UK Politics: Life in the Johnsonian Dystopia

[HexMachina]

9 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I take it you are still bitter about not being invited.

Nope, just annoyed at the idiocy and thoughtlessness of others

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Yeah, they should've invited you. That was really inconsderate.

[HexMachina]

1 minute ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yeah, they should've invited you. That was really inconsderate.

So witty, how do you come up with these zingers 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I read them on the internet, obviously.

 

[Spockydog]

3 hours ago, Isis said:

This is the last response I am going to make to you on this topic because you don't seem to be able to have a rational discussion about it here.

My business is infectious diseases. That's the field I've practiced in for the past 20 years. I'm a registered healthcare scientist - unless you are in the same profession as me (which is not evidenced from anything I have seen you write in this thread) then I probably know more about it than you.

There is a much that is unknown about this virus and the disease it causes - in all respects - but current thinking is that people could be infectious for about 24 hours before they are symptomatic. I was in work the day before I got sick and I fully expected to hear that at least one of my colleagues had become sick subsequently. But they had not. Possibly that's just down to my aseptic technique and my liberal application of 70% ethanol to everything - after working in a path lab for all these years.

Another thing we don't know is how infectious are those who are infected but not symptomatic. We have no idea how long they might be shedding virus for (if they are) and how many people an asymptomatic individual could infect. We can hope that hand-washing along with physical distancing will do a lot to reduce this - but that's just a hope at this point because it depends on what people were doing behaviour-wise pre-lockdown and also how good compliance is during lockdown. For the latter, there are definitely people who are not physical distancing or staying at home because I've seen the evidence of that with my own eyes by looking out the window. So the role of the asymptomatic in this situation is a huge unknown.

As I previously said, the science does not support the use of PPE in those who are not infected. The government said this on Saturday and they were correct. So no, I don't believe your 'fact' - that the government would be telling everyone to wear a mask, if there was no shortage of PPE.

You clearly wish to disregard the science on this.

The vast majority of people I have seen using PPE while on the streets or in shops are MIS-USING it.

They are not truly protecting themselves (or others - but I am sure that protecting others isn't their intent anyway). Nor are they protecting their vulnerable loved ones. Once you don your PPE you need to practice aseptic technique. If you take you mask off to move it around your hands must be clean - as in, they must not have touched anything else that isn't clean. That includes your clothes, your phone, your keys, your front door, the door of a shop, anything on shelf in a shop, any handles/bars/rails/buttons in public spaces, card readers...basically nothing in public spaces is clean. As soon as you touch something in public your hands are no longer clean.

Same with gloves - you wash your hands and then don your gloves - so now your hands are protected from the dirty outside world. That is true if you removed the gloves after touching something. But if you didn't, and you kept touching your clothes, face, hair, phone, car, handbag,  wallet etc with your gloves on then you might as well have not worn gloves at all.

Could individuals gain some protection from wearing PPE properly and disposing of it appropriately? Possibly yes. But the mask dangling while someone smokes a cigarette, the gloved hand using the smartphone - these are far, far more common usages of PPE right now. These offer no protection. In fact, there is evidence to show that people get a false sense of security from wearing PPE (badly) and behave in a more risky way.

That the government has continued to underfund and ruin the NHS is not something I have ever argued against. But just because the government are terrible doesn't make the science on PPE wrong. There is a shortage now. People in the NHS need it more than someone going to the shops who isn't even using it properly. 

Yes, lots and lots, both in central London and in zone 3 (SW). Gloves and masks of all kinds litter the streets and green spaces. All kinds of masks, professional, personal, handmade, scarves, jumpers etc. - any kind you can think of - I've seen it in the past couple of weeks.

Tories do whatever they like and there are no consequences. The End.

This entire post is so patronising, I don't know where to begin. We're not all as stupid as you think we are.

[Liffguard]

'Hostility to Corbyn' curbed Labour efforts to tackle antisemitism, says leaked report

Potentially opening up a can of worms here. I still need to see the report in full, but based on what little has come to light so far, it doesn't paint the anti-Corbyn faction within the party in a positive light. To be very clear, this is not a denial of antisemitism existing within the Labour party. But insofar as antisemitism was inadequately addressed it appears that, at least in part, it was deliberately mishandled by certain staffers in an effort to weaken Corbyn's leadership. The report apparently goes into more than just antisemitism, mentioning bullying against left-wingers in the party, and actively hoping for (and potentially working towards) a Labour wipeout in 2017.

