UK Politics: Statues of Limitations

[Denvek]

Nigel Farage on-brand as ever - tweeting about being out at the pub as soon as they open when he should still be in a 2-week quarantine after going to address the "overflow crowd" at Trump's Tulsa event. But rules aren't for far-right "men-of-the-people" like Nige, are they?

[john]

Local news in my neck of the woods is (sarcastically) celebrating the opening of England’s quarantine corridors.

https://today.rtl.lu/your-luxembourg/opinion/a/1543996.html

Quote

Summer 2020 is officially back on: your dream holiday to Milton Keynes can take place after the British government relaxed travel restrictions. 

Luxembourg has been included amongst the list of countries whose residents are allowed to visit the United Kingdom during the coronavirus pandemic. That's right - you can now have the summer holiday you've always wanted in England ...

Whatever you do, you don't want to miss Slough (pictured above). Nestled into a corner of north-eastern Berkshire, this delightful town is easily accessible, as it lies right under the flight path for Heathrow Airport ...

There's nothing quite like the British seaside. Greasy, vinegar-covered fish and cold chips served in a mouldy newspaper; 40 mile per hour winds; concrete piers riddled with drunken teenagers; a water temperature of -5 Celsius... what's not to love? ...

[A] recent study found that Lancaster is the rainiest city in England, with an average of 152 days of rainfall every year. Other things to know about Lancaster include the fact that Lancashire was named after it, and that it used to be the European headquarters of Reebok.

Etc.

I have to say though, Luxembourg slagging off England’s bad weather is a bit cheeky. It’s like the Californian wildfires mocking the Australian bushfires.

[Heartofice]

5 hours ago, Denvek said:

Nigel Farage on-brand as ever - tweeting about being out at the pub as soon as they open when he should still be in a 2-week quarantine after going to address the "overflow crowd" at Trump's Tulsa event. But rules aren't for far-right "men-of-the-people" like Nige, are they?

Turns out Farage had been back in the UK for two weeks and tested negative. But as ever, having the leader of the Liberal Democrats actually phone up the police to hopefully try and get him arrested doesn't make anybody look good. Are people really going to want to vote for a curtain twitcher

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Turns out Farage had been back in the UK for two weeks and tested negative. But as ever, having the leader of the Liberal Democrats actually phone up the police to hopefully try and get him arrested doesn't make anybody look good. Are people really going to want to vote for a curtain twitcher

Farage attended Trump's rally on 20 June and would have likely returned to the UK on 21 June. Today (5 July) would have been the last day of the 14-day quarantine period, meaning that tomorrow (6 July) is the first day he would be free to go to the pub. Assuming he somehow got home before 20 June ended (which fitting in a flight from Tulsa, halfway across the States, is unlikely but not impossible), he would still have been in self-quarantine up until the end of 4 June at the latest.

Since he did not display symptoms in the first 5-7 days, the overwhelming likelihood is that he does not have the disease (although this is neglecting the fact that some people have not presented symptoms or tested positive until 37 days after being infected, but these are relative outliers) so no problem from an infectious point of view, but nevertheless it appears he has either broken quarantine or has access to a TARDIS.

Given the absolute shitstorm of images coming in from across the country of people crowding the pubs like the lockdown is fully over, this is a fairly negligible problem by comparison.

[Which Tyler]

8 hours ago, Werthead said:

Farage attended Trump's rally on 20 June and would have likely returned to the UK on 21 June. Today (5 July) would have been the last day of the 14-day quarantine period, meaning that tomorrow (6 July) is the first day he would be free to go to the pub. Assuming he somehow got home before 20 June ended (which fitting in a flight from Tulsa, halfway across the States, is unlikely but not impossible), he would still have been in self-quarantine up until the end of 4 June at the latest.

Since he did not display symptoms in the first 5-7 days, the overwhelming likelihood is that he does not have the disease (although this is neglecting the fact that some people have not presented symptoms or tested positive until 37 days after being infected, but these are relative outliers) so no problem from an infectious point of view, but nevertheless it appears he has either broken quarantine or has access to a TARDIS.

Given the absolute shitstorm of images coming in from across the country of people crowding the pubs like the lockdown is fully over, this is a fairly negligible problem by comparison.

Look at you, having the capacity to realise that Saturday is the same day of the week as a Saturday - and having the capacity to see nuance - what are you? some sort of filthy communist?


Ultimatey, it's a cheap political point to counter a cheap poilitical point - it's really not worth anything more than a minor chuckle, and neither side shold have had any airtime whatsoever.

[Heartofice]

Hmm I’m not sure reporting people to the police and wasting police time for cheap political points is anything to chuckle over. I think whether Farage breaches his quarantine by a few hours is an incredibly minor issue, but the leader of a political party thinking it was a reasonable excuse to send in the cops is actually more disturbing. 
 

I think that luckily all this does is expose the petty embarrassing nature of some people’s politics, these stunts are hardly an isolated incident, every day there is a new news story about Cummings being questioned by the police over the size of his barn or where his car is parked, this stuff isn’t winning any votes.

[The Anti-Targ]

I think the leader of a political party is exactly who should be taken to task over breaching quarantine "by a few hours". Our leaders should be leading by example, not making like the regulations aren't really important or don't fully apply to them.

I don't think a leader of another political party should have called the cops on him. But when he self-incriminates on social media it should have been the cops who went and visited off their own bat.

