UK Politics - Put your mask in the bin and hug your granny

[Which Tyler]

7 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

According to one publication it is only "up to 25,000" deaths per year. So you are even being overly generous by saying "usually around 30,000". Let's go with 25K/year. That translates to 68 deaths per day on average in a bad 'flu year. But that is only an average. Daily deaths from flu in Summer should be way below that and way above that in winter. So I would think if COVID deaths per day drop below 30 in summer and are less than 120 in winter one might argue that the disease is now not as bad as 'flu, in a bad year, so I guess one could then argue that special measures to stop COVID are not really justified. Though I would say if countries took special measures every winter (masks at least, maybe also people rostered to work from home in jobs that can facilitate this to decrease numbers in office spaces) then that would decrease both 'flu and COVID (now that it is pretty much endemic) deaths. And for very little cost or inconvenience individually and zero cost to the economy it could save a few thousand lives per year.

I see the UK has had 4 consecutive weeks were the weekly peak has increased over the previous week. It's nothing close to exponential, but it is going in the wrong direction, in summer, before(?) school has resumed, and if left to its own devices could be a warning of a major winter wave to come.

Worth remembering that the NHS is stretched to breaking point most winters recently with influenza - doubling that extra, seasonal stress would be worse, and worth taking extra measures anyway. Hospitalisations rather than deaths is the important figure here.

IMO we already weren't doing enough about influenza before this.
I'd be fine with WFH whilst infected, masking in enclosed public spaces, social distancing, improved personal hygiene and expanded 'flu vaccination every winter anyway (I'd also be happy with improved personal hygiene at all times of the year as a matter of standard).

[Soylent Brown]

It's not just the covid deaths that are the problem though. If hospitals are rammed with people suffering with it all year round, other people then suffer delays in their various treatments.

As someone with a father who has been in a holding pattern waiting for a valve replacement operation for quite a while, it's frustrating seeing dipshits arguing that wearing a mask on public transport or whatever is too great a burden to undertake.

And the thing is, if it were to go badly for him before his operation, the stated cause of death would likely be aortic stenosis, not covid.

[BigFatCoward]

16 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Lol, ok have to hold my hands up and say I was looking at the stats for ‘deaths with disease mentioned on death certificates’ rather than cause of death. Fair enough. 
 

 

Lol about this, really? 

This is why we are where we are. People sharing horseshit on the Internet they don't understand has led us to this point.

There have probably been at least 100,000 deaths that could have been avoided if fucking cretins had been prevented from reading nonsense on Facebook about how this wasn't as serious as it is. 

[polishgenius]

Dominic Raab refused to take a phone call from the Afghan foreign secretary, regarding the evacuation of translators who helped the British army, because he was on holiday.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/19/utterly-shameful-labour-asks-if-dominic-raab-should-stay-after-afghanistan-delays

[Spockydog]

10 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Dominic Raab refused to take a phone call from the Afghan foreign secretary, regarding the evacuation of translators who helped the British army, because he was on holiday.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/19/utterly-shameful-labour-asks-if-dominic-raab-should-stay-after-afghanistan-delays

I mean, you have to wonder why on earth he thought it appropriate to go on holiday at all. 

Of course, nothing will happen. He will remain in situ, and Johnson will ignore the noise. 

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Dominic Raab refused to take a phone call from the Afghan foreign secretary, regarding the evacuation of translators who helped the British army, because he was on holiday.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/19/utterly-shameful-labour-asks-if-dominic-raab-should-stay-after-afghanistan-delays

It is amusing that Raab tries to project an image of competent leadership (no doubt fancying his chances if/when the Tories realise that aside from Brexit Boris is far too left of the mainstream of the party and too in love with the magic money tree) when he is basically Chris Grayling with a better-fitting suit.

[BigFatCoward]

I can't get bothered by this. A deputy can cover and it's not like he has any actual qualification to do the job anyway. I don't answer the phone on holiday. They are cunts, but in this case not so much. 

[Denvek]

12 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I can't get bothered by this. A deputy can cover and it's not like he has any actual qualification to do the job anyway. I don't answer the phone on holiday. They are cunts, but in this case not so much. 

But in this case getting your deputy to make the call (it was making a call, not answering one, if that matters) has the optics of making it look like this issue isn't important enough for you to be bothered with.

But I guess Raab is taking cues from his boss, and Boris has plenty of prior form for not letting a political crisis distract him from the important work of being on holiday.

[polishgenius]

26 minutes ago, Denvek said:

But in this case getting your deputy to make the call (it was making a call, not answering one, if that matters) has the optics of making it look like this issue isn't important enough for you to be bothered with.

 

It also meant that the call was delayed by a day. Not quite sure why, but a day could have been a _lot_ in that situation.

[BigFatCoward]

12 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

It also meant that the call was delayed by a day. Not quite sure why, but a day could have been a _lot_ in that situation.

Hardly his fault though. That's a systemic issue. 

[mormont]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

aside from Brexit Boris is far too left of the mainstream of the party

Um, no. No, he isn't.

I've noted before that the 'moderate' image Johnson cultivated as Mayor of London was pure pretence. Johnson is a typical modern Tory: willing to appear tolerant on selected LGB issues (not so much on the T+), willing to include ethnic minority voters as long as they're right wing and think racism is solved, willing to include women in the cabinet but not to treat women in his personal life with respect, and still riddled with prejudices. He's absolutely in tune with most of the grass roots of the party on social issues - that's why they like him.

