"we'll change the things that need changing and that's all we'll change": the paSUKification of post-brexit politics 2021

I'm sure they've done polling and research that shows the Great British Public are absolutely primed to blame 'other people' for any upsurge.

I just noticed that the horrible bigoted idiot Tory MP (Lee Anderson) who is boycotting the England side for taking the knee. Well he was that Labour MP who defected to the tories in 2018 over Corbz. He's got loads of previous: young offenders should be sent to forced labour camps/that faked encounter with a constituent filmed by Crick/investigated for anti-Semitism to name a few.

Beware of media/political false narratives that anyone concerned about 19th July opening is 'pro-lockdown'. The govt, has conveniently framed policy as 'lockdown' vs 'open-up', when many countries have kept people safe without needing long-term restrictions.🧵

— Deepti Gurdasani (@dgurdasani1) July 5, 2021

(xp) In deepest UDM country.

Unintelligent Dance Music?

It's my favourite kind of dance music.

The Union of Democratic Mineworkers, great bunch of lads.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/new-documents-reveal-true-extent-miners-cooperation-thatcher-a7851386.html

I remember them well but couldn't resist a cheap joke.

And what about ventilation? Ventilation doesn't restrict anyone. If the govt so wants life to return to normal, why not invest in ventilation that would make it possible for people to be in workplaces, and children to be in schools in a safer way, and allow schools to stay open.

What would this look like in practice, in a country with almost no air conditioning? I haven’t seen much detail on this but it would be genuinely interesting if someone has worked through the practicality of safely ventilating all work and study space.

the great thing about taking personal responsibility is that a lot of the precautions to prevent the spread of the virus involve not giving it to other people - so in effect the public will be free to decide from July 19 if they're safeguarding strangers. should go great.

can't wait to see how this goes for the retail and hospitality sectors. I can imagine some businesses maintaining a masks-on policy for all customers entering the premises, but no support for the people on the shop floor tasked with driving compliance.

yeah the masks-on policy is meaningless anyway since afaict most major chains make exceptions for health issues and how are you gonna evaluate whether a person is lying about those or not?

it's not even worth it. All you would get back is abuse. If you have genuine and real fears about your health, you'll order online and invite people you trust up to your house - you won't go into retail centres and restaurants because you understand how it could literally kill you.

it’s not “living with the virus” unless there’s actually halfway decent sick pay and proper support for people with long covid. this will just be living with increased rates of transmission

— Amelia Horgan (@AmeliaHorgan) July 4, 2021

From my own experience of shopping in supermarkets, the vast majority of people are wearing masks, exponentially more than were wearing them a year ago. It took a long time to get to that position, so good work UK governemnt flinging all that away to cover up for Matt Hancock groping his adviser's arse!

Tories and Lab are in full agreement so unless there are protests and strike actions the only way this goes is hospitalisations being so high the restrictions are pushed back somehow.

xp

Deaths per day would have to go back to triple figures before they ditch this. It's the herd immunity approach they always wanted.

Well hospitalisations per day without deaths could lead to collapse of the NHS?

Though the link between hospitalisations and deaths has been broken people feeling safe to do as they always have pre-covid will take time. Reckless actions don't help so I wonder if we will be looking at repressed economic activity until cases do really go down.

Which won't help the Tories, depending on how long it takes.

speaking of the NHS, the biggest underlying problem the NHS faces is the sort of bullshit from all sides of the centrist feeb spectrum celebrating its anniversary this year. people clap for it and cheer it and celebrate like it's a wonderful miracle of fucking nature and humanity and it's not, it's a fiercely contested political decision based on how you believe wealth should be managed in this shithole country and the sententious praise harms the project as much as any amount of sneaky backdoor profiteering

it ought to be treated as a matter of fact, a matter of history, a minimum fucking response to the needs of a nation state's population that's grossly underfunded and mismanaged and needs to be built up drastically alongside social care and all the other infrastructure that makes peoples lives at the very least liveable

you get more honesty from from these think tanks that want it replaced with an insurance-based model than you do from most Labour politicians. Especially the ones who spew out crap about our incredible NHS when they didn't oppose New Labour advancing PFI's much further than even Major thought was possible.

BlackRock (who are buying entire neighbourhoods at 20-30% over asking price), Lloyds, other financial institutions and now,perhaps most surprisingly, John Lewis, are becoming private landlords.

"Buy land, God isn't creating more. And the internet can't disrupt it. Amen" https://t.co/a4Fxwr0WYS

— Nels Abbey (@nelsabbey) July 5, 2021

Thank you er, David Davis for your resistance

Today the Government is presenting the Electoral Integrity Bill to the House. This Bill will contain provisions for Voter ID. Voter ID will potentially disenfranchise thousands of people. It is an illogical and illiberal solution to a non-existent problem

— David Davis (@DavidDavisMP) July 5, 2021

Davies is pretty consistent on civil liberty issues, tbfttl. Opposes ID cards, mandatory CCTV in pubs, etc.

