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To put it very simply for you @AllSaint: I'd sooner drop dead than vote tory. But I'd also sooner drop dead than go through another year of these restrictions, social distancing, missing out on any of the good bits of life such as gigs, a night out with mates, football games, and yes even the simple things like getting to hug relatives. I do not believe in Boris Johnson, I do not believe in the tories. What I do believe in is the vaccines. I believe that, as has been said all along, they are the way out of this horrible mess. All data so far shows that they are reducing hospitalisations, reducing deaths and reducing transmission, and thus helping us return to normality. Therefore, regardless of whatever shiny unicorn Johnson is promising us now, I have renewed hope. It's just nice to see a government, any government, back that up with their outlook for once. Rather than weeping about "the variants!!!" and "we just don't know enough!!!" like certain advisors.

The biggest issue for me is the lack of a clear end point to all of this. I'm not talking about a date, I'm talking about a "at some point in the future we will be lifting these restrictions roughly in this order". The tier system doesn't do that, because even Tier 0 is still full of restrictions. There should be a very clear message that at some point, some time in the future, all of the restrictions will be listed, ideally with at least some indication of what is needed for that to happen.

TODAYS UPDATE 869 cases of heads gone 1000 are currently rattled 98 on verge of tiers

Places of worship to open before pretty much anything else, get that in the fucking bin.

"Deprive me of things that make life worth living for longer so I can amuse myself at others being annoyed at this" is a very odd outlook tbh.

Live footage of Todd_Is_God when lockdown ends:

Sorry, but this is one of the dumbest routine criticisms of the SNP and Scottish politics going around. A one party state is completely different to a multi-party democracy where one party has consistently won elections and due to the voting system, don't even hold a majority in parliament and have only ever done so once. You might not like the SNP being relatively dominant but "one party state" is a terrible analogy. Over the past decade, the Conservatives have held far more unchallenged power at Westminster than the SNP have at Holyrood.

Aye its going to be fucking class to see all those on here who were given a glimmer of hope that they might be able to resume having a job/seeing relatives/getting married/burying loved ones/socialising/learning to drive/seeking medical treatment etc etc getting their dreams shattered eh.

Over 100 people died on Scotlands roads in 2020, over a thousand in the last ten years, but we still use cars. We have as a society decided that although people die driving or as a result of being struck by a vehicle that we have reached a stage where banning cars is not acceptable because of the relatively low numbers of deaths. What we have done is put in place a series of measures, you require a drivers licence, cars are equipped with safety features and we have universal road safety education. We will arrive at a point whereby the same will happen with covid, deaths will lower to a level that is deemed ‘acceptable’ to the public, we have protection from vaccines and we educate the public on how to take safe measures if people we know get covid etc. For Jason Leitch to pontificate ‘oh how many deaths’ etc is Helen Lovejoyesque to the absolute extreme. Its the same for Alcohol etc too, society has deemed that whilst we can mitigate death through education and other sensible measures some people will die as a result of alcohol abuse and society accepts that there is a level of abuse/misuse but doesnt want to have it banned. Society may not put arbitrary numbers of deaths ‘oh i want driving banned if 300 people die’ but to suggest that we dont take risks with any large numbers of things is nothing short of hysterical nonsense from Leitch, it almost seems political.

Pains me to say this but fair play to the Torys. They’ve gained a fair few new voters from this thread alone all because they’ve claimed you might get a pint sometime this year. They certainly know how to con the electorate, that’s for sure. I guess it’s irrelevant that they’re corrupt b*****ds with a history of just claiming any old shite during this pandemic.

Just to counter some of the knobs in here - I hope everyone has a lovely, calm afternoon and can feel optimistic about their life again.

At least killie are doing well

I mean that's a nice sentence, it's just not true is it. They published a 60 page roadmap back to a place that would make life worth living again. They stated zero covid is a fantasy (something which a lot of people, including those regularly being seen on our TV's, are striving for in Scotland). They set out 4 clear criteria that would need to be met in order for steps to be undertaken on time. They indicated meeting these criteria would lead to a place where social distancing (a concept which kills about 4 industries stone dead) would no longer be needed. Meanwhile from Scotgov, the most recent commitments we've had have been "we might get a summer like last (bar the foreign holidays) if we're lucky", and "don't go off booking your staycations just yet!". I'm reserving further judgement until we hear the announcement later. If it is filled with childish quips about Boris, and not with material ways we can get back to normality, whilst people in Glasgow basically haven't been able to leave their house for half a year, don't be surprised if people get pissed off.

