When will this shit end?

[stuartbert two hats]

8 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

creep.

Weirdo

[squirrelarmy]

42 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I'm English and pro scottish independence...

I have mixed feelings. I hate to see any division between countries, we should all be part of one big happy economic family. 
 

I can also understand why Scotland and the other countries in the UK don’t want anything to do with the shitshow that is our current government. They have the greatest chance of winning an independence vote than ever before. 
 

If Scotland does leave the UK that would cause huge ripples around the globe especially when it comes to flags. The Union Flag would have to cease to exist, all the countries who use it in their flags will have to change. Doesn’t the monarchy have a large claim to most of Scotland as they do with the rest of the crown estates. Would they keep it and the split would just be a political move but both countries share the same monarch? 
 

The border between England and Scotland would have to be physical although it would actually be easier to define than the border between NI and Ireland. 
 

A large proportion of the UK’s naval assets are based in Scotland too as well as being the hub for the gas and oil offshore industries. 
 

I think the countries are too tightly woven together with a lot of dependence on each other to make any split practical. 

[zahidf]

 

 

[Neil]

40 minutes ago, SwedgeAntilles said:

Even accepting that the 45% who voted for independence are all part of some nationalistic cult (which we're not, another reminder that both the socialist and Greens in Scotland support independence), this latest increase is the Yes vote is going to be primarily made up of either new voters/people who didn't vote last time or, in many cases, soft No's. Neither of those groups can be described as religious followers of the SNP so there remains a sizable for share should a party opt to champion a third approach.  

Tho they're also new people attracted to it without the counter-arguments. And as you point out, the new difference is with the less devoted - who by definition will be more open to those rational counter-arguments.

Tho my comment was less about indy and more about the chances of Labour winning Scotland back. 

Whatever the opinion towards indy in Scotland, there's no victory for Labour to be had by pandering to it - because Labour are out of power if indy happens with the loss of the Scottish seats needed to give them a majority.

So Labour should stick to the rational argument, that creating new barriers doesn't make for a better world.

Edited July 5, 2020 by Neil

[zero000]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

I'm English and pro scottish independence...

Just what we need after Brexit, more nationalism. 

[Mr Boo]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

creep.

 

59 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Weirdo

What the hell am I doing here?

I don’t belong here

[aj6658]

I'm going to be all doom and gloom. I feel like we (The Government) utterly bungled the lockdown. It was enacted too late, wasn't enforced strictly enough (Limited fines, people going to beaches) , mixed messages (Cummings, Stanley Johnson, "stay alert"). The pictures yesterday of pubs in soho and myself walking around Bristol, i saw hardly any social distancing, hardly any masks. 

 

This virus is going to continue into the winter and well into next year. If that is the case, will the government allow almost 200k people go toe events like Glastonbury?

There may be treatments of the virus but i do think there will be a vaccine anytime soon

[squirrelarmy]

The governments plan was always going to be herd immunity. Locking down was never going to work long term in fighting this virus. Unless the whole world literally stopped for a month and no one had contact with any one else then the virus will always have a chance to circulate. This would have been impossible to achieve in the interconnected world that we have today.
 

Even if we had locked down hard and early subsequent infections will still have broken out once travel restrictions were lifted. Heathrow airport for example is the busiest airport in the world. The amount of people moving through there on a daily basis is mind boggling. 
 

All we can do is protect the vulnerable and minimise the risk to as many people as possible. The government did fail many people there. However you can’t stop the economy indefinitely. Job losses are on the rise, if people aren’t spending money then more jobs are at risk. 
 

The furlough scheme has helped. It’s enabled people to avoid close contact with other people and still spend money keeping the economy going to some extent. I’ve actually been able to save money even though I’ve only been on 80% of my salary.
 

I’m ready to get back out there and spend some money. Although we should be considerate where we spend it. Definitely going to be spending it locally where possible. 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

18 hours ago, Superscally said:

I've got a direct line to PHE. The epidemiologists don't give a shit about the case number as there are too many variables feeding into the system. The only real barometer they are going by is 7 day average deaths, which are also lower than they should be as people are also being treated more effectively. That's all you need to know. You can bounce around whatever theories you like about that, but they're not completely accurate. Sorry man.

