She managed office, but not power. The gap between the two is astronomical in our system.
Power is not an end in itself it's what you do with it. For Boris it was far more about getting it than any driving motivation ambition of what he would do with it once he got it. I'm not even convinced he's that bothered about Brexit - it was simply the vehicle to get him where he wanted.
This is the kind of question that was not permitted to be asked in March when the lockdown was imposed. There are plenty of other such questions. E.g. what is the % of the population who must be infected to reach herd immunity. If anyone tells you it is 60-80% ask them how they know and what is their evidence for this claim. Neither swine flu nor Spanish flu infected more than one third of the population. We could be nearer to herd immunity than we realise.
I think the lockdown restrictions on meeting friends and family will gradually break down over the next year or two as their impossibility becomes apparent.
For most people they won't last as long as that. People who aren't vulnerable or shielding themselves, or have close family and friends that are, may not appreciate just what a bloody slog really serious self-isolation is. Doubtless some people who are sufficiently ill or frightened will manage to sequester themselves for however long this takes, but many others (especially older people who are either still sprightly and active, or fear that they may die of something else before this is over and never get to see their families again) will ultimately give up - and that goes double for younger people with no underlying health conditions.
Basically if you're under 60, in reasonable shape and you don't have a particular responsibility towards a vulnerable person then your incentive for obeying lockdown is very low. And once people start giving up on the restrictions and habitually meeting up in public or going round each others' houses for barbecues and playdates and dinners, then the rationale behind a blanket lockdown is removed and we might as well do a Sweden.
The problem with that is, of course, that the Government, public bodies, trades unions and the like are now all so completely obsessed with the threat of Covid-19 - to the exclusion of all other problems - that they're incapable of taking any approach that permits anything more than an infinitesimal degree of risk. It's what another poster described last night as the worst of all worlds: private citizens, whose movements are too diffuse and numerous for the police possibly to control, will visit each other, spread the illness and render the lockdown pointless, whilst we'll all still be forced to live through the rationing or outright withdrawal of healthcare and education, and the destruction of whole sectors of the economy, as those businesses and services whose activities can be more easily curtailed are pointlessly throttled to death. All because "something must be done."
How could the Government have gone down the Swedish route without every single media and Opposition voice screaming 'Murderers!' for the next five years?
Sweden did!
But Sweden has - ironically enough - a culture of deference to authority that is considered completely out-of-date and unacceptable in the UK. There's not the slightest chance our government could have gotten away with it, even if it proves ultimately to have been the right call.
Or to put it another way, only a Tory government could have gotten away with closing the economy and paying people to do nothing, and only a Labour government could have gotten away with taking the virus on the chin and asking the public to trust their good intentions.
Nixon goes to China? Possibly something in that. Although an alternative view is that a Labour government would be better suited to the task we face - since so many of the solutions are of a collectivist, state empowered nature.
Hard to say. What I do suspect, however, is that if the World could have its time again - knowing what we now do - the plan A response would have been a rigorous China style lockdown/quarantine starting soon after they imposed theirs and maintained until the disease was squashed.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
Totally agree. I have C-PTSD following several severe traumas close to home. Mental ill health is an awful, awful, thing.
Malcolm can be funny. He can also occasionally be a dick.
I was not being a dick , merely questioning why the UK has the highest rates in all these types of illnesses, it suggests something far wrong with the country. As per my other post , it has the most obesity , mental illness , disability , unhappiness , etc. Something far far wrong here.
In the good olde days*, people suffered mental illness in silence. Unless they were carted off to a loony bin. Bin. So they quietly committed suicide or drank themselves to death.
Consider the following statistic - between 1865 and 1965 no white man in Alabama was convicted of murdering a black man. Does that mean that 1965 was the year that race relations went bad in Alabama?
Reporting a problem is often the first problem - remember the idiot from the UN who said that women in the UK are worse off than in third world countries.
The fact is that societies up until ours never had to deal with substantial numbers of people over the age of 80.
Its great for many to enjoy their family being around for much longer, but the costs are enormous. The burden of the young was already heavy before Corona virus. After it, the burden will be crushing. Its getting to the point where this is destabilising society.
Are you proposing a Logan's Run solution? What age should the cut-off be set at?
Not fair. Not fair.
When a solution is suggested, as in the May election manifesto, it is labelled the 'death tax'
What will not work is to impose more burdens on young people. That will result in far worse care for older folk in the long run.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
Same experience with my children. They are at different private schools and both are experiencing a very impressive online and zoom offering. Private emails to teachers whenever needed and telephone calls too.
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
She managed office, but not power. The gap between the two is astronomical in our system.
Power is not an end in itself it's what you do with it. For Boris it was far more about getting it than any driving motivation ambition of what he would do with it once he got it. I'm not even convinced he's that bothered about Brexit - it was simply the vehicle to get him where he wanted.
I actually agree with you
I am beginning to wonder if Boris may seek a short extension to brexit or even move a little to see a deal
Windfall tax on cycle shops? They seem to have been having a Covid boom.
The traditional bike shop business model is almost dead due to the Internet and the entry of the OEMs into retail. The cycling industry is moving to a dealership/franchise model more reminiscent of the car business.
guaranteed to be rubbish but absolutely shocking that you find this topic funny Harry. I know you have the Scottish cringe but that is bad. It is a hash of the usual no hopers saying SNPBasd, bit like my previous post on carcrash care home numbers, he mixed up Scottish and English numbers as he transferred them from his fingers. Keep trying and one day you will get your English badge.
I understand England has confirmed 17,000 tracers appointed to date and it will be up and running by the end of the month
Having a go at Scotland at zero is fair
G, you rage about anyone criticising Boris, government etc yet someone laughing at such a sensitive topic is ok in your book, have a think. PS: The Daily Record and the lying Tories in the article have no idea who has or has not been hired. Maybe you should be laughing at the 100K a day that was supposedly achieved once by Hancock booking himself 40K tests and never ever met again.
I believe a serious issue with recruiting the tracers is the background checks.
If you think about it, the tracers will have access to a lot of confidential information. Perfect fishing ground for scammers, criminals and weirdos.
This was why, until very recently, there were few who had completed the hiring process in England. Then a huge number cleared the vetting process at around the same time.
Mistake by Gove - he should have said no to the first question , nobody can be guaranteed to be safe - its a stupid question and condition . Teachers (you would hope) are able to weigh up the small risk as against the wider social need (you hope they value educating kids highly) and against their duty as paid employees to help get the country back
The most convenient words trip off Mr Gove's forked tongue, irrespective of their accuracy.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
Same experience with my children. They are at different private schools and both are experiencing a very impressive online and zoom offering. Private emails to teachers whenever needed and telephone calls too.
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
My sons are both at a local state comp.
My eldest has started A level work since the GCSEs were cancelled. He might be able to fit in an extra one.
My youngest has a special timetable. The whole thing is run though Google Docs. It’s excellent. He starts work at 830 and stops a 1400. Communal assemblies each week. We get emails if homework is not done on time.
As good as the best in the private sector. I imagine experiences vary by school across the country regardless of sector.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
There isn't for a whole range of services and institutions and there never was.
Andy Haldane of the BoE reckons that up to half of Britain's workforce, some 15 million workers, will be affected by this crisis, in the form of redundancy, shorter hours or lower pay.
Some of that would have happened anyway, undoubtedly, but 15 million? half the workforce?
That seems a little high. 7m work for the state are are basically unaffected. 26m work in the public sector. My guess is that 2-4m of them will either be made redundant or not have short term contracts/gig arrangements renewed. The effect on the remainder will depend upon the depth of the recession and the speed of the recovery. The collapse in demand will reduce overtime, bonuses, wage increases for many but an additional 11m? Seems high.
Mistake by Gove - he should have said no to the first question , nobody can be guaranteed to be safe - its a stupid question and condition . Teachers (you would hope) are able to weigh up the small risk as against the wider social need (you hope they value educating kids highly) and against their duty as paid employees to help get the country back
It was a ridiculous answer; Gove is not so stupid as to be mistaken on the point. I would guess that the likely risks to teachers of infection (particularly in primary schools) are quite significant - and probably greater than that of many occupations who are going through phased return to work.
There is an argument for the policy, nonetheless, but government is being dishonest as usual. At the very least they ought to be ensuring that older teachers are not going back into school (and given the age profile of teachers that wouldn’t even be particularly disruptive).
Yep. I think we can probably surmise what caused this. There was such a desperation to get rid of the elderly from hospitals, to clear capacity for new Covid patients, that they were just thrown at the care homes to get them out of the way. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that homes which initially refused to have them back were threatened (by councils?) with having funding withdrawn if they dug their heels in, so they gave in. We all know how this ended.
Looking at what's happened abroad it looks like pretty well everyone screwed up when it came to care homes, but that doesn't make the failure any more excusable.
In England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.
I presume that in a bad winter flu epidemic, the bulk of deaths are also in care homes?
Still shocking numbers mind. A tacit acceptance by the NHS that if they were over 80, there really was in all likelihood nothing that could be done for victims? Outcomes were proving very poor for the elderly taken into hospital - they just didn't respond. So let them die in the place they knew as home...
Have to say it has been a shocking failure across the UK and many other countries. In the main these homes have been run like puppy farms just to make venture capitalists money. Needs to be a complete rethink of the whole social care policy.
Absolutely right
We can't afford that, though, just like we can;t afford a new normal. The evidence is we will shortly be very, very bankrupt.
People talk about innovation and new ways of working for certain industries without giving a single detail of what those ways are. That is because those alternative ways do not exist.
We either live with coronavirus or, essentially, our society disintegrates. Health education, the economy, the whole thing
Windfall tax on cycle shops? They seem to have been having a Covid boom.
The traditional bike shop business model is almost dead due to the Internet and the entry of the OEMs into retail. The cycling industry is moving to a dealership/franchise model more reminiscent of the car business.
And repairs and maintenance. As they get more complicated they get beyond a lot of people's skills, or skills they are prepared to learn.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
There isn't for a whole range of services and institutions and there never was.
Andy Haldane of the BoE reckons that up to half of Britain's workforce, some 15 million workers, will be affected by this crisis, in the form of redundancy, shorter hours or lower pay.
Some of that would have happened anyway, undoubtedly, but 15 million? half the workforce?
That seems a little high. 7m work for the state are are basically unaffected. 26m work in the public sector. My guess is that 2-4m of them will either be made redundant or not have short term contracts/gig arrangements renewed. The effect on the remainder will depend upon the depth of the recession and the speed of the recovery. The collapse in demand will reduce overtime, bonuses, wage increases for many but an additional 11m? Seems high.
Sorry that should be private sector but I have lost the ability to edit.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
This is the kind of question that was not permitted to be asked in March when the lockdown was imposed. There are plenty of other such questions. E.g. what is the % of the population who must be infected to reach herd immunity. If anyone tells you it is 60-80% ask them how they know and what is their evidence for this claim. Neither swine flu nor Spanish flu infected more than one third of the population. We could be nearer to herd immunity than we realise.
I think the lockdown restrictions on meeting friends and family will gradually break down over the next year or two as their impossibility becomes apparent.
For most people they won't last as long as that. People who aren't vulnerable or shielding themselves, or have close family and friends that are, may not appreciate just what a bloody slog really serious self-isolation is. Doubtless some people who are sufficiently ill or frightened will manage to sequester themselves for however long this takes, but many others (especially older people who are either still sprightly and active, or fear that they may die of something else before this is over and never get to see their families again) will ultimately give up - and that goes double for younger people with no underlying health conditions.
