UK politics: Veni Vidi Vaccinati

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

If I had to name one thing that has contributed to making the pandemic worse than it needed to be in the UK, it's the attitude that 'really we only need to worry about old-timers who might die, otherwise COVID is no big deal'.

It seems to me that the Venn diagram of people saying that, and people saying "we don't need to worry about the old and/or those with comorbidities - after all, they're old and/or have comorbidities, so they don't matter" is an almost perfect circle.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

It seems to me that the Venn diagram of people saying that, and people saying "we don't need to worry about the old and/or those with comorbidities - after all, they're old and/or have comorbidities, so they don't matter" is an almost perfect circle.

That venn diagram also covers a lot of ignorant, none compliant with the rules people as well. 

[mormont]

6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

How so?

Because it's this type of attitude that has fueled risky decisions, from an individual level right up to the highest levels of government.

The idea that we can safely make definitive statements about the effects of this virus, even now, is both arrogant and ignorant. The idea that the effects of allowing the virus to run rampant in the population supposedly not 'at risk' without causing tremendous damage to the economy, the healthcare system and individuals, just because people will get better, is similarly magical thinking, trying to wish away real problems. And the combination of the two has led to pressure to lift restrictions too early and impose them too late, which has killed people who didn't need to die.

Plus, underlying this attitude is often a pretty awful set of assumptions about the worth of the lives of the people 'at risk'.

[Heartofice]

14 minutes ago, mormont said:

Because it's this type of attitude that has fueled risky decisions, from an individual level right up to the highest levels of government.

The idea that we can safely make definitive statements about the effects of this virus, even now, is both arrogant and ignorant. The idea that the effects of allowing the virus to run rampant in the population supposedly not 'at risk' without causing tremendous damage to the economy, the healthcare system and individuals, just because people will get better, is similarly magical thinking, trying to wish away real problems. And the combination of the two has led to pressure to lift restrictions too early and impose them too late, which has killed people who didn't need to die.

Plus, underlying this attitude is often a pretty awful set of assumptions about the worth of the lives of the people 'at risk'.

 

I don’t see how anything you have said has influenced government policy at all? If there is an urge to open up the economy it is because closing the economy is damaging, and lockdowns are damaging.

It doesn’t have anything to do with ‘letting old people die’ or ‘old people are worth less’. 

We can make definitive statements about which demographics are affected by the virus more than others , we’ve known that very early and the facts haven’t changed on that. 

The real question that needs to be answered in all of this , is why couldn’t we shield the vulnerable properly? What made that so difficult? Because that proved to be impossible, for reasons I’ve yet to see outlined, instead we have locked down everyone. 

[A wilding]

A couple of facts relating to the most recent lockdown to point towards an answer to that last question:

The number of hospitalized patients with covid-19 pushed the NHS beyond its limit, with care being de-facto rationed and people dying who need not have died (some for non covid related issues).

While the majority of those hospitalized were elderly, about 40% of them were under 65. About 20% were under 55.

 

[Which Tyler]

 

[The Anti-Targ]

On 2/28/2021 at 12:55 AM, JoannaL said:

That would only make sense if really a lot of people of all age groups get long covid. While it is now proven consensus that long covid exists, I do not know of any study that gives detailed numbers of how high the percentage is of infected people that get it. Is it 10% or only 1% or only 0,01%?

Indeed Skynet needs all relevant data, which includes the rate of long COVID for all age groups.

[Which Tyler]

I see the Brazilian variant (B 1.1.248) has arrived in the UK - 6 people sequenced with it so far.

I guess this virus really doesn't respect our right to take action that too little too late.

If only someone could have known that this variant had been out in the world from before we quarantined ourselves from overseas travel

[Derfel Cadarn]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56246848
 

Pontins, the British holiday camp brand, has been majntaining a ‘black list’ of Irish names as part of a policy to exclude Travellers.

[BigFatCoward]

6 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56246848
 

Pontins, the British holiday camp brand, has been majntaining a ‘black list’ of Irish names as part of a policy to exclude Travellers.

How the F did they expect that to not leak eventually? 

[Heartofice]

On top of that, those names are hardly confined to travellers, and are very common Irish names. How did they actually expect this to work?!

