Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
redistributing billionnaires' wealth is not just a theoretical possibility
Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
- Thread starter Sasaferrato
- Start date
You do recall that the Tories won the last GE do you?
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Yes we aren't a poor country...far from it. In December, the Equality Trust reported that the UK's five richest families own more than the bottom 13 million people.
Louis MacNeice
It involves the government choosing to raise the money - they can borrow it, tax rich people more, whatever. They have the means at their disposal. TBH there's going to be massive intervention of this sort into the economy for the next while whatever happens.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Unfortunately
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
We are, If there is one thing that this crisis has proven is that Osborne was lying through his pearly whites about what the UK could and could not afford but even so it can't go on forever.
I don't know if we have reached the limit yet but there has to be one and at some point (and like you I don't know if that is now or a month from now) we will not be able to use it anymore. Perhaps now is not the right moment to re-open but will it better on the 10th June or the 10th July?
Humberto
minor kerfuffles ensue
People are really struggling in many cases. Is the government helping them? Is it being reasonable in saying 'work from home if possible, but otherwise go to work' whilst people are dying because the state won't put its hand in its pocket? It's inimical to them. I don't see the benefit of meekly going into trouble because the government isn't able to take drastic measures. Why rush us, the working class? Because they have been so slow footed and behind the curve throughout this pandemic and its encroachment? As it stands we are heading for the worst of all worlds: economic collapse and a worse pandemic. We are stuck in permanent limbo until they do indeed get a grip on the situation, and the longer they dither, the worse the consequences.
Exactly. The issues will remain, and so will every argument on this thread.
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
You talk as though the economy is force of nature with natural bounds, rather than something that (some) people decide to do.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
But that's the whole point, isn't it? We are where we are now due to a continual botching of the crisis right from the very start. Do the right things for a month - ie testing, ppe, tracing contacts when it becomes practical, etc - and there is no reason the UK couldn't drive its new cases down under 1,000 per day. So, it may not be better in a month's time, but if it still isn't much better, that will be due to failure of policy, as the shite state we're in today is due to failure of policy. They wasted weeks before lockdown pursuing the wrong policy, then they basically did fuck all in the first month of lockdown, thinking lockdown was the solution when it's merely the thing you do to buy time to work out the solution.
I don't want this to fail. I genuinely hope that new cases are down well under 1,000 per day in a month's time despite this government's appalling ineptitude, but it will be despite them not because of them. And the contradictory nonsense they came out with today merely signals a continuation of their incompetence. It's hard to believe, tbh, just how fucking useless they are.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Things could look very different in June or July. Cases might be low enough for a test/ contact trace/ isolate regime to work without getting swamped. There might be sufficient PPE for people to work safely. These things aren't the case now though, which is why people aren't 100% behind this.
Fair enough. Well, we’ll have to see what the numbers do I guess.
Cid
Proper break this time
Taking businesses off furlough is also going to create substantial problems. e.g any retail business that goes back to work is going to have the same tight margins and high expenses that they had before the pandemic, but now with vastly reduced customer base. Similar problems in manufacturing. Far fewer orders, far less activity. It's not as simple as 'lift lockdown, get back to normal'. Even if, as I just have, you totally ignore the risks associated with further outbreaks. What it would probably take is a carefully planned exit from lockdown (track, trace, regional response), combined with a major economic stimulus package. These things are possible, they've been done before, but the Tories are fundamentally ideologically opposed to them.
Raheem
Well-Known Member
I suspect part of the problem is that the goverment knows it has dropped the ball so badly that a month of doing things right is not on the cards anytime soon.
little_legs
Поехали!
Exactly. It's not like I am going to go on a high street tomorrow to buy some clothes and books.
A colleague of mine from Genoa, Italy was telling me the other day that when their local authorities allowed stationary shops, baby clothing shops and hair dressers to re-open, literally no one went to these places. Common sense prevailed and the shops shut down again because there was no point in keeping the doors of a shop open if customers are not stupid enough to risk their health & shop. The hairdressers in Italy were also given a strict directive to disinfect the place after each customer, so they ended up needing a 30 min interval between customers. I've not seen any cleaning in this country yet.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I get the impression they're still crossing their fingers and hoping this is a seasonal thing that will fade in June anyway. It might. But it might not. MERS doesn't.
Johnson didn't get where he is today by not taking reckless risks that could have led to disaster but instead led to his promotion. And this is, in the end, still all about him.
