Westminstenders: Run Forrest Run

[RedToothBrush]

Need i say more?

It's funny that Brexit supporters are now resorting to the 'do something' scenario planning. Our outlook is now so bad and the plan vacuum so absolute that imagination is the only way forward? Is this how a sensibly run country should operate? What the fuck have we done to ourselves? Mad, mad, mad.

I haven't thought through every detail

I think Louise is secretly a Cabinet Minister and I claim my £5.

Yeah, bloody Grayling with time on his hands, after he managed to lose the fixed election to head the intelligence committee

We are all being negative again

I'm sure BJ's Brexit government will deliver a world-beating Brexit, with world-beating FTAs full of Liz Truss's Stilton,
just like he delivered world-beating track & trace
and a nearly world-beating COVID performance
and a world-beating sucessor to PHE headed by Dido Harding
and a world-beating exam process
and the world-beating replacement for Galileo
and the world-beating economic downturn and .....

Dammit Sabrina rumbled me, cheque in post. Was just enjoying a day off from profiteering off the back of COVID and screwing up the education system. Cheers, Gav.

Louise
I am as somebody else suggested just throwing stuff out there to an extent. My point was a more general why not at least try something different?
Of course.
Just because every expert on the supply chain can show why your random thoughts are a waste of internet energy.

Making the food supply chain low carbon could be done inside the EU
but would make less money for Tory funders
so it will get WORSE next year

Do you have no comment on the folks in Leicester being paid £3 an hour to provide instant fashion rapidly delivered in small vans ?

On the folks in Leicester, I did say several pages back that I thought the HSE or the Council should be shutting down the factories where unsafe practices are occurring, where people are being paid less than the minimum wage or business are staying open when they should have been closed due to COVID. That we have a domestic garment industry still would be a great thing, if the workers within it were being paid properly and treated properly.

If they were being paid the legal minimum, though, I rather suspect much of the industry would disappear because the factory owners would say "I can't make enough money". If that's true and those employers are only in business because they can exploit people they are paying £3 p/h those businesses deserve to fail and their proprietors should be behind bars.

If consumers don't like the practices (and lord knows they shouldn't like it one bit) then the need to stop buying the stuff. If BooHoo or whoever are found to have used suppliers who are breaking the law, then their directors should also be behind bars and the company shouldn't be allowed to trade in the UK. I think the chances of those things happening are sadly, vanishingly small.

What Louise is clearly unable to do is provide any example statement that the BBC might use and meet her criteria of 'talking positively about'

Funny that.

After posting on here earlier I went onto twitter to discover that for some reason an old (December 2018) John Redwood tweet about lack of BBC positivity is doing the rounds on right-wing social media today. So this isnt good faith "let's have a debate" posting, but bog standard promotion of today's official talking points that have been nicked verbatim from right wing social media.

Tbf it's hard to be original about Brexit any more (personally I am bored stiff with it and can't wait for transition to end) but they could put a bit more effort into it.

Louise
So you believe that councils should have strong enforcement powers over private businesses.
Hmm.
The exact opposite of the light touch, cutting red tape agenda of the Brexiters.

Let me just remind you of this
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-safety-standards-workers-rights-jacob-rees-mogg-a7459336.html

Wow Louise - you have obviously never been in a situation of employment where you just have to do what your boss says.
I have contact with a number of HGV drivers. NONE own their rig - they all just have to do what their employer's want. One I know in particular is on a zero hours contract - I know this through his partner. She thinks this has become an industry standard. Their financial situation is incredibly precarious. They are completely at the mercy of the employer. We know from the sweatshops in Leicester that what low employment standards that are available to protect employees are not enforced ..... I can choose not to shop at boohoo- but I have no choice but to share the M25 with 20+ tonne trucks with drivers that are exhausted. So no thank you - I will always protest the bonfire if minimum safety standards......

The idea that people on zero hour contracts won't work an extra few hours to put food on the table, buy their kids a birthday present or pay the electricity bill, because they are up to their drivings hours limit, is so hopelessly naive.

So one moment our Brexit bots want freight back on the rails to reduce CO2 emissions, and the next they wants to make road freight a free-for-all by reducing protections for drivers (and the public).

They want councils to have draconian powers to close businesses. But then they want to slash red tape so that lorry drivers are free to drive into your back seat and kill your kids.

Tell you what that ain't: a good faith debate. You're being trolled.

Listening the minimum wage is the law, if employers are breaking that law then of course there should be enforcement against them.

Some Pro EU folks seem to believe that we must continue a situation where our labour laws (for example) say exactly what theirs do otherwise everything goes to pot. I disagree with those people, I think our labour laws should say what our Parliament agrees they should say, they might still be the same, they might not.

