Agreed. At this point I'm not even sure there's any point staying indoors any more. But, if that's the case then tell us rather than just letting everyone meander out of lockdown. Would also be nice to know what the plan is as well. What, for example, is the point of aiming for 200,000 tests by the end of the month. What are we going to do with those results?Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
The 200,000 tests target was to have that kind of capacity rather than tests carried out. It makes me wonder what their plan is. Are they looking to do a nationwide big test at some point?
Last edited by Shindig; 06-05-2020 at 09:03 PM.
There isn't a plan. They're just hoping the death numbers will go down soon and taking it from there.
The problem they have on the comms front is that there is only one good communicator in the cabinet (the PM) and he is basically a lazy fuck who can't be arsed with any of this. He needs to be doing at least weekly addresses in the mould of the one he did to start lockdown on 23 March - at least he does now he isn't on his deathbed any longer.
The bloody Queen has done as many useful communications as the whole government combined.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 06-05-2020 at 09:05 PM.
The death numbers have gone down and have been going down for a while. They were always going to go down with a lockdown imposed. I can't see that there's a plan either and that concerns me.
Does it not concern you?
I went the shop before and you wouldn’t know anything was off, let alone a GLOBAL PANDEMIC.
People have stopped caring.
I'm a twit
I mean, I don't have a plan either, so not really. The bit that concerns me is the longer term effects than anything that's happening at the moment. It would be nice to see some better communciation and decisiveness, but the way the media works in this country they are petrified of doing anything because (regardless of its merits) it will get torn to bits in seconds and/or eaten in a storm of whataboutery.
For example, let's say they decided to let hairdressers reopen on Monday with strict social distancing rules and masks being worn by all parties. You'd get one side screaming 'MY KIDS ARE NOT GUINEA PIGS' and another side screaming 'WHAT ABOUT NAIL BARS AND WHAT ABOUT MY TANNING SALON WE CAN SOCIALLY DISTANCE THIS GOVERNMENT WANTS ME TO STARVE'. The current media culture is set up for more or less anything they do to be a total failure and bloodbath - but they don't help themselves at all, either.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 06-05-2020 at 09:11 PM.
You're not paid to have a plan, but given the options to get out of this are pretty clear it shouldn't be hard to formulate one. Particularly if that's all you're being paid to do at the moment.
And your comments on comms are so telling. If we don't get this right and get out of it as soon as is possible it's going to fuck our economy so hard and while it may not seem like it at the moment, that's going to screw each and every one of us in some way shape or form for years.
What we've done so far just isn't good enough and it staggers me that people, let alone intelligent people like yourself seem so blase about the government's handling of it, even going so far as to actually defend it.
I'm not particularly defending the government's handling of it, I just don't think any other conceivable government would have been able to do any better. Let's say for the sake of argument that Keir Starmer was PM, we had gone into lockdown 1 week earlier and 5,000 fewer people had died as a result. Where would we be then? In exactly the same place we are now, but with a different set of people screaming on Twitter and 5,000 families still having a much loved relative they couldn't see. We'd still be around Italian/Spanish/French numbers and therefore 'one of the worst hit countries in the world'. Away from those 5,000 families, everything would be exactly the same.
I see you took the trouble to edit out the bit after the dash where I mitigated that statement, you could be a sub on the Daily Scream yourself.
I don't see how that bit mitigates it.
When Piers Morgan has been the best "journalist" at holding the government to account, we're in serious trouble.
Because a combination of things creates a vicious circle - rubbish media (some laughable tubthumpers, others joyless cynics, all of them desperate for clicks and cash in a dying industry) and rubbish government feed into each other and together create a public discourse that doesn't work.
To think that we're in this position because Robert Jenrick is a bit useless is hardly true. I can guarantee you that if Labour were in charge, it would be the same story except Twitter would be the laughable tubthumpers and the Telegraph would be the joyless cynics.
Boyd maybe different, but I'm not being partisan about this. I wanted the Tories to win the election ahead of Labour and I'm glad they did, but that doesn't mean I can't call the gov't out on their shit now they're in power, of which to my mind there's been a lot.
That Corbyn would undoubtedly be fisting this harder is an irrelevance to me, much like the man himself.
Exactly, which is my point. Without ripping up the entire system that we have and having some sort of Chinese authoritarianism - which nobody wants - I don't think there's a decisively better way of handling this that I have seen outlined. Whichever path we took, we would still be sat here now in lockdown with a killer virus on the loose and huge economic upheaval afoot.
As such I believe that constructive 'Here's what we should do tomorrow', rather than 'It's a DISGRACE what happened a month ago' is the correct way to criticise the government in this instance. And given that very, very few people have an informed opinion about what we should do tomorrow - unlike the disgrace option, which any loudmouth prick can do - there should be a lot more shutting up and getting on with each doing what we can.
Am I reading different posts here? What are you 'exactly'-ing? Yev isn't agreeing with you.
Yev's been better at critiquing the government on here than most of the people whose job it actually is.
I'm exactly-ing back on him, using his post to 'agree' that it doesn't particularly matter who's in charge. If J-Corbz was in power doing the same stuff as Boris's government right now, I'd be tearing into him and you (Boydy) would be making the exact same arguments I'm making to 'defend' him. This is the world we live in.
They would also have the same scientific advisors, unless Seamus Milne knows some better ones.
If my granny had wheels, she'd have been a bike.