Of course infections declining will lead to deaths declining, but the level of the stats we see can't be interpreted as straight. It's raw data you need. Infections did drop, but they're not currently doing so in any significant amount. Most places are at an r-value approaching 1 and will likely soon go over. The second wave won't be as high here, it's believed, but it's coming. For sure. 

 

I’m not sure I get any of the points you’re trying to make, so best we leave it there.

[Billy Corgan's Ego]

3 hours ago, SwedgeAntilles said:

Even accepting that the 45% who voted for independence are all part of some nationalistic cult (which we're not, another reminder that both the socialist and Greens in Scotland support independence), this latest increase is the Yes vote is going to be primarily made up of either new voters/people who didn't vote last time or, in many cases, soft No's. Neither of those groups can be described as religious followers of the SNP so there remains a sizable for share should a party opt to champion a third approach.  

I am in this 'soft no' group that you describe and couldn't agree more with your assessment.

I voted no in 2014 after much internal deliberation and sole searching. I am now in no doubt that I voted the wrong way and have, at times over the last couple of years, been almost ashamed at my original choice. 

Hopefully Nicola manages to obtain permissions for a new vote soon. The outcome of which would be different IMO

Edited July 5, 2020 by Billy Corgan's Ego

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

1 hour ago, aj6658 said:

I'm going to be all doom and gloom. I feel like we (The Government) utterly bungled the lockdown. It was enacted too late, wasn't enforced strictly enough (Limited fines, people going to beaches) , mixed messages (Cummings, Stanley Johnson, "stay alert"). The pictures yesterday of pubs in soho and myself walking around Bristol, i saw hardly any social distancing, hardly any masks. 

 

This virus is going to continue into the winter and well into next year. If that is the case, will the government allow almost 200k people go toe events like Glastonbury?

There may be treatments of the virus but i do think there will be a vaccine anytime soon

I’d say we definitely locked down too late (maybe by a week or so) and handled the Cummings thing really badly, but I’m inclined to think with the benefit of hindsight I’m not sure about anything else.

Cases are declining even now, lockdown is an extremely blunt tool which did its job here in the same way it has done everywhere else in the world, it got cases down quickly and stopped the NHS being overwhelmed.

The nuances of how strictly you lockdown are clearly not that relevant, the measures we took were more than enough to stop the virus in its tracks and bring the numbers down. Eliminating the virus is impossible, only NZ have really come close for obvious reasons. So you don’t need military on the streets to keep people on their homes to bring the virus down, what we did was more than enough.

As for Glastonbury, I’m at the stage of thinking that the only reason it won’t go ahead next year is that the a government will be happy to let the industry burn just for the sake of public opinion. I say this because of the bizarre desire of the media to try and whip people up into a frenzy about people going to the beach, which clearly isn’t a problem.

 

Edited July 5, 2020 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[Bisque]

If Scotland did in the future become independent who would their king or queen be?

[SwedgeAntilles]

2 minutes ago, Bisque said:

If Scotland did in the future become independent who would their king or queen be?

Lorraine Kelly. 

[Ozanne]

9 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

I’d say we definitely locked down too late (maybe by a week or so) and handled the Cummings thing really badly, but I’m inclined to think with the benefit of hindsight I’m not sure about anything else.

 

Lack of PPE, wrong shipments of PPE ordered, care homes/release sick patients back into care homes, effective test & trace inc an app, lack of any real plan to get kids back in schools to name but a few. Yes you'll come back with 'hindsight' but remember the government had 2 reports indicating a pandemic is the biggest risk facing this country, they also had time from other countries that were suffering but Boris decided to go on holiday and when back gave off completely the wrong message by saying he was shaking hands with COVID patients. The UK Government have handled many things of this pandemic appallingly and they sadly have many deaths on their hands. To say you can't think of any other aspects of this they've handled badly is pure Tory spin.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

3 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Lack of PPE, wrong shipments of PPE ordered, care homes/release sick patients back into care homes, effective test & trace inc an app, lack of any real plan to get kids back in schools to name but a few. Yes you'll come back with 'hindsight' but remember the government had 2 reports indicating a pandemic is the biggest risk facing this country, they also had time from other countries that were suffering but Boris decided to go on holiday and when back gave off completely the wrong message by saying he was shaking hands with COVID patients. The UK Government have handled many things of this pandemic appallingly and they sadly have many deaths on their hands. To say you can't think of any other aspects of this they've handled badly is pure Tory spin.

