United Kingdom VI: Summer Lovin'

[Brad]

Jeez, UK. You’re not well. https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...box=1601198869

I like how the examples were grouped as one:

“a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair elections”

Do you think we should end free and fair elections?
Of course not!
Good. Next question, do you think democracy is a good thing?
Well, yeah.
Excellent. I’ll write down that you’re pro capitalism as well.

[Asura]

I like how the examples were grouped as one:

“a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair elections”

Do you think we should end free and fair elections?
Of course not!
Good. Next question, do you think democracy is a good thing?
Well, yeah.
Excellent. I’ll write down that you’re pro capitalism as well.

This just reminds me of those annoying times in my youth, where you would be asked by some jobsworth "what's your religion" and you'd say "none" and you would SEE them tick the box for "Anglican", just because they couldn't be arsed to tick other as that meant they'd have to write "Atheist".

[QualityChimp]

Till lady in Morrison's said it's UHT milk, bleach, toilet roll, pasta and the like going again.

[Hirst]

The UK is becoming a country I won't be welcome to live in soon.

I'm a regular guy with a steady full-time job. I've lived here since I was born and so has pretty much every single person in my family going back for generations. My surname is a weird local variation from where I live that goes back to the days of that medieval guy doing a dump at Jorvik.

I'm also starting to feel like I'm not welcome to live here, just because I frequently disagree with the decisions of our increasingly erratic government.

I wouldn't even say that I feel I have extreme political views. I just don't think it's right that a developed country should have an underclass of people who have jobs but need to rely on handouts and food banks, don't think our tax system works fairly, the rise of buy-to-let was a huge mistake, our housing market is insane and needs major reform and that we should be working with other countries instead of trying to dominate and aggravate them to impress people who don't understand international trade.

I feel like I've become the enemy for simply continuing to have quite moderate views.

[charlesr]

The idea of houses as income is a bit tragic. The more people that do it, the more houses cost to buy (supply dries up). House price rises make everyone that doesn't own houses as income poorer (they have to pay more each month to get one).

[QualityChimp]

It's definitely depressing me.
I think the main thing is that despite the facts people have seen and heard, they still willingly vote Johnson and Trump.

I have also thought about moving elsewhere.

The Bunker
"Why does GERMANY do everything better? JOHN KAMPFNER knows"

[nonny]

I'm a regular guy with a steady full-time job. I've lived here since I was born and so has pretty much every single person in my family going back for generations. My surname is a weird local variation from where I live that goes back to the days of that medieval guy doing a dump at Jorvik.

I'm also starting to feel like I'm not welcome to live here, just because I frequently disagree with the decisions of our increasingly erratic government.

I wouldn't even say that I feel I have extreme political views. I just don't think it's right that a developed country should have an underclass of people who have jobs but need to rely on handouts and food banks, don't think our tax system works fairly, the rise of buy-to-let was a huge mistake, our housing market is insane and needs major reform and that we should be working with other countries instead of trying to dominate and aggravate them to impress people who don't understand international trade.

I feel like I've become the enemy for simply continuing to have quite moderate views.

I moved back here two years ago for family reasons having lived in Australia for 18 years (Ireland for 5 before that)...

Myself and the Wife agreed this was a permanent move when we did it but two years in we have since decided we'll be moving back to Australia before our kids hit secondary school.

Love being here and close to my family but honestly I'm glad to have an out with the dual passports.

[monel]

This country is not good at all for social mobility, and class is never, ever discussed.

There's an undercurrent of xenophobia throughout the country and if your name looks different or you look different, you might get treated differently by the system.

Still some lovely people here but they aren't in charge.

An underclass has been created , look back at the riots these decades.

I saw someone mention that much of the electorate votes Tory, but they usually don't admit to it.

[Asura]

I saw someone mention that much of the electorate votes Tory, but they usually don't admit to it.

There's certainly an element of quiet selfishness to it. There's a decent wedge of the population who are holding out for that lottery win or sudden windfall that makes them "rich", and if that happens, they want to keep it. Like their aspirations don't involve a fairer society; they're about unfairness being okay providing they're in the upper crust.