Basically if you're under 60, in reasonable shape and you don't have a particular responsibility towards a vulnerable person then your incentive for obeying lockdown is very low. And once people start giving up on the restrictions and habitually meeting up in public or going round each others' houses for barbecues and playdates and dinners, then the rationale behind a blanket lockdown is removed and we might as well do a Sweden.
The problem with that is, of course, that the Government, public bodies, trades unions and the like are now all so completely obsessed with the threat of Covid-19 - to the exclusion of all other problems - that they're incapable of taking any approach that permits anything more than an infinitesimal degree of risk. It's what another poster described last night as the worst of all worlds: private citizens, whose movements are too diffuse and numerous for the police possibly to control, will visit each other, spread the illness and render the lockdown pointless, whilst we'll all still be forced to live through the rationing or outright withdrawal of healthcare and education, and the destruction of whole sectors of the economy, as those businesses and services whose activities can be more easily curtailed are pointlessly throttled to death. All because "something must be done."
How could the Government have gone down the Swedish route without every single media and Opposition voice screaming 'Murderers!' for the next five years?
Sweden did!
But Sweden has - ironically enough - a culture of deference to authority that is considered completely out-of-date and unacceptable in the UK. There's not the slightest chance our government could have gotten away with it, even if it proves ultimately to have been the right call.
Or to put it another way, only a Tory government could have gotten away with closing the economy and paying people to do nothing, and only a Labour government could have gotten away with taking the virus on the chin and asking the public to trust their good intentions.
Nixon goes to China? Possibly something in that. Although an alternative view is that a Labour government would be better suited to the task we face - since so many of the solutions are of a collectivist, state empowered nature.
Hard to say. What I do suspect, however, is that if the World could have its time again - knowing what we now do - the plan A response would have been a rigorous China style lockdown/quarantine starting soon after they imposed theirs and maintained until the disease was squashed.
I agree in theory, but we are liberal democracies - people would have kicked off big time if we'd gone in all Red-Guards-style when everything still looked perfectly normal and without a sniffle in sight.
Yep. I think we can probably surmise what caused this. There was such a desperation to get rid of the elderly from hospitals, to clear capacity for new Covid patients, that they were just thrown at the care homes to get them out of the way. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that homes which initially refused to have them back were threatened (by councils?) with having funding withdrawn if they dug their heels in, so they gave in. We all know how this ended.
Looking at what's happened abroad it looks like pretty well everyone screwed up when it came to care homes, but that doesn't make the failure any more excusable.
In England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.
I presume that in a bad winter flu epidemic, the bulk of deaths are also in care homes?
Still shocking numbers mind. A tacit acceptance by the NHS that if they were over 80, there really was in all likelihood nothing that could be done for victims? Outcomes were proving very poor for the elderly taken into hospital - they just didn't respond. So let them die in the place they knew as home...
Have to say it has been a shocking failure across the UK and many other countries. In the main these homes have been run like puppy farms just to make venture capitalists money. Needs to be a complete rethink of the whole social care policy.
Absolutely right
Sorry but that's crap. Running a care home is a hard job and many dont make much money at all. The big issue is staff shortages which the public sector shoudl have got a grip on years ago and spent money on training ,recruitment and better wages rather than create more non-jobs
While there's a lot in that with which I'd agree, there has been, apparently, a policy from Govt that, especially in Care, Public is bad and Private good. Consequently publicly owned homes, which often had unionised staff have been sold off and a plethora of private companies, large and small encouraged. At the same time the amount of money available from the public purse has increasingly been less than that necessary to run a decent service. And, IMHO, that's why we are where we are.
The fact is that societies up until ours never had to deal with substantial numbers of people over the age of 80.
Its great for many to enjoy their family being around for much longer, but the costs are enormous. The burden of the young was already heavy before Corona virus. After it, the burden will be crushing. Its getting to the point where this is destabilising society.
It is more the case that we are a couple of generation into a society where we can keep people alive in a much frailer state than previously. Hence the need for care homes.
I had occasion to talk to a Labour politician on this, a while back. He was totally non-plussed when I asked what ratio of care-vs-research he would fund on this. His interest was entirely on care - it took awhile for him to understand the point I was making.
My point was that treatments for the various issues of old age are being worked on. If some succeed, the benefits will be enormous - to the individuals, their families and to society at large.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
That is the intended effect.
That's not fully true. What we've seen with the sugar tax so far is that manufacturers change their ingredients accordingly, thus benefiting everyone. The only price difference I ever see is 5p saved on my can of cola.
Yep. I think we can probably surmise what caused this. There was such a desperation to get rid of the elderly from hospitals, to clear capacity for new Covid patients, that they were just thrown at the care homes to get them out of the way. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that homes which initially refused to have them back were threatened (by councils?) with having funding withdrawn if they dug their heels in, so they gave in. We all know how this ended.
Looking at what's happened abroad it looks like pretty well everyone screwed up when it came to care homes, but that doesn't make the failure any more excusable.
In England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.
I presume that in a bad winter flu epidemic, the bulk of deaths are also in care homes?
Still shocking numbers mind. A tacit acceptance by the NHS that if they were over 80, there really was in all likelihood nothing that could be done for victims? Outcomes were proving very poor for the elderly taken into hospital - they just didn't respond. So let them die in the place they knew as home...
Have to say it has been a shocking failure across the UK and many other countries. In the main these homes have been run like puppy farms just to make venture capitalists money. Needs to be a complete rethink of the whole social care policy.
Absolutely right
We can't afford that, though, just like we can;t afford a new normal. The evidence is we will shortly be very, very bankrupt.
People talk about innovation and new ways of working for certain industries without giving a single detail of what those ways are. That is because those alternative ways do not exist.
We either live with coronavirus or, essentially, our society disintegrates. Health education, the economy, the whole thing
And for most people its pretty liveable with.
Good post Contrarian
Why doesn’t the government ‘level with the British public’ and say we’re broke and we can’t afford to lockdown any further regardless of the ongoing risks.
She managed office, but not power. The gap between the two is astronomical in our system.
Power is not an end in itself it's what you do with it. For Boris it was far more about getting it than any driving motivation ambition of what he would do with it once he got it. I'm not even convinced he's that bothered about Brexit - it was simply the vehicle to get him where he wanted.
I actually agree with you
I am beginning to wonder if Boris may seek a short extension to brexit or even move a little to see a deal
Why? The assertion that the Government has little to gain from delay appears sound.
The trading relationship being requested is relatively loose and both sides are insisting on terms that the other finds onerous. It may actually be easier for both the UK and the EU to give up than attempt a compromise.
Besides, hyperventilating media types and some export businesses in particular may fret at the prospect of a cliff-edge Brexit, but they're not the key voter groups that helped to deliver the Government its majority. Being seen to dither and prevaricate over Brexit risks driving a lot of its new support away and resuscitating the career of Farage.
Mistake by Gove - he should have said no to the first question , nobody can be guaranteed to be safe - its a stupid question and condition . Teachers (you would hope) are able to weigh up the small risk as against the wider social need (you hope they value educating kids highly) and against their duty as paid employees to help get the country back
Back in the 1918 pandemic, the US Postal Service was found to be a disease vector, delivering virus-enhanced mail to households that were doing total isolation....
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
One of the things that I found truly shocking when I stopped working every hour God sent in an office, was the state of the people who are out on the High Street during the day time. Town centres taken over by mobility scooters - and not by any means all elderly. Rich pickings for a virus.
I was reminded of a cartoon by Kliban - "God gave us these bodies because he has better ones at home..."
Don’t judge people on mobility scooters. You don’t know their story.
My wife has an old second hand one, it’s great. Since becoming wheelchair bound due to the bastard MS it’s a huge liberation. She uses it to get to the Swimming pool, where she (usually) swims 100+ lengths powered by her arms. She’s fitter than me.
It deals with crappy pavements and pot holes better than her self propelled wheelchair.
I was being observational, rather than judgmental. I was especially referring to seeing morbidly obese young men and women, in their 20's and 30's. If you work in an office during the day, you just won't see them. But travel around Britian's towns and they are an obvious sight. And as malcy points out, do you see them abroad? Maybe the US. But nowhere else that I can recall. Maybe it is the safety net of our welfare state. Are we if not exactly killling with kindness, then shortening lives - and those short lives are filled with disease.
Things as deadly as Covid have been going on under our noses for many years. We have just chosen not to notice. Imagine if we had closed down the economy until the nation's collective BMI was down by 10....
You can imagine why I might be sensitive to folk making snap judgements.
I hate the way our society having created the amazing liberating technology of electric scooters far from celebrating the fact people can get out an about, somehow (and I am not talking about you) contrives a social stigma that users of scooters are somehow feckless.
In other.... simpler cultures.... people in such conditions would be dead.
Not sure I subscribe to the idea of creating a modern Sparta.
Yep. I think we can probably surmise what caused this. There was such a desperation to get rid of the elderly from hospitals, to clear capacity for new Covid patients, that they were just thrown at the care homes to get them out of the way. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that homes which initially refused to have them back were threatened (by councils?) with having funding withdrawn if they dug their heels in, so they gave in. We all know how this ended.
Looking at what's happened abroad it looks like pretty well everyone screwed up when it came to care homes, but that doesn't make the failure any more excusable.
In England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.
I presume that in a bad winter flu epidemic, the bulk of deaths are also in care homes?
Still shocking numbers mind. A tacit acceptance by the NHS that if they were over 80, there really was in all likelihood nothing that could be done for victims? Outcomes were proving very poor for the elderly taken into hospital - they just didn't respond. So let them die in the place they knew as home...
Have to say it has been a shocking failure across the UK and many other countries. In the main these homes have been run like puppy farms just to make venture capitalists money. Needs to be a complete rethink of the whole social care policy.
Absolutely right
We can't afford that, though, just like we can;t afford a new normal. The evidence is we will shortly be very, very bankrupt.
People talk about innovation and new ways of working for certain industries without giving a single detail of what those ways are. That is because those alternative ways do not exist.
We either live with coronavirus or, essentially, our society disintegrates. Health education, the economy, the whole thing
And for most people its pretty liveable with.
Good post Contrarian
Why doesn’t the government ‘level with the British public’ and say we’re broke and we can’t afford to lockdown any further regardless of the ongoing risks.
How well does levelling with the British public tend to go? All it does is give your opponents a stick to beat you with ad nauseam, so it's better to just give up and offer a palliating cover story instead.
Mistake by Gove - he should have said no to the first question , nobody can be guaranteed to be safe - its a stupid question and condition . Teachers (you would hope) are able to weigh up the small risk as against the wider social need (you hope they value educating kids highly) and against their duty as paid employees to help get the country back
Back in the 1918 pandemic, the US Postal Service was found to be a disease vector, delivering virus-enhanced mail to households that were doing total isolation....
Soumya Swaminathan told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show there had not been big outbreaks in schools in countries where they had remained open.
"It does seem from what we know now that children are less capable of spreading it even if they get the infection," she said.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
Same experience with my children. They are at different private schools and both are experiencing a very impressive online and zoom offering. Private emails to teachers whenever needed and telephone calls too.
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
Perhaps because class sizes are considerably larger, and many of the pupils don’t have access to IT, and there are also issues of parental engagement ?
All the teachers I know in the state sector are working full time.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
Same experience with my children. They are at different private schools and both are experiencing a very impressive online and zoom offering. Private emails to teachers whenever needed and telephone calls too.
