October Becomes November Lockdown

[BlueThursday]

New thread

I suspect this will be the second of many

Absolutely @anon444877. I strongly suspect though that Sturgeon will put Lothian in the same tier as Glasgow and Lanarkshire for political reasons.

Ecosse please explain to me how putting a council area in restrictions helps a party gain votes? Must be being slow..

And annon that's great- I'd only seen help for England today. Do you have a link for where you saw the update relating to Scotland?

Assuming you're not being facetious @Scotslassie1 the bbc article says the support is available UK wide

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54644241

@arkadia a trust is usually an arms length organisation providing the service on behalf of the council/ for the council but the staff of the trust are not employed by the council and rarely have the same terms and conditions. They can be and were furloughed.
Not sure i agree with your other comment - my authority is one of few where libraries are still run directly by council and several libraries are open. There are a number of areas ( including Glasgow) where libraries are run by Trusts where the libraries are not open.

With regard to cleaning - again in my authority extra cleaning could be done in schools where cleaning staff are directly employed by council but i believe there were challenges in reopening PPI schools as the staff there had been laid off as NOT directly employed by council

I think the elderly are going to revolt over this. I know my own parent have gone from being utterly terrified in March and not wanting to leave the house to being ready to flout the ROOLZ at every turn. They are in their late 70s, they may not have many Christmasses left. They should be allowed to take the risk of having a family Christmas, knowing that mixing households puts them more at risk, or not.

JL can fuck off with his "digital Christmas". My oldies don't do digital and won't do digital. The only digital thing they have is a watch. They could no sooner zoom call than fly to the moon.

That said, I agree with Andy Burnham, why didn't they mention this when they were talking to him earlier re Manchester? As usual, the support is well needed but instead of making this the great news this should've been they've annoyed everyone upfront with their terrible comms.

@Scotslassie1

Sturgeon’s support base is in Glasgow so she will not want to be seen treating Glasgow differently to Edinburgh. That was why she was so reluctant to impose restrictions on Glasgow weeks ago.

@readsalotgirl63,
in Falkirk the libraries "reopened" after 2 full months after they were allowed to do so. Only one sport centre (with pool) and one gym have reopened. For the rest there isn't even a tentative date. Total silence.
On the positive side, last week public toilets reopened...

To me this is the way of doing things that is common to many other sectors, the "no, can't do" attitude. For example, the Scottish Government is the same... you are still working from home even if you have very little to do that it is meaningful and there isn't a real reason not go back to the office (I can see it every day as my OH works there). Or Scottish Power who refuse to come a fix a broken electricity meter "because of COVID restrictions". I find this attitude a real moral killer.

@Ecosse, don't forget Dundee. They have higher rates than Forth Valley, but no extra restrictions.

Restrictions are done by health board area. Not city basis. Also I'd leave Scottish Power if that's the case. We've had sse in a few times.

I am glad I'm not a retailer trying to flog Halloween candy and costumes. On the other hand the Christmas gin may sell well!

I am a volunteer in a charity shop and we already have out all of our christmas decorations and gifts which don't usually go out until mid-November. Because we have 30 crates of Christmas stuff donated in January/February and we're shitting it that they'll close non-essential retail again and we'll be stuck with it.

Retail is on its knees. No retailer is safe and expect to see some really big names going under if they are told to close again.

I had noticed the Christmas stuff was out even earlier - desperate. I went to a clothes shop last week and the staff were indeed terrified they were going to get closed again.

We are totally desperate. We had no income at all from 24 March right through until about 20th July. Since we reopened, our takings are between a third and a half of what they were this time last year.

And then the as yet unmeasured effect of charity shops not being able to pass on the funds they normally have - awful. Fingers crossed retail doesn't get closed again.

We normally do a light audit ( big Christmas fans) mid November to have everything up by the first of Dec. I suspect we will start slowing putting external lights in the garden around then. Dsis, DPs and Lidlfam all feel that patio heaters, blankets (lethal) mulled wine are how we will manage catching up over the foreseeable-one family at a time .

Talking about getting competitive over our gardens and boozy hot chocolates got my DPs smiling . Dsis had her event shelter and patio heater out, in pishin rain, and we were toasty.

I am lucky (house, job, family, friends health) and trying so hard not dwell on what I can't do .

Did you see the campaign to put up fairy lights etc in windows early this year in Scotland to cheer people up? Apparently it's a scandi thing and I know that Americans sometimes have autumn and thanksgiving decs. Seemed a nice idea

I didn't (might claim I did to claw back some shreds of cool - thanks Anon) but we are big fans of the whole hygge concept. Fresh air then coorying in has always been my thing. Twinkling fairy lights and winter clothes suit my wrinkles and spare tyres better too.

Same here - and Lakeland has a huge range of hot chocolate melts I might add.

So so so bored of this now.

The governments (plural) have been politicising the pandemic once the immediate panic was over.
Result - more and more contradictory restrictions, which no one now understands, and don't make sense to them individually, so they don't comply. And it's a merry go round.

Has halloween been cancelled yet along with Christmas (The dentist is loving this isn't he)

Nicola Sturgeon cancelled it at her briefing today.

@Arkadia - in Falkirk library services are delivered by a Community Trust - an arms length organisation. The staff were probably furloughed and while on furlough not supposed to do any work even to plan or prepare for resumption of services. So before service can resume you need to get the staff back - while ensuring Covid compliance/social distancing - to then do all the measuring/installing of perspex screen/writing Covid safe procedures/ moving stuf to make space for quarantining,
I have to say as a local govt employee who's been working from home since March I most certainly have not had nothing to do - but huge amounts of my time have been taken up with organising things like plastic screens and supplies of cleaning products.
It is also my experience that local government tends provide services as well as, if not better, than Arms Length Organisations - and more cost effectively - we have to because funding has been cut to the bone and local government is an easy target. The fact that libraries in Falkirk are not open kind of proves my point.

We are totally desperate. We had no income at all from 24 March right through until about 20th July. Since we reopened, our takings are between a third and a half of what they were this time last year.

I think my mum is keeping the charity shop she volunteers in afloat single handedly. We're also doing our bit for retail and hospitality. According to our credit card statement we spent 350 pounds on takeout last month.

Got a variety of fairy lights up already, pumpkins and skulls side by side with flamingos and holly leaves. I'm putting the Christmas decorations up in the middle of November I think. We'll do bare trees with loads of greenery from the garden and lights to start and then start adding decorations.

So fed up. It's cold and wet, the house seems tiny with dh working from home in it (it's not but dc2 currently thinks she's a banshee so we have to hide away for every meeting) and everything just feels joyless.

Annon it's been confirmed that today's announcement doesn't relate to Scotland . SG will receive no more than what's been given and of course have no borrowing powers to support struggling businesses. Quite woeful really.

@Scotslassie1

It’s not woeful at all. What Sturgeon wants is to shut everything down and get Westminster to pay for it.

She wants to absolve herself of responsibility for the job losses and business closures her policies are chasing.

Did NS cancel Halloween at the briefing? What specifically did she say? I must say I am not bothered about Halloween getting cancelled but wonder what will be allowed on the day and if I will have to say no to my kids while other are going out.

The UK Gov? They don't pay for anything. Not a jot. They borrow on our behalf/ decide how much of the tax raised in Scotland is available for us to use. What the FM would like (and has spent most of her life fighting for) is to have full fiscal control to manage the country.

The Tories - after eating in a cafe subsidised by our hard earned taxes, walked into the chamber and voted against feeding the poorest children one meal a day. Do you agree with that? I think it's disgusting. The fact you think they're paying for anything for us is just absolutely ridiculous.