[Werthead]

8 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56246848
 

Pontins, the British holiday camp brand, has been majntaining a ‘black list’ of Irish names as part of a policy to exclude Travellers.

I've seen some clarifications that apparently the original idea was that Pontins had a "blacklist" of specific individuals and families that had come to their parks and caused trouble, damage, had to have the police called, etc, and the name list was to trigger a process where they investigated to see if it was the same individuals. So if you ring up and say your name is Gallagher, you won't be turned down automatically, but it would trigger a process to see if you were the same Gallagher who trashed a park room five years ago (or something). Presumably if you're multimillionaire rock star Noel Gallagher wanting to slum it in Pontins for some reason, you'd be fine.

The problem seems to be that doing that this way with a list of Irish names looks massively racist. I also can't see it being very efficient, or effective at achieving that goal.

[The Anti-Targ]

I'm only vaguely aware of the infighting in the SNP. What's up with that on the even of an election? Are there some in the SNP who don't want the party to get a majority so as not to trigger aggitate for an indie ref right now? An opinion video I saw said Salmond wants independence, but not right now, so he thinks it's premature to have a referendum.

It surely can't be about some untruth Sturgeon uttered when saying things that aren't true seems to be standard operating procedure in the conservative UK leadership.

[Maltaran]

It seems to be mostly about what did Sturgeon know and when did she know it 

[mormont]

5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I'm only vaguely aware of the infighting in the SNP. What's up with that on the even of an election? Are there some in the SNP who don't want the party to get a majority so as not to trigger aggitate for an indie ref right now? An opinion video I saw said Salmond wants independence, but not right now, so he thinks it's premature to have a referendum.

It surely can't be about some untruth Sturgeon uttered when saying things that aren't true seems to be standard operating procedure in the conservative UK leadership.

There may be, but they're much more likely to be supporters of Sturgeon than of Salmond. Salmond himself is not a 'fundamentalist' (for the uninitiated, that's the faction of the SNP who see no need for a referendum at all, but favour a unilateral declaration of independence after an election win), but the fundies have certainly rallied behind his cause.

I'm afraid it really is about Salmond's ego. He is furious that Sturgeon didn't squash this investigation right from the start, and is claiming that the whole thing was a plot against him by people afraid he was going to attempt a comeback - notably Sturgeon's husband, who is the party's chief executive. He further alleges that Sturgeon then lied to Parliament to cover that up. (Never mind the fact that he has admitted to behaving extremely inappropriately with women other than his wife while party leader and First Minister himself, and has seemingly connived at attempts to release his accuser's names against a court order - so he's not exactly speaking from the moral high ground.) He's now set on revenge. He's claimed to have evidence backing up some of his more serious allegations, but this evidence has not been provided.

The right wing of the SNP are restive because they see Sturgeon as too liberal on social issues (principally the old bugbear of gender recognition that has been such a cesspit in UK politics recently) and they've adopted Salmond's cause enthusiastically as a way of bringing her down. They want to replace her with a leader who is more radical on independence, not less. They assume, not without good reason, that the SNP can win the election even after such a defenestration, largely because the Tories seem to have a firm ceiling on their vote some way short of what it would take to win and Scottish Labour/ the Lib Dems are fading from view.

The Tories are delighted because this is the first really substantial crisis the SNP and particularly Sturgeon have had in about a decade. They see an opportunity to break through that ceiling and end the push for independence, not for good of course, but certainly for some years while the SNP struggle among themselves to find a popular successor to Sturgeon.

We'll see how today goes. But the basic story here is, Alex Salmond turns out to be such an egotist he's willing to wreck his own party rather than just admit to his own failings.

[john]

5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It surely can't be about some untruth Sturgeon uttered when saying things that aren't true seems to be standard operating procedure in the conservative UK leadership.

It’s the difference between supreme incompetence and deliberately covering things up a la Russia. Both extremely distasteful in a government.

We’ll see what Sturgeon says but at the very least the SNP ignored legal advice and wasted tax payer money to a fairly breathtaking degree.