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
My sons are both at a local state comp.
My eldest has started A level work since the GCSEs were cancelled. He might be able to fit in an extra one.
My youngest has a special timetable. The whole thing is run though Google Docs. It’s excellent. He starts work at 830 and stops a 1400. Communal assemblies each week. We get emails if homework is not done on time.
As good as the best in the private sector. I imagine experiences vary by school across the country regardless of sector.
That`s impressive. Fair play. This doesn`t chime with what I`m hearing from parents with children in state schiools round here. They are reporting posted assigments (not even emailed), little or no marking/feedback. When they manage to get a teacher`s email address, it bounces back "mailbox not attended". That`s what I`m hearing.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
When this is finally over the Department of Health should consider paying for fat people to attend slimming clubs. If we could succeed even in getting a fifth of the obese population down into the overweight category and a tenth of the overweight population down into the healthy range then the benefits would be well worth the expenditure.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
Same experience with my children. They are at different private schools and both are experiencing a very impressive online and zoom offering. Private emails to teachers whenever needed and telephone calls too.
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
My sons are both at a local state comp.
My eldest has started A level work since the GCSEs were cancelled. He might be able to fit in an extra one.
My youngest has a special timetable. The whole thing is run though Google Docs. It’s excellent. He starts work at 830 and stops a 1400. Communal assemblies each week. We get emails if homework is not done on time.
As good as the best in the private sector. I imagine experiences vary by school across the country regardless of sector.
There seems to be a lot more variance in England than there is in Scotland. The attitude here seemed to be that some kids would not have access to WiFi etc or adequate computers so it would be unfair if this was given to others.
She managed office, but not power. The gap between the two is astronomical in our system.
Power is not an end in itself it's what you do with it. For Boris it was far more about getting it than any driving motivation ambition of what he would do with it once he got it. I'm not even convinced he's that bothered about Brexit - it was simply the vehicle to get him where he wanted.
I actually agree with you
I am beginning to wonder if Boris may seek a short extension to brexit or even move a little to see a deal
Why? The assertion that the Government has little to gain from delay appears sound.
The trading relationship being requested is relatively loose and both sides are insisting on terms that the other finds onerous. It may actually be easier for both the UK and the EU to give up than attempt a compromise.
Besides, hyperventilating media types and some export businesses in particular may fret at the prospect of a cliff-edge Brexit, but they're not the key voter groups that helped to deliver the Government its majority. Being seen to dither and prevaricate over Brexit risks driving a lot of its new support away and resuscitating the career of Farage.
Just a thought, provoked by something in the Observer. Trump is re-elected. Picks another row with China and leaves the WTO. Maybe even without having an overt row with China. Where does that leave WTO 'rules'? And what happens to a country whose trading relationship are based on those rules?
Somebody should tell these middle class media types who think it is is trendy to not get kids back to school that that's fine , we will open schools but if you dont want to send your kids (they do really) then sign this and they cannot come until the virus is eliminated in say 3 years. Not many would sign. Middle class parents can generally home school , other kids dont get that privilege. Education is supposed to be a leveller of opportunity so it needs to start again for ALL and start now
The same sort of people who bang on about unfairness in education, how we shouldn't have selection in schools, widen access to unis, then send their kids to private school & pay for tutoring for Oxford interviews.
They don't have to worry, in general - their children are in private schools, which are providing home schooling over the interwebs. So they can have their government funded cake*, eat it, virtue signal with it AND use it to condemn others.
Mind you, when the private school closes due to all the Chinese students not turning up they will scream louder than ever.....
*I am thinking of a couple I knew. Both management consultants in the NHS. His and hers Range Rovers. Three kids in private school, big house. Apparently austerity was traumatic for them - they were forced to cut their hourly rates.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
When this is finally over the Department of Health should consider paying for fat people to attend slimming clubs. If we could succeed even in getting a fifth of the obese population down into the overweight category and a tenth of the overweight population down into the healthy range then the benefits would be well worth the expenditure.
All the woke brigade will be outraged, is size-ist, should love your body whatever your size, you can be "plus size", but fit and healthy BS.
Mistake by Gove - he should have said no to the first question , nobody can be guaranteed to be safe - its a stupid question and condition . Teachers (you would hope) are able to weigh up the small risk as against the wider social need (you hope they value educating kids highly) and against their duty as paid employees to help get the country back
It was a ridiculous answer; Gove is not so stupid as to be mistaken on the point. I would guess that the likely risks to teachers of infection (particularly in primary schools) are quite significant - and probably greater than that of many occupations who are going through phased return to work.
There is an argument for the policy, nonetheless, but government is being dishonest as usual. At the very least they ought to be ensuring that older teachers are not going back into school (and given the age profile of teachers that wouldn’t even be particularly disruptive).
It's a habit of Gove's to surprise interviewers with punchy one word "yes" or "no" answers to questions. He does it more than any other politician. I used to find it quite impressive but I now get the sense it's just a technique to stand out.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
When this is finally over the Department of Health should consider paying for fat people to attend slimming clubs. If we could succeed even in getting a fifth of the obese population down into the overweight category and a tenth of the overweight population down into the healthy range then the benefits would be well worth the expenditure.
No - make it universal. That way the gym rats will vote for it. Who doesn't like a freebie?
Yep. I think we can probably surmise what caused this. There was such a desperation to get rid of the elderly from hospitals, to clear capacity for new Covid patients, that they were just thrown at the care homes to get them out of the way. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that homes which initially refused to have them back were threatened (by councils?) with having funding withdrawn if they dug their heels in, so they gave in. We all know how this ended.
Looking at what's happened abroad it looks like pretty well everyone screwed up when it came to care homes, but that doesn't make the failure any more excusable.
In England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.
I presume that in a bad winter flu epidemic, the bulk of deaths are also in care homes?
Still shocking numbers mind. A tacit acceptance by the NHS that if they were over 80, there really was in all likelihood nothing that could be done for victims? Outcomes were proving very poor for the elderly taken into hospital - they just didn't respond. So let them die in the place they knew as home...
Have to say it has been a shocking failure across the UK and many other countries. In the main these homes have been run like puppy farms just to make venture capitalists money. Needs to be a complete rethink of the whole social care policy.
Absolutely right
We can't afford that, though, just like we can;t afford a new normal. The evidence is we will shortly be very, very bankrupt.
People talk about innovation and new ways of working for certain industries without giving a single detail of what those ways are. That is because those alternative ways do not exist.
We either live with coronavirus or, essentially, our society disintegrates. Health education, the economy, the whole thing
And for most people its pretty liveable with.
Good post Contrarian
Why doesn’t the government ‘level with the British public’ and say we’re broke and we can’t afford to lockdown any further regardless of the ongoing risks.
Agreed. They should do. They are not leading they are weathervaning.
They won`t take us out of lockdown until opinion polls and focus groups tell them it`s OK. The polls won`t say it`s OK while: 1) Sunak keeps chucking money at people for staying at home and 2) politicians and the media are terryfying people about the virus, saying things like "don`t go back to work until it`s safe".
Of course it`s not safe FFS. Public perception of risk is appalling. I told a family member the other day that Covid has a survival rate of over 99% and she flatly disbelieved me. I asked her what she though the survival rate was and she said 50/50.
The fact is that societies up until ours never had to deal with substantial numbers of people over the age of 80.
Its great for many to enjoy their family being around for much longer, but the costs are enormous. The burden of the young was already heavy before Corona virus. After it, the burden will be crushing. Its getting to the point where this is destabilising society.
Are you proposing a Logan's Run solution? What age should the cut-off be set at?
Not fair. Not fair.
When a solution is suggested, as in the May election manifesto, it is labelled the 'death tax'
What will not work is to impose more burdens on young people. That will result in far worse care for older folk in the long run.
Quite. What this doesn't mean is compulsory euthanasia for the aged. What it does mean is that the well-off and their heirs are going to have to give up on the notion of young people paying through the nose in order that inheritances may pass largely unimpeded.
You can argue about whether or not Theresa May came up with the correct model in 2017, but the principle itself - that society is so full of old people that making those with means contribute more to their care needs is essential - was sound. Basically she paid the price for underestimating the greed of the comfortable middle classes.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
Same experience with my children. They are at different private schools and both are experiencing a very impressive online and zoom offering. Private emails to teachers whenever needed and telephone calls too.
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
My sons are both at a local state comp.
My eldest has started A level work since the GCSEs were cancelled. He might be able to fit in an extra one.
My youngest has a special timetable. The whole thing is run though Google Docs. It’s excellent. He starts work at 830 and stops a 1400. Communal assemblies each week. We get emails if homework is not done on time.
As good as the best in the private sector. I imagine experiences vary by school across the country regardless of sector.
Doing A levels early is a good idea. I did an 2 a year early. which meant I cruised to 2 the next year.
Plus this - university admissions often work like this - The predicted high performing students often get a 2 As at B or similar *offers*.
Which meant, in my case, that the moment I got the offer, I had a university place secured.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
When this is finally over the Department of Health should consider paying for fat people to attend slimming clubs. If we could succeed even in getting a fifth of the obese population down into the overweight category and a tenth of the overweight population down into the healthy range then the benefits would be well worth the expenditure.
I see your point, but - hmmm - that`s a bit too big brother for me.
She managed office, but not power. The gap between the two is astronomical in our system.
Power is not an end in itself it's what you do with it. For Boris it was far more about getting it than any driving motivation ambition of what he would do with it once he got it. I'm not even convinced he's that bothered about Brexit - it was simply the vehicle to get him where he wanted.
I actually agree with you
I am beginning to wonder if Boris may seek a short extension to brexit or even move a little to see a deal
Why? The assertion that the Government has little to gain from delay appears sound.
The trading relationship being requested is relatively loose and both sides are insisting on terms that the other finds onerous. It may actually be easier for both the UK and the EU to give up than attempt a compromise.
Besides, hyperventilating media types and some export businesses in particular may fret at the prospect of a cliff-edge Brexit, but they're not the key voter groups that helped to deliver the Government its majority. Being seen to dither and prevaricate over Brexit risks driving a lot of its new support away and resuscitating the career of Farage.
Just a thought, provoked by something in the Observer. Trump is re-elected. Picks another row with China and leaves the WTO. Maybe even without having an overt row with China. Where does that leave WTO 'rules'? And what happens to a country whose trading relationship are based on those rules?
WTO rules are not enforced against the US or China anyway, ask Antigua for example how they are getting on with their case against the US from 2003. They won, were awarded $21 million per year compensation. So far they have not been paid and were owed $315m as of 2018.
Brits hear the word rules and think they mean something. In this case they dont, with the WTO might has been right, and it will be even more so as we enter the next decade.
How we dont see this when its blatantly obvious I have no idea, WTO rules are far less enforceable than EU rules, and we didnt like EU rules as not enough countries were following them as closely as we did. The Tory rights love affair with the WTO wont last much longer than most of the PMs affairs.
Windfall tax on cycle shops? They seem to have been having a Covid boom.
The traditional bike shop business model is almost dead due to the Internet and the entry of the OEMs into retail. The cycling industry is moving to a dealership/franchise model more reminiscent of the car business.
Not to mention there is a long-standing government subsidy on bicycles, so it would seem odd to increase taxes at the same time.
The fact is that societies up until ours never had to deal with substantial numbers of people over the age of 80.