The one thing he does have is a weakness for grandiose capital expenditure. That's where the 'money tree' comes in. But ask him to spend more on funding essential public services and you'll soon see that he is very much in the mainstream of the Tory party on that topic.

[Werthead]

36 minutes ago, mormont said:

I've noted before that the 'moderate' image Johnson cultivated as Mayor of London was pure pretence. Johnson is a typical modern Tory: willing to appear tolerant on selected LGB issues (not so much on the T+), willing to include ethnic minority voters as long as they're right wing and think racism is solved, willing to include women in the cabinet but not to treat women in his personal life with respect, and still riddled with prejudices. He's absolutely in tune with most of the grass roots of the party on social issues - that's why they like him.

The one thing he does have is a weakness for grandiose capital expenditure. That's where the 'money tree' comes in. But ask him to spend more on funding essential public services and you'll soon see that he is very much in the mainstream of the Tory party on that topic.

This is true, but the Conservative Party is at heart obsessed with the economy, small government and the privatisation of everything, at least now that Europe is "solved" (or so they like to think), and to them increasing the public sector, increasing the national debt and strengthening the NHS are antithetical policies, borne for the sake of the pandemic but they expect once the pandemic is over - which, as we saw this week, they believe happened several weeks ago - those things to come to an end and are positively slathering for Austerity 2.0 (This Time We Really Mean It) to kick off.

Boris, on the other hand, is a populist and likes doing popular things and people clapping him and telling him jolly good show. Doing something that's incredibly unpopular and will get the media to turn on him, like slashing more jobs and scrapping more public services, is not something he relishes. If someone presented him with even a halfway feasible plan to build that bridge over the Irish Sea or a new airport in the Thames Estuary or something that looks really cool (whilst probably not achieving anything), he be off to shakedown Sunak for the funds in a heartbeat, and that's something the rest of the party is extremely wary of about him. Though it's also a massive headache for them. They are in fear that the 2019 bounce was down to a combination of Brexit and Boris, and with Brexit done (or so they've been saying), they might find maintaining that majority at the next election (potentially only a bit more than two years away) problematic anyway, and with Boris gone likely impossible, with no comparable successor to take on the reigns. As usual, the saving grace there for them might be Starmer's lukewarmness (and the possibility of the rest of the pandemic and aftermath being smooth enough to risk an early election and then debate getting rid of him afterwards).

[BigFatCoward]

If its true (as is being reported) that the afghan minister refused to speak to a junior minister rather than Raab then fuck that idiot. I've had this so many times at work 'I want a problem solved but not by you, get me your boss or your bosses boss'.  

[mormont]

7 hours ago, Werthead said:

This is true, but the Conservative Party is at heart obsessed with the economy, small government and the privatisation of everything, at least now that Europe is "solved" (or so they like to think), and to them increasing the public sector, increasing the national debt and strengthening the NHS are antithetical policies, borne for the sake of the pandemic but they expect once the pandemic is over - which, as we saw this week, they believe happened several weeks ago - those things to come to an end and are positively slathering for Austerity 2.0 (This Time We Really Mean It) to kick off.

Johnson, you'll find, is 100% up for that. It's true that he doesn't like being unpopular, saying no to people and taking hard decisions and it's also true that he is not as far to the right on economic issues as he is on social issues. But what that means is that he'll let Sunak take the hard decisions and the brickbats for them - not that he will be opposed to them. Johnson is going to be all for cuts, small government and particularly privatisation.

[A wilding]

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

If its true (as is being reported) that the afghan minister refused to speak to a junior minister rather than Raab then fuck that idiot. I've had this so many times at work 'I want a problem solved but not by you, get me your boss or your bosses boss'.  

Agreed, the Afghan minister is a pompous idiot. But sometimes, to get things done, you have to flatter such idiots (while never losing track of what they are). I imagine that at the Foreign Office, of all places, they would be well aware of this. And in this case, it appears that "get things done" meant "saving lives". If the facts were as stated there is no excuse for Raab - except the faint one that he only acted exactly as his boss would have done,

 

[Spockydog]

9 minutes ago, A wilding said:

Agreed, the Afghan minister is a pompous idiot. But sometimes, to get things done, you have to flatter such idiots (while never losing track of what they are). I imagine that at the Foreign Office, of all places, they would be well aware of this. And in this case, it appears that "get things done" meant "saving lives". If the facts were as stated there is no excuse for Raab - except the faint one that he only acted exactly as his boss would have done,

 

Indeed. This is called diplomacy. In any normal world, Raab should be sacked. But this is Bozoworld.

[Raja]

This made me laugh. For those who don't know, it's a reference to Javid saying they're opening a new hospital when really they were adding a cancer center to an existing hospital.

[Derfel Cadarn]

4 hours ago, Raja said:

This made me laugh. For those who don't know, it's a reference to Javid saying they're opening a new hospital when really they were adding a cancer center to an existing hospital.

Under current Tory definition of ‘newly built’, I could renovate my house and add a level to the single-storey extension, and call it a new build

[BigFatCoward]

Sometimes I hate my work. The fucking clip of the people piers corbyn surrounds himself with. What a bunch of absolute dross. It's so hard not getting caught on camera expressing my utter contempt for these people. 

[Derfel Cadarn]

Brexit; the gift that keeps (not) giving.

MacDonalds has run out of milkshakes in the UK (apart from N Ireland of course).