Edit: Got a copy of the full report. It's 850 pages long, so will take a while to get through and I'll just be skim-reading it for now. But even the execuitve summary is pretty damning. The report isn't hard to find online, but I'm happy to PM a link to anyone who wants it.

[BigFatCoward]

14 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

This entire post is so patronising, I don't know where to begin. We're not all as stupid as you think we are.

If life has taught me anything it is that the absolute opposite is the case. 

[Spockydog]

38 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

If life has taught me anything it is that the absolute opposite is the case. 

Well, yeah... 

[A wilding]

43 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

'Hostility to Corbyn' curbed Labour efforts to tackle antisemitism, says leaked report

Potentially opening up a can of worms here. I still need to see the report in full, but based on what little has come to light so far, it doesn't paint the anti-Corbyn faction within the party in a positive light. To be very clear, this is not a denial of antisemitism existing within the Labour party. But insofar as antisemitism was inadequately addressed it appears that, at least in part, it was deliberately mishandled by certain staffers in an effort to weaken Corbyn's leadership. The report apparently goes into more than just antisemitism, mentioning bullying against left-wingers in the party, and actively hoping for (and potentially working towards) a Labour wipeout in 2017.

That seems ... most unlikely.

Who are these left wingers who were being bullied? Why were all of the numerous whistleblowers complaining about being blocked from stopping antisemitism, and the others leaving the party, blaming it on Corbynistas rather than this supposed faction? Where was Corbyn supposed to be while actions to prevent antisemitism were deliberately being sabotaged by this supposed faction? Why was he denying that there was a problem?

Though I do agree that there was probably a "hyper-factional atmosphere" in Labour between those who believed Corbyn could do no wrong and everyone else.

Frankly this part feels likely to be much closer to the truth:

Quote

In last days of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Labour trawled through 10,000 emails and messages to produce a report into antisemitism that attempts to shield him and his supporters from any blame, and instead pin responsibility on whistleblowers and former members of staff.

 

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, A wilding said:

 

Who are these left wingers who were being bullied? Why were all of the numerous whistleblowers complaining about being blocked from stopping antisemitism, and the others leaving the party, blaming it on Corbynistas rather than this supposed faction?

 

You're either misreading or deliberately fudging the accusations here. No-one's saying that Corbyn's side wasn't in the wrong on the anti-semitism thing. The accusation is that, when they did finally get themselves together to try to fix it, they were obstructed, and, separately to anti-semitism (which is presumably the reason it ultimately never got attached to the report, rightly or wrongly) but presented as evidence for how extreme the anti-Corbyn/anti-left sentiment was at certain levels of the party that they might actually do that, chat logs of several party figures being so extremely against Corbyn and the new members he brought in that they were rooting for Labour to do as badly as possible and making (privately, I dunno if it extended to public bullying, I've only seen the excerpts) extremely inappropriate remarks about Labour MPs and figures on the 'other' side.

Corbyn got many things wrong but trying to pretend that the opposition to him was some innocent, well-meant reaction to how extreme Corbyn and his supporters were is equally as ridiculous as pretending Corbyn was perfect.

It's telling that even Ian Austin in that last quote you included didn't bother denying that these emails and messages exist, he was just outraged that someone bothered to find them.

 

[Which Tyler]

 

[Werthead]

My friend in Chelmsford reports she now considers herself free of the virus, on Day 32 after infection. Up to around Day 29 she was still feeling very short of breath, limited ability to do things etc and has only felt fully normal for the last couple of days (and considering how the symptoms ebb and flow she's not entirely ruled out a recurrence of problems). According to the NHS, she's considered a mild or even a very mild case, which is somewhat disturbing.

14 hours ago, Spockydog said:

This entire post is so patronising, I don't know where to begin. We're not all as stupid as you think we are.

You did try to amateursplain things about the virus to the board's resident expert on virology and disease communication who has suffered the virus herself. Don't be surprised if this does not go down well.

I agree the messaging on wearing face masks is all over the place and seems to be radically different from country to country, but the general thrust is that wearing a mask as a precautionary measure is far less effective then social distancing, staying home where possible and washing your hands, and those masks are much more urgently needed by doctors and nurses in the hospitals than the average person on the street.

Quote

 

Have you got a link for this? Because we've been told, and told, and told, and told, that it's up to two weeks.

