Coronavirus

[Nearly Sane]

Ok - I read it as him having adequate accom in London. But it is the Express!

He could have stayed in London but the instruction was for MPs to go home.

[Aruntraveller]

He could have stayed in London but the instruction was for MPs to go home.

Yes I've read up on it further. Apologies for getting it wrong.

[Nearly Sane]

Yes I've read up on it further. Apologies for getting it wrong.

You didn't, the Express did deliberately. Don't get me wrong, I am not Blackford's biggest fan but here it's a non story.

[Nearly Sane]

This is pointless idiocy.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2020/may/speaker-agrees-to-recall-of-parliament/

[SteveH]

Read a headline online, which I didn't follow up, that the country may be more or less back to normal by August. Let's hope so - we can then at least enjoy the arse-end of summer properly.

[Nearly Sane]

Read a headline online, which I didn't follow up, that the country may be more or less back to normal by August. Let's hope so - we can then at least enjoy the arse-end of summer properly.

just after that there will be a second wave. Of redundancies. It will be huge and it will be brutal.

[Aruntraveller]

Nick Robinson tweet.

https://twitter.com/bbcnickrobinson/status/1266050139891945473

Given his well known political inclinations this is illuminating. That may be an understatement.

[SteveH]

Although he wasn't hiding his actions or guilty of lying about what he did, this still raises awkward questions for Mr Blackford to answer and cuts away that moral high ground he is so fond of:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1288182/Ian-blackford-coronavirus-lockdown-snp-news-dominic-cummings-resign

Saw something about this on the Book of Faces. It is a pathetic attempt by right-wingers to deflect attention from Cummings. He went back to his constituency and home when it was still ok to do so, and has stayed there since, and he was asymptomatic. Total non-issue.

[Aruntraveller]

Saw something about this on the Book of Faces. It is a pathetic attempt by right-wingers to deflect attention from Cummings. He went back to his constituency and home when it was still ok to do so, and has stayed there since, and he was asymptomatic. Total non-issue.

Totally agree. Normally when I see a story I usually check for at least two versions of it. Didn't in this case 

[Aruntraveller]

“Plague! We are in the middle of a plague! And you behave like this! Plague! 40 million infected people is a plague! Until we get our acts together, all of us, we are as good as dead.”

The above was written by Larry Kramer, a famous AIDS activist who died this week.

Looking at people on the beach in Worthing yesterday it is every bit as relevant now to Coronavirus as it was to AIDS then.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

The above was written by Larry Kramer, a famous AIDS activist who died this week.

Looking at people on the beach in Worthing yesterday it is every bit as relevant now to Coronavirus as it was to AIDS then.

It's very interesting what becomes important to different people. Why the need to sit on a beach? Maybe the people who are not social-distancing have decided that as the NHS has not been overwhelmed, they think it is safer to catch Covid-19 now and get it over and done with - if they live, they live, and if they die they die. I wonder if this will affect recruiting rates for the NHS or if there will still be a considerable section of the population who feel inspired to risk their lives helping others. I was watching a programme last night and the hospital cleaner said he was initially worried but once he had received the training and had the PPE he felt ok and just wanted to be a professional and do his job on the Covid-19 ward as he could see that every role - doctors, nurses, cleaners - was important to combat the spread of the disease.

I feel fine not really meeting anyone socially apart from my household and you people (virtually) on this forum...and sometimes I drop client files off to someone else working from home near my house or get files dropped off  to my house. I go for 3 or 4 days without speaking to my parents - I know they are happy chatting on a big family WhatsApp group as I see them post interesting snippets with relatives from all around the world.

I spoke to my dad 2 days ago - he phoned me up briefly to remind me to look at the International Space Station passing in the sky and then rang off as he probably had stuff he wanted to read or deal with rather than chit-chatting with me - he's 78 so still in the prime of his life  

[Udayana]

Nice to see the great minds in the gov. are doing their best to keep our confidence up...

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/the-government-is-paying-the-sun-and-daily-mail-for-positive-coverage-of-its-coronavirus-response/28/05/

The government appears to have orchestrated a wide-scale content marketing blitz across national newspapers including the Sun and the Daily Mail in a bid to secure some positive coverage of its coronavirus response.

[Nearly Sane]

Aye

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/29/boris-johnson-dominic-cummings-matt-hancock

[Nearly Sane]

This along with the current uptick which may be related to VE day is all a bit worrying


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52858392

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

This along with the current uptick which may be related to VE day is all a bit worrying


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52858392

Yes - I agree it's a political decision. The government always said that they knew that they would only be able to keep people in lockdown for a certain period of time as after a while people would flout it and in a liberal democracy such as the UK it was inconceivable to be able to force people to stay in lockdown to protect vulnerable people. 