Maggot
The Cake of Liberty
Well, didn't expect any big changes or announcements. But and I can't believe I'm saying this, at least there was something. A vague roadmap of how we get out of this. Points about get back to work, public transport accepted. Though, like someone else said earlier, I live in a city I didn't grow up in, - don't know when or how I'm going to visit family any time soon, 10% capacity on public transport. 
BristolEcho
Well-Known Member
The whole "encouraged to go back to work" line is pissing me off as basically your boss says you go back then you have to go back.
Athos
Well-Known Member
How can you possibly say that, given we have the second highest number of deaths in the world?
editor
hiraethified
And thus releasing the govt of any obligation to pay any of your wages. RESULT!
It just won't work for commuters. Not because people are dicks (some are fo sure) but the infrastructure just can't accomidate people doing SD. I mean, you can't even keep 2m passing someone on the pavement let alone a ticket barrier, even if they left them open. Stair ways, station approaches, platforms etc.
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Print virtual money and support these people. THey did it for the banks and we're all loving that right. Inflatoin, yeah, but every country in the world is facing doing similar. Printing money is only an issue so far as it effects confidence in guilt bond investers. In this situation there's no shortage of manpower, raw materials. The inflationary pressures printing money would bring are entirely artificial, predicated on outmoded economic consensus.
I reckon.
Weller
So ermm ... You know ermm
Didn't catch it earlier so just watched it its extremely confusing and certainly is not just as simple for me to go back to my job in manufacturing as I was working through an agency that I usually work under the umbrella company payment system *bit like self employment but switched to PAYE as the company had a new contract with J.L.R .
We were all laid off due to no fresh orders , trials of all new items stopped and a backlog of stock due to J.L.R stopping production plus new build production area made it impossible to keep 2 metres , then the agency decided to furlough me themselves the following week so I could go back when the companies own furloughed staff returned again.
To late for me to contact agency obviously now about rushing back tomorrow not that Im too concerned but must be a fair few in same boat no idea about whats happening at their workplace etc , agency just said sit tight on furlough money if you can last week for another 3 weeks at least.
Now that all seems to have changed with Boris "get back to work" with approx 12 hours notice with people no idea about their furlough money etc as not supposed to do any work whilst on furlough job retention scheme
He seems well out of his depth and confused himself to me now since his "break" and more Trump like , dont know what all that keep glancing at his hands position was all about in middle of it either
Just seems a crazy speech to record and release on a Sunday when it should have been well rehearsed "go back and work tomorrow walk there or else go out and travel to see a friend in a park as long as you want drive there and do some sunbathing"
but maybe I need to watch it a few more times to get the gist of it all
We were all laid off due to no fresh orders , trials of all new items stopped and a backlog of stock due to J.L.R stopping production plus new build production area made it impossible to keep 2 metres , then the agency decided to furlough me themselves the following week so I could go back when the companies own furloughed staff returned again.
To late for me to contact agency obviously now about rushing back tomorrow not that Im too concerned but must be a fair few in same boat no idea about whats happening at their workplace etc , agency just said sit tight on furlough money if you can last week for another 3 weeks at least.
Now that all seems to have changed with Boris "get back to work" with approx 12 hours notice with people no idea about their furlough money etc as not supposed to do any work whilst on furlough job retention scheme
He seems well out of his depth and confused himself to me now since his "break" and more Trump like , dont know what all that keep glancing at his hands position was all about in middle of it either
Just seems a crazy speech to record and release on a Sunday when it should have been well rehearsed "go back and work tomorrow walk there or else go out and travel to see a friend in a park as long as you want drive there and do some sunbathing"
but maybe I need to watch it a few more times to get the gist of it all
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little_legs
Поехали!
Publishing proper guidance for businesses and local councils would at the very least allow them to prepare opening for businesses.Well, didn't expect any big changes or announcements. But and I can't believe I'm saying this, at least there was something. A vague roadmap of how we get out of this. Points about get back to work, public transport accepted. Though, like someone else said earlier, I live in a city I didn't grow up in, - don't know when or how I'm going to visit family any time soon, 10% capacity on public transport.
I hope that eventually they copy the Irish road-map that has been written by adults and can be understood by everyone.
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elbows
Well-Known Member
Its a sub group of SAGE, not SAGE as a whole. Specifically, it was the Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours.
Given what was in Johnsons speech today, I thought this bit was a key quote too:
Anyway thanks for bringing the unredacted version to our attention, it may have escaped my attention if you had not.
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