Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Suspect Device]

7 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Gosh.

I'd agree with much of that, but I'm really struggling to see how any of it renders my post "over-simplistic rubbish".  

Care to explain that bit? 

Because it was over-simplistic.

And rubbish.

[Left Back]

4 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Gosh.

I'd agree with much of that, but I'm really struggling to see how any of it renders my post "over-simplistic rubbish".  

Care to explain that bit? 

You set aside the football related selfishness (because it also applies to yourself and I guess you don’t want to label yourself right wing) and claimed much of the other sentiment is right wing individualistic leaning.

Frankie pointed out that there are other reasons people want restrictions to end.  Made you look a bit of a fanny if truth be told.

You made a daft claim and got called on it.

The idea that wanting no restrictions makes you right wing is frankly laughable.

[Thorongil]

I hate this “Protect the NHS” rubbish. It’s supposed to be the job of the NHS to protect us. 

The NHS should be able to cope with sick people. 

[Monkey Tennis]

6 minutes ago, Left Back said:

You set aside the football related selfishness (because it also applies to yourself and I guess you don’t want to label yourself right wing) and claimed much of the other sentiment is right wing individualistic leaning.

Frankie pointed out that there are other reasons people want restrictions to end.  Made you look a bit of a fanny if truth be told.

You made a daft claim and got called on it.

The idea that wanting no restrictions makes you right wing is frankly laughable.

Seriously, is it a reading issue or what?

Of course there are various reasons why people might oppose restrictions, some deserving of more respect and sympathy than others.

I've not once said that objecting to restrictions "makes you right wing", so why say I have?

 

I'll ask again if people honestly don't know what "much of" means.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

42 minutes ago, Frankie S said:

I’m sorry but this is just over-simplistic rubbish. I run four businesses in the nightclubs, live music, events and hospitality sector and I’ve never voted Tory in my life and never will, and I’ve never espoused conservative beliefs (either with a large or small c). My vote traditionally went to Labour, but I’ve mainly voted SNP in the last decade or so, and I voted for Independence, precisely because I envision Scotland’s future as a moderately left-leaning state with a social conscience, ideally reintegrated within the European Community, which I thought (and despite my dissatisfaction with Sturgeon and disillusionment with the quality of those around her, still think) would be hugely preferable to decades of Tory hegemony, Brexit and continuing to be ruled from Westminster. 

It’s incredible how quickly heavy-handed governmental measures that would’ve been formerly regarded as authoritarian and illiberal have been normalised and embraced by the centre left, and there is doubtless an element of schadenfreude involved in some quarters at seeing businesses and entrepreneurs struggle, even if the pandemic has disproportionally crippled small Scottish businesses and disproportionately rewarded the multinationals and the super rich. The death of the high street and the decline of the Scottish arts and entertainment scene has only further lined the tax-avoiding pockets of the likes of Jeff Bezos, Rupert Murdoch and Reed Hastings (Netflix). A welfare state needs to harness the economic power of the young to service the welfare needs of the elderly, and it simply cannot be predicated upon a moribund economy and a demoralised business community.

I don’t run my businesses because I’m a rampant Tory capitalist, and I don’t come from a privileged background (I inherited nothing and built my businesses from scratch). I do it because I’m passionate about music in particular and culture in general. During the first lockdown, I paid all my full-time staff 100% despite furlough being 80% (and lower), and now during this (minimum) three week shutdown for nightclubs with no furlough, I’m still paying my full-time staff 100%, with absolutely no government support, other than the vague promise of Sturgeon’s ‘lucky dip’, an as yet unspecified (and almost certainly insufficient) amount of support to be given to those nightclubs that elect to close rather than repurpose themselves as socially-distanced bars. So far am I from being a right wing fat cat, that for the majority of our working lives, my wife (a hairdresser) has earned more than I have, and indeed our mortgage was secured primarily on the basis of her secure income, as my businesses were regarded as ‘too high risk.’ Only in the four or five years before Covid did my investment of 30+ years in my respective businesses result in my earnings finally exceeding those of my wife. I was never in it for the money tbh, so it never mattered to me that I never made any more than a relatively modest living, even from working 80+ hours a week, 7 days a week. One thing’s for sure though, I know how much tax revenue my businesses have contributed to the economy over the last three decades, and it’s certainly not negligible.