Its great for many to enjoy their family being around for much longer, but the costs are enormous. The burden of the young was already heavy before Corona virus. After it, the burden will be crushing. Its getting to the point where this is destabilising society.
Are you proposing a Logan's Run solution? What age should the cut-off be set at?
Not fair. Not fair.
When a solution is suggested, as in the May election manifesto, it is labelled the 'death tax'
What will not work is to impose more burdens on young people. That will result in far worse care for older folk in the long run.
Quite. What this doesn't mean is compulsory euthanasia for the aged. What it does mean is that the well-off and their heirs are going to have to give up on the notion of young people paying through the nose in order that inheritances may pass largely unimpeded.
You can argue about whether or not Theresa May came up with the correct model in 2017, but the principle itself - that society is so full of old people that making those with means contribute more to their care needs is essential - was sound. Basically she paid the price for underestimating the greed of the comfortable middle classes.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
Same experience with my children. They are at different private schools and both are experiencing a very impressive online and zoom offering. Private emails to teachers whenever needed and telephone calls too.
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
My sons are both at a local state comp.
My eldest has started A level work since the GCSEs were cancelled. He might be able to fit in an extra one.
My youngest has a special timetable. The whole thing is run though Google Docs. It’s excellent. He starts work at 830 and stops a 1400. Communal assemblies each week. We get emails if homework is not done on time.
As good as the best in the private sector. I imagine experiences vary by school across the country regardless of sector.
That`s impressive. Fair play. This doesn`t chime with what I`m hearing from parents with children in state schiools round here. They are reporting posted assigments (not even emailed), little or no marking/feedback. When they manage to get a teacher`s email address, it bounces back "mailbox not attended". That`s what I`m hearing.
Given such things (the issues of GPs we discussed the other day) - can we finally get rid of the idea that all of X in a public service are delivering Y levels of service?
And repairs and maintenance. As they get more complicated they get beyond a lot of people's skills, or skills they are prepared to learn.
This is why the industry has gone so hard on hydraulic disks and tubeless tyres - to push some maintenance tasks out of reach of the normal punter. Although the move to electronic gears has had the opposite effect as they need a lot less maintenance than Bowden cable actuated gears.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
That is the intended effect.
That's not fully true. What we've seen with the sugar tax so far is that manufacturers change their ingredients accordingly, thus benefiting everyone. The only price difference I ever see is 5p saved on my can of cola.
That is a win win then. The 5p on plastic bags worked brilliantly too. And of course many people have quit cigarettes due to price.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
When this is finally over the Department of Health should consider paying for fat people to attend slimming clubs. If we could succeed even in getting a fifth of the obese population down into the overweight category and a tenth of the overweight population down into the healthy range then the benefits would be well worth the expenditure.
No - make it universal. That way the gym rats will vote for it. Who doesn't like a freebie?
Erm, I was effectively suggesting universality. At the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious, people who are a healthy weight already would derive no benefit from going.
BTW I'm also suggesting that we invite rather than compel people. Losing weight is a hard slog and you need to be ready and willing to give it a go. Not everyone will be up for it on day one, and trying before they are would be counterproductive.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
When this is finally over the Department of Health should consider paying for fat people to attend slimming clubs. If we could succeed even in getting a fifth of the obese population down into the overweight category and a tenth of the overweight population down into the healthy range then the benefits would be well worth the expenditure.
I see your point, but - hmmm - that`s a bit too big brother for me.
I don't think a gym subsidy is "big brother". However it does risk the perception that by being fat you get a bonus that other people want but have to pay for.
If I were close to Labour's leadership (which I'm not - things have simply movede on and I don't know most of the fronmt bench), I'd be giving serious thought to an integrated NHS+social care model which offered real benefits in the latter part. I think that would meet the "We want a better future" post-45 spirit and would fill a gap which we all see. The Tories have really blown the "we can't afford it" line (current deficit spending makes McDonnell look positively Thatcherite), and focusing on that rather than stuff like free broadband would go with the flow of Labour thinking. Couple that with "And we'll fix the renewed NHS waiting list problem" (as per Foxy's piece) and you've got a pretty fpcused core element to the programme.
If I were close to Labour's leadership (which I'm not - things have simply movede on and I don't know most of the fronmt bench), I'd be giving serious thought to an integrated NHS+social care model which offered real benefits in the latter part. I think that would meet the "We want a better future" post-45 spirit and would fill a gap which we all see. The Tories have really blown the "we can't afford it" line (current deficit spending makes McDonnell look positively Thatcherite), and focusing on that rather than stuff like free broadband would go with the flow of Labour thinking. Couple that with "And we'll fix the renewed NHS waiting list problem" (as per Foxy's piece) and you've got a pretty fpcused core element to the programme.
And how will you pay for that?
Not that any journalists are asking that question at the moment, so perhaps Labour should just go for it.
Mr. Scott, I find the food retailers aspect pretty weird.
They've been working hard and ensured supplies remained solid even when people were panic-buying, and their staff have been some of the few to be persistently in contact with the public on a daily basis.
Not sure why they should be subject to a pernicious tax on top of that.
Not a fan of windfall taxes generally but there's more of a case for one (or less of an argument against, to be precise) when it comes to online retailers.
Don't see why people doing business should be penalised. The money they make allows them to do helpful things like provide the public with food and the state with taxes.
There is a contradiction built into reality. To be taxed in any significant way you have to be honest and successful. There is no-one else to get all that money out of. Drug dealers, bank robbers and benefits junkies are not good sources of revenue. Hard working businesses are.
Legalising drugs would raise billions in tax and save a fortune on the police and prisons.
Agree.
Its a tricky one to get right though isn't it? If you do a sin tax to raise money you sort of want a lot of sin! Which in turn makes everyone more unhealthy.
Agree. The legal status of alcohol leads to very considerable burdens on society in terms of health, mental health, policing, education, social work and so on. To give a lot more drugs legal status would probably lead to a lot more of the same; the issue is not (mostly) about taxing it, it is about whether the overall harm done by its uncontrolled illegality is greater or less than the overall harm done by legalisation.
It is obvious that lots of people with great experience in public policy believe in a degree of legalisation, but because of the Daily Mail etc can only say so after they are retired.
It is just the sort of area where Boris would be a good bet for breaking the log jam as he is a libertarian popular with Mail and Sun readers. Somehow I think he has other things on his plate, which he is much less qualified to do like organising a state where you need a lawful reason to walk down the street.
Boris is only interested in himself , he will do zero to help.
Yep. I think we can probably surmise what caused this. There was such a desperation to get rid of the elderly from hospitals, to clear capacity for new Covid patients, that they were just thrown at the care homes to get them out of the way. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that homes which initially refused to have them back were threatened (by councils?) with having funding withdrawn if they dug their heels in, so they gave in. We all know how this ended.
Looking at what's happened abroad it looks like pretty well everyone screwed up when it came to care homes, but that doesn't make the failure any more excusable.
In England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.
I presume that in a bad winter flu epidemic, the bulk of deaths are also in care homes?
Still shocking numbers mind. A tacit acceptance by the NHS that if they were over 80, there really was in all likelihood nothing that could be done for victims? Outcomes were proving very poor for the elderly taken into hospital - they just didn't respond. So let them die in the place they knew as home...
Have to say it has been a shocking failure across the UK and many other countries. In the main these homes have been run like puppy farms just to make venture capitalists money. Needs to be a complete rethink of the whole social care policy.
Absolutely right
We can't afford that, though, just like we can;t afford a new normal. The evidence is we will shortly be very, very bankrupt.
People talk about innovation and new ways of working for certain industries without giving a single detail of what those ways are. That is because those alternative ways do not exist.
We either live with coronavirus or, essentially, our society disintegrates. Health education, the economy, the whole thing
And for most people its pretty liveable with.
Good post Contrarian
Why doesn’t the government ‘level with the British public’ and say we’re broke and we can’t afford to lockdown any further regardless of the ongoing risks.
Agreed. They should do. They are not leading they are weathervaning.
They won`t take us out of lockdown until opinion polls and focus groups tell them it`s OK. The polls won`t say it`s OK while: 1) Sunak keeps chucking money at people for staying at home and 2) politicians and the media are terryfying people about the virus, saying things like "don`t go back to work until it`s safe".
Of course it`s not safe FFS. Public perception of risk is appalling. I told a family member the other day that Covid has a survival rate of over 99% and she flatly disbelieved me. I asked her what she though the survival rate was and she said 50/50.
The lockdown served a number of purposes.
The primary purpose was to avoid the horror of people dying in hospital corridors. And thankfully that was achieved.
The second purpose was to buy time. Time to figure a post lockdown policy and build up capacity in services like testing. I think the goal might have been to get cases down so that track and trace was viable again. Sadly that has not been achieved.
So where are we and why can't we lockdown a bit more?
In short, the public finances have collapsed. So we are now in the invidious position of having to exit lockdown into a very muddy context, where the possibility of returning to the pre-lockdown situation has not and can not be ruled out.
The government should be focusing on delivering and communicating mitigating measures that maintain (or regain) public confidence. Arguably as we leave lockdown, the best action would have been to be more stringent on certain things. It could have insisted on masks for example.
Instead it appears to be rushing the whole thing, probably driven by the critical state of the nations finances. It's saying 'it will be fine' doesn't really wash. Especially, when it hasn't told the whole story about how the lockdown has screwed the economy. As a result it does not add up.
In short, the government has made two mistakes.
1) It has not set out the economic picture. 2) It has done nothing to mitigate the risks of exiting lockdown.
If I were close to Labour's leadership (which I'm not - things have simply movede on and I don't know most of the fronmt bench), I'd be giving serious thought to an integrated NHS+social care model which offered real benefits in the latter part. I think that would meet the "We want a better future" post-45 spirit and would fill a gap which we all see. The Tories have really blown the "we can't afford it" line (current deficit spending makes McDonnell look positively Thatcherite), and focusing on that rather than stuff like free broadband would go with the flow of Labour thinking. Couple that with "And we'll fix the renewed NHS waiting list problem" (as per Foxy's piece) and you've got a pretty fpcused core element to the programme.
And how will you pay for that?
Not that any journalists are asking that question at the moment, so perhaps Labour should just go for it.
No one has cared how anything is paid for since 2016.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
When this is finally over the Department of Health should consider paying for fat people to attend slimming clubs. If we could succeed even in getting a fifth of the obese population down into the overweight category and a tenth of the overweight population down into the healthy range then the benefits would be well worth the expenditure.
I agree with the intent but not the method. Provide subsidised sport, gym, cooking and nutrition lessons - far more effective and longer lasting than slimming clubs. And make that absolutely central to young kids as they go through school, not some add on class that is not viewed as importantly as "academic" subjects.
Just watching report from Germany where you have to fill in paperwork to sit in a cafe. Is their contract tracing app not live yet?
Well, if the uptake of a contact-tracing app is 50%, that means it will cover a quarter of transmissions, or perhaps just over 10% if half the cases are asymptomatic. I'm amazed that anyone thinks these apps can be a magic solution that is going to avoid the need for proper contact tracing.
Qatar has made the wearing of face masks compulsory, with anyone defying the order facing a jail term of up to three years or a fine of up to $55,000 (£45,000) for those who repeatedly fail to cover up.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
When this is finally over the Department of Health should consider paying for fat people to attend slimming clubs. If we could succeed even in getting a fifth of the obese population down into the overweight category and a tenth of the overweight population down into the healthy range then the benefits would be well worth the expenditure.
