Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[ICTChris]

7 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

I'm no fan of the paper nor the style of journalism but the Daily Mail are today running an expose that Carrie Symonds is on holiday on Lake Como with their baby.

Now, the woman is entitled to her holidays and time away. She has as much to do with  running the country as you or I. But there was also the - vehemently denied (he was mistaken for Tony Blair!) -  story that BoJo was seen at an Italian airport over the weekend.  However, he too is entitled to his holidays and time with his family.

But I can't help but think there's a whole load of loose ends that aren't currently tying up. If this turns into his Barnard Castle I fear whatever credibility he might hold may just be about to vapourise.  We may not, in fact, all be in this together....

He was supposed to have gone to Perugia weeks ago but it was shown to be complete bollocks.  Perugia is also 300 miles from Lake Como.

Edited September 24, 2020 by ICTChris

[Michael W]

Just now, Melanius Mullarkey said:

So you would be all for a privatised HE system in the UK.

I said absolutely nothing of the sort. 

'Universities need the money' is no excuse for chucking everyone back into student halls regardless of their lectures being delivered remotely when we're trying to manage a pandemic. 

On the contrary, the pandemic has exposed the funding model as broken - namely its dependence on rinsing foreign students to properly finance it. 

[DA Baracus]

11 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Reported.

Grass.

You'll end up in the Tay wearing concrete boots.

[Lambie's Pigeon Feed]

Universities are fucking at it these days and this situation shows them up even more. They're entirely motivated by profit and funnily enough there are no fee reductions for this year and they are claiming 'there will be no loss of learning for students'. My missus is paying £6k a year for a masters, its moved entirely online for semester 1 with talk of being back on campus for semester 2 when that clearly isn't going to happen. The first two weeks have been lecturers failing to use conference tools properly and just reading off the slides they prepared.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

30 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

So you would be all for a privatised HE system in the UK.

How would you describe the current system?

[Donathan]

If he went to Italy he will have to resign probably leading to Raab taking over.
Surely even Boris isn't that daft though? London politics is a close knit place and him going missing for a few days would be noted. 

If he went to Italy, why on earth would he have to resign?

[renton]

Sunak reckons we need to learn to live with it. Reckon that puts paid to any notion of tighter restrictions.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

If he went to Italy he will have to resign probably leading to Raab taking over.
Surely even Boris isn't that daft though? London politics is a close knit place and him going missing for a few days would be noted. 

The English government have not explicitly advised against foreign travel and Italy isn’t on the quarantine list. It looks bad but not illegal nah?

[Billy Jean King]

Sunak reckons we need to learn to live with it. Reckon that puts paid to any notion of tighter restrictions.

Also not going to support jobs seen as "unviable" which he then went on to describe as jobs where staff are currently not working and wages are being covered by the furlough scheme. Sounds like those sectors of business still unable to operate like nightclubs are basically seen as non viable (unless there is a massive change of thinking re their ability to operate) due to C19 and hence will be left to flounder.

 

[Donathan]

Sunak reckons we need to learn to live with it. Reckon that puts paid to any notion of tighter restrictions.

Sunak isn’t in charge, he’s always been the most libertarian member of the cabinet. Boris and Hancock will impose new restrictions as they see fit.

I do take umbrage with Sturgeon sticking her nose in to an English only matter by writing to Johnson to demand tighter restrictions for England. It’s outwith her remit and frankly none of her business.

[renton]

2 minutes ago, Donathan said:

Sunak isn’t in charge, he’s always been the most libertarian member of the cabinet. Boris and Hancock will impose new restrictions as they see fit.

I do take umbrage with Sturgeon sticking her nose in to an English only matter by writing to Johnson to demand tighter restrictions for England. It’s outwith her remit and frankly none of her business.

He basically is. He represents the government faction that wants the economy to take precedence, he also happens to control the most influential department in Government. That's why Cummings grand wheeze was to have a combined Spad pool for the treasury working out of No 10.

Unfortunately Johnson looks like he's shot his bolt and Sunak is calling the shots. Any resistance from Hancock and he'll have salt poured on him.

As for Sturgeon? Nah, she is within her rights to ask for more, given she has an open land border with England that she can't shut. And short of the UK government giving her government the financial levers to do their own thing, then she can only hope to influence the UK government to follow her lead.

[ICTChris]

I see it's come out that Patrick Vallance has shares in GSK, unsurprising as he used to be chairman.

I can see this being spun out by anti-vaxxers given that GSK are working on a vaccine.

[renton]

13 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

Also not going to support jobs seen as "unviable" which he then went on to describe as jobs where staff are currently not working and wages are being covered by the furlough scheme. Sounds like those sectors of business still unable to operate like nightclubs are basically seen as non viable (unless there is a massive change of thinking re their ability to operate) due to C19 and hence will be left to flounder.

 

Yup. The wage subsidy scheme looks pretty anemic as well in terms of Government support.

[Paco]

The new scheme is effectively aimed at hospitality, because they shut at 10pm many people will not be hitting their contracted hours.

 

It’s good in general for that industry. However places not allowed to open - nightclubs, conference centres, beauty parlours, event spaces, spas et all - are being sacrificed. Hard not to feel for industries not allowed to open but being excluded from this new scheme.

 

[invergowrie arab]

So the Tories big plan is to get private businesses to give staff a pay rise for hours worked?

[Paco]

Actually, hold on. An employee working 33% of their normal hours must be paid 55% of their wage by employers, with the government contributing another 22% on top. So 77% of the wage for 33% of the work.

Not bad for workers but what’s the incentive here for employers? If you run a pub, are you more likely to a) register for this and pay your workers more than they’re working, at a time your profits are down drastically or b) punt them and take on zero-hours staff?

I’m not following the logic of this. We’ll see how successful it turns out to be.

[Billy Jean King]

Yup. The wage subsidy scheme looks pretty anemic as well in terms of Government support.

And will give no scope to close any sector of the economy without basically killing it. New scheme can only be applied for to support an employee working a minimum of 33% of their usual hours so any business not able to open at all is screwed.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 hour ago, Michael W said:

I said absolutely nothing of the sort. 

'Universities need the money' is no excuse for chucking everyone back into student halls regardless of their lectures being delivered remotely when we're trying to manage a pandemic. 

On the contrary, the pandemic has exposed the funding model as broken - namely its dependence on rinsing foreign students to properly finance it. 

Throwing them onto the scrap heap is hardly going to encourage the government to change broken funding model.

See also: the NHS

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 hour ago, DA Baracus said:

Grass.

You'll end up in the Tay wearing concrete boots.

If I go down, Im taking you with me.

(For the company, likes)

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

1 hour ago, alta-pete said:

I'm no fan of the paper nor the style of journalism but the Daily Mail are today running an expose that Carrie Symonds is on holiday on Lake Como with their baby.

Now, the woman is entitled to her holidays and time away. She has as much to do with  running the country as you or I. But there was also the - vehemently denied (he was mistaken for Tony Blair!) -  story that BoJo was seen at an Italian airport over the weekend.  However, he too is entitled to his holidays and time with his family.

But I can't help but think there's a whole load of loose ends that aren't currently tying up. If this turns into his Barnard Castle I fear whatever credibility he might hold may just be about to vapourise.  We may not, in fact, all be in this together....

I think Boris is a p***k, but its legal for him to go to italy so im not joining the seething masses about this one. Id prefer we focus on the absolute shite and corrupt handling of this country than if he went to italy?