for in their socially distanced Zoom meetings or across warehouses with their face masks on. And banks will be delighted to see an uptick in applications in CCJs and debt reconstruction plans.

It will be a super fun time for the under 30s who have zero hours contracts, worked in retail or hospitality. Or should I say 'worked'.

Meanwhile the right to a jury trial has been binned due to 'long covid delays' which are shorter than they were several years ago. The NHS isn't getting the funding it expected, and waiting lists are longer than ever with no way to clear them. The plan to build more hospitals seems to have disappeared with the Nightingales. Many councils are about to go into insolvency and be taken over by accountancy firms. The civil service is being dismantled and conservative loyalists with no experience being put in charge of important functions of state. Communications with the press are being 'streamlined' to make them incredible of holding power to account and only able to repeat government public announcements.

Anyone looking forward to Christmas? When you write a letter to Santa remember to add 'visa application form', 'a sleeping bag for use at Dover', 'tinned tomatoes' and 'packets of seeds to grow your own' to the list.

Dominic Cummings is now in charge of all Government data. It has been transferred from the Department for Digital Culture Media and Spport to the Cabinet office Russia

Poulet I've been following that story with some interest because I used to work in dementia research. The MOCA is a very standard tool, not terribly detailed but a useful screening tool nevertheless. There is nothing hard about it, unless you have a cognitive impairment of some kind, whether due to dementia or stroke. You and I would score 100% without thinking about it. It's typical of Trump to brag about 'acing' it. Also scary that people seem to accept that.

"Masks are a distraction
They stop people focusing on the true failings of this vicious government"

Listening They are only a distraction if you don't think controlling COVID is important
The ONS has 55,000 COVID deaths in 3 months, not just the official 45,000

We have to concentrate on the most serious problems - and atm globally and for the UK that is COVID

The economic damage - whether countries locked down or not - (Sweden's drop in GDP is comparable to Germany's) is far far worse than Brexit
In Germany Brexit is now considered an irrelevance, because the extra damage from No Deal - estimated at 0.7% German GDP - will not even be noticeable, when we now have 6.5% for 2020

Countries can avoid a winter 2nd wave by taking sensible measure which include masks & banning large crowds

• Apps and T&T are not enough

Bigchoc
They are only a distraction if you don't think controlling COVID is important
That is not what I said.

(a) trustworthy national government
(b) functioning funded health system
(c) efficient local government and social care
(d) good test trace track and treat system
(e) clear public information messages
(f) social distancing and appropriate lockdowns
(g) masks

Without the first ones the last one is largely irrelevant

UK failed to plan for economic impact of flu-like pandemic, says watchdog

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/23/uk-failed-to-plan-for-economic-impact-of-flu-like-pandemic-says-watchdog

Cross-party MPs conclude government schemes drawn up ‘on the hoof’ amid Covid-19 crisis
.......
Key government ministries such as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [BEIS] were not made aware that Cygnus had taken place
and so had little idea of the possible impact of a major outbreak,

the report said.

Meg Hillier, the chair of the committee, said members were shocked to discover from senior civil servants that
pandemic planning had been treated solely as a health issue, with no planning for the economic impact.

Listening If we have to wait for a competent Uk government before taking any personal action,
then we'll likely be sitting on our hands until 2024 and beyond

Face coverings are recommended by public health experts around the world

Yes we need t&t and other systems too, but taking some measures are better than doing nothing until that perfect moment - sadly very rare moment - when competent government arrives

This reminds me of those furious MN posters saying they would never lose weight because it was BJ recommending this and he is obese, as well as an arse.

Do what you can - don't wait for the govt to save everyone

btw, the govt seem to be placing all their hopes on a magic buller Oxford vaccine, with some other vaccines as backup.
If all goes well, I'd say a vaccination program could likely be completed by end of 2021
So we do need measures to cope until then

UK govt look so amateur
Any business run like this would have gone bust - and maybe with its directors sent to the klink

Relying on masks when all of the other bits of the messaging are garbage is pretty pointless.
I will wear a mask.
I wore one in Lidl today.
About half the customers were.
Out in the street less than 5% were wearing masks.
And I can promise you that those people will not wear masks tomorrow or the next day
project fear they will say
because the UK Govt has so cataclysmically bollocksed up the messaging and information.

Same as they have done on Brexit.

FFS most of the people I drove past today do not realise that Brexit has already happened.

If all goes well, I'd say a vaccination program could likely be completed by end of 2021
I refer you to points (a) (b) (c) (d) and (e) in my list above.