I see your point, but - hmmm - that`s a bit too big brother for me.
I don't think a gym subsidy is "big brother". However it does risk the perception that by being fat you get a bonus that other people want but have to pay for.
Go to a french town of say 20,000 people and it will have public sports and leisure facilities equivalent to an English town of 100,000.
Thats why they get to eat croissants, cheese, four course meals for lunch and still be fitter than us.
If I were close to Labour's leadership (which I'm not - things have simply movede on and I don't know most of the fronmt bench), I'd be giving serious thought to an integrated NHS+social care model which offered real benefits in the latter part. I think that would meet the "We want a better future" post-45 spirit and would fill a gap which we all see. The Tories have really blown the "we can't afford it" line (current deficit spending makes McDonnell look positively Thatcherite), and focusing on that rather than stuff like free broadband would go with the flow of Labour thinking. Couple that with "And we'll fix the renewed NHS waiting list problem" (as per Foxy's piece) and you've got a pretty fpcused core element to the programme.
And how will you pay for that?
Not that any journalists are asking that question at the moment, so perhaps Labour should just go for it.
No one has cared how anything is paid for since 2016.
Mr. Scott, I find the food retailers aspect pretty weird.
They've been working hard and ensured supplies remained solid even when people were panic-buying, and their staff have been some of the few to be persistently in contact with the public on a daily basis.
Not sure why they should be subject to a pernicious tax on top of that.
Not a fan of windfall taxes generally but there's more of a case for one (or less of an argument against, to be precise) when it comes to online retailers.
Don't see why people doing business should be penalised. The money they make allows them to do helpful things like provide the public with food and the state with taxes.
There is a contradiction built into reality. To be taxed in any significant way you have to be honest and successful. There is no-one else to get all that money out of. Drug dealers, bank robbers and benefits junkies are not good sources of revenue. Hard working businesses are.
Legalising drugs would raise billions in tax and save a fortune on the police and prisons.
Just watching report from Germany where you have to fill in paperwork to sit in a cafe. Is their contract tracing app not live yet?
Well, if the uptake of a contact-tracing app is 50%, that means it will cover a quarter of transmissions, or perhaps just over 10% if half the cases are asymptomatic. I'm amazed that anyone thinks these apps can be a magic solution that is going to avoid the need for proper contact tracing.
Surely one solution to uptake / reduce need for all that paperwork, you must have the app to sit down at a cafe & you can beep you details to the establishment via it. Also once you have tested positive, the app on your phone says that & so you cant sit at a cafe.
If people are really anti government tracking etc, they can just write any old crap on the paperwork.
This is the kind of question that was not permitted to be asked in March when the lockdown was imposed. There are plenty of other such questions. E.g. what is the % of the population who must be infected to reach herd immunity. If anyone tells you it is 60-80% ask them how they know and what is their evidence for this claim. Neither swine flu nor Spanish flu infected more than one third of the population. We could be nearer to herd immunity than we realise.
I think the lockdown restrictions on meeting friends and family will gradually break down over the next year or two as their impossibility becomes apparent.
For most people they won't last as long as that. People who aren't vulnerable or shielding themselves, or have close family and friends that are, may not appreciate just what a bloody slog really serious self-isolation is. Doubtless some people who are sufficiently ill or frightened will manage to sequester themselves for however long this takes, but many others (especially older people who are either still sprightly and active, or fear that they may die of something else before this is over and never get to see their families again) will ultimately give up - and that goes double for younger people with no underlying health conditions.
Basically if you're under 60, in reasonable shape and you don't have a particular responsibility towards a vulnerable person then your incentive for obeying lockdown is very low. And once people start giving up on the restrictions and habitually meeting up in public or going round each others' houses for barbecues and playdates and dinners, then the rationale behind a blanket lockdown is removed and we might as well do a Sweden.
The problem with that is, of course, that the Government, public bodies, trades unions and the like are now all so completely obsessed with the threat of Covid-19 - to the exclusion of all other problems - that they're incapable of taking any approach that permits anything more than an infinitesimal degree of risk. It's what another poster described last night as the worst of all worlds: private citizens, whose movements are too diffuse and numerous for the police possibly to control, will visit each other, spread the illness and render the lockdown pointless, whilst we'll all still be forced to live through the rationing or outright withdrawal of healthcare and education, and the destruction of whole sectors of the economy, as those businesses and services whose activities can be more easily curtailed are pointlessly throttled to death. All because "something must be done."
How could the Government have gone down the Swedish route without every single media and Opposition voice screaming 'Murderers!' for the next five years?
Sweden did!
But Sweden has - ironically enough - a culture of deference to authority that is considered completely out-of-date and unacceptable in the UK. There's not the slightest chance our government could have gotten away with it, even if it proves ultimately to have been the right call.
Or to put it another way, only a Tory government could have gotten away with closing the economy and paying people to do nothing, and only a Labour government could have gotten away with taking the virus on the chin and asking the public to trust their good intentions.
Nixon goes to China? Possibly something in that. Although an alternative view is that a Labour government would be better suited to the task we face - since so many of the solutions are of a collectivist, state empowered nature.
Hard to say. What I do suspect, however, is that if the World could have its time again - knowing what we now do - the plan A response would have been a rigorous China style lockdown/quarantine starting soon after they imposed theirs and maintained until the disease was squashed.
I agree in theory, but we are liberal democracies - people would have kicked off big time if we'd gone in all Red-Guards-style when everything still looked perfectly normal and without a sniffle in sight.
Maybe so. But if all countries had done it at the same time it might have held for just long enough. Horrible but short-lived and ultimately beneficial. One thinks of the wounded hero in an action film who takes a slug of hooch and pulls the bullet from his belly. A few scenes later he is good as new.
If I were close to Labour's leadership (which I'm not - things have simply movede on and I don't know most of the fronmt bench), I'd be giving serious thought to an integrated NHS+social care model which offered real benefits in the latter part. I think that would meet the "We want a better future" post-45 spirit and would fill a gap which we all see. The Tories have really blown the "we can't afford it" line (current deficit spending makes McDonnell look positively Thatcherite), and focusing on that rather than stuff like free broadband would go with the flow of Labour thinking. Couple that with "And we'll fix the renewed NHS waiting list problem" (as per Foxy's piece) and you've got a pretty fpcused core element to the programme.
And how will you pay for that?
Not that any journalists are asking that question at the moment, so perhaps Labour should just go for it.
No one has cared how anything is paid for since 2016.
I'd argue since 1997!
2010 and 2015 were all about being holier than thou. Then Conservatives opened the fridge door, saw their favourite hooch and have been bingeing on it ever since.
The fact is that societies up until ours never had to deal with substantial numbers of people over the age of 80.
Its great for many to enjoy their family being around for much longer, but the costs are enormous. The burden of the young was already heavy before Corona virus. After it, the burden will be crushing. Its getting to the point where this is destabilising society.
Are you proposing a Logan's Run solution? What age should the cut-off be set at?
Not fair. Not fair.
When a solution is suggested, as in the May election manifesto, it is labelled the 'death tax'
What will not work is to impose more burdens on young people. That will result in far worse care for older folk in the long run.
Quite. What this doesn't mean is compulsory euthanasia for the aged. What it does mean is that the well-off and their heirs are going to have to give up on the notion of young people paying through the nose in order that inheritances may pass largely unimpeded.
You can argue about whether or not Theresa May came up with the correct model in 2017, but the principle itself - that society is so full of old people that making those with means contribute more to their care needs is essential - was sound. Basically she paid the price for underestimating the greed of the comfortable middle classes.
Those in residential care already have to sell their home to pay for it, it was selling the family home to pay for at home care that was so unpopular. No party will touch that again after May's suicidal dementia tax.
National Insurance will have to pay for it instead
She managed office, but not power. The gap between the two is astronomical in our system.
Power is not an end in itself it's what you do with it. For Boris it was far more about getting it than any driving motivation ambition of what he would do with it once he got it. I'm not even convinced he's that bothered about Brexit - it was simply the vehicle to get him where he wanted.
I actually agree with you
I am beginning to wonder if Boris may seek a short extension to brexit or even move a little to see a deal
Why? The assertion that the Government has little to gain from delay appears sound.
The trading relationship being requested is relatively loose and both sides are insisting on terms that the other finds onerous. It may actually be easier for both the UK and the EU to give up than attempt a compromise.
Besides, hyperventilating media types and some export businesses in particular may fret at the prospect of a cliff-edge Brexit, but they're not the key voter groups that helped to deliver the Government its majority. Being seen to dither and prevaricate over Brexit risks driving a lot of its new support away and resuscitating the career of Farage.
Just a thought, provoked by something in the Observer. Trump is re-elected. Picks another row with China and leaves the WTO. Maybe even without having an overt row with China. Where does that leave WTO 'rules'? And what happens to a country whose trading relationship are based on those rules?
WTO rules are not enforced against the US or China anyway, ask Antigua for example how they are getting on with their case against the US from 2003. They won, were awarded $21 million per year compensation. So far they have not been paid and were owed $315m as of 2018.
Brits hear the word rules and think they mean something. In this case they dont, with the WTO might has been right, and it will be even more so as we enter the next decade.
How we dont see this when its blatantly obvious I have no idea, WTO rules are far less enforceable than EU rules, and we didnt like EU rules as not enough countries were following them as closely as we did. The Tory rights love affair with the WTO wont last much longer than most of the PMs affairs.
Mr. Scott, I find the food retailers aspect pretty weird.
They've been working hard and ensured supplies remained solid even when people were panic-buying, and their staff have been some of the few to be persistently in contact with the public on a daily basis.
Not sure why they should be subject to a pernicious tax on top of that.
Not a fan of windfall taxes generally but there's more of a case for one (or less of an argument against, to be precise) when it comes to online retailers.
Don't see why people doing business should be penalised. The money they make allows them to do helpful things like provide the public with food and the state with taxes.
There is a contradiction built into reality. To be taxed in any significant way you have to be honest and successful. There is no-one else to get all that money out of. Drug dealers, bank robbers and benefits junkies are not good sources of revenue. Hard working businesses are.
Legalising drugs would raise billions in tax and save a fortune on the police and prisons.
Shame about the brain damage.
But they’re only druggies, right?
The same could be said about alcohol, and tobacco isn’t a health tonic.
I think I ultimately agree with you that most illegal drugs should stay that way, but you can’t just use a simple harm test.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
Same experience with my children. They are at different private schools and both are experiencing a very impressive online and zoom offering. Private emails to teachers whenever needed and telephone calls too.
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
My sons are both at a local state comp.
My eldest has started A level work since the GCSEs were cancelled. He might be able to fit in an extra one.
My youngest has a special timetable. The whole thing is run though Google Docs. It’s excellent. He starts work at 830 and stops a 1400. Communal assemblies each week. We get emails if homework is not done on time.
As good as the best in the private sector. I imagine experiences vary by school across the country regardless of sector.
That`s impressive. Fair play. This doesn`t chime with what I`m hearing from parents with children in state schiools round here. They are reporting posted assigments (not even emailed), little or no marking/feedback. When they manage to get a teacher`s email address, it bounces back "mailbox not attended". That`s what I`m hearing.
Given such things (the issues of GPs we discussed the other day) - can we finally get rid of the idea that all of X in a public service are delivering Y levels of service?
Exactly. When the schools are functioning normally we hear regular bleats about the terror of Ofsted inspections, but the plain fact is that some schools are brilliant, some are average and some are total shite. Presumably it is not unreasonable to suppose that a mechanism should exist to differentiate between them.