[Hirst]

Some people are happy to live in an awful society provided they have enough money to insulate themselves from it - think of all these countries where it's completely normal for people in the middle class and richer to live in gated communities, have bars on their windows and gardens with 3 metre high walls surrounding them. Driving over to fancy restaurants with the windows rolled up and doors locked, armed guards out the front and valets to take/drop-off the car because simply walking down the street to a car park would be suicide. Loads of people would be happy if they were still on the nice side of the tracks.

Problem is that the super-rich put a lot of effort into convincing anyone who is doing reasonably well - not rich, just getting by enough to be happy with their lot - of the following points:

1. Everyone who has money has worked hard to get it and deserve it
2. Anyone can be rich, the only reason poor people aren't rich is because they haven't worked hard enough
3. The society we have is engineered to give hard-working people like you the best life possible
4. Any kind of social reform is going to take the money you have worked hard for and given to people who haven't
5. It's fine for the super rich to wield enough political and media influence to shape society how they want it, because they are of huge benefit to our society
6. Human misery and suffering is acceptable and there is no other alternative

It's nonsense of course. Lots of people who have money don't deserve it and have never worked hard. Lots of people who work hard every day struggle to simply pay their rent. The super-rich don't just exploit the poor, they exploit everyone below them. As for their benefit to society, we read almost every day about folks with hundreds of millions in the bank paying almost zero tax and qualifying for government grants to have their mansions repaired, robbing pension schemes, paying huge dividends to themselves and their cronies as they asset strip companies that go down. Some self-made success stories exist, but the idea that everyone out there can just "work hard" and make themselves a success is an engineered fallacy designed to keep cogs moving round the machine - capitalism is a giant pyramid scheme. It's the only way it can work. We can't all work hard and become the boss.

The idea that we can't take large amounts of money from the super-rich and spread it to everyone else in society because it's "unfair" is enormously irritating to me. If we took half the personal wealth of the 10 richest people every year, we'd probably cure cancer, end world hunger and almost everyone would be able to enjoy their lives - at almost zero cost to them. Would I think it was fair if it happened to me? I don't know, because I'm not enough of a psychopath to have tens of billions in the bank and think "yeah, this world is fine as it is, I'll just keep that in the bank in case I need it later to buy 5000 gold Learjets or something".

[monel]

I can't remember who first said it but the system's biggest con is convincing people that they will one day be rich, and are 'temporarily inconvenienced ', never ever poor.

These systems run on exploitation, the misery of day to day life hidden by endless distractions and sales.

And there's more homeless than ever, to remind you where you could end up if you play your cards wrong.

[Neon Ignition]

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk

20,000 less tests today, nearly 3,000 extra cases though as the daily number rebounds back up to 7,143

[MartyG]

Yes, 3.6% of tested. People in hospital beds are now over 2,000 and people on vents at 297. Big rises in both since the beginning of the month.

Yet still there are folks claiming it isn't a second wave and there are only more positive tests because there are more tests (with a "Senior Clinical Research Associate" claiming there were a million cases a week in March, which is utter bollox as it either means his inference is flawed or he's very bad at maths as he's also claiming that the current ONS figures at a little below 10,000 rates are 10% of that period and that 7% of the country as had Covid-19 - all those things cannot be true together).

No. No no no no no no no no no no no no. The percentage of positive tests has been steadily increasing and sticking heads in sand is going to do bugger all to slow it down.

[kryss]

Yet still there are folks claiming it isn't a second wave and there are only more positive tests because there are more tests (with a "Senior Clinical Research Associate" claiming there were a million cases a week in March, which is utter bollox as it either means his inference is flawed or he's very bad at maths as he's also claiming that the current ONS figures at a little below 10,000 rates are 10% of that period and that 7% of the country as had Covid-19 - all those things cannot be true together).

Do they have a friend on the forum by chance?

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/sep/29/uk-coronavirus-news-boris-johnson-announcement-latest-local-lockdown-covid-19-live-updates

Tories act as cowards as usual and allow the Internal Markets Bill that enables the Government to break international law.


I'm still very wary of the claims about the first wave. I don't doubt it was bigger than where we are now but I think the scale of Test and Trace's failure is being heavily downplayed and would narrow the gap a fair bit. Deaths has a three week lag so isn't the right one to compare to the last peak, hospitalisations is likely the best one with us being approx 12% of the way there but key is this is September - there are eight more months to survive yet