Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!
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davek
Player Valuation: £150m
If that coward Starmer has gone all out for a 2 week circuit breaker then you have the feeling he's pushing at an open door, because he'd never take a principled stance on anything.
It must be odds on now that we have a 2 week lockdown to coincide with the school half term.
It must be odds on now that we have a 2 week lockdown to coincide with the school half term.
orly
Please check with me for Blammo criteria
Yes I think that's right
Foot Long Hot Dog
Player Valuation: A packet of pork scratchings
Doesn’t look like the Torygraph bothered telling him that Sweden’s unemployment rate is up 2,2% since March either.
But herd immunity utopia or something
NilSatisOptimum
Player Valuation: £70m
Well, Keir Starmer has just made a speech that was quite excusite. Appearing more statemen like than the Prime Minister, he has backed the SAGE scientists, highlighted infighting Tories and cornered the Prime Minister. Some proper leadership!
www.bbc.co.uk
Covid-19: Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer calls for circuit breaker
Sir Keir Starmer says the government has lost control of coronavirus, as daily deaths rise to 143.
www.bbc.co.uk
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Found his balls for once.Well, Keir Starmer has just made a speech that was quite excusite. Appearing more statemen like than the Prime Minister, he has backed the SAGE scientists, highlighted infighting Tories and cornered the Prime Minister. Some proper leadership!
Covid-19: Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer calls for circuit breaker
Sir Keir Starmer says the government has lost control of coronavirus, as daily deaths rise to 143.
Starmer no different to any Labour leader before him.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
In that he is going to get slated by the press for this, no - in fact its because he is right that they will properly have a go at him.
Or the variety of measures that Sweden have introduced or expanded to enable their strategy.
It seems like the right time to hold their feet to the fire and actually back an alternative position. Not sure politically he could do that before.
abelard
Player Valuation: £35m
Interesting take in the New Statesman on the reason for leaving wriggle room on pubs adapting from 'wet' pubs to one's selling at least some food and the reason for not locking restaurants down. As you might guess, it's financial condsiderations over health considerations at the heart of it...
Everybody has missed one loophole in the new lockdown rules
By giving businesses room to stay open, the government is giving itself room over how few businesses to support.
Stephen Bush
The government is divided: between ministers who want to go into a lockdown, and between ministers who want to bring the United Kingdom’s generous coronavirus subsidies to an end.
Because Boris Johnson has not chosen between those two schools of thought but has instead opted for a middle path, the UK’s current policy mix actively discincentivises businesses seeking to transition to operating in a covid-secure way – because it is only businesses who are forcibly shut down by the government that are eligible for the next round of wage and operating subsidy. Businesses who are trading will be able to use the new job support scheme, but its design makes it more expensive for businesses than simply cutting jobs and hours. The transformational policy levers are only available to your business if you are shut down.
That’s the lens, too, to understand the prohibitions placed on businesses under England’s new three-tier system. Bars, pubs and restaurants in “medium” or “tier one” areas – that is, the default setting – have to shut at 10pm and cannot accept parties greater than six. The same establishments in “high” or “tier two” areas face the same restrictions and, in addition, a ban on mixing between households.
But it is only pubs and bars in “very high” or “tier three” areas that will actually be forced to close – and even then, not if they serve a “substantial” main course. Restaurants will be able to remain open – and will, therefore, not be eligible for financial support.
A lot of the commentary around this has focused on how silly it is – on the fact that many pubs can escape the instruction to shut by increasing the amount of food they offer, and that people will be ordering “meals” consisting of the soup of the day, eight tequila shots and a pint of lager. This is good fun and I’ve done it myself, but it’s not quite accurate: in practice this is not an attractive future for most "wet" (that is, booze-only) pubs.
Firstly, someone who has had a square meal and a drink is more likely to observe social distancing when they leave the pub than someone who has just had a drink. It really doesn’t matter how many drinks those two otherwise identical customers have had: the one who has had a meal is less of a disease vector than the one who hasn’t. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly: the immediate effect of these loopholes is to sharply reduce the number of businesses which are eligible to seek government support.
A pub, bar or restaurant that has been deprived of its post-10pm trade is already under severe financial pressure. One that has been deprived of any custom that comes from mixing between households – from dates between new couples, catch-ups between friends, and so on – is under yet greater pressure. Frankly, anyhospitality business that does a significant Christmas party trade is heading for a very painful winter – yet they will receive no additional financial support unless they are a very narrowly defined group of bars and pubs in tier-three areas.
These loopholes aren’t silly, or ill-thought-through: they are masterful examples of a Chancellor and a Treasury that might have lost the policy argument internally but that are finding ways to get their way at the implementation stage nonetheless: by sharply reducing the amount they have to spend in subsidy to businesses and to households even while superficially caving to internal and external political pressure.
Everybody has missed one loophole in the new lockdown rules
By giving businesses room to stay open, the government is giving itself room over how few businesses to support.www.newstatesman.com
Stephen Bush: Britain's last (non-FT) journalist.
roydo
in memoriam - 1965-2024
A two week lock down doesnt affect me in the slightest, but it seems a pretty good idea. Essex council were asking for one for them earlier "dull the bell curve" or sommet.; this doesnt need politics, needs quick reactions.
Oh never disagreed with his comments he just comes across as someone that's going to be all talk when someone else is in power and then utterly crap if he's ever given the reigns.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
He's been a lap dog.
Anyway, regardless of that, I think if we do go into a circuit breaker it could well go beyond 2 weeks. And it should.
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