POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

Lots of speculation about how much the Chancellor will give away today. A large spend is expected and it is being hailed as 'the end of austerity'. I object to that phrase, the end of austerity for me will be when the pressure is taken off the poorest people in the country. I don't need to detail the way austerity has affected poor people, you all know what they are and I think you also know that there has been no let up in that pressure causing unknown misery and a gradual erosion of the values of society. That's where spending is needed but how does compassion match lobbying by bodies who finance the Tories and see profit in big headline projects?

[Tripps]

Since google thinks I live near Morecambe - this was sent to me today as local news.

I find it surprising, knowing as we do, of the Labour party's extremely democratic and open method of doing things. He seems to have accepted the situation. I wonder what the full story is.

[Stanley]

Smells fishy doesn't it David especially when no reasons are given.I like the pop-up advert for a new funeral plan for the elderly or is that personal to me?
I listened to Rishi Sunak's budget yesterday, another name to learn! (LINK to BBC account of it.) What struck me is that basically it's the same plan from Labour that was rubbished in the election but not as radical. They have finally realised that 'austerity' isn't working and have pronounced it dead but as I said yesterday this does nothing for the poor suffering under benefit cuts and UB or the councils and social care. They haven't made up for the ten years of cuts to the poorest. Then there is the question of where is the money coming from. As with all budgets, the devil is in the detail and delivery. Time will tell!

[Tizer]

In Tripps's link I like the reference to ferrets fighting in a sack. There's a lot of that in politics!

I find it fascinating how Rishi Sunak sounds so much like George Osborne. His voice, his handling of the Today interviewer, his grasp of the subject and the numbers. Sunak's name is being bandied about as the next PM; I'd expected Osborne to become PM after Cameron but he jumped ship as soon as he heard the referendum result in 2016.

[Tripps]

ferrets fighting in a sack

In Labour circles - They call it democracy. We've seen the full process demonstrated to us on here. It's impressively thorough. Even so, I can't get the idea of Mrs Long-Bailey at 14/1 out of my head. Everyone thought that David MIliband would win - including Ed Miliband.
*** Words like 'arcane' and Machiavellian' come easily to mind.


Mr Sunak has been on my radar for a long time. I like Richmond a lot, and have visited for a bacon sandwich on my trips to the north east, a couple of times in recent years. I've seen him in Parliament - especially during the Brexit bun fight and he's been impressive.

The Times of India seem to think everthing is going well.

Good interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC this morning. Rishi was on a telephone in Leeds railway station. Classic moment which hasn't been followed up anywhere yet, when Ferrari copied the football chant theme, and implying it was a Labour budget, said "people say you're Brown in disguise".

He immediately realised who he was speaking to, and began to hastily back pedal. . . . Luckily only I noticed . . . yet.

*** PS literally moments after I wrote the above, I find that - Deus ex machina arrives.

"John McDonnell tells me the event to announce the next Labour leader will likely be cancelled & result announced behind closed doors. Due to be held on April 4th. He says it'll likely "be through a TV event or social media.” Party will follow medical advice and NEC will decide."

[PanBiker]

I have voted in the leadership, deputy leadership and made my two choices for the NEC of the Labour Party.

This Saturday along with any other Labour Party members of the Pendle Rural area for Lancashire County Council, I will be casting more votes for my choice of the two candidates required for the division. The selection event will be held locally at St Joseph's Centre in Barlick, it is hoped that all candidates will be present and each will give a short presentation to support their candidature, questioning of the candidates will follow before the ballot. All Barlick and Earby, (and some wards of Colne) Labour Party members are encouraged to attend and vote.

[Tizer]

This 30-minute radio programme episode is very good...
Americast
`Not-So-Sleepy Joe'
`A week after Joe Biden surged into the front-runner position, the former vice-president wins big on Mini Super Tuesday, the day six states held primary contests. Maitlis, Sopes and The Zurch chew over the significance of the result and the impact Coronavirus is having on the presidential race. '

[Stanley]

Ian, snap! But I shall not be attending any gatherings......
Ferrari, it's all right as long as you day "compared to Gordon Brown", others have said it including on the Today programme yesterday. (My God! Can that Rishi talk or what!)
I still say wait and see. The main problem being brought up is that the give-aways don't make up for the cuts since 2010 and the absence of any meaningful help for Local Councils, hence local services, social care and the very poorest.
The elephant in the room is the slide that had developed in stock market prices. It has got beyond an 'adjustment' now. (LINK to BBC report.)
I have in the past deplored imprecise statements by leaders. Classic case yesterday when Trump seemed to say that freight flights would be included in the ban of traffic from Europe. How much did that cost before it was corrected by staff later? Give Sunak his due, he is not incomprehensible!