Likewise with GPs. I have to say that the experiences I and my relatives have had recently with ours have been excellent. OTOH we heard downthread from another PBer who couldn't even get a repeat prescription sorted because his surgery had simply shut up shop and everyone had buggered off home.
What we absolutely must not allow to happen as a result of all of this is for a culture to become embedded within the public sector that regards the population as being there to serve it rather than the other way around. The treatment of the NHS as a deity to be worshipped is especially unhealthy and really ought to stop, although whether it will is another matter.
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
And the really weird thing about this is that it is the left and the unions making unrealistic demands that will, if they succeed, push the poor and disadvantaged children to the bottom rung of the ladder
The comments by Pidcock, Starmer and many others on the left, that teachers "cannot go back until it is safe" are risible and politically motivated. It`s about time the government attacked such idiotic comments.
As a thought exercise, write the headline for the cluster of 23 victims in the Auchtermuchty Academy, contrasting it with the government's attack on safety fears.
Yep. I think we can probably surmise what caused this. There was such a desperation to get rid of the elderly from hospitals, to clear capacity for new Covid patients, that they were just thrown at the care homes to get them out of the way. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that homes which initially refused to have them back were threatened (by councils?) with having funding withdrawn if they dug their heels in, so they gave in. We all know how this ended.
Looking at what's happened abroad it looks like pretty well everyone screwed up when it came to care homes, but that doesn't make the failure any more excusable.
In England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.
I presume that in a bad winter flu epidemic, the bulk of deaths are also in care homes?
Still shocking numbers mind. A tacit acceptance by the NHS that if they were over 80, there really was in all likelihood nothing that could be done for victims? Outcomes were proving very poor for the elderly taken into hospital - they just didn't respond. So let them die in the place they knew as home...
Have to say it has been a shocking failure across the UK and many other countries. In the main these homes have been run like puppy farms just to make venture capitalists money. Needs to be a complete rethink of the whole social care policy.
The NHS needs to take it over. Integration and state funding of both might have been in Nye Bevan's original plan, but somehow they got separated and UK social care seems to have become as useless as the US healthcare system ... well, maybe not quite as bad, but pretty awful.
Completely disagree.
The NHS is unwieldy as it is.
I’d look at ways to separate primary, acute, chronic and long-term care from a management perspective.
They have different needs and different requirements
The fact is that societies up until ours never had to deal with substantial numbers of people over the age of 80.
Its great for many to enjoy their family being around for much longer, but the costs are enormous. The burden of the young was already heavy before Corona virus. After it, the burden will be crushing. Its getting to the point where this is destabilising society.
Are you proposing a Logan's Run solution? What age should the cut-off be set at?
Not fair. Not fair.
When a solution is suggested, as in the May election manifesto, it is labelled the 'death tax'
What will not work is to impose more burdens on young people. That will result in far worse care for older folk in the long run.
Quite. What this doesn't mean is compulsory euthanasia for the aged. What it does mean is that the well-off and their heirs are going to have to give up on the notion of young people paying through the nose in order that inheritances may pass largely unimpeded.
You can argue about whether or not Theresa May came up with the correct model in 2017, but the principle itself - that society is so full of old people that making those with means contribute more to their care needs is essential - was sound. Basically she paid the price for underestimating the greed of the comfortable middle classes.
Those in residential care already have to sell their home to pay for it, it was selling the family home to pay for at home care that was so unpopular. No party will touch that again after May's suicidal dementia tax.
National Insurance will have to pay for it instead
In which case pensioners will have to be bled for National Insurance. There is no way around this problem. Oldies must cough up if they can. There aren't enough workers left to support them.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
When this is finally over the Department of Health should consider paying for fat people to attend slimming clubs. If we could succeed even in getting a fifth of the obese population down into the overweight category and a tenth of the overweight population down into the healthy range then the benefits would be well worth the expenditure.
No - make it universal. That way the gym rats will vote for it. Who doesn't like a freebie?
Erm, I was effectively suggesting universality. At the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious, people who are a healthy weight already would derive no benefit from going.
BTW I'm also suggesting that we invite rather than compel people. Losing weight is a hard slog and you need to be ready and willing to give it a go. Not everyone will be up for it on day one, and trying before they are would be counterproductive.
There are fat healthy people and there are unhealthy thin people. Your genes may predispose you to 'thriftily' gaining weight or 'wastefully' burning off all the excess energy intake. Search 'metabolic health'.
The fact is that societies up until ours never had to deal with substantial numbers of people over the age of 80.
Its great for many to enjoy their family being around for much longer, but the costs are enormous. The burden of the young was already heavy before Corona virus. After it, the burden will be crushing. Its getting to the point where this is destabilising society.
Are you proposing a Logan's Run solution? What age should the cut-off be set at?
Not fair. Not fair.
When a solution is suggested, as in the May election manifesto, it is labelled the 'death tax'
What will not work is to impose more burdens on young people. That will result in far worse care for older folk in the long run.
Quite. What this doesn't mean is compulsory euthanasia for the aged. What it does mean is that the well-off and their heirs are going to have to give up on the notion of young people paying through the nose in order that inheritances may pass largely unimpeded.
You can argue about whether or not Theresa May came up with the correct model in 2017, but the principle itself - that society is so full of old people that making those with means contribute more to their care needs is essential - was sound. Basically she paid the price for underestimating the greed of the comfortable middle classes.
Those in residential care already have to sell their home to pay for it, it was selling the family home to pay for at home care that was so unpopular. No party will touch that again after May's suicidal dementia tax.
National Insurance will have to pay for it instead
You've been telling us that there will be no tax rises so how do you expect national insurance to pay for it ?
guaranteed to be rubbish but absolutely shocking that you find this topic funny Harry. I know you have the Scottish cringe but that is bad. It is a hash of the usual no hopers saying SNPBasd, bit like my previous post on carcrash care home numbers, he mixed up Scottish and English numbers as he transferred them from his fingers. Keep trying and one day you will get your English badge.
I understand England has confirmed 17,000 tracers appointed to date and it will be up and running by the end of the month
Having a go at Scotland at zero is fair
G, you rage about anyone criticising Boris, government etc yet someone laughing at such a sensitive topic is ok in your book, have a think. PS: The Daily Record and the lying Tories in the article have no idea who has or has not been hired. Maybe you should be laughing at the 100K a day that was supposedly achieved once by Hancock booking himself 40K tests and never ever met again.
You protest too much Malc
As of today England have hired 17,000 Scotland nil
Maybe you should be asking Nicola why
G, you don't half talk rubbish at times. You are blinded by your lapdog obedience to Tories and unionism, willing to believe any crap they spew out. I could ask you to prove your fatuous comment that Scotland have nil given you do not have a clue who they have or have not hired. Perhaps a bit of research would show you the reality of the matter rather than jsut spouting Tory lies.
Advertising started on 11 May We have roles in our new Contact Trace Team. Apply up to May 22nd and help save lives. Competitive NHS pay and benefits. Note date for close of applications. Scotland did not just hire one of the Tories tame donors at great expense to do a shit job so both they and the Tories could profit. They are actually hiring people in NHS roles and ensuring they are paid real rates and not just handing money over to some gouger. You will see applications close on 22nd May and so it is hard to understand you pathetic claim that they have hired nil, given the interviews / applications are not closed. Time to think before you just regurgitate garbage , especially that coming from harry , Scottish Tory liars and Daily Record.
The Tories got 44% at the last general election, so just under 80% of that came from those intending to vote Brexit Party last year when May led the Tories.
Without Leave voters as that poll showed the Tories were on 9% and fifth, with them they were first comfortably
Yep. I think we can probably surmise what caused this. There was such a desperation to get rid of the elderly from hospitals, to clear capacity for new Covid patients, that they were just thrown at the care homes to get them out of the way. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that homes which initially refused to have them back were threatened (by councils?) with having funding withdrawn if they dug their heels in, so they gave in. We all know how this ended.
Looking at what's happened abroad it looks like pretty well everyone screwed up when it came to care homes, but that doesn't make the failure any more excusable.
In England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.
I presume that in a bad winter flu epidemic, the bulk of deaths are also in care homes?
Still shocking numbers mind. A tacit acceptance by the NHS that if they were over 80, there really was in all likelihood nothing that could be done for victims? Outcomes were proving very poor for the elderly taken into hospital - they just didn't respond. So let them die in the place they knew as home...
Have to say it has been a shocking failure across the UK and many other countries. In the main these homes have been run like puppy farms just to make venture capitalists money. Needs to be a complete rethink of the whole social care policy.
Absolutely right
We can't afford that, though, just like we can;t afford a new normal. The evidence is we will shortly be very, very bankrupt.
People talk about innovation and new ways of working for certain industries without giving a single detail of what those ways are. That is because those alternative ways do not exist.
We either live with coronavirus or, essentially, our society disintegrates. Health education, the economy, the whole thing
And for most people its pretty liveable with.
Good post Contrarian
Why doesn’t the government ‘level with the British public’ and say we’re broke and we can’t afford to lockdown any further regardless of the ongoing risks.
Agreed. They should do. They are not leading they are weathervaning.
They won`t take us out of lockdown until opinion polls and focus groups tell them it`s OK. The polls won`t say it`s OK while: 1) Sunak keeps chucking money at people for staying at home and 2) politicians and the media are terryfying people about the virus, saying things like "don`t go back to work until it`s safe".
Of course it`s not safe FFS. Public perception of risk is appalling. I told a family member the other day that Covid has a survival rate of over 99% and she flatly disbelieved me. I asked her what she though the survival rate was and she said 50/50.
The lockdown served a number of purposes.
The primary purpose was to avoid the horror of people dying in hospital corridors. And thankfully that was achieved.
The second purpose was to buy time. Time to figure a post lockdown policy and build up capacity in services like testing. I think the goal might have been to get cases down so that track and trace was viable again. Sadly that has not been achieved.
So where are we and why can't we lockdown a bit more?
In short, the public finances have collapsed. So we are now in the invidious position of having to exit lockdown into a very muddy context, where the possibility of returning to the pre-lockdown situation has not and can not be ruled out.
The government should be focusing on delivering and communicating mitigating measures that maintain (or regain) public confidence. Arguably as we leave lockdown, the best action would have been to be more stringent on certain things. It could have insisted on masks for example.
Instead it appears to be rushing the whole thing, probably driven by the critical state of the nations finances. It's saying 'it will be fine' doesn't really wash. Especially, when it hasn't told the whole story about how the lockdown has screwed the economy. As a result it does not add up.
In short, the government has made two mistakes.
1) It has not set out the economic picture. 2) It has done nothing to mitigate the risks of exiting lockdown.
Excellent post, Jonathan.
I`m forever arguing that the economic (and liberty) aspects of this have been undervalued and have not been communicated. Most of the public do not understand the first thing about public finances (e.g. believing that the government has its own money somehow, rather than just administering ours).
Scaring the public over health is easy (and appeals to the journos). The economy is dry and difficult.
My main beef at the moment is that this government`s populism is costing the country dearly.
She managed office, but not power. The gap between the two is astronomical in our system.
Power is not an end in itself it's what you do with it. For Boris it was far more about getting it than any driving motivation ambition of what he would do with it once he got it. I'm not even convinced he's that bothered about Brexit - it was simply the vehicle to get him where he wanted.
