I feel like the Gov is desperate to be the good guy handing out freedom to everyone.

A slow painful death is too good for Boris, Cummings, Hancock etc..
FFS

I’m all for freedom… but nothing is in place that the government itself said would be required to enable the execution of those freedoms while being able to monitor and respond to the virus that is still not under control in the UK.

I’m all for freedom… but nothing is in place that the government itself said would be required to enable the execution of those freedoms while being able to monitor and respond to the virus that is still not under control in the UK.

This is what I don’t understand – it was made so clear that relaxation of the rules was dependent on those 5 tests etc and now it seem it’s just gone out the window.

Would make an interesting question at PMQs, getting Boris to show exactly how those tests have been met

rydster
Member

I feel like the Gov is desperate to be the good guy handing out freedom to everyone.

It’s like parents. Keeping a kid alive is hard, giving them chocolate and letting them do whatever they want is easy. And of course this government is desperate to get people to like them again after the disasters of the last few months, and since they barely have any actual positive news, they’re going direct to “tell everyone it’s fine to eat nothing but chocolate and stay up late”

Probably just as well Johnston abandoned all those kids really.

That definitely fits BJ’s whole bonhomie persona.

Some good news in there. In fact, with much of this, while rules are being relaxed in June, support is continuing well into the summer at least. Feel free to make your own steps towards normal behaviour in July if you want, after we’ve seen a couple of weeks more data and track/trace/isolate is hopefully actually in place. With this particular relaxation, there will he cut off people desperate to see someone… with the right mitigation, it makes sense to signal that they can.

Feel free to make your own steps towards normal behaviour…if you want? Really?
Personally, I want hard evidence from the government that it is safe to relax restrictions, not have joe public making their own judgement calls. It makes no sense to be signalling to people that it is OK to start relaxing things if you’ve not delivered any of the stuff required to manage that relaxation in a safe way.

Do you really believe Hancock brought the “launch” of track and trace forward 3 days because they were ready early? The government is just making things up as they go, and gambling they are going to get away with it.

Indeed. If you can carry on as you are ‘till July, and then see where the UK us, I think that would be wise. We would be, if we didn’t have a teacher in the house. Government also waiting, and asking everyone to wait, is what is really needed, but none of us can do anything to get that to happen, sadly.

Keeping a kid alive is hard, giving them chocolate and letting them do whatever they want is easy.

That’s another big factor; the fact that managing a crisis of this scale is hard.
Johnson has no track record in getting difficult things done well. He has bullshitted his way through Brexit so far because he hasn’t actually had to deal with any of the difficult stuff yet. With the pandemic, he appears evasive and lazy, at a time when you need somebody with decisive leadership skills taking hard decisions and actually getting stuff done, and he’s squandering what trust he has left:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/01/public-trust-in-uk-government-over-coronavirus-falls-sharply

Hasn’t anyone considered that UK Gov has a transparently-hidden benevolent plan for us? A super-secret plan which has always sat beneath the opaquely-ambiguous pseudoplan that they are only using on us to get to the real plan?

Documentary film-maker Philomena Cunk seems like she has actually given it some thought. A lightbulb-moment, TBH.

The official line was that stopping mass gatherings now, wouldn’t make as much difference as it would later* – when there’d be more people spreading the virus that they’d caught at the first load of mass gatherings

*ie ‘now’.

I think SAGE has found a new member

😆😆

As far as I can tell, I’m not going to be able to **** my girlfriend until the very final stage of lockdown easings (we live apart and have incompatible cats and her flatmate mean moving in isn’t an option), which is what – the end of the year-ish?
While we might be outliers in the spread of family situations in the population, due to it being a family situation it’s pretty important to us. And the right to a private/family life is enshrined in law. Though people’s right to not die is also enshrined in law and obviously all human rights have to be in balance, so I’m not being a total douchebag.

But if the government don’t take their head out their arse and come up with an exemption to let us have physical intimacy when folk around us are buying new clothes and having pints in the pub (all of which are allowed before I can get laid again), then we’re starting down a slipperly slope of rule-breaking because frankly there is no way we’ll stick with this for all those months, and glib asides about how it is a test for a relationship are not viewed well by younger people making unreciprocated sacrifices for their vulnerable elders because our lifestyles are outliers that are hard to write into your guidance..