[Stanley]

Alistair Darling has just said on Today "It would be madness to impose this (Brexit) on the country under circumstances like this"
Discuss....

[Whyperion]

Alistair Darling has just said on Today "It would be madness to impose this (Brexit) on the country under circumstances like this"
Discuss....

Well if we cannot make it on our own, seeing as Italy made a bit of a Pig's Ear of it, looks like a formal partnership with South Korea might be the best way to go.

[PanBiker]

The Electoral Commission has suspended all UK elections for a period of 12 months until 2021. Labour party has suspended all branch and CLP meetings until further notice. So Saturdays County Council selection is off as their will be no need for candidates. Current incumbents will continue in post at Borough and County. The May elections were supposed to be all out and fought on the new Boundary Commission ward boundaries with a reduced number of councillors for the Borough. The council will have to continue on the old ward boundaries.

[Stanley]

"The council will have to continue on the old ward boundaries"
Someone is trying to tell them that they are best left alone!
We are told that Covid19 will not become a political matter but Jeremy Hunt is getting very close to that.

[plaques]

Listened to 8 minutes of Trump's emergency speech,. Can be summed up by 8 minutes of rambling incoherent nonsense that I've ever hear from a politician never mind the President of the USA. He couldn't even read the script in any meaningful manner and kept adding off the top of his head repeats as if to give them some substance. This man's a disgrace and should be placed in lockdown. God help us if Johnson tries to emulate his style.

[Tizer]

Agreed. One minute Trump was saying CoviD virus was a hoax (remember MMR and climate change?) and next minute he's saying it's a major hazard and he's going to save us all. It will be embarrassing for him if, as a declared germophobe, he gets the virus!

[plaques]

As I understand it the herd immunity has to be around 70%, ie: where 70% of the population have already had it and then recovered from it. This may reduce the chance of individuals bumping into people who are in the infectious phase simple because there will be less of them knocking about. Where it falls down is where areas have not reached the herd immunity numbers then large infection rates could take off again. I think this logic was intended to apply to future outbreaks next winter rather than the current one.

[Tizer]

I've just read an article by Tom Whipple, science correspondent for The Times. He says the current calculated figure needed for herd immunity with Covid-19 is 60%, which means you'd need 40 million people in the UK to get infected and survive. Also if you allow the virus to spread in the UK in order to gain immunity then vulnerable people will have to be protected or you'll potentially see about 1.5 million deaths.

[Stanley]

I do not wish to denigrate the work being done by a lot of dedicated people, except to say that none of them are politicians! However, human history is full of examples of a disease running rampant. Think of your own examples. At the moment a lot of people are confusing activity with action because they feel they ought to be doing something. It may be that as has always been the case before, the disease has to be allowed to take its course while, in modern times, we search for a vaccine. This is not the last pandemic or even the worst, we can't possibly know what is in store for us.
At the moment the 'evidence' which is being quoted is almost certainly an under estimate. We know nothing of what is happening in Russia and the US has no idea what its own true figures are. People laugh at 'keep calm and carry on' but that's about the size of it. Do your best to be ready for when it hits you, not 'if'. Everybody should be working on worst case. For instance, it is obvious that if the pressure gets great enough cases like me are not worth as much as a younger person, who gets the intensive care? This is not shock horror it is a fact of life.
I am quite happy taking my own sensible measures and accepting the danger. That's where the effort has to be invested, persuading the general public to do the same.
On another aspect of the pandemic. I often call attention to the Law of Unintended Consequences, we are seeing another example of it here. The pandemic is having effects which are only just being recognised. At the moment the obvious one is global economics, already skating on a knife edge, it is now proving incapable of handling this event. What effect will this have on the US attitude towards a proper integrated health system? The one thing that is certain is that a private system based on insurance producing profit is useless, apart from anything else it means that much of what is actually happening in the US is unreported.
What are the long term effects going to be on industrial and retail capacity, again the only certainty is that a UK system which was already hard pressed by a global slow down and Brexit is coming under intolerable financial pressure. It will be long while before we see the end result of this but it can't be beneficial.
So many pressures and this comes to mind... "Alistair Darling has just said on Today "It would be madness to impose this (Brexit) on the country under circumstances like this"

[Whyperion]

I've just read an article by Tom Whipple, science correspondent for The Times. He says the current calculated figure needed for herd immunity with Covid-19 is 60%, which means you'd need 40 million people in the UK to get infected and survive. Also if you allow the virus to spread in the UK in order to gain immunity then vulnerable people will have to be protected or you'll potentially see about 1.5 million deaths.

You lock down the over 70s for two months.


