United Kingdom VI: Summer Lovin'

[Cepp]

But they don't need anyone to buy it. They're sitting pretty. Totally unaccountable with four more years in the bag.

True enough.

[wheelaa]

Been some time since I looked at figures in detail. There's a (new to me) interactive map at

https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map

that provides a snapshot by various LA tiers.

[Neon Ignition]

Manchester getting no support from the Tories is fine, I mean, I'm sure the same will happen when London hits tier 3 right... err, right??

[wheelaa]

An interesting, rather callous, somewhat out of date, with a little massaging of the figures / message I suppose, article / take / spin about ONS figures...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/20/second-wave-not-sight-ons-figures-show-deaths-just-15-per-cent/

It does make me realise just how incomplete the data is that we have...and how easy it is to paint pretty much any picture that the painter desires...

Meanwhile, in news that is not a shock to anyone, UK gov debt is really high, but borrowing costs are still really low. Just take that £5m hit (which will be more once other regions are moved to Tier 3, but miniscule compared to all that wasted cash on scabby cronies), and let Burnham have his 5 mins (even though he is a disgusting ballbag politician through and through...).

Edit...

Thinking about it more, maybe Burnham isn't quite the ballbag I have thought he is. He always struck me as a Brown / Johnson type, wants to be PM at all costs. How many of you can recall more than one of his ministerial posts (without a wiki read) let alone anything worthwhile he achieved in any of them? What about his shadow posts, HS for example, during periods of Tory rule where they were happy to run roughshod over the NHS? Or his leadership bids? Fails.

But consider that UK politics is all about the cronies, the backhand deals, the nudges and winks, building that internal political MP base through bribes, threats and promises...probably a good thing he hasn't achieved through any of that (unless it's purely due to being bad at playing the game).

I have a spare hour now, time for some Burnham research!

[MartyG]

He's a politician, of course he's playing the game the same as every other single one of them.

[Neon Ignition]

Burnham was our local MP for an ice age till the Mayorship appeared on the table, making noise and career advancement is literally all he's aimed for an accomplished. The town continuously declined throughout his tenure with multiple 'saviour' white elephant projects coming and going leading to where it is now... represented by a Tory for the first time in its entire history.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-21/brexit-talks-set-to-restart-with-aim-of-deal-by-mid-november

Brexit deal attempt 435 might be on the agenda, this time with a new strategy:

Embedded Tweet

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/oct/21/uk-coronavirus-news-sheffield-south-yorkshire-tier-3-coronavirus-boris-johnson

Sturgeon announces a tiered lockdown system for Scotland using.... five tiers. Coordinated messaging at its best.

[Neon Ignition]

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/cases

26,688 new cases today utterly annihilating the previous record. Good job there's no second lockdown, everyone's alternate plan for the economy looks to be shaping up real good.

[Neon Ignition]

Here's my Autumn theory:

The Government knows and has known since at least probably July/August that a second national lockdown is inevitable. When one is implemented there will be no furlough and far, far less in terms of financial support than the first time around. However, they will also anticipate that a lockdown over Christmas will be hugely unpopular and also be the worst time for all businesses. The issue is that if a national lockdown is initiated now it will cement that a third national lockdown would be needed in the new year.

Everything they do now they know will fail but it's all for distraction and delays sake, an attempt to push the lockdown into January under the impression that one lockdown is better and less damaging than two. The issue is that trajectory is well ahead of their plans, by the time they act the damage will be catastrophic and the one massive lockdown could well prove more damaging than two smaller ones would have thanks to the scale of the issue and how long the larger lockdown will need to bring it back under control.

Also - if, if genuine Brexit deal talks with the EU resume and land something agreeable it will solely be because COVID and their mishandling of the pandemic will have pushed the Tories to a point of economic desperateness that forces them to.

[Cepp]

I couldn't tell you a single thing Andy Burnham had done before becoming mayor of Greater Manchester. What I can say is that in the here and now, **** is hitting the fan and he's doing what needs to be done. I'll take that over Johnson's garbage any day of the week.

[Anpanman]

Burnham was our local MP for an ice age till the Mayorship appeared on the table, making noise and career advancement is literally all he's aimed for an accomplished. The town continuously declined throughout his tenure with multiple 'saviour' white elephant projects coming and going leading to where it is now... represented by a Tory for the first time in its entire history.

Thanks for this, I always thought he was ok, certainly on QT when he was opposition health sec it seemed no-one wanted to take him on as hew knew his onions.
Obviously the lobby-gobblers would know better as they would have more actual experience of him.

I couldn't tell you a single thing Andy Burnham had done before becoming mayor of Greater Manchester. What I can say is that in the here and now, **** is hitting the fan and he's doing what needs to be done. I'll take that over Johnson's garbage any day of the week.

He's tried to get a grip of the buses and trains, First-Bus did one when he started shouting and Diamond took over, can't really say which one is worse though, daughter and wife have plenty of problems getting into Bury for school and work.

[Cepp]

He's tried to get a grip of the buses and trains, First-Bus did one when he started shouting and Diamond took over, can't really say which one is worse though, daughter and wife have plenty of problems getting into Bury for school and work.

First are complete trash. Diamond are better in every way. I forgot about the plans to bring it all back in-house. I'd be quite happy with that.

[Neon Ignition]

His big thing as Mayor has been a push on tackling the homelessness issue which is good but the current situation will have shot his efforts dead. You can never escape the notion that he see's his mayorship as being akin to being London Mayor and its nowhere near viewed the same, especially by Johnson etc.

[MartyG]

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/cases
26,688 new cases today utterly annihilating the previous record. Good job there's no second lockdown, everyone's alternate plan for the economy looks to be shaping up real good.

Yes, and this nonsense about "it's just because they're doing more tests" & "less people are testing positive than the last peak" has to stop



Because it's BS - positive cases of those testing has been consistantly rising since the end of August. The positive percentage of tested is now higher than the May peak.

If the current trend continues, we'll crack the 1 million cases this time next week.

---------------

Also, there aren't enough walls in my house ...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/22/one-in-four-britons-believe-in-qanon-linked-theories-survey

The research for Hope Not Hate also found that 17% of people questioned said they believed Covid-19 was intentionally released as part of a “depopulation plan” by the UN or “new world order”.

Because releasing viruses is a nice controllable way of doing this, right?