Just have a ****

That’s quite an incoherent mess. Wanna try to explain that again.

All I got was it’s the Govt’s fault that your pussy is stopping you getting some good loving.

I’m not going to be able to **** my girlfriend

You can outdoors.

The new law is pretty insane, I agree. The fact they haven’t allowed two ‘households’ to group together, and be in each other’s homes, will cause a lot of couples issues, legally, if the law was actually to be enforced… just do it and tell no one. Still… horseracing and opening car showrooms… finance before love…

I don’t often post things here, but can i also add my appreciation to TiRed in particular, and many others in general, for making this such an informative and instructive thread?

It has proved to be a beacon of integrity in what has been otherwise a shitstorm of bollox.

Thanks people.

@yourguitarhero – your situation was specifically mentioned by Nicola Sturgeon on Thursday and she said they were currently coming up with something. I suspect it will be along the lines of having some sort of small social “bubble” where you can mix with non-bidey-in partners. Might be as early as next week.

The Dutch Govt addressed this week’s ago

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52685773

TL;DR –  get yourself a funk-buddy to get your funk on!

Amongst all these numbers, is anyone else skeptical that Coronovirus seems to be going away rather more quickly than everyone thought?  Sure things have changed but back in March we were ruling out the whole of 2020, and yet here we are in June wandering around parks & ikea, with Spain and Italy thankfully reporting zero deaths.

Whats caused this?  I’m worried that a) that all the interventions have actually worked And the many conversations threads and forums politicising negative responses to governments will fall only to the death count – not that that’s something ever to forget or trivialise – rather than the duration or enormity.  Or b) this is some kind of false dawn, and we’ve underestimate this thing or will get too complacent and boom…  we are back again.

I’d love to think that the misery for some is shorter lived than it could have been, and that global Nightingales and Track and Trace teams equivalents  remain over staffed and underused, but why, and have we got this expectation of continuation or second wave wrong?

with Spain and Italy thankfully reporting zero deaths

I’m sure I saw 60 deaths in Italy yesterday? not seen the Spanish numbers.

and have we got this expectation of continuation or second wave wrong?

Not sure it’s an expectation rather than something to be rightly fearful of, and thus protected against.

I’ve had the same thought Kryton.

Is it going away, or are governments keen to now play it down in so many countries?

🤔

Exc

BAME report delayed amid fears its contents could stoke racial tensions

By ⁦@inzyrashid⁩ pic.twitter.com/gasdDyqkSj

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) June 1, 2020

Looks like Iran is beginning its second wave. That was fast. Read why:https://t.co/NKjwak4sPd pic.twitter.com/BXqh4hV47P

— Trisha Greenhalgh (@trishgreenhalgh) June 1, 2020

this is some kind of false dawn, and we’ve underestimate this thing or will get too complacent and boom… we are back again.

The thing is that the gov were losing control of the situation, so they’ve had to release the restrictions that weren’t being adhered to ,to give the impression they are still in control.

The papers and the Cummings affair sorta pressed the gas pedal.

You also at some point have to get on with stuff,but not as normal, its not gone away but at the moment there’s gonna be less chance of catching it as less people have it and the social distancing that the majority of people will stick with.

The Baton has also been pushed onto the people so if the numbers go up, it’s our fault, remember that the most important man in the uk is the spin doctor Not the epidemiologist 🙂

TLDR can”t hide in caves indefinitely.

This is the bit that sticks out for me in the Iranian report:

the opening of 40,000 mosques, as well as shops and offices. 

There’s been a lot of talk of lower contagion in open spaces, maybe this is the prevalence.  London’s huge spike caused by the Tube & air travel, Birmingham kind of next as another transport hub?

Johnson has no track record in getting difficult things done well. He has bullshitted his way through Brexit so far because he hasn’t actually had to deal with any of the difficult stuff yet.

He won’t do any difficult stuff on Brexit, he’ll swerve all the discussions, claim the nasty foreigners made him do it, and go straight to no deal without passing go and without collecting a trade deal.

He has no track record of getting even easy things done at all, let alone done well, before you even go near difficult stuff done badly and through that onto the dizzy heights of difficult stuff done well.