I actually agree with you
I am beginning to wonder if Boris may seek a short extension to brexit or even move a little to see a deal
Why? The assertion that the Government has little to gain from delay appears sound.
The trading relationship being requested is relatively loose and both sides are insisting on terms that the other finds onerous. It may actually be easier for both the UK and the EU to give up than attempt a compromise.
Besides, hyperventilating media types and some export businesses in particular may fret at the prospect of a cliff-edge Brexit, but they're not the key voter groups that helped to deliver the Government its majority. Being seen to dither and prevaricate over Brexit risks driving a lot of its new support away and resuscitating the career of Farage.
Just a thought, provoked by something in the Observer. Trump is re-elected. Picks another row with China and leaves the WTO. Maybe even without having an overt row with China. Where does that leave WTO 'rules'? And what happens to a country whose trading relationship are based on those rules?
Piffle! Everything will be fine... (waves hand airly about) ... something will sort it out ... we are a mighty economy, we are GREAT Britain! (cue the National Anthem)
It should be interesting to watch, but probably best seen from a distance
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
Same experience with my children. They are at different private schools and both are experiencing a very impressive online and zoom offering. Private emails to teachers whenever needed and telephone calls too.
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
My partner works in a primary school, around 40% of children are doing their online work. The Unions are playing political games at the expense of children's education
It just sums up the public mood that is scared, while we know humans are very poor at assessing risk.
We have been told this thing is bad and seen all the footage of inside hospitals. So the public think s##t this is really dangerous to everybody, so we should just wait it out until its safe (when the reality is that isn't going to work).
The problem we have had is we have gone from far too relaxed in the early days, where people were told 80% of people who get this it is mild*, so they thought so its just like a bit of a cold and not going to miss the big nag festival or live concert. Now to the other extreme, where everybody thinks it is going to kill them.
*when by mild for a lot of people it is worst flu they ever had.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
Positive nudge is probably cheaper, easier to implement. A Vitality type system for the general population would probably save the NHS money.
When this is finally over the Department of Health should consider paying for fat people to attend slimming clubs. If we could succeed even in getting a fifth of the obese population down into the overweight category and a tenth of the overweight population down into the healthy range then the benefits would be well worth the expenditure.
I see your point, but - hmmm - that`s a bit too big brother for me.
I don't think a gym subsidy is "big brother". However it does risk the perception that by being fat you get a bonus that other people want but have to pay for.
Go to a french town of say 20,000 people and it will have public sports and leisure facilities equivalent to an English town of 100,000.
Thats why they get to eat croissants, cheese, four course meals for lunch and still be fitter than us.
Extra sports and leisure facilities will not help if people will not use them.
A walk every evening is free and very effective for weight loss.
The fact is that societies up until ours never had to deal with substantial numbers of people over the age of 80.
Its great for many to enjoy their family being around for much longer, but the costs are enormous. The burden of the young was already heavy before Corona virus. After it, the burden will be crushing. Its getting to the point where this is destabilising society.
Are you proposing a Logan's Run solution? What age should the cut-off be set at?
Not fair. Not fair.
When a solution is suggested, as in the May election manifesto, it is labelled the 'death tax'
What will not work is to impose more burdens on young people. That will result in far worse care for older folk in the long run.
Quite. What this doesn't mean is compulsory euthanasia for the aged. What it does mean is that the well-off and their heirs are going to have to give up on the notion of young people paying through the nose in order that inheritances may pass largely unimpeded.
You can argue about whether or not Theresa May came up with the correct model in 2017, but the principle itself - that society is so full of old people that making those with means contribute more to their care needs is essential - was sound. Basically she paid the price for underestimating the greed of the comfortable middle classes.
Those in residential care already have to sell their home to pay for it, it was selling the family home to pay for at home care that was so unpopular. No party will touch that again after May's suicidal dementia tax.
National Insurance will have to pay for it instead
You've been telling us that there will be no tax rises so how do you expect national insurance to pay for it ?
As it should be an insurance not a tax as originally intended and it would avoid a dementia tax or wealth tax or rise in inheritance tax
My son is at private school. He is getting 3-4 online classes a day. He is set homework which is promptly marked, his teachers respond to his numerous emails, they are available for 1-1 explanations as required. It’s not quite school but for a highly motivated boy like him it’s pretty close.
His school already gets more science passes at higher than the 8 state schools in Dundee. Most of those he will be competing against for his advanced Highers next year are getting absolutely minimal educational input and are being left to their own devices. It’s frankly not close to being fair. It’s not that fair in normal times but Covid is increasing the disparities to breaking point.
Kids need to get back to school before their education is irredeemably ruined. Poor kids most of all. There is no acceptable alternative.
Same experience with my children. They are at different private schools and both are experiencing a very impressive online and zoom offering. Private emails to teachers whenever needed and telephone calls too.
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
My partner works in a primary school, around 40% of children are doing their online work. The Unions are playing political games at the expense of children's education
She managed office, but not power. The gap between the two is astronomical in our system.
Power is not an end in itself it's what you do with it. For Boris it was far more about getting it than any driving motivation ambition of what he would do with it once he got it. I'm not even convinced he's that bothered about Brexit - it was simply the vehicle to get him where he wanted.
I actually agree with you
I am beginning to wonder if Boris may seek a short extension to brexit or even move a little to see a deal
Why? The assertion that the Government has little to gain from delay appears sound.
The trading relationship being requested is relatively loose and both sides are insisting on terms that the other finds onerous. It may actually be easier for both the UK and the EU to give up than attempt a compromise.
Besides, hyperventilating media types and some export businesses in particular may fret at the prospect of a cliff-edge Brexit, but they're not the key voter groups that helped to deliver the Government its majority. Being seen to dither and prevaricate over Brexit risks driving a lot of its new support away and resuscitating the career of Farage.
Just a thought, provoked by something in the Observer. Trump is re-elected. Picks another row with China and leaves the WTO. Maybe even without having an overt row with China. Where does that leave WTO 'rules'? And what happens to a country whose trading relationship are based on those rules?
WTO rules are not enforced against the US or China anyway, ask Antigua for example how they are getting on with their case against the US from 2003. They won, were awarded $21 million per year compensation. So far they have not been paid and were owed $315m as of 2018.
Brits hear the word rules and think they mean something. In this case they dont, with the WTO might has been right, and it will be even more so as we enter the next decade.
How we dont see this when its blatantly obvious I have no idea, WTO rules are far less enforceable than EU rules, and we didnt like EU rules as not enough countries were following them as closely as we did. The Tory rights love affair with the WTO wont last much longer than most of the PMs affairs.
Yep. I think we can probably surmise what caused this. There was such a desperation to get rid of the elderly from hospitals, to clear capacity for new Covid patients, that they were just thrown at the care homes to get them out of the way. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that homes which initially refused to have them back were threatened (by councils?) with having funding withdrawn if they dug their heels in, so they gave in. We all know how this ended.
Looking at what's happened abroad it looks like pretty well everyone screwed up when it came to care homes, but that doesn't make the failure any more excusable.
In England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.
I presume that in a bad winter flu epidemic, the bulk of deaths are also in care homes?
Still shocking numbers mind. A tacit acceptance by the NHS that if they were over 80, there really was in all likelihood nothing that could be done for victims? Outcomes were proving very poor for the elderly taken into hospital - they just didn't respond. So let them die in the place they knew as home...
Have to say it has been a shocking failure across the UK and many other countries. In the main these homes have been run like puppy farms just to make venture capitalists money. Needs to be a complete rethink of the whole social care policy.
Absolutely right
We can't afford that, though, just like we can;t afford a new normal. The evidence is we will shortly be very, very bankrupt.
People talk about innovation and new ways of working for certain industries without giving a single detail of what those ways are. That is because those alternative ways do not exist.
We either live with coronavirus or, essentially, our society disintegrates. Health education, the economy, the whole thing
And for most people its pretty liveable with.
Good post Contrarian
Why doesn’t the government ‘level with the British public’ and say we’re broke and we can’t afford to lockdown any further regardless of the ongoing risks.
Agreed. They should do. They are not leading they are weathervaning.
They won`t take us out of lockdown until opinion polls and focus groups tell them it`s OK. The polls won`t say it`s OK while: 1) Sunak keeps chucking money at people for staying at home and 2) politicians and the media are terryfying people about the virus, saying things like "don`t go back to work until it`s safe".
Of course it`s not safe FFS. Public perception of risk is appalling. I told a family member the other day that Covid has a survival rate of over 99% and she flatly disbelieved me. I asked her what she though the survival rate was and she said 50/50.
The lockdown served a number of purposes.
The primary purpose was to avoid the horror of people dying in hospital corridors. And thankfully that was achieved.
The second purpose was to buy time. Time to figure a post lockdown policy and build up capacity in services like testing. I think the goal might have been to get cases down so that track and trace was viable again. Sadly that has not been achieved.
So where are we and why can't we lockdown a bit more?
In short, the public finances have collapsed. So we are now in the invidious position of having to exit lockdown into a very muddy context, where the possibility of returning to the pre-lockdown situation has not and can not be ruled out.
The government should be focusing on delivering and communicating mitigating measures that maintain (or regain) public confidence. Arguably as we leave lockdown, the best action would have been to be more stringent on certain things. It could have insisted on masks for example.
Instead it appears to be rushing the whole thing, probably driven by the critical state of the nations finances. It's saying 'it will be fine' doesn't really wash. Especially, when it hasn't told the whole story about how the lockdown has screwed the economy. As a result it does not add up.
In short, the government has made two mistakes.
1) It has not set out the economic picture. 2) It has done nothing to mitigate the risks of exiting lockdown.
Excellent post, Jonathan.
I`m forever arguing that the economic (and liberty) aspects of this have been undervalued and have not been communicated. Most of the public do not understand the first thing about public finances (e.g. believing that the government has its own money somehow, rather than just administering ours).
Scaring the public over health is easy (and appeals to the journos). The economy is dry and difficult.
My main beef at the moment is that this government`s populism is costing the country dearly.
As Jonathan says, why doesn't the government just level with the electorate?
That's exactly what the local state school I know of are setting up, practicing and generally working on at the moment.
It is also what has been done in other countries, I believe.
Completely unworkable for a large number of schools unless you take only half the pupils back.
We know parents are going to be very selective in sending their children back. Pretty easy to see this could work for the rest of the summer term.
Come September we are going to have to decide collectively, as a nation, upon one of two solutions:
1. Let all the kids go back to school full-time 2. Mass redundancy of working parents
Given the prospect of a long-term (possibly endless) health and safety panic over Covid, it looks like the full-time, non-earning, stay-at-home Mummy may be about to make a major comeback. This is going to take a sledgehammer to the living standards of a substantial proportion of all the country's households. Many of them will simply end up broke.
It just sums up the public mood that is scared, while we know humans are very poor at assessing risk.
We have been told this thing is bad and seen all the footage of inside hospitals. So the public think s##t this is really dangerous to everybody, so we should just wait it out until its safe (when the reality is that isn't going to work).
The problem we have had is we have gone from far too relaxed in the early days, where people were told 80% of people who get this it is mild*, so they thought so its just like a bit of a cold and not going to miss the big nag festival or live concert. Now to the other extreme, where everybody thinks it is going to kill them.
*when by mild for a lot of people it is worst flu they ever had.
Without disagreeing with you, there is no one with the credibility to tell the public that the time has come to step out a bit. No one has invested in telling the public uncomfortable things till now and those who have advocated ending the lockdown have never acknowledged that there is a problem.