When what the law says is confirmed by Parliament, then yes strong enforcement action should be taken against those who break it by the relevant authorities.

Coronavirus: Winter plans revealed in leaked Sage report

Warning: Do NOT panic if you hear others panicking about this leaked SAGE report
It is only a "reasonable worst case" scenario NOT a prediction

Any responsible government - or even this irresponsible one, if it wants to avoid its party being annhilated - has to plan for this, but that does NOT mean it is likely to happen

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53954492

A leaked government report suggests a "reasonable worst case scenario" of 85,000 deaths across the UK this winter due to Covid-19.
The document also says while more restrictions could be re-introduced, schools would likely remain open.

But it says the report "is a scenario, not a prediction" and the data are subject to "significant uncertainty"

I think it's good that SAGE documents are being leaked as it opens some of this modelling work to scrutiny - as someone who creates numerical models for a living, I can say with great confidence that all modelling work is improved by scrutiny.

Tbh, with my numbers head on, and with roughly 65k deaths in the first wave despite a prolonged lockdown, 85k doesn't sound completely fanciful as a "reasonable worst case" (eg a scenario that you might use as the basis for discussing questions like "what will we do with all the bodies"). But a lot would have to go wrong for the second wave to be this bad.

But a lot would have to go wrong for the second wave to be this bad.
Like a no deal Brexit perhaps?

Louise
When what the law says is confirmed by Parliament, then yes strong enforcement action should be taken against those who break it by the relevant authorities.
That would be the authorities who have had their budgets halved over the past ten years
the authorities who get lumbered with folks like Dido Harding as chief Exec
theauthorities who were told to take a light touch for the last ten years
the authorities who know that the legal system is so starved of cash that company directors get a tap on the wrist and a promotion
the authorities who signed off Mapeley Steps
get real love

@Jason118

But a lot would have to go wrong for the second wave to be this bad. Like a no deal Brexit perhaps?

... No, Brexit will start to cause a lot of hassle from probably the end of December, but any extra deaths would be caused by COVID, not Brexit

Like a no deal Brexit perhaps?

Won't help obviously but it's not obvious to me how Brexit makes Covid worse. The reverse is more likely to be true - that a second wave makes the economic hit from Brexit much worse.

Brexit could make things worse if it affects supplies of medicines.
Or the supply of food (people not eating well = lower immune system)

All depends on when that second wave would be. Before or after brexit

I am sure it will all be fine. Brexit will bring so many benefits that we will be high fiving forever more. Cannot wait for all this to happen really.

Can you tell that I am a tad sceptical at all?

Brexit in the time of Covid. How apt.

Johnson will be gone on 2 Jan 2021. Lazy git. It wasn't all roses for him was it.

Sorry if I sound bitter, but the fact the DFE civil servant was kicked out and the other idiot as a cabinet minister in charge of Ed was not, says it all for me.

God am I mad as hell, yes I am. Thank you for reading.

So every food producer or manufacturer or distribution centre, would be near a train station. With the amount of incoming and out going goods at distribution centres I can't see how a fully rail service would work.

I keep hearing different timings for a second wave of Covid. Varies from October to January.

Maybe we will have three waves. One in October, then an extra Brexit wave. Just for the fun of it.

Already provided several thanks Frankenstein
not on this thread - I was asking for an example statement that the BBC could make which you would agree was 'talking positively' - you haven't done that because you can't.

Latest poll has Labour & Tories both on 40%
but 2% more worldbeating people prefer BJ than Starmer as PM

"Others" are down to 2%, so Farage remains a dead duck / frog

Britain Elects@britainelects

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 40% (-2)
LAB: 40% (+1)
LDEM: 6% (+1)

Preference for Prime Minister:

Boris Johnson: 34% (-)
Keir Starmer: 32% (-1)

via @OpiniumResearch, 26 - 28 Aug

Report:
https://www.opinium.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Opinium-Political-Report-26th-August-2020-Final-1.pdf

Data Tables:
https://www.opinium.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/VI-2020-08-26-Data-Tables.xlsx

Following that ....

Significant discontent among the 1922 committee is serious

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/29/boris-johnson-faces-tory-wrath-as-party-slumps-in-shock-poll

Boris Johnson is facing a showdown with furious Conservative MPs over his government’s chaotic handling of Covid-19, as a new poll shows the Tories have surrendered a massive lead over Labour in just five months.

As MPs prepare to return to Westminster on Tuesday, Charles Walker, who is vice-chair of the 1922 committee of Conservative backbenchers,

told the Observer that a recent string of U-turns had left many colleagues in despair, with some struggling to support and defend their government to constituents.

Governing by U-turn in this way, he said, was unsustainable.