The John Lewis thing is interesting. It makes sense for empty town centre retail to be converted to housing but it’s going to have a radical impact on the nature of quasi-public space if it becomes the norm.

yep he's a tory wanker but often he's quite a conviction pol when it comes to civil liberties, well apart from voting for the spycops bill with lots of Labour wankers as well!

Those dreaded words 'not bad for a Tory'

But enough about me! Etc etc oh the lols

Though the link between hospitalisations and deaths has been broken

Yep this is true for now, but every case is a potential variation, and we just need one that can shrug off one or more of the vaccines and we're off to the races again.

(Not to mention long COVID)

Cummings said he had taken the job in No 10 to “improve science, defence, Whitehall and more” – topics he had long ruminated on after his work in the civil service as a special adviser to Michael Gove.

The threat of Brexit remaining uncompleted, with Theresa May hamstrung by no parliamentary majority, could have meant another referendum, which would have left MPs unable to campaign safely outside London “without armed guards”, Cummings recalled he thought at the time.

When the thing you want more than anything is something others also want enough to physically harm elected representatives.

tbf there are plenty of things i want enough to physically harm elected representatives

just a bit of mordant humour, spycops, honest

Boris apparently making mask wearing on public transport non-mandatory because of "People sitting alone at night in train carriages."

You will not be surprised to find out none of what he's saying makes any sense.

"This is absolutely not the end of Covid, don't act like it is ..." <removes all restrictions>

Though the link between hospitalisations and deaths has been broken

Yep this is true for now, but every case is a potential variation, and we just need one that can shrug off one or more of the vaccines and we're off to the races again.

(Not to mention long COVID)

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 5 July 2021 bookmarkflaglink

So the scientists at the press conf are saying the link has been weakened not broken, which is a distinction.

The rationale for the opening now (and correct me here please) is that at this point we are only delaying when (the models are very accurate on timing of waves) people get covid, apparently, not if. I think they are looking at getting people in and out of hospital now than late Autumn and winter where the expectation is of increased pressure on the nhs due to other diseases returning (flu).

If hospitalisations go up I'd say it will be hard to get economic activity going again. A deep recession is where we will see some real suffering.

AFAICT the sole rationale for opening on july 19th is that they said they were going to open on july 19th, and they also said there would be no more delays. that's it. they picked july 19 because it's 4 weeks after they last time they said were going to reopen and 4 weeks is a round number. there was no science to the decision and no new information between july 15 and now could have changed the plan.

I think xyzzz's rationale is correct. Whitty more or less said as much whereas Boris was just waffling a lot of garbage as per. Pressure on the NHS tends to be at the forefront of a lot of decision making.

I heard the laughably implausible excuse from some tory that their concern is that if masks remained mandatory on public transport it would send out a negative message that it isn't quite safe and encourage more people to get into their cars.

As long it's only poor people, Muslims and the disabled dying the Tories couldn't give a flying fuck.

Sorry my post was just regurgitating Whitty's rationale -- as I was watching the press conf -- so that others could read and disagree if they wished to do so.

It was odd -- I could call it other things -- to even bother with delaying from June 21st in the first place. We weren't doing putting any new restriction to deal with Delta.

You can back your way into arguments for the various lockdown dates that have the ring of truth, but I think it’s been date first, then reason for a few months now.

Rather: political decision/impulse first, then come up with a scientific motivation that fits the plan.

Which they have a couple of scientists on hand to nod along to.

I think Fauci in the US disagrees with the government occasionally, that wouldn't and hasn't happened here.

But then they don't want to put their pensions and knighthoods at risk.

Right.

The second chart here is good news for the UK I suppose (although it's obviously tragic for the ROW).

But the first chart plus reopening gives away the "plan", which implies a surge in cases on the same scale as last winter, and sacrificing the long term health (and in some cases the lives) of kids who can't be vaccinated in the UK:

The UK's rise in Delta cases (per capita) is higher than many countries experiencing significant surges in Asia and Africa were Delta is dominant. The difference is the UK's minimal rise in deaths and 86% adults vaccination rate (≥ 1 dose)@OurWorldInData pic.twitter.com/mokCAFKkKC

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) July 5, 2021

(https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/04/opinion/covid-vaccine-kids-risks.html for why it's pretty weird that the UK hasn't approved vaccines for kids yet)

The Tories are overrun with libertarian headbangers, that's why.

You should have seen the cold hearted creep who was just interviewed on Channel 4 news.

Other than businesses like music venues being able to reopen, are there any rules changing post the 19th that are being actively enforced at the moment in practice?

1m+ distancing and advice to WFH is definitely keeping some offices closed; that could be a big change

It feels like if you wanted to head off a spike in cases, you’d have to start nicking people for giving a coworker a lift in your car again, but idk.

The directives around working from home have been so weak, most companies that wanted to rush people back to offices might have done so already but we’ll see what kind of shift happens over the next couple of weeks.

the government have been rushing their employees back to offices for a few weeks now tbf

at my last job, nobody was ever sent home because the company primarily exists to flatter the boss's ego