Carole Cadwalladr tweeted earlier that responsibility for Government use of data has been transferred to the Cabinet Office:

Dominic Cummings has just taken charge of all Government data. What could possibly go wrong?

@Tanith

Carole Cadwalladr tweeted earlier that responsibility for Government use of data has been transferred to the Cabinet Office:

Dominic Cummings has just taken charge of all Government data. What could possibly go wrong?

Well it's a great tool if you want to triangulate and identify whistle blowers and subversives. Real or imagined. And of course blacklists. Loads of them. Imagine being able to cross reference Twitter or Facebook handles with DWP, HMRC, NHS data. Who knows what sort of things you could invent find ?

So... Which countries are top of your "running away to" list?

If all data is now in one place, does it still comply with GDPR?

@HoneysuckIejasmine

So... Which countries are top of your "running away to" list?

Folk might want to discuss that using morse code and torches, if the government really is putting all it's data into a huge silo. After all it would be the work of a few seconds to chain together MN usernames, IP addresses, ISP logs and real people.

If the UK government hadn't got a 100% track record for never ever in the history of ever of keeping peoples personal data safe, I'd be worried.

Of all that data will be available to the Trumpster and his political machine, so be careful what you say about him too.

Ah, what a time to be alive!

Anyone else hear faint strains of "The Boxer" to the line:

You have sold out your country for a few tennis matches with Russians ...

Lie-di-lie indeed ...

Yes, we need to assume America and Russia now have any details on us the govt had. Guardian is also carrying a story about US swooping in on an international money laundering target and making "us look like fools".

IIRC Cummings thinks that people emailing him via Google is better than through the govt intranet for security and I suspect that is the height of his IT acumen. I hope Google doesn't read his blog or they might figure out that the UK's big data is quite possibly on one guy's OneDrive

Yes, we need to assume America and Russia now have any details on us the govt had.

Not good news for anyone that was taking sanctuary in the UK.

But it makes sense. Our new overlords will want to have a hit list of troublemakers in from the off, to save money. They'll get to do all the things in the UK their pesky constitution stops them from doing their own citizens.

I guess privacy was overrated anyway. After all, nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right ?

We already know they have a team in place to take out any UK citizens they don't like before scuttling back to the US. I wonder if they'll keep up the pretence of a "car accident" now ?

Meanwhile exactly as I foresaw ages ago (maybe some of the MSM outlets should pay me ?)

What was that utter bollocks that was being spouted Monday about "as an independent Sovereign nation" ?

Yeah, right.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/china-uk-hong-kong-citizenship-security-law-a9633781.html

China set to block UK’s offer of citizenship to Hong Kong residents

Dominic Raab had conceded that - if Beijing refused to co-operate - 'there would be little we could do to coercively force them'

(contd)

Dominic Raab had conceded that - if Beijing refused to co-operate - 'there would be little we could do to coercively force them'

What? You mean sending our aircraft carrier to the South China Sea is not enough? Don't they know how important the British Empire is?

@JeSuisPoulet

Yes, we need to assume America and Russia now have any details on us the govt had. Guardian is also carrying a story about US swooping in on an international money laundering target and making "us look like fools".

IIRC Cummings thinks that people emailing him via Google is better than through the govt intranet for security and I suspect that is the height of his IT acumen. I hope Google doesn't read his blog or they might figure out that the UK's big data is quite possibly on one guy's OneDrive

Tbf it’s probably been downloaded onto an unencrypted external drive and left on a train or in a taxi somewhere.

@Peregrina

Dominic Raab had conceded that - if Beijing refused to co-operate - 'there would be little we could do to coercively force them'

What? You mean sending our aircraft carrier to the South China Sea is not enough? Don't they know how important the British Empire is?

I should have put this bit in .. being accused of breaking an international treaty isn't going to do much for the UKs hand in any other negotiations. Especially if other countries are "minded" to believe China. As you can bet your life the UK isn't the only country that can exert influence on other countries to say what it wants as it appears to have done with IndyRef....

...

The warning that UK passports might not be recognised came in an announcement by China’s foreign ministry.

A spokesman said the UK’s visa offer meant its “previous assurances are no longer valid” and accused it of “politically manipulating” the issue.

“It has broken its promises and violated international law and basic norms,” the spokesman said, adding: “So China will consider not recognising BNO as aa valid travel document.”

The other week when I said about glitches in the Guardian's matrix, this is the kind of thing I meant www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/23/despite-dire-brexit-warnings-deal-still-likely-outcome

Tbf it’s probably been downloaded onto an unencrypted external drive and left on a train or in a taxi somewhere.
Royal Navy style