Peter Hitchens: “The Lockdown is a Catastrophe”

Why post a one hour video yet make no comment on it? If you’ve got an opinion of your own on the subject post it.

Why post a one hour video yet make no comment on it? If you’ve got an opinion of your own on the subject post it.

Good point!

Didnt get past 6 minutes of that.

While some of the points were worth thinking about, there were so many contradictory themes running side by side in a Double Think style that it was a mess.

Another chance to apologise to Jon. Sorry Jon…

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/02/ai-firm-that-worked-with-vote-leave-wins-new-coronavirus-contract

Weekend press briefings, apparently, are to end ‘….due to low ratings’.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/downing-street-press-conferences-weekend-low-ratings_uk_5ed63cf6c5b6ef31834e37bc?e5g&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvL0J2NGFYQURBN3U_YW1wPTE&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABaLAWQ4aqE2XvgIFf9N_ehr58ldRYpviXRoTQp7kJDC87idM4ku62viQYGve8OZKQg_PgtAfS9M5wd0K6uOZKka3zZR_0kUvfYda5FsZthBRHCch610Ezalua_P9zc2-Nc1fJvjXATKkXQvg5M1yIW9twgMnZG_E7QMIu1wDd3w
So johnson and his crew see this as a ratings game? Shades of trump.
Another example of their clear disdain for the public and dismissive attitude to the little people.
What about the public’s right to know? This has been described by johnson as a public health emergency.
Surely, if we’re moving to a better situation, the gov would wish to share the continuing good news with the public on a daily basis?

Moving on from that, letter from Sir David Norgrove to hancock criticising the use/mis-use of statistics, absence of some key ones and deliberate lack of clarity must be a gift to media for today’s presser; let’s hope that they use it.
I forecast no follow-up Qs allowed today.

frankconway
Subscriber

Moving on from that, letter from Sir David Norgrove to hancock criticising the use/mis-use of statistics

Aye, Boris £350m-To-The-EU Johnston will take that very seriously.

It’s making public the fact that information being presented by gov is incomplete and wrongly interpreted deliberately.
Whether or not johnson and his acolytes take it seriously is only one consideration; it’s making the wider public aware of the duplicity and inconsistencies.
It should be used by journos and Keir Starmer to ask pointed questions.

Is it not the case that the more effective the lockdown and the sharper the fall in cases, the more likely a second wave is and the more severe it’d be? Would it still result in lower cases overall?

There is simply no clarity at all on what the endgame is here. SAGE were adamant as recently as 13 March that there will be a second wave following the lifting of any suppression. Yet the govt talks as if the inadequate and dysfunctional TTI system is going to do all the heavy lifting for them. None of it makes any sense and I have zero confidence in any of them.

Not happy on the weekend briefings ending, the virus doesn’t care whether it’s a weekday or a weekend. It’s almost like they’re saying we can have the weekends off from worrying about social distancing etc, it’s less important.

Did notice today that around Cardiff this afternoon there were a lot of people in the parks, busier than normal and very little social distancing going on. People swimming in the river, congregating on the rock islands and jumping off the weirs like it was completely normal. Spoke to the police who have been sitting in their van in Blackweir and Pontcanna Fields (behind the castle) pretty much constantly every evening and they essentially said they’ve given up enforcing things as it’s now impossible. They’re just on the lookout for any antisocial behaviour now. Considering Wales is meant to have the toughest lockdown restrictions it’s a bit worrying.

the virus doesn’t care whether it’s a weekday or a weekend.

No but the parasites we call a government do

The absolute state of this reporting is a joke:
https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1267856088449323010

Did notice today that around Cardiff this afternoon there were a lot of people in the parks, busier than normal and very little social distancing going on. People swimming in the river, congregating on the rock islands and jumping off the weirs like it was completely normal.

Same in the Peak District. Goyt Valley was rammed the other day, people swimming in the reservoirs, picnicking and sunbathing, big groups out walking.

This evening, Stanage Edge was almost as busy as a normal weekend, loads of groups of both walkers and cyclists, cars everywhere (and a thoroughly appalling standard of driving). Lots of cars parked up, the owners sitting around on camping chairs, BBQs on the go (mostly on the gravel car parks rather than in the hills from what I saw but there was a moorland fire up there just a couple of days ago).

Honestly, it’s as though lockdown never happened.