I plan on focusing on social distancing and washing my hands. The lockdown was about not overwhelming the NHS and mortuaries and cemeteries. They cocked it up with the lack of PPE.

Large numbers of people were always going to get sick and significant numbers die because firstly, that's what happens in a pandemic if there is no vaccine and secondly, risk-taking is part of human behaviour and also dying when you are old or sick or physically weak in some way is a natural part of being alive.

[Harrowby Hall]

He is in a public office as he is the chief advisor to the PM - that is a government appointment not a Conservative party one. He is, in effect, a part of the civil service, hence there was a load of discussion about whether he was actually allowed to make the statement he did on Monday and whether this was a breach of the civil service code.

The official status of  special advisors is outlined in the Annual Report on Special Advisors 2019, published by the Cabinet Office. It seems bizarre to me that political advisors can be "civil servants" when the Civil Service is supposed to be apolitical. It would appear (though I have not checked this yet) that "special advisors" can be paid out of the public purse in consequence of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.

According to the report, the Prime Minister has 44 political advisors (and Dominic Cummings is not the highest paid). The Chancellor of the Exchequer has six.

[Nearly Sane]

World class


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/30/boris-johnsons-test-and-tracing-system-britain-lockdown?fbclid=IwAR32tWlPLDuKwzS9fMfY-myf56g8bRBGWYNhuoX0FsgC1DpY8umyEY_s_GU

[ProfessorDavey]

The official status of  special advisors is outlined in the Annual Report on Special Advisors 2019, published by the Cabinet Office. It seems bizarre to me that political advisors can be "civil servants" when the Civil Service is supposed to be apolitical. It would appear (though I have not checked this yet) that "special advisors" can be paid out of the public purse in consequence of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.

According to the report, the Prime Minister has 44 political advisors (and Dominic Cummings is not the highest paid). The Chancellor of the Exchequer has six.

Yes they are civil servants, although they are political appointments, unlike most civil servants. They work for the government, not the conservative party. They are typically defined as 'temporary' civil servants as their appointment and tenure is usually linked to a particular minister and certainly to a party in government. This is in contrast to 'permanent' civil servants who stay in a department and will remain in place if a government of a different party comes in (and are required to be impartial).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_adviser_(UK)
https://www.civilservant.org.uk/spads-homepage.html

[Nearly Sane]

Just picked up 2 draft pints from my local. Drinking them at the Bal Cony resort. Not quite the pub but a sweet moment
 

[Gordon]

Interesting to recent see comments today by several scientists to the effect that the lockdown easing in England is a political rather than a scientific decision. I wonder if they are ensuring that the politicians can't at some later date, during the course of any enquiry, claim that they were always just following the science.

 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Large numbers of people were always going to get sick and significant numbers die because firstly, that's what happens in a pandemic if there is no vaccine and secondly, risk-taking is part of human behaviour and also dying when you are old or sick or physically weak in some way is a natural part of being alive.

Fatalistic and defeatist.
Other countries have fared far better than us because they didn't accept this as a given or find any consolation in it.

IMHO the more people relax the more people will get it and the more at risk we will be.

Johnson it seems only knows how to bully and assert people when his own interests are at risk and that is it seems the only thing the English population seems to sheepishly fall behind. Imagine that level of personal nastiness turned against Coronavirus.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Fatalistic and defeatist.
Other countries have fared far better than us because they didn't accept this as a given or find any consolation in it.

Oh I agree that other countries have fared better - though we still do not have the information on exactly why or whether mortality rates in other countries will rise. Some suggestions are that Germany apparently has a better biomedical base than us so had far more labs and were therefore more geared up to carry out testing and then were meticulous about tracking people. That's not something the UK government could have fixed easily if the technical competency just isn't there - our system of testing and tracking is not going too well currently. But yes the government was stupid for not focusing on testing far earlier than they did.

We also have different demographics - in all countries the majority of people who died were elderly and we have a large elderly population - but yes the government made a massive mistake in sending elderly people from hospitals to care homes without testing them to know if they had Covid-19, which then led to the spread of the disease. Britain has more over-weight / obese people compared to many other countries and being over-weight is a factor in those who have died of Covid-19. So I don't think I am being fatalistic - just realistic.

IMHO the more people relax the more people will get it and the more at risk we will be.

I agree - that's why I said I plan on remaining vigilant about maintaining social distancing and washing my hands.

[Nearly Sane]

There is some truth here but I think that there is a tendency for some to underplay Cummings actions as for some to overplay.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/30/dominic-cummings-boris-johnson-evil-geniuses-hardly-lazy-incompetent?__twitter_impression=true

[Nearly Sane]

Ffs

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-52864454

[Roses]

Ffs

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-52864454

Stupid idiots!