You're still not getting it, are you? It showed, yet again, that Johnson will say or do anything to make people like him. Like him now. Nothing more, nothing less. That is literally all that matters to him. No concern for tomorrow, or the consequences of his bullshit. Not dead peasants, not a wrecked economy that he will be insulated from. No, does everybody still love cuddly, tousled ol' Bojo? Time after fucking time this lying sack of shit has deceived the electorate, and the media continues to give him a free fucking pass. Seriously, what the fúck is going on?

Elixir has joined the 8MileBUs and Ad Libs of this world on my Ignore List.

So Sturgeon plans on bouncing everyone into 'level three' 10 (ten) weeks from now, despite the fact that currently: - only 7 council areas 'require' the level three threshold - 8 council areas meet the level two threshold - 15 council areas meet the level one threshold - 2 council areas (Orkney and Shetland) meet the level zero threshold And between now and then infection rates are only naturally going to go one way as winter ends and spring progresses - down. What a load of utter shit. How are they going to continue justifying this for at least the next two months? Surely not the standard and now dubious 'new, highly infectious variant' mewling.

Full on Godwin’s law before the Scottish Government has even said what it’s going to do. Outstanding.

It will mean that 20 folk can congregate indoors in a church well before 2 people from different council areas can meet in a park.

This is the crux of the problem, isn't it? Lockdowns are a scorched-earth policy essentially. They become less and less necessary as we go through vaccination programme and we are really now seeing the damage (i.e. then unemployment stats) of such policies, not to mention the unseen impact on mental health, wider medical services and future policies to pay for all of this. I think I said this before, but a quick browse of social media this morning shows that people are being far too irrational or emotional about the easing of lockdown. Lots of people proper Helen Lovejoying the prospect of social-distancing being binned by the summer, espousing overly moralist reactions to the idea we get on with our lives and try to deal with this the best we can. I've seen and heard lots histrionic claims about killing your Granny and profits v. economy, but that is just far too simplistic and narrow-minded. It's not about getting to the pub, or the football, but the fact these in-turn employ hundreds of thousands of people. These things on an individual level may not matter, but a society-wide level they literally are paying the bills and keeping food on the table for so many- are we just consigning these folk to the unemployment scrap heap so we can pat ourselves on the back for being martyrs and enduring lockdowns beyond their purpose? I think this really gets lost in the noise when people talk about leisure and hospitality re-opening, the debate centres on it not being essential for the customer but we often forget about the employee. Thankfully these repercussions of lockdown seem to be now be part of the discussions.

Imagine your life was that sad and empty thay you'd be happy for further restrictions if it meant getting a laugh at some randoms on a Scottish football forum.

Whatever happens today, it is imperative that the shagging ban is removed as soon as possible. It is unthinkable that a nation of top shaggers like the Scots are prevented from doing what we do best.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56165929 Hundreds of thousands more unemployed per quarter - three-fifths of those losing their job during the pandemic being young adults - and more than six million others on a daft furlough scheme that everyone else is paying through the nose for. But aye it's all about pints and haircuts you self-righteous walloper.

First super sexy TEN for a while. Was unsure on Hot Fuzz and the river.

Who's going to hold him to account? The lying shyster and his Governemnt have a history of corruption and broken promises. Instead of being held accountable, our media go after a woman who's married into the royal family who (for *reasons*) they've never quite took to while the Tories get voted back in with ever-increasing majorities.

Sturgeon cleverly waiting until long after Rangers have won the league to avoid overwhelming our NHS with fat, drunken ****.

Absolutely. It is clear they have no idea what the end point of all this is. It's perfectly understandable saying that they can't give exact dates and the data will guide these dates etc, but all that has to be within the context of an actual plan or vision with a clear end goal. If you have no clear end goal you cannot expect to bring people with you and make these immense sacrifices. Part of me thinks they are deliberately hanging back behind the rest of the UK to see what happens, if the rest of the UK sails effortlessly out of lockdown then they'll put their foot on the accelerator and say they were just being cautious. If the UK ends up back in lockdown or having to delay their route map then they'll claim they were right to be cautious. But then the other part of me thinks they just have no clue what they are doing.

Wanting to latch on some hope that this shit-show will be over does not make you a Tory voter. I'll take anything that Bojo says with a massive pinch of salt, but between the populism of the Tory government and overly negative tone of the SG there probably lies a sensible middle-ground. The vaccines are the endgame, that's what the conversation needs to be focused on - not hypothetical situations where we drag this disaster out.

Leitch taking the attack mode used by a shite 1st year debating class. What number of deaths would you put up with? Utterly pathetic stuff.

Non contact sport isn’t proper sport anyway.

Yes, I can see why a plan which only gets up to mid-April would confirm that there will still be severe restrictions by December in a fully vaccinated country.