I’ve already said that I think Corporation Tax should be raised in Scotland and the increased tax revenue ring-fenced for investment in our massively under-funded and long-neglected NHS, which was in crisis long before Covid hit. I’m not sure that aligns very well with an ‘individualistic, essentially right wing standpoint’. 

My contention since the start of the pandemic is that younger generations are being disproportionately penalised and stigmatised (the nadir of which was the ‘don’t kill grandpa / granny’ TV ads run by Scot Gov back at the height of the first wave). Ultimately this virus has never really represented a significant threat to the health of the young, yet they’re not only expected to make huge sacrifices to protect the sick and elderly, which the vast majority are happy to do without complaint, their jobs are now regarded as disposable, and their passions and interests (football, live music, clubbing, culture) are the first activities to be restricted by the government, irrespective of the data, vaccination levels or the vaccine passport scheme, that were until recently the key to returning to normality, or the massive amounts these sectors have invested in Covid mitigations.

Not only do hospitality, live music, events and related cultural (theatre, cinema, arts etc.) sectors primarily service the interests and passions of younger generations, they overwhelmingly employ younger people. And in the events, arts and live music sectors particularly there are huge numbers of young freelancers (and self-employed) who barely received any government support during the first lockdown and haven’t even been part of the conversation during this new Scottish mini-lockdown (which effectively extends from nightclubs to live music and arts - almost all concerts, and many theatrical productions, pantomimes etc. have been cancelled due to the pingdemic, or the new social distancing regulations rendering events unviable). I know countless self-employed freelancers who have worked for decades in the music and arts sectors who have had to abandon their careers, often taking menial jobs in less vulnerable sectors due to the lack of government support. Similarly a huge proportion of young people who formerly worked in hospitality (one of the largest employers in the country, particularly of young people) have had to bail out due to the ongoing uncertainly affecting hospitality and the utterly demoralised state of the sector. These sectors are now in existential crisis. They have been consistently marginalised, stigmatised and now vandalised by the government, who at no point have acknowledged their importance to the economy, to mental health or to young people’s social development.

It’s all too easy for the entitled older generation with their comfortable nest eggs, property and pension schemes (built up during the halcyon days before Covid), to demand of the young that they keep them safe, but to erode their job opportunities, and the social and cultural opportunities (that they themselves doubtless enjoyed to the full as young people) by consistently stigmatising and scapegoating these sectors strikes me as fundamentally selfish and indefensible

Protective safety-first measures that prioritised public health over the economy that were perfectly understandable during the pandemic phase of Covid are no longer fit for purpose during the endemic stage, with successively weaker variants encountering a considerably more immune (both by vaccination and natural infection) population. The mountain of accumulated debt already incurred by putting everything on hold for the best part of two years will need to be paid off, and most of us in business acknowledge that a more onerous tax regime is an inevitable part of that, and the only way to achieve this is by re-energising the economy, not by continuing to panic and close it down every time a new variant rears its head and the media slips back into scaremongering mode.

Dunno man, all that sound reasoned argument sounds like exactly something a big reckless tory would say. 

[Bairnardo]

Seriously, is it a reading issue or what?
Of course there are various reasons why people might oppose restrictions, some deserving of more respect and sympathy than others.
I've not once said that objecting to restrictions "makes you right wing", so why say I have?
 
I'll ask again if people honestly don't know what "much of" means.

You entered in to the conversation, with a Starmer esque, im the adult in the room shtick and insinuated that in general terms, objection to restrictions goes hand in hand with being right wing.

You cant walk that back into some fence sitting nonsense just because some folk have called you on it.

[Frankie S]

27 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Gosh.

I'd agree with much of that, but I'm really struggling to see how any of it renders my post "over-simplistic rubbish".  

Care to explain that bit? 