 

If anyone's told and told and told you that, they're mistaken. The virus appears to be infectious for 24-72 hours max before becoming symptomatic (and it seems to be coming down as more data is reported).

People may take up to two weeks or even longer (the outlier is 33 days, but medical experts seem to think that may have been a rare false positive at first followed by an actual infection) to display symptoms after being exposed to the virus, but they are only infectious for a day or two before symptoms begin. They may then be infectious for two weeks in total (from the first day of being infectious to them stopping shedding virus, even if they are still symptomatic after that point) but that length of time seems to vary more, and a reliable figure hasn't been fully estimated.

[A wilding]

11 hours ago, polishgenius said:

You're either misreading or deliberately fudging the accusations here. No-one's saying that Corbyn's side wasn't in the wrong on the anti-semitism thing. The accusation is that, when they did finally get themselves together to try to fix it, they were obstructed ...

But looking at what this report says:

• "The report contains several leaked WhatsApp messages that show many senior officials were hostile to Corbyn when he took over." - so not relevant to what was or was not being done to fix antisemitism in 2019.
• "It uncovered many failings in the process for tackling antisemitism complaints before Jennie Formby, the current general secretary, took over in 2018." - so this does not explain complaints continuing throughout 2019.
• "It had found no evidence of antisemitism complaints being treated differently to other forms of complaint." - so it is still in denial that there ever was any problem in the first place.

So I hold with my position that this is an attempt to throw as much mud against the wall as possible in the hope some of it sticks.

That is not to say that that the Labour hierarchy did not contain many anti-Corbynites, but the evidence that Corbyn was actively trying hard to root out antisemitsm but that his attempts were being deliberately sabotaged is somewhat lacking.

[Spockydog]

With so much conflicting expert advice and medical evidence being thrown around regarding incubation periods, infectiousness, the efficacy of masks and gloves for plebs, etc, I am so relieved I have this messageboard to turn to as the final arbiter of objective truth.

Phew, what a relief.

[Werthead]

12 minutes ago, A wilding said:

That is not to say that that the Labour hierarchy did not contain many anti-Corbynites, but the evidence that Corbyn was actively trying hard to root out antisemitsm but that his attempts were being deliberately sabotaged is somewhat lacking.

I think the situation will eventually shake out as having been a perfect storm of events taking place at the same time:

1. There was and is a real problem with antisemitism in the Labour Party.
2. Corbyn believed there was a real but small problem which was being blown out of proportion by people opposed to his leadership, which meant he took the real problem less seriously than it warranted.
3. The right-wing press saw antisemitism as a weapon they could use against Corbyn (and an excellent distraction from Baroness Warsi's investigation into Islamaphobia within the Conservative Party, which seems to rival or exceed the antisemitism issue in Labour). The left-wing press, who was also mostly hostile to Corbyn (not the right kind of left-wing leader), effectively joined this campaign as well.
4. People within the Labour Party opposed to Corbyn, having been defeated in every other attempt to oust Corbyn, also weaponised the issue of antisemitism to try to oust him, most notably after the 2017 election.
5. Nevertheless, there was and is a real problem with antisemitism in the Labour Party, the extent of which was becoming increasingly hard to determine due to media outcry, anti-Corbynistas making claims and Corbyn and his supporters downplaying because they felt the issue had been blown out of proportion.

Separating the real issue of antisemitism from the use of every dirty trick in the book against Corbyn to get rid of him and undermine him from all sides will likely be very difficult. It could be a really huge issue that was dangerously downplayed or it could be a really small issue that was ludicrously blown up. The real question will be to what extent it will be used against Starmer as well in the future.

[Heartofice]

My hope is that with Corbyn gone, a lot of the type of people who joined the Labour party because of him will drop off. The far lefty Trotsky types who would be more inclined to anti semitic conspiracy theory and rabid anti Israel rhetoric might just lose interest and go off and do their own thing somewhere else. Starmer at that point wouldn't have so much to worry about, and I think it will be very hard to attack Starmer on anti semitism. 

[Spockydog]

18 hours ago, Isis said:

The vast majority of people I have seen using PPE while on the streets or in shops are MIS-USING it.

