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.

There have been many many articles about this - it's not news it's just that the Brexiters refused to believe it

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44054594

https://www.ft.com/content/2d30482c-da7e-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b482

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/eu-negotiations_would-the-swiss-model-suit-a-post-brexit-britain/42128110

https://www.rte.ie/eile/2018/0925/997996-break-for-the-border/

@prettybird yes I seemed to remember discussion on this over the years. I certianly discussed it, having been with my sister, who had picked me up at Geneva airport, and took the wrong exit, ending up in France - instead of on our way back to her home in Zurich.
Tbf - being Swiss they are pretty efficient.

New developments which allow Help to Buy are 20% above where they should be compared to comparible properties.

I wouldn't go near one now.

https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/national-audit-office-to-investigate-15bn-spend-on-ppe/

£15 billion?!! Surely that's not right!

Zoopla reckons prices have gone down here. Though it's perhaps not updated it's estimate data yet. We're not planning to sell but it's always interesting. I bought my last house in 2009 and sold it in 2017 for £114k more. That was in the south east though, don't live there any more!

Coronavirus, Brexit and the wilful engineering of a house price bubble and subsequent almighty crash - what could possibly go wrong?

Pretty sorry, I meant I had read about the Swiss border but the visuals were lacking and seem to work better with the slow of thinking.

The housing market has to be staged; most only "save" £1-2k on stamp duty, which isn't worth paying £60k+ over the odds in an unstable market unless you really are happy to throw money away. I wonder how much is driven by people wanting bigger gardens/green space access for future lockdowns though?

depressed pmk

Pumping up property prices is essential for the Tories to keep their support in the homeowning demographic

Even their key retired vote have to be kept happy that they are sitting on a big asset that they could cash in at will.

Like pp, I'd also be v wary of that artificially inflated bubble being popped
by all that can happen over the next couple of probably turbulent years

However, if someone buys their "forever home"

• and is in e.g. a public service job they are v confident will remain -

buying is likely to enable cheaper monthly outgoings

That assumes other circumstances - health, size of household, commitments etc - will never change, not just finances.

The visuals about the delays at the Swiss border would not have made the slightest difference to Brexiters. We were going to have frictionless trade remember, so it wasn't going to happen here. The EU were going to cave in at the last moment. Johnson and Co are now waking up to the fact that they aren't doing.

Meanwhile, the Tory right wing, has now moved on and is getting worked up about Huawei.

Even their key retired vote have to be kept happy that they are sitting on a big asset that they could cash in at will.

They have to be careful with this one - Care home fees could gobble up the lot.

"Care home fees could gobble up the lot"

Hence the demand that the young & middle-aged, millions of whom can never afford to buy and will not receive an inheritance,
should pay more taxes to preserve the inheritance of the more privileged.

And whilst this rages we have to admit the likelyhood that many 30+ will be stricken with long term COVID symptoms and possibly be unable to work for large stretches of time, if not indefinitely. How will that generation and the one below be able to "save" for these homes the elderly are sitting on? We need to think longer term about disability payments if the virus will be back re-infecting every year and we cannot provide a sustained vaccine.

Don't be too alarmed by the 120k headlines for winter deaths

Once again this 120k figure is a "reasonable worst case scenario" for which the authorities must prepare
(Like the Whitty / Vallance 500k)

It is NOT a forecast that 120k deaths are expected !

The low bound of the estimate is only 1,300 deaths

So there is a huge bandwidth of possible outcomes, depending on:
govt decisions, public behaviour, compliance with masks & SD, medical advances, any parallel crisis .....

• and of course the behaviour of the virus itself in winter

Previous "worst case scenarios" were seized on irresponsibly / ignorantly
and then when they didn't happen, were used to rubbish experts. Again.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/14/action-to-stop-winter-covid-19-second-wave-in-uk-must-start-now

The possible 1 in 20 - of confirmed cases - with longterm health issues needs to be addressd

First, I would think, by the authorities obtaining statistics to quantify the existing problem,
before they can then obtain forecasts and plan resources.

@prettybird

Scottish schools go back in 4 weeks time - current plans are for full time

Fingers crossed that the gradual relaxation of lockdown continues to progress well. No deaths here for 5 days although 2 of those are weekend

I read this and thought - 4 weeks? I know Scotland goes back before England, but we have the whole summer holidays yet. Then I realised it was MID JULY I seem to have misplaced June somewhere. And September is now only 6ish weeks away, which in this weird timescape of Covid seems like nothing at all, yet strangely ages away, but given it doesn't feel like three months of lockdown I know it will fly by.

That made no sense. TL;DR time is weird.

British business faces £7bn red tape bill under Brexit border plan

https://www.ft.com/content/fbc6f191-6d69-4dcb-b374-0fa6e48a9a1e

or read it from John Crace: 😂

https://www.ft.com/content/fbc6f191-6d69-4dcb-b374-0fa6e48a9a1e

some of us can distinctly recall Boris Johnson and Michael Gove reassuring the country back in 2016
that not only would the UK retain access to the single market after Brexit,
but that we’d also end up with a better deal.

So it was somewhat disconcerting to hear the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster making a statement,
outlining the government’s exciting £705m “let’s get going” advertising campaign,

in which he basically told the Commons that everything we now got for free and with no hassle was about to get a whole lot more expensive and time-consuming.

Not that Gove put his argument in those terms.
Then there are few cabinet ministers more adept at reframing acts of deliberate self-harm as public service announcements.

oops, John Crace is here:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/13/gove-delivers-lorry-load-of-oven-ready-brexit-with-no-ingredients

Where is Clavinova to tell us that she is perfectly happy with all this? It's exactly what she wanted.

Currently in "fuck 'em" mode.

@bellinisurge

Currently in "fuck 'em" mode.

Hi Bellini. Was thinking I'd not seen you around for a while. Are you well? I'm also in the same mood but I'm also furious that we'll all have to deal with the same shit even though we've been shouting from the rooftops that we don't want it.

Been in "fuck em" mode for some time...

Very freeing

@bellinisurge

Currently in "fuck 'em" mode.

Couldn’t agree more. Or to quote Alastair Campbell, ’Get tae fuck @BorisJohnson @michaelgove @Nigel_Farage’

@bellinisurge

Currently in "fuck 'em" mode.

Me too Bellini....

Which is also a reason why I am hardly on these boards anymore when a few months ago I would have been there every single day.

Just catching up after a marathon road trip up the centre of the country and back.

I was very disappointed with the BBC listening to Radio 4 on the way up WATO

(a) covered the COVID outbreak on the Hereford farm and mentioned that all 210 workers there are East Europeans who live in caravans on site

(b) covered the new points based immigration system

Chose NOT TO LINK THE TWO STORIES
thus losing a prime chance to hold politicians to account

I wore a mask both times in the motorway services

• I am not Cummings, I need to pee after a few hours
• I have no idea where the people are from or going to so I did not want to risk it
• noticed that NONE of the Asians at Leicester Forest services were either wearing masks or social distancing (pretty much all other people were doing one or other or both)

I may have missed someone else posting this about the National Audit office looking into the billions spent on PPE yorkshirebylines.co.uk/national-audit-office-to-investigate-15bn-spend-on-ppe/?fbclid=IwAR2NkEgEr28MAIwGL3tdGAXcpIrtCFGEPrNd-kIF_8_twXoRx_RKYnwPctI but it reminded me of what I sent our squirrel off to hunt for; a private company doing a good job cheaper than it would be being done by the professionals in this pandemic.