UK Politics: Oh Ambassador you are really spoiling us!

[Spockydog]

So I am currently in the process of implementing a manufacturing process for my invention. And seeing as the EU is going to be one of my biggest markets, I am trying to determine the rules for tariff-free exports.

Oh my god, what a nightmare.

My product is comprised of several different components, made from aluminium, steel, plastic, and cotton. In order not to be hit with massively prohibitive tariffs, not only do I need to provide written proof of where each component was manufactured, I also need to provide proof of origin for the base materials used to make each component. (i.e. where they were dug out of the ground).

 

[Spockydog]

Johnson: 100000 deaths terrible terrible blah blah blah. We did everything possible to prevent 100000 deaths blah blah blah. I take full responsibility for 100000 deaths blah blah fucking blah. 

Resign. 

[Spockydog]

Surely there has been enough demonstrable negligence on the part of these cretins to allow a criminal prosecution in the courts. If there isn't, there is something seriously wrong with our legal system. 

[Heartofice]

People who think you can compare New Zealand and the UK 

[Spockydog]

19 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

People who think you can compare New Zealand and the UK 

I know, right. It's just so unfair comparing the actions of a bunch of corrupt incompetents with those of an actual, functioning government working in the best interests of its citizens, eh?

I mean, everyone knows that the whole 'zero covid' strategy they implemented at the beginning of this crisis only worked because New Zealand has hobbits and elvez and shit. 

 

[BigFatCoward]

55 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

People who think you can compare New Zealand and the UK 

We have the highest death rate in the world, who do you think we compare favourably to? 

[Spockydog]

5 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

We have the highest death rate in the world, who do you think we compare favourably to? 

Um, the meteor that killed all the dinosaurs?

[Which Tyler]

Covid in 9 months = 100,000 deaths (realistically more like 120,000)
UK civilians killed in all wars in the last 120 years = 77,000


Boris is sorry, and accepts responsibility - just not consequences.

"The government did everything it could" - if by "everything" you mean "locked down too late, mixed our messaging, contradicted ourselves, demonstrated that the rules don't apply, still haven't closed the borders, and were more interested in handing contracts for things like T&T and PPE to friends tan anyone demonstrating competence"

[Spockydog]

I can only imagine the anger people who lost loved ones must have felt watching that bullshit. 

[Which Tyler]

4 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

I can only imagine the anger people who lost loved ones must have felt watching that bullshit. 

You don't need to imagine, I, and other borders, can outright tell you.

[Spockydog]

5 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

You don't need to imagine, I, and other borders, can outright tell you.

Shit. I did not know that. So sorry for yours and everyone else's loss. 

 

[Spockydog]

 

 

[Fragile Bird]

40 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Please tell me why I’m wrong.

Here in Canada the PM is constantly being attacked for doing a lousy job. He constantly gets New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan thrown into his face. I agree these are unfair comparisons, because they are islands. Oh wait, isn’t the UK located on two islands? Bigger than Taiwan and New Zealand, but a lot smaller than Australia.

Even so, the UK is not isolated like those other islands, so it is an unfair comparison. But the UK only has one direct link to the EU, the tunnel. Canada has hundreds of official border crossings with the US and thousands of miles of border where people can easily cross to and from the US. And a trade agreement that integrates our economy as closely to the US as the UK was to the EU. And we share borders with New York State, the epicenter of the virus in North America in the spring. British Columbia has huge connections to China and a very large Asian population. At least Italy wasn’t across the channel from the UK. We had 300,000 or more tourists come back from the US at a time when the US was in deep denial that there was any Covid in the country except for the east coast, not to mention 300,000 tourists back from Europe and a couple of hundred thousand back from other countries around the world.

So why don’t you compare the UK with Canada? The UK has had 54,190 cases per 1 M population and 1,471 deaths per 1 M. Canada has had 19,929 cases per 1 M and 510 deaths per 1 M. Is that a better comparison? Or is Italy the only acceptable country to compare the UK to, with it’s 41,151 cases per 1 M and 1,431 deaths per 1 M?

Actually, it all leaves a bad taste in my mouth, this game of comparisons.

[mormont]

[mod] Folks: we ask that you stay on topic, and that you remember that what you think of other users is never the topic. Don't get personal.

Everyone posting here has been on this board long enough to know better. Think what you like of others, talk about it with your friends or whatever, but keep it out of the threads, whether attacking or defending. Thank you. [/mod]

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

So why don’t you compare the UK with Canada? The UK has had 54,190 cases per 1 M population and 1,471 deaths per 1 M. Canada has had 19,929 cases per 1 M and 510 deaths per 1 M. Is that a better comparison? Or is Italy the only acceptable country to compare the UK to, with it’s 41,151 cases per 1 M and 1,431 deaths per 1 M?

Actually, it all leaves a bad taste in my mouth, this game of comparisons.

I’ll be interested to see what analysis comes out in the next few years about how countries compare in their responses, but I don’t think we know enough to have a meaningful debate on it now. There’s a practically endless list of possible factors when comparing two countries. I prefer to focus on individual points: Test and Trace was a fuck up, and we should have something better set up by now. We should have locked down sooner on probably all three occasions. These are things Johnson can be held accountable for, but I’m not sure it helps to generically blame him for all 100,000 deaths now just cos it happens to be a round number. It’s as much a feature of a base 10 number system than anything else.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Here in Canada the PM is constantly being attacked for doing a lousy job. He constantly gets New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan thrown into his face. I agree these are unfair comparisons, because they are islands. Oh wait, isn’t the UK located on two islands? Bigger than Taiwan and New Zealand, but a lot smaller than Australia.