In jumping to Granny Danger’s defence, you applied a very broad brush in stating ‘much of the anti-restriction sentiment expressed on here (not particularly that relating to football) reflects an individualist, essentially right-wing standpoint.’ I disagree. That’s a very reductive way of portraying things. False dichotomies have been perpetuated by the media, and on public discussion fora / social networks, since the start of pandemic, feeding into an artificially adversarial and polarised discussion which trivialises and coarsens the debate, and dissuades people from sticking their heads above the parapet to criticise the government for fear of being characterised as right-wing Tory apologists, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists or uncaring monsters who don’t care about old sick people dying.

There is disquiet from people across the political spectrum at the recent batch of restrictions, and not just emanating from the right-wing (or anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists etc.) I don’t think it’s accurate, helpful or instructive to characterise those who are increasingly expressing concern about restrictions as (largely) Tory apologists. 

Edited December 26, 2021 by Frankie S

[Monkey Tennis]

19 minutes ago, Suspect Device said:

Because it was over-simplistic.

And rubbish.

A splendid explanation.

[anotherchance]

7 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Seriously, is it a reading issue or what?

Of course there are various reasons why people might oppose restrictions, some deserving of more respect and sympathy than others.

I've not once said that objecting to restrictions "makes you right wing", so why say I have?

 

I'll ask again if people honestly don't know what "much of" means.

There wasn’t really any need to throw in “right wing” regardless, given there as many “left wing” reasons to oppose restrictions.

Chucking that sort of language in is really just an attempt to throw a viewpoint that you don’t like in with other “bad” opinions, making it easier to scapegoat rather than try and understand the nuances of the argument.

 

[Left Back]

10 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Seriously, is it a reading issue or what?

Of course there are various reasons why people might oppose restrictions, some deserving of more respect and sympathy than others.

I've not once said that objecting to restrictions "makes you right wing", so why say I have?

 

I'll ask again if people honestly don't know what "much of" means.

Because, to put it in a simplistic way, you have.

It’s essentially no different to the viewpoint that everything the Tory’s do must be bad because, well, Tory’s innit.  

You’re making huge generalisations and trying to frame everything in a left v right context.

[Jacksgranda]

6 hours ago, Jan Vojáček said:

This is a very good article from Stenhousemuir's chairman.

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/scottish-football-has-been-let-down-and-i-now-wonder-if-something-deeper-is-at-work-iain-mcmenemy-3507024

Excellent piece - give that man a medal!

[Jacksgranda]

5 hours ago, super_carson said:

Felt a bit rough last night, couple ibuprofen and a lemsip and an early night.  Feeling better today beyond a cough and a blocked nose, just another week of being locked in the house.  Hurray.  

Just to add the stories folk have shared about family members being bat-shit crazy on both sides of the argument.  I have almost definitely caught this from my brother who isn't vaccinated (not anti-vax per se, just has the view he isn't going to get ill if he gets it so what's the point) and who thinks this whole thing is a carry on that's fuelled by the media.  The other day we both went to visit our old man.  My brother was sitting there with a cough and said it wasn't covid because it was a phlegmy cough and that wasn't covid (apparently).  Two days later, I go for my pre-flight PCR so we can spend Hogmanay with my other half's side of the family in Ireland and my result comes back positive on Christmas morning.  

I call my brother and let him know, he says he doesn't care and he still wants to come round.  I say I don't think it's a good idea given I definitely have the virus, but he admits that he deliberately didn't get tested despite knowing he probably had the virus and still went to visit our Dad and has now, in all probability, passed it on to me.  That means I know spend the remaining time of my holidays in the covid jail and I'm a few hundred quid out of pocket due to flights we can no longer use.  He doesn't seem to see the issue with this and is now acting like we're over-reacting to all of this.  Doesn't understand that while I'm not massively ill just now it means we can't go to visit the in-laws when she was desperately looking forward to it.    Can't help but feel he's been a selfish arsehole here.  

He's been a total c*** imho, similar to my stepdaughter's ex-partner who sat in our house for 2 hours on his child visitation and got tested the next day, knowing full well he had symptoms (of something) and gave Covid to my wife. Fortunately she was double jagged at that time and it didn't affect her too badly and has since had her booster

[ddfg]

3 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Stop being so shouty and sweary for God's sake.

Did you miss the bit where I said I wasn't particularly referring to the current football restrictions? Of course, they look daft and contradictory.  Let's not pretend, however, that you and others have just suddenly become riled by the latest developments.  You've been ranting away like this on here for many, many months.