[Derfel Cadarn]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

I've seen some clarifications that apparently the original idea was that Pontins had a "blacklist" of specific individuals and families that had come to their parks and caused trouble, damage, had to have the police called, etc, and the name list was to trigger a process where they investigated to see if it was the same individuals. So if you ring up and say your name is Gallagher, you won't be turned down automatically, but it would trigger a process to see if you were the same Gallagher who trashed a park room five years ago (or something). Presumably if you're multimillionaire rock star Noel Gallagher wanting to slum it in Pontins for some reason, you'd be fine.

The problem seems to be that doing that this way with a list of Irish names looks massively racist. I also can't see it being very efficient, or effective at achieving that goal.

There’s a report linked in the BBC page to a non-BBC article which goes into more detail. Apparently Irish names/accents with Irish addresses were fine, but if UK postcodes were given, especially from industrial or Travellet sites, then the callers were told there was no availability.

[Derfel Cadarn]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

There may be, but they're much more likely to be supporters of Sturgeon than of Salmond. Salmond himself is not a 'fundamentalist' (for the uninitiated, that's the faction of the SNP who see no need for a referendum at all, but favour a unilateral declaration of independence after an election win), but the fundies have certainly rallied behind his cause.

I'm afraid it really is about Salmond's ego. He is furious that Sturgeon didn't squash this investigation right from the start, and is claiming that the whole thing was a plot against him by people afraid he was going to attempt a comeback - notably Sturgeon's husband, who is the party's chief executive. He further alleges that Sturgeon then lied to Parliament to cover that up. (Never mind the fact that he has admitted to behaving extremely inappropriately with women other than his wife while party leader and First Minister himself, and has seemingly connived at attempts to release his accuser's names against a court order - so he's not exactly speaking from the moral high ground.) He's now set on revenge. He's claimed to have evidence backing up some of his more serious allegations, but this evidence has not been provided.

The right wing of the SNP are restive because they see Sturgeon as too liberal on social issues (principally the old bugbear of gender recognition that has been such a cesspit in UK politics recently) and they've adopted Salmond's cause enthusiastically as a way of bringing her down. They want to replace her with a leader who is more radical on independence, not less. They assume, not without good reason, that the SNP can win the election even after such a defenestration, largely because the Tories seem to have a firm ceiling on their vote some way short of what it would take to win and Scottish Labour/ the Lib Dems are fading from view.

The Tories are delighted because this is the first really substantial crisis the SNP and particularly Sturgeon have had in about a decade. They see an opportunity to break through that ceiling and end the push for independence, not for good of course, but certainly for some years while the SNP struggle among themselves to find a popular successor to Sturgeon.

We'll see how today goes. But the basic story here is, Alex Salmond turns out to be such an egotist he's willing to wreck his own party rather than just admit to his own failings.

I wonder of he genuinely believes he xan resurrect his political career and return as SNP leader?

The idea there was a conspiracy to bring him down is pretty laughable. He lost the referendum, quit as leader, lost an election (to a Tory!), and then worked for Russia Today!

That’s before we get to sexual impropriety allegations. He was acquitted in court but after, his lawyer was recorded in a train saying he was a sex pest and a bully.

[john]

I do feel a (tiny) bit sorry for Salmond, it’s not often you win a civil and criminal case and remain almost entirely unvindicated in public opinion.

You have to wonder what would have happened if the government had handled the harassment complaint properly in the first place.

The conspiracy idea is definitely absurd. I can also believe Sturgeon that the meeting with Salmond aide Aberdein was not memorable to her (although she’s still got to take responsibility for misleading parliament).

But the idea that the case “had to be heard” even though they were going to lose is nonsense. That sounds like politics, not legal process. And I also don’t buy the idea that making sure victims’ voices are heard gives free reign for lawbreaking, that’s the same kind of line Matt Hancock used except he cited the pandemic as his excuse.

[mormont]

I mean, basically the real misstep here was agreeing to meet with Salmond about the allegations. Sturgeon should never have done that. Presumably she felt obligated to by their history. Everything else she's accused of flows from that meeting, which Salmond presumably wanted in the first place to wangle his way out of the investigation, and has shamelessly weaponised to settle scores afterwards.