 

Actually, it all leaves a bad taste in my mouth, this game of comparisons.

Akshually New Zealand is geographically bigger than the UK, but smaller than the UK+Ireland.

The comparison game isn't especially useful for us mere mortals. But if people want some lesson's learned to come out of this for future reference, then comparing what worked with what didn't work is pretty important. And to do that there also needs to be an understanding of what can be directly compared and what can't be directly compared. Some specific measures taken to control the disease will be directly transferrable to any country or population and will have very similar effect on the course of the disease. Other measures will not be transferrable, or will be transferrable but with different expected effects. Some measures will be differently effective within a country, thinking primarily of urban vs suburban vs rural settings.

To me there is no question that many politicians around the world, including Johnson and his cohort of not very competent ministers, and even politicians outside of many govts who perpetuated mis-information, who should be seriously held to account over this - the Chinese govt too for it's early covering up of the whole thing. But I am not particularly hopeful that anyone will be. Look at the USA. Trump is being impeached for a riot that killed 5 people, but him and his administration will not face any direct consequence (other than losing the election, which is pretty consequential, but not direct personal accountability) for the decisions that killed probably at least 200,000 people more than would have died if better decisions, which were known and available to then at the time, had been made. I think Johnson et al should be on the hook for at least 50,000 of the UK deaths. He probably couldn't have done a NZ or Aus (but potentially he could have, IMO), but he damned well could have done a lot better than he did.

[john]

The UK only just closed it’s travel corridors. There’s been free access into the country for the whole of the pandemic. There was no attempt to do anything like NZ and Aus did in terms of border control, at each stage we thought we had a better handle on tackling the problem via other methods than we actually did.

To some extent that’s just unfortunate, you can’t prepare for every eventuality and the UK certainly has some homegrown disadvantages that would make a virus spread faster. On the other hand, it’s the continuing failure to adjust, that’s especially infuriating.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

“We did everything we could...” Fuck. Off.

 

Twat.

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, john said:

The UK only just closed it’s travel corridors. There’s been free access into the country for the whole of the pandemic. There was no attempt to do anything like NZ and Aus did in terms of border control, at each stage we thought we had a better handle on tackling the problem via other methods than we actually did.

I seem to remember there was a period of maybe a small number of weeks last summer where the borders were previously closed before they reversed course on that, so it's not as if it's a new idea but they seem incapable of committing to any one strategy.

[ants]

On 1/26/2021 at 3:53 AM, Spockydog said:

I will fight anyone who claims that the problems we are facing today, particularly concerning border crossings and trade, are an inescapable consequence of the concept of Brexit itself, rather than a direct result of the mendacity and incompetence of the idiots supposed to be managing it.

On 1/26/2021 at 4:12 AM, Spockydog said:

Well, for a start, the Prime Minister could have negotiated a deal that didn't, at its core, fuck Business.

If we had a man of honesty and integrity at the helm, he wouldn't have thrown out the 'Oven Ready' deal he won the election on.

Without all the lies and brinkmanship and threats of breaking international law, this dreadful, damaging trade agreement would not have been forced through at the last minute, without any opportunity for Parliamentary scrutiny. 

In an alternative universe, British Business might have been correctly appraised of the new rules and regulations of this dreadful new trade deal, and been given ample warning about how to continue sending their products to the European market.

And countless British firms would not be going out of business.

Sorry, but I think Boris delivered exactly the Brexit that Leavers wanted.  He got a no-tariff deal with the EU on goods, while maintaining significant control over borders and UK regulations.  That such a deal was always going to shaft the services sector, add a huge amount of red-tape, cause NI issues, and will cause problems if the UK does change regulations, were all things that Brexiters have said again and again in opinion polls they would do (i.e. take an economic hit for sovereignty).  

Of course, a whole heap of people are now finding out that red-tape and economic hit will impact them, and suddenly have a lot of regrets.  But Boris did pretty much deliver what he promised.  

Now, obviously people would have liked more time to plan the change.  But people also said they were sick of Brexit.  Well, this is Boris delivering what they wanted.  

What you're really complaining about is him not delivering a deal that Remainers wanted.  And if he'd given two stuffs about the economy, that is what he'd have done.  But he instead delivered the deal that Brexiters wanted, and I'm not sure you can throw too many stones over that.  Losing frictionless trade with the EU wasn't something that had to happen under Brexit; but it was something that had to happen for the Brexit that Brexiters have been talking about for the last 4 years to be actualised.  

I've actually been staggered at how well Boris has delivered for his constituents.  And staggered how head in the sand they were over the damage it would do.  Two good articles talk about this, the FT article "Inside the Brexit deal: the agreement and the aftermath" (limited clicks, link may not work) and an article on the forecasts from 2018 which predicted how much this Brexit would cost.  

https://www.ft.com/content/cc6b0d9a-d8cc-4ddb-8c57-726df018c10e

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/28/uk-significantly-worse-off-under-all-brexit-scenarios-official-forecast-gdp