Well I’m not a Tory and have never voted Tory for a start, I just try to look at things objectively rather than desperately hoping everything goes disastrously wrong.

I was talking about the lockdown as a means of tackling the virus, which with the benefit of hindsight you’d have to be mad to say it didn’t do exactly what it was intended to do.

Things like PPE and care homes are different issues, and by no means specific to the U.K.

[Superscally]

44 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

I’m not sure I get any of the points you’re trying to make, so best we leave it there.

The only point was that the only figure we can take pretty much at face value is the daily death total taken as the average of the last seven days daily totals.   

[mcshed]

25 minutes ago, Bisque said:

If Scotland did in the future become independent who would their king or queen be?

You are aware it was a Scottish king that became king of England in the Union of the Crowns?

[zahidf]

 

 

[Ozanne]

30 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Well I’m not a Tory and have never voted Tory for a start, I just try to look at things objectively rather than desperately hoping everything goes disastrously wrong.

I was talking about the lockdown as a means of tackling the virus, which with the benefit of hindsight you’d have to be mad to say it didn’t do exactly what it was intended to do.

Things like PPE and care homes are different issues, and by no means specific to the U.K.

I don't think I've ever said I hope things go disastrously wrong, I wanted many things rather than how they went. I want a government that will handle the crises correctly and effectively whilst being humble enough to admit mistakes. You can look objectively on an issue and still critique the government for their handling of this, as much as it might pain you.

Just because those aspects effected other countries doesn't;t mean our government should be given a pass on them. 

[aj6658]

53 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

I’d say we definitely locked down too late (maybe by a week or so) and handled the Cummings thing really badly, but I’m inclined to think with the benefit of hindsight I’m not sure about anything else.

Cases are declining even now, lockdown is an extremely blunt tool which did its job here in the same way it has done everywhere else in the world, it got cases down quickly and stopped the NHS being overwhelmed.

The nuances of how strictly you lockdown are clearly not that relevant, the measures we took were more than enough to stop the virus in its tracks and bring the numbers down. Eliminating the virus is impossible, only NZ have really come close for obvious reasons. So you don’t need military on the streets to keep people on their homes to bring the virus down, what we did was more than enough.

As for Glastonbury, I’m at the stage of thinking that the only reason it won’t go ahead next year is that the a government will be happy to let the industry burn just for the sake of public opinion. I say this because of the bizarre desire of the media to try and whip people up into a frenzy about people going to the beach, which clearly isn’t a problem.

 

I mean saying that with hindsight is kinda ignoring the fact the government wanted a herd immunity strategy. Reality is that lockdown wasn't the the first idea, they were forced into it because of the outrage. 

Are casing declining? is that based on pilar 1 or pilar 2? Leicester would suggest that it's increasing and i would expect it to continue to increase across the nation. We only need to see pictures in Soho of the lack of social distancing. The public general have become fatigued it seems. Anecdotally my local supermarket seems less stringent on the measures as they once were. 

"The nuances of how strictly you lockdown are clearly not that relevant" - disagree with this. The difference between lockdown and "stay alert" are quite relevant. Again look at how people are breaking social distancing even though they are to "remain alert"

I dont think its the media desire to whip up a frenzy about people going to the beach. Bournemouth beach was packed and is part of the problem. People have VE parties and not socially distancing is part of the problem. 

[steviewevie]

One way to prevent the NHS getting overwhelmed was to outsource the problem to care homes.

[MrZigster]

5 hours ago, steviewevie said:

The thing going against Glastonbury is they really pack them in now...being an old fart I remember going in 90s and there being room  between tents, not packed everywhere etc......but since the 2000s and the fence the place just feels more and more rammed. Maybe they'll need to rethink this.