Let's be honest, if Johnson hadn't come out yesterday and told everyone they could go to the Maniqui on the 21st June we'd all be sitting here thinking that what she said sounds pretty reasonable.

Maybe there’s more positivity to come between now and end of April but that’s left me fairly deflated to be honest.

The benefit of hindsight means it's easy to look back at what folk were saying about this last March and heap scorn on them. But I think that's a bit unfair. We'd just found out that China - a country not particularly renowned for its openness with other countries - had been seemingly getting ripped apart by a previously unknown virus. Countries were beginning to shut their borders while our imbecilic Prime Minister was allowing any old c**t to fly into the country and boasting about shaking hands with Covid patients. We were seeing live video of overfilling hospitals and morgues in Italy. We were seeing video of army trucks scooting around deserted neighbourhoods with megaphones on telling folk to go home. It's easy to look back and now think "HAHA REMEMBER WHEN EVERYONE OVERREACTED" but at the time it was like nothing any of us had ever seen before.

Motherwell fans are always at risk of holding their cigarettes too close to the match.

How many legs does he have?

This is fair because as the last 12 months shows the Tories have clearly been held accountable for their actions. Wait...they’ve literally overseen 120k dead and their support continues to grow. They can say or do what they want and they will still win the next election.

You can say what you like about it being Johnson and you don’t believe him etc but the fact is he put out something that had a clear end goal and an indicative timeline to hold him accountable against. We are being given a few sweeties over the next 2 months up to returning to an indefinite period of the tiered system, starting with phase 3, which isn’t much better than lockdown, then nothing beyond that.

Do people remember that tier three was utter shite? Restaurants open until six with no alcohol whatsoever. England won’t be opening up with this pointless move that’s for sure. If it is to be a new tier three, then details of what that involves should be published today...

I should have added earlier I got an AZ vaccination this morning. So far so good.

I just find it interesting that even though the Torys have lied their way through this pandemic we now have people taking their bullshit at face value. They remind me a bit of the OF to be honest. They know how to con the lowest common denominator into thinking they’re the good guys. Morons will vote for them in their droves even after they’ve overseen about 130k dead. My criticism of the conservatives isn’t a comment on how the SNP have handled this. They’ve handled it fucking terribly as well.

The civil service and the crown office have come out of this looking decidedly dodgy and unaccountable. One manages to botch probably the most important harassment case in modern Scottish history and the other brought a case with a litany of flimsy material. The legacy of this is women will not feel confident complaining or feel in power of their complaints. It's a stain on Scotland however this pans out now.

He might as well be. An utter shambles of a poster. I can only assume he's trying more desperate material as the greenies must be drying up

Yes, she won't set out any 'arbitrary dates' for reopening: which must come as a great relief to businesses who much prefer arbitrary announcements by the Chief Clownshoe about which tier they've been assigned to by the tombola system, a few days in advance. That's a much more rational planning strategy. [/sarcasm]

It does feel like there is more to come from it, and she said that upfront that she will be adding more info as more reliable data becomes available. Unlike Boris firing out everyone into the Garage on June 21st.

Tier 4 and Tier 3 didn't feel particularly different to me, since neither of them really allowed me to do most of the stuff I actually enjoy doing in my life - especially travelling between council areas. Cafes being open is a slight bonus I suppose.

9 for Monday. 10 for Tuesday.

I'm sitting in a lovely warm kitchen with a fridge and cupboards full of food. My kids are happy in their beds. Our various ailments are well taken care of by healthcare that's free when we use it and my children are getting a decent education, also free. If my house goes on fire three massive fire engines will comes screeching round the corner, and insurance will cover anything we lose that can be replaced. When I'm too old to work I'll have a reasonable pension. I only have to work 37 hours each week and get loads of time for myself, plus I get 6 weeks paid holidays. None of these things were possible for people like me until living memory. What's failed? OK, so we've stretched ecosystems beyond the point at which they continue to function, but that's fixable and gargantuan efforts are going into fixing it all over the world. There's still far too much poverty, but a far lower proportion are living in poverty than at any time in human history and there has been astonishing reductions in disease, malnutrition and early mortality. We've also had the longest period of peace in Western Europe for several centuries and globally there is less armed conflict than at any time in a century. We should be doing better than this, but the idea that we're living in a time of failed ideas just doesn't bear comparison with reality. Is our life of unparalleled comfort really under threat because Google know where my office is and that I was looking for an office chair? None of the problems of privacy and data collection are insurmountable.

I get why folk are relieved and delighted to be given a bit of positive news but why the f**k is anyone believing a word Johnson says? The c**t could tell me today was Monday and I'd check my newspaper.

The confidence on this thread placed in Johnson, statistically the worst leader in the western world in terms of deaths, is quite something.