Deaths registered in England and Wales: 2018
In 2018, there were 541,589 deaths registered in England and Wales, an increase of 1.6% compared with 2017 (533,253); this is the highest annual number of deaths since 1999.

[Tizer]

The negative effect of Brexit is described in The Guardian...
`Brexit means coronavirus vaccine will be slower to reach the UK: And it will cost more here because of the UK pulling out of the European Medicines Agency on 30 December' Guardian (Three experts explain why Brexit leaves the UK less able to respond to pandemic.)
`The UK faces having to wait longer and pay more to acquire a coronavirus vaccine because it has left the EU, health experts and international legal experts warn today. In an article published today on the Guardian website, the academics and lawyers say Boris Johnson’s determination to “go it alone”, free of EU regulation, after Brexit means the UK will probably have to join other non-EU countries in a queue to acquire the vaccine after EU member states have had it, and on less-favourable terms. The authors include Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and legal academics Anniek de Ruijter of Amsterdam Law School and Mark Flear of Queens University, Belfast.

`The UK will leave the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the body responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety monitoring of medicines, at the end of the transition period on 30 December. This means it will no longer be part of the EU’s regulatory regime, which allows for “accelerated assessment” of products developed by drugs companies during a pandemic. The UK has already withdrawn from the EU’s emergency bulk-buying mechanism for vaccines and medicines, under which member states strike collective agreements with pharmaceutical companies, which speeds up their access to the latest products during a crisis...'.

[plaques]

You lock down the over 70s for two months.

You are talking big numbers, Interpolate the number below and you come up with 9+ million. Many will be living alone or supporting each other will be given anti social status. Its a none starter. What systems are they proposing to put in place to look after these people who if left alone to keep calm and carry on would look after themselves.

– there are currently more than 11.9 million people aged 65 and over in the UK, with 3.2 million aged 80 and over and 1.6 million aged 85 and over. these people are aged 80 and over.

[Tizer]

We haven't heard much of this...
`'American coronavirus': China pushes propaganda casting doubt on virus origin: Diplomats, state media and officials in China encourage idea that Covid-19 came from the US' Guardian

or this...
`Bahrain accuses Iran of 'biological aggression' over COVID-2019: Gulf states take new steps in an attempt to curb coronavirus as Bahrain blames Iran for covering up spread of disease.' Aljazeera

Also, Iran has been accusing the US of using covid-19 as a `biological weapon'. All this at a time when we most need nations to work together to defeat the virus (among other things).

[Whyperion]

You lock down the over 70s for two months.

You are talking big numbers, Interpolate the number below and you come up with 9+ million. Many will be living alone or supporting each other will be given anti social status. Its a none starter. What systems are they proposing to put in place to look after these people who if left alone to keep calm and carry on would look after themselves.

Family and Health Workers can visit. Speaking to an Ex Surrey CC Social Worker , that authority has no preparation compared with documented procedures for SARS.

[Whyperion]

The UK has already withdrawn from the EU’s emergency bulk-buying mechanism for vaccines and medicines, under which member states strike collective agreements with pharmaceutical companies, which speeds up their access to the latest products during a crisis...'.

I am sure Boris and Gove are fully in control and know exactly what the consequences of their actions are

[Stanley]

'Locking down the over 70s'.
1. It hasn't happened yet.
2. It won't be a mandatory lock down but advisory.
3. How exactly would it be enforced if it was mandatory?

Too much knee-jerk talking going on. Meanwhile Tiz makes a valuable and cogent point about us having left the emergency bulk-buying mechanism of the EU already. That's what we need to be hearing government statements about not knee jerk legislation which is always a mistake.
Three podiums Johnson is trying to look busy.

[Stanley]

"'Locking down the over 70s'.
1. It hasn't happened yet.
2. It won't be a mandatory lock down but advisory.
3. How exactly would it be enforced if it was mandatory?"
How close was I?
I watched Three Podium Johnson in full and it was a clear and informative assessment.
(In case my 'Three Podium Johnson' is nagging you, have a look at THIS)
(We need more humour at the moment!)

The bit that was glossed over of course was any assessment of the economic impact. Yesterday was fast moving, stock markets, airlines and even a Vauxhall plant shutting down in effect. Politics always lags behind what is happening so we can expect the bad news to accelerate. See THIS Washington Post article posted 4 hours ago, note that this is only the US market. The same thing is happening world-wide.
I'm sure Tiz will agree with this, a fine time to be inflicting more economic damage by leaving the EU. It's the elephant in the room now, this is going to have to be addressed as the whole basis for Brexit has unravelled. Someone is going to be brave and stand up and mention this, the sooner the better!