Also, it's not really important what you or me would be saying. You can bet the Times, the Telegraph, the Sun, Kuenssberg, Peston etc etc would all be far more critical.
I'm not just bothered about what happened a month or two ago, the whole thing seems rudderless. We set a target of testing 100,000 people, we don't meet it. The goalposts are moved to number of tests rather than people tested and we achieve it for a day, with possibly more manipulation, then miss it thereafter. No matter. We'll just promise to hit 200,000 a day by the end of this month. To what end? Who he fuck knows, but it's a good soundbite. This is just one example, from today alone.
What should happen tomorrow is a plan should be unveiled as to what the next steps are, with estimated timescales attached to each. What absolutely shouldn't happen is people meandering out of lockdown of their own accord because they've decided it doesn't matter any more, which is what we have now.
If it was just a bad start because some wankers were frothing at the gash to give herd immunity a go then I could overlook that. It's not. We're seemingly drifting aimlessly and people are doing their own shit as a result. It's not cool, not cool at all.
Of course they would (although I don't accept the Laura Kuenssberg conspiracy theories), and the Mirror/Guardian/Twitterati would be much less critical. You should see the opinion polling on this stuff if you haven't already, opinions regarding the government's handling of this are entirely predictable by party political lines.
All of which points to what I'm saying - that all the Westminster balls is a pointless smokescreen and what's actually important is how well individuals, companies, society at large etc adapt to the challenges that have already come from this, and the further ones that are going to come our way. Whether Alok Sharma 'has a plan' is really neither here nor there.
What's worse is this is all the MPs will discuss from morning til night. The testing is something that winds me up. Fuck this "Well, you can arrange a test if you feel unwell." mentality. Turn out at workplaces, swab them, move on to the next. Use that capacity and often and you get a much better idea of where the infections are. Track and trace, as well.
It's a logistical nightmare but so many countries have been able to mobilise.
The numbers of tests is just media management (as all big round numbers are), i.e. pointless smokescreen.
This government doesn't believe in lockdown, didn't at the start and still doesn't because they are fundamentally old school liberal in their outlook, to a much greater degree than (say) Macron is in France. The one exception to this seems to be our old friend Mr Cummings, who seems to be a zealous lockdown fan at odds with Boris's freedom-loving nature.
The only way we can stop the meandering is if the PM gets on TV and keeping ramming home the message in the way they love doing in elections: strong and stable, Get Brexit Done. They've even got a good slogan to use: Stay (at) home, save lives is perfect. He just clearly doesn't want to do it, doesn't want to be telling people what to do all the time and that's where he has misjudged the situation - sending out Matt Hancock to flap and sweat reassures no one.
Rishi Sunak is actually a very good communicator as well but he has a different and specific job to do.
Why have so few Germans died?
Forgot the actual tweet text, I don't care about that. Why are papers running this stuff on their front pages when nothing's been announced yet? Where's it coming from?
Apparently there are very strong rumours/hints/reports that Boris will announce that stuff on Sunday.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52530518
BBC are also running something.
There looks about ten pounds difference in those Adele pictures, and she looks better in the heavier one. Call it off now love.
Cases/deaths keep falling under new rules - 'Why didn't we do this sooner/when will we go further?'
Cases deaths don't fall under new rules - 'Why didn't we do this later/when do you intend to go further?'
Their biggest nine cities combined are smaller than London.
That and they follow rules.
It also helps their leader is an actual scientist.
The RAF the hero's again.
Bloke in South Australia has tested positive after 40 days in isolation.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-...&sf233673665=1
Isolation with caveats.
What's he doing emigrating in his 70s?
Yeah, it's daft to retire that late when you've only got another 15-20 years at life.
Following 3 weeks of no new community transmission cases, the Government just a announced next phase of ending lockdown.
All non-essential businesses can now open, and kids no longer required to wear masks at school.
Oh, and the price of petrol has fallen on it's arse. 11,750 dong a litre... It's costing me about $2 to fill up my bike for the week.
I thought the lockdown was being largely abided by? Has it been that much different to other countries?
We have just had a weak as piss lockdown compared to other countries.
People have largely abided by it (at least in my observation), but we never got to the Spain/Italy/France stage where you literally weren't allowed to leave the house. We've always been able to go out for exercise, and there's no real enforcement of it unless people really take the piss. Businesses have never been forced to close either, apart from things like pubs/restaurants/shops which are gathering places by nature.
The whole tone of it has been much more liberal than other countries I think. Boris just hates denying people freedom, utterly hates it.
The opening of outlets will guarantee a second wave.
The Tories still being consistently at 50 points in the polls tickles me (latest one out today has 50-31). Even I would have thought they would be taking a hit from this, but no.
Labour tanked themselves by giving that moron free reign for nearly 5 years. It'll take a while to recover from that.
You'd imagine that they are banking on being able to control it though now that we are out of the winter. Potentially this is where the point of trying to get some kind of herd immunity in place over the next few months when the hospitals I would imagine are generally a bit quieter anyway. Coupled with the app and the other shit they have on the go I'd imagine it's about trying to control any major outbreaks and take it from there.
If you take out mass drinking, the existence of sport, and add in a general fear of hospitals, then I should imagine they'll practically be twiddling their thumbs over the summer months.
I'm sure theres a lot of hospital visits cancelled over the last few months that will be rearranged asap.
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