They are not truly protecting themselves (or others - but I am sure that protecting others isn't their intent anyway). Nor are they protecting their vulnerable loved ones. Once you don your PPE you need to practice aseptic technique. If you take you mask off to move it around your hands must be clean - as in, they must not have touched anything else that isn't clean. That includes your clothes, your phone, your keys, your front door, the door of a shop, anything on shelf in a shop, any handles/bars/rails/buttons in public spaces, card readers...basically nothing in public spaces is clean. As soon as you touch something in public your hands are no longer clean.

Same with gloves - you wash your hands and then don your gloves - so now your hands are protected from the dirty outside world. That is true if you removed the gloves after touching something. But if you didn't, and you kept touching your clothes, face, hair, phone, car, handbag,  wallet etc with your gloves on then you might as well have not worn gloves at all.

Could individuals gain some protection from wearing PPE properly and disposing of it appropriately? Possibly yes. But the mask dangling while someone smokes a cigarette, the gloved hand using the smartphone - these are far, far more common usages of PPE right now. These offer no protection. In fact, there is evidence to show that people get a false sense of security from wearing PPE (badly) and behave in a more risky way.

Becoming an expert in the field of infectious diseases takes years of study and practical experience. Learning how to correctly use a face mask and gloves does not.

As I've said before, I am responsible for the day-to-day care of my elderly mum and my disabled brother. We all have to eat. I literally have nightmares about bringing this thing home to my brother, or into my Mum's house.

So, since mid-Feb, when things started going bad in Italy, I've basically been on lock-down, doing my best to practice aseptic technique whenever I leave the house. I think I've gotten pretty obsessive good at it. My mask is FFP3 rated, with a checkable, airtight seal. I also wear safety goggles and headphones in the shops. 

In addition to taking the cautionary steps you noted, when returning home from the shops, I remove my clothes and converse in my front door airlock, and they all go straight in the washing machine. Goggles, mask, headphones, car key, all cleaned with surgical wipes and not touched again for a week.

Nothing I am doing is preventing Matt Hancock from procuring what the NHS needs, yet I get the feeling that when all this is over, and countless NHS staff have died due to inadequate PPE, the blame will be shifted to people like me doing their amateurish best to protect the ones they love. 

Bit like what happened post 2008.

 

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Becoming an expert in the field of infectious diseases takes years of study and practical experience. Learning how to correctly use a face mask and gloves does not.

As I've said before, I am responsible for the day-to-day care of my elderly mum and my disabled brother. We all have to eat. I literally have nightmares about bringing this thing home to my brother, or into my Mum's house.

So, since mid-Feb, when things started going bad in Italy, I've basically been on lock-down, doing my best to practice aseptic technique whenever I leave the house. I think I've gotten pretty obsessive good at it. My mask is FFP3 rated, with a checkable, airtight seal. I also wear safety goggles and headphones in the shops. 

In addition to taking the cautionary steps you noted, when returning home from the shops, I remove my clothes and converse in my front door airlock, and they all go straight in the washing machine. Goggles, mask, headphones, car key, all cleaned with surgical wipes and not touched again for a week.

Nothing I am doing is preventing Matt Hancock from procuring what the NHS needs, yet I get the feeling that when all this is over, and countless NHS staff have died due to inadequate PPE, the blame will be shifted to people like me doing their amateurish best to protect the ones they love. 

Bit like what happened post 2008.

 

I’m not sure why you are constantly taking these posts as a personal attack? Nobody appears to be accusing you of anything. If you are using equipment properly... great, well done. There are other people who aren’t.

[Spockydog]

6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I’m not sure why you are constantly taking these posts as a personal attack? Nobody appears to be accusing you of anything. If you are using equipment properly... great, well done. There are other people who aren’t.

Huh? I don't feel under attack personally. Having said that, a stranger gave me the stink eye and called me a selfish cunt in Sainsburys the other day. He was carrying a copy of The Sun.

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

Aren’t households hosting someone in the vulnerable category entitled to priority home delivery? 

‘Cause I’m immune suppressed, I’m classed as such, and got a letter with various jnfo, advising me not to go out at al, and of vsrious schemes to get food etx delivered.

I’ve been off the meds for a few weeks and white cell count is hopefully back to normal so I’ve not used any of this (as likely to get  it from my nurse wife anyway than at the shops).

Albeit ny letter is from Scottish Government; should be the same though in England.

Unless the Westminster advice is which colour bin to chuck your dead into and which day of the week the council will collect it.

Given thr country’s WW2 fetish, surprised the old WW2 gasmasks haven’t been hauled out and dusted off, asbestos be damned