Excellent thread @Foxy - I don't envy the task facing those working in the NHS. I would take issue with this:
Non surgical specialities including mental health will be similarly affected, though these get less media attention.
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about mental health. Sure enough, the Sky News presenter Niall Paterson has just said he's starting to suffer and they'll be discussing it on (I think) the Sophy Ridge show.
Have to say the UK has turned into a bunch of wimps. Everybody seems to be ill and cannot cope with anything nowadays, why does it have top billing in every disorder known to man.
To be honest Malc we have a close family member suffering from PTSD after rescuing bodies in an earthquake zone. It is not something to dismiss so easily to be honest
G, I understand people can be really ill with these types of things but why does UK have so high a number for all these ailments and disabilities. It is the saddest , fattest , unhealthiest , most disabled country in the developed world.
See, when you put it like that you have a really good point.
That was my point , perhaps not well put the first time.
A friend of mine has been going on about this & it's really valid. How many obesity-related deaths occur each year in the UK? You don't see a lot of fuss being made about it but his argument is that we should accept coronavirus is around and focus rather on obesity and exercise.
Crisp tax anyone?
I doubt that these kinds of sin taxes have the intended effect. They simply make things that taste nice less affordable for poor people.
That is the intended effect.
That's not fully true. What we've seen with the sugar tax so far is that manufacturers change their ingredients accordingly, thus benefiting everyone. The only price difference I ever see is 5p saved on my can of cola.
I’m sorry but swapping out sugar for artificial sweeteners does not “benefit everyone”. It tastes like ass.
Comments
Hard to say. What I do suspect, however, is that if the World could have its time again - knowing what we now do - the plan A response would have been a rigorous China style lockdown/quarantine starting soon after they imposed theirs and maintained until the disease was squashed.
Consider the following statistic - between 1865 and 1965 no white man in Alabama was convicted of murdering a black man. Does that mean that 1965 was the year that race relations went bad in Alabama?
Reporting a problem is often the first problem - remember the idiot from the UN who said that women in the UK are worse off than in third world countries.
*Which weren't very good.
When a solution is suggested, as in the May election manifesto, it is labelled the 'death tax'
What will not work is to impose more burdens on young people. That will result in far worse care for older folk in the long run.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1261952488208502784
So perhaps the question becomes: why are state schools not providing similar to private schools? Remember that state school teachers are on 100% of salary. Do state school teachers have a soft-touch employer? Is more demanded of private school teachers, employed by non-state actors funded by parents? He who pays the piper ....?
I am beginning to wonder if Boris may seek a short extension to brexit or even move a little to see a deal
If you think about it, the tracers will have access to a lot of confidential information. Perfect fishing ground for scammers, criminals and weirdos.
This was why, until very recently, there were few who had completed the hiring process in England. Then a huge number cleared the vetting process at around the same time.
My eldest has started A level work since the GCSEs were cancelled. He might be able to fit in an extra one.
My youngest has a special timetable. The whole thing is run though Google Docs. It’s excellent. He starts work at 830 and stops a 1400. Communal assemblies each week. We get emails if homework is not done on time.
As good as the best in the private sector. I imagine experiences vary by school across the country regardless of sector.
There is an argument for the policy, nonetheless, but government is being dishonest as usual. At the very least they ought to be ensuring that older teachers are not going back into school (and given the age profile of teachers that wouldn’t even be particularly disruptive).
I had occasion to talk to a Labour politician on this, a while back. He was totally non-plussed when I asked what ratio of care-vs-research he would fund on this. His interest was entirely on care - it took awhile for him to understand the point I was making.
My point was that treatments for the various issues of old age are being worked on. If some succeed, the benefits will be enormous - to the individuals, their families and to society at large.
The trading relationship being requested is relatively loose and both sides are insisting on terms that the other finds onerous. It may actually be easier for both the UK and the EU to give up than attempt a compromise.
Besides, hyperventilating media types and some export businesses in particular may fret at the prospect of a cliff-edge Brexit, but they're not the key voter groups that helped to deliver the Government its majority. Being seen to dither and prevaricate over Brexit risks driving a lot of its new support away and resuscitating the career of Farage.
Not sure I subscribe to the idea of creating a modern Sparta.
"It does seem from what we know now that children are less capable of spreading it even if they get the infection," she said.
All the teachers I know in the state sector are working full time.
Where does that leave WTO 'rules'?
And what happens to a country whose trading relationship are based on those rules?
Mind you, when the private school closes due to all the Chinese students not turning up they will scream louder than ever.....
*I am thinking of a couple I knew. Both management consultants in the NHS. His and hers Range Rovers. Three kids in private school, big house. Apparently austerity was traumatic for them - they were forced to cut their hourly rates.
They won`t take us out of lockdown until opinion polls and focus groups tell them it`s OK. The polls won`t say it`s OK while: 1) Sunak keeps chucking money at people for staying at home and 2) politicians and the media are terryfying people about the virus, saying things like "don`t go back to work until it`s safe".
Of course it`s not safe FFS. Public perception of risk is appalling. I told a family member the other day that Covid has a survival rate of over 99% and she flatly disbelieved me. I asked her what she though the survival rate was and she said 50/50.
You can argue about whether or not Theresa May came up with the correct model in 2017, but the principle itself - that society is so full of old people that making those with means contribute more to their care needs is essential - was sound. Basically she paid the price for underestimating the greed of the comfortable middle classes.
Plus this - university admissions often work like this - The predicted high performing students often get a 2 As at B or similar *offers*.
Which meant, in my case, that the moment I got the offer, I had a university place secured.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-antigua/antigua-losing-all-hope-of-u-s-payout-in-gambling-dispute-idUSKBN1JI0VZ
Brits hear the word rules and think they mean something. In this case they dont, with the WTO might has been right, and it will be even more so as we enter the next decade.
How we dont see this when its blatantly obvious I have no idea, WTO rules are far less enforceable than EU rules, and we didnt like EU rules as not enough countries were following them as closely as we did. The Tory rights love affair with the WTO wont last much longer than most of the PMs affairs.
It is also what has been done in other countries, I believe.
Answer: "Obviously, you can`t. Next question, make this one a better one".
The government is storing up problems for itself by perpetuating stupid notions.
BTW I'm also suggesting that we invite rather than compel people. Losing weight is a hard slog and you need to be ready and willing to give it a go. Not everyone will be up for it on day one, and trying before they are would be counterproductive.
I don't think a gym subsidy is "big brother". However it does risk the perception that by being fat you get a bonus that other people want but have to pay for.
If I were close to Labour's leadership (which I'm not - things have simply movede on and I don't know most of the fronmt bench), I'd be giving serious thought to an integrated NHS+social care model which offered real benefits in the latter part. I think that would meet the "We want a better future" post-45 spirit and would fill a gap which we all see. The Tories have really blown the "we can't afford it" line (current deficit spending makes McDonnell look positively Thatcherite), and focusing on that rather than stuff like free broadband would go with the flow of Labour thinking. Couple that with "And we'll fix the renewed NHS waiting list problem" (as per Foxy's piece) and you've got a pretty fpcused core element to the programme.
Not that any journalists are asking that question at the moment, so perhaps Labour should just go for it.
The primary purpose was to avoid the horror of people dying in hospital corridors. And thankfully that was achieved.
The second purpose was to buy time. Time to figure a post lockdown policy and build up capacity in services like testing. I think the goal might have been to get cases down so that track and trace was viable again. Sadly that has not been achieved.
So where are we and why can't we lockdown a bit more?
In short, the public finances have collapsed. So we are now in the invidious position of having to exit lockdown into a very muddy context, where the possibility of returning to the pre-lockdown situation has not and can not be ruled out.
The government should be focusing on delivering and communicating mitigating measures that maintain (or regain) public confidence. Arguably as we leave lockdown, the best action would have been to be more stringent on certain things. It could have insisted on masks for example.
Instead it appears to be rushing the whole thing, probably driven by the critical state of the nations finances. It's saying 'it will be fine' doesn't really wash. Especially, when it hasn't told the whole story about how the lockdown has screwed the economy. As a result it does not add up.
In short, the government has made two mistakes.
1) It has not set out the economic picture.
2) It has done nothing to mitigate the risks of exiting lockdown.
Thats why they get to eat croissants, cheese, four course meals for lunch and still be fitter than us.
But they’re only druggies, right?
If people are really anti government tracking etc, they can just write any old crap on the paperwork.
National Insurance will have to pay for it instead
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1261323480903147521?s=20
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1261962536074829824
I think I ultimately agree with you that most illegal drugs should stay that way, but you can’t just use a simple harm test.
Likewise with GPs. I have to say that the experiences I and my relatives have had recently with ours have been excellent. OTOH we heard downthread from another PBer who couldn't even get a repeat prescription sorted because his surgery had simply shut up shop and everyone had buggered off home.
What we absolutely must not allow to happen as a result of all of this is for a culture to become embedded within the public sector that regards the population as being there to serve it rather than the other way around. The treatment of the NHS as a deity to be worshipped is especially unhealthy and really ought to stop, although whether it will is another matter.
By which point it will be too late.
The NHS is unwieldy as it is.
I’d look at ways to separate primary, acute, chronic and long-term care from a management perspective.
They have different needs and different requirements
Perhaps a bit of research would show you the reality of the matter rather than jsut spouting Tory lies.
Advertising started on 11 May
We have roles in our new Contact Trace Team. Apply up to May 22nd and help save lives. Competitive NHS pay and benefits.
Note date for close of applications.
Scotland did not just hire one of the Tories tame donors at great expense to do a shit job so both they and the Tories could profit.
They are actually hiring people in NHS roles and ensuring they are paid real rates and not just handing money over to some gouger.
You will see applications close on 22nd May and so it is hard to understand you pathetic claim that they have hired nil, given the interviews / applications are not closed.
Time to think before you just regurgitate garbage , especially that coming from harry , Scottish Tory liars and Daily Record.
Without Leave voters as that poll showed the Tories were on 9% and fifth, with them they were first comfortably
I`m forever arguing that the economic (and liberty) aspects of this have been undervalued and have not been communicated. Most of the public do not understand the first thing about public finances (e.g. believing that the government has its own money somehow, rather than just administering ours).
Scaring the public over health is easy (and appeals to the journos). The economy is dry and difficult.
My main beef at the moment is that this government`s populism is costing the country dearly.
It should be interesting to watch, but probably best seen from a distance
We have been told this thing is bad and seen all the footage of inside hospitals. So the public think s##t this is really dangerous to everybody, so we should just wait it out until its safe (when the reality is that isn't going to work).
The problem we have had is we have gone from far too relaxed in the early days, where people were told 80% of people who get this it is mild*, so they thought so its just like a bit of a cold and not going to miss the big nag festival or live concert. Now to the other extreme, where everybody thinks it is going to kill them.
*when by mild for a lot of people it is worst flu they ever had.
It’s a standard power play by an adviser. Brady has a very specific agenda - so why would you give him access to the PM.
A walk every evening is free and very effective for weight loss.
1. Let all the kids go back to school full-time
2. Mass redundancy of working parents
Given the prospect of a long-term (possibly endless) health and safety panic over Covid, it looks like the full-time, non-earning, stay-at-home Mummy may be about to make a major comeback. This is going to take a sledgehammer to the living standards of a substantial proportion of all the country's households. Many of them will simply end up broke.
The only pop I now buy is Coca Cola accordingly.