This. It's got ridiculous and it's getting worse. Every year it feels like they increase the capacity but reduce the camping space.

As generally a solo camper, I can envision the day that I set up, wander off for a bimble, and come back to find that there is absolutely no way to get back to my tent. From any approach. Blocked off by a combination of tents right next to each other and the associated poles and guy lines. (I may have actually dreamt about this happening more than once).

2017 I think the only (read easiest/least hassle) way back to mine involved barging through a couple of camps, squeezing between tents and having to lift a guy rope or two, whilst trying not to break my ankles tripping over tent poles. And that was relatively close to a path. Not even enough room for me to put up a camping chair anywhere near my tent. Another year I could hardly get out of my door 'cause some thoughtless bugger had pitched right in front of it.

Be interesting to see the stats for injuries caused by tripping up/being garroted whilst getting to and from camp. I wonder if it's now a become a bigger H&S risk than camp fires ever were.

Hate to think what Row Mead would've been like this year with the tent line being pushed back again. Where are the displaced people from there going to go? Along with the annual increase in punters? Worthy View? Sod that hill and the possibility of being allocated a spot right at the back thus adding another huge trudge. (It could do with an additional entrance/exit at that end these days imo).

A ridiculous thought given the size of the place, but an idea maybe, would be to grid the camping areas. You get a certain amount of square metres per person. Four of you with a lead booker? Four times that much space then. Six of you? Likewise. You can choose to bring a big "fuck off everyone else" tent, or you could bring a reasonably sized one, or six individual ones, then you'd maybe have room for a chair or two and/or a bonfire and/or, god forbid, a gazebo inside your allocated grid.

Enforcing the gazebo ban would be a start.

I fully realise the above is completely unworkable and that the chaos of the camps is half the fun of the place. Just triggered a bit and bored alone at home. And they may have to consider such a ridiculous idea if this things still about next year.

As you were.

Tl;dr: what @stevieweviesaid.

 

 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

5 minutes ago, aj6658 said:

I mean saying that with hindsight is kinda ignoring the fact the government wanted a herd immunity strategy. Reality is that lockdown wasn't the the first idea, they were forced into it because of the outrage. 

Are casing declining? is that based on pilar 1 or pilar 2? Leicester would suggest that it's increasing and i would expect it to continue to increase across the nation. We only need to see pictures in Soho of the lack of social distancing. The public general have become fatigued it seems. Anecdotally my local supermarket seems less stringent on the measures as they once were. 

"The nuances of how strictly you lockdown are clearly not that relevant" - disagree with this. The difference between lockdown and "stay alert" are quite relevant. Again look at how people are breaking social distancing even though they are to "remain alert"

I dont think its the media desire to whip up a frenzy about people going to the beach. Bournemouth beach was packed and is part of the problem. People have VE parties and not socially distancing is part of the problem. 

Cases are declining according to every possible measure. Leicester is a localised outbreak which is happening everywhere, from China to Germany. It’s what happens when you get things  under control but the virus still exists.

Stay alert was an adjustment post lockdown, it wasn’t the message while in lockdown was it?

And the bit I’ve bolded, it clearly wasn’t a problem was it? 

Edited July 5, 2020 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[aj6658]

2 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Cases are declining according to every possible measure. Leicester is a localised outbreak which is happening everywhere, from China to Germany. It’s what happens when you get things  under control but the virus still exists.

And the bit I’ve bolded, it clearly wasn’t a problem was it? 

Breakouts are an indicator of success? I dont think that it does.

It wasn't? Theres 2 issues with that 1) People not Socially distancing at VE parties will spread the virus, 2) Gives the impression that social distancing is unnecessary .

I can almost guarantee that in the next few weeks weeks we will see an uptick of cases.

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, aj6658 said:

Breakouts are an indicator of success? I dont think that it does.

It wasn't? Theres 2 issues with that 1) People not Socially distancing at VE parties will spread the virus, 2) Gives the impression that social distancing is unnecessary .

I can almost guarantee that in the next few weeks weeks we will see an uptick of cases.

BET NOW!