[BigFatCoward]

22 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 

I don't think a leader of another political party should have called the cops on him. But when he self-incriminates on social media it should have been the cops who went and visited off their own bat.

We really dont have the time. 

[The Anti-Targ]

26 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

We really dont have the time. 

I guess you could have popped a token fine notice in the mail. Naughty boy, don't do it again.

[A wilding]

Clearly Farage broke quarantine rules (despite HoI initially denying it) and technically should be fined for doing so. Obviously the police are not going to do anything about it - the quarantine rules were simply hamfisted and unenforceable from the start.

However, I think it is legitimate to publicly call Farage out on it. And not just because, as the leader of a political party, he really ought to be following the letter of the law.

It is clear from his behaviour that it never even occurred to him that he was breaking quarantine yesterday. Which makes it highly probable that he had never seriously followed quarantine in the first place. It speaks of an attitude of totally taking it for granted that the rules are only for the little people and that the likes of him can just ignore them. The same world view that Cummings (since someone has just brought him up) displayed when he ignored the lockdown rules. I call it entirely fair to point out such an attitude.

 

[Fragile Bird]

Ok, confess, who went to a pub yesterday?

[Pebble thats Stubby]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Ok, confess, who went to a pub yesterday?

I drove past a few, does that count?

 

No way was I going to enter one without first wearing a Hazmat Suit and receive the proper training to wear it / take it off first.

[williamjm]

8 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Ultimatey, it's a cheap political point to counter a cheap poilitical point - it's really not worth anything more than a minor chuckle, and neither side shold have had any airtime whatsoever.

Farage is probably happy to have people acknowledging his existence again.

45 minutes ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

I drove past a few, does that count?

I've walked past a couple, neither of which seemed particularly busy (at least in the afternoon, evening could be difference of course). One of them seems to have decided to be outdoors only for the moment, they do have a big beer garden next to the river which would probably be more popular at this time of year than the indoors anyway.

I see that the (7 day average) daily coronavirus deaths have dropped below 100 for the first time since March, we'll see whether it stays on the right side of 100 after 'Super Saturday'.

[HexMachina]

Pubs around here seemed surprisingly quiet this afternoon, especially given the warm weather. I didn’t go in any of them but none of the beer gardens were even close to capacity and throuh the windows they all looked pretty empty.

Can’t speak to Saturday, although it seems like quite a few places deferred reopening until today or even later

[mormont]

Farage is addicted to political stunts and was at the time of breaking quarantine engaged in one. So I think Ed Davey gets a pass.

[Werthead]

Number of deaths reported today is exactly the same as one week ago, and only slightly below where we were two weeks ago. Looks like the virus may be bottoming out well short of where it needs to be. The question now is if it can start trending downwards again or will start going up again, which will likely trigger a second lockdown.

[williamjm]

17 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Number of deaths reported today is exactly the same as one week ago, and only slightly below where we were two weeks ago. Looks like the virus may be bottoming out well short of where it needs to be. The question now is if it can start trending downwards again or will start going up again, which will likely trigger a second lockdown.

The 7-day moving average has gone down from 115 to 94 so there's still some decline there but it is very slow. The number of new cases has gone more significantly over the last week from 832 to 565, although that's a less reliable measure so we might have to wait to see whether there's a corresponding decrease in deaths later in the month.

Either way that's still a lot of cases going around, so plenty of risk remaining.

The Scottish figures on the other hand look excellent, only 2 new cases and 1 new death reported today.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

15 minutes ago, williamjm said:

The 7-day moving average has gone down from 115 to 94 so there's still some decline there but it is very slow. The number of new cases has gone more significantly over the last week from 832 to 565, although that's a less reliable measure so we might have to wait to see whether there's a corresponding decrease in deaths later in the month.

Either way that's still a lot of cases going around, so plenty of risk remaining.

The Scottish figures on the other hand look excellent, only 2 new cases and 1 new death reported today.

They merely applied good British common sense, and decided to vote for sane and responsible people to run their part of the country.

[williamjm]

4 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

They merely applied good British common sense, and decided to vote for sane and responsible people to run their part of the country.

Northern Ireland also seem to be doing well, and I'd never accuse their voters of having a preference for sanity and responsibility.

I did see some polling recently comparing the various party leaders that showed Nicola Sturgeon had a better net approval rating than Boris for the UK as a whole, which I suspect is very unusual when comparing the leader of the SNP with the UK PM.

I think the Scottish Government does deserve criticism for making many of the same mistakes the UK government did early in the pandemic (testing, PPE, care homes) but I think they've handled things better more recently and it's not so hard to look competent when you're being compared with Boris.

[Which Tyler]

Well, as of Monday, I guess the virus is officially gone from England - hurrah.

The last businesses* get to re-open, including close contact professions - and no need for any pesky PPE that actually makes a difference - a visor is all that's required if you merely spend a couple of hours working around someone's head.

My wife and I do close to the same thing (I'm a chiropractor, she's a massage and sports therapist) - I have to wear mask, apron and gloves, and am advised to wear goggles/visor - I spend 15-20 minutes with a patient. She has to wear a visor, and can spend 90 minutes with a patient. I have to screen mine for covid symptoms and risk factors, she's advised to take their temperature.

The government officially says that a mask is useless if you're already wearing a visor - the science disagrees - strongly.

 

 

* I think that's true isnt it? I may easily have missed something.