Can drive 30 miles to Wishaw because its in the same local authority but not 5 miles up the road to Banknock because its a different area. 

Can see family in a restaurant but not at home. 

Keep high risk areas open but shut sectors with almost zero cases. 

Shut the pubs but allow endless off sales. 

Shut gyms but allow fast food to stay open. 

Shut wee local shops as they are non essential but allow supermarkets to sell pretty much the same stuff. 

Vaccines are the way ouy of this. 

Vaccine passports are the way out of this. 

Paying for pre and post flight tests when travelling from a country with significantly lower case rates than Scotland. 

Selective governmental approval/disapproval of large public gatherings. 

Can meet family in their garden but you can't use their toilet. 

Just a few of my own issues with some of the nonsensical protections we have had enforced  on us.

The suggestion that disagreeing with the rules means you care less is nonsense. We just care about different things, i would argue that those clinging onto pointless restictions are being even more selfish with no regards to anything other than their illogical and ungrounded fears. 

[Jacksgranda]

1 hour ago, Frankie S said:

 

It’s all too easy for the entitled older generation with their comfortable nest eggs, property and pension schemes (built up during the halcyon days before Covid), to demand of the young that they keep them safe, but to erode their job opportunities, and the social and cultural opportunities (that they themselves doubtless enjoyed to the full as young people) by consistently stigmatising and scapegoating these sectors strikes me as fundamentally selfish and indefensible

 

I'm the older generation. I neither have a nest egg or a pension scheme, get by on £200.00/week, I'm not demanding the young keep me and my wife safe or stigmatising their past times. Personally I'd open everything up and let things rip*, leaving us to make our own choices re going out/staying in etc.

* While keeping an eye on Covid hospital admissions and ICU numbers

[Jacksgranda]

55 minutes ago, Thorongil said:

I hate this “Protect the NHS” rubbish. It’s supposed to be the job of the NHS to protect us. 

The NHS should be able to cope with sick people. 

Probably would if it was funded properly and had enough trained staff

[WhiteRoseKillie]

Probably would if it was funded properly and had enough trained staff

You mean if the current ruling party wasn't actively trying to privatise it, and if the country hadn't voted to send a large proportion of its staff "back to where they came from?"

Yeah, probably, but Jeremy Corbyn didn't sing the national anthem properly. And Boris is a laugh, eh?

[super_carson]

17 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

He's been a total c*** imho, similar to my stepdaughter's ex-partner who sat in our house for 2 hours on his child visitation and got tested the next day, knowing full well he had symptoms (of something) and gave Covid to my wife. Fortunately she was double jagged at that time and it didn't affect her too badly and has since had her booster

 Unfortunately he can very opinionated and doesn't see things from other people's views.  He ended up having a go at my old man about it yesterday as well as my old man decided to isolate and get a test (he's been boosted so probably won't notice even if he does have it).  

Seems to think it doesn't matter as I'm not ill (barely even a cough now) and that I shouldn't be isolating as this is all driven by the media etc.  Completely doesn't understand that even if I was (selfishly) to take that attitude, it doesn't change the fact that neither my partner nor I can even get into Ireland even if we wanted to.  That, and the fact that my other half's mum has chronic respiratory problems so it would be an issue if she caught it.  

I have no issue at all with people having their own feelings about vaccination, and I can even accept people don't want to test if they were concerned about isolating and financial impacts etc.   But if you have that attitude, you need to understand that you are then posing a risk to others by either given them the virus and making them ill or them having to isolate and you should take reasonable steps to avoid them.  Not just carry on regardless and think everyone else will have the same warped view.  

 

[Left Back]

1 minute ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

You mean if the current ruling party wasn't actively trying to privatise it, and if the country hadn't voted to send a large proportion of its staff "back to where they came from?"

Yeah, probably, but Jeremy Corbyn didn't sing the national anthem properly. And Boris is a laugh, eh?

Didn’t realise the SNP were trying to privatise the NHS.

Got a link?

[Dons_1988]

1 hour ago, Frankie S said:

I’m sorry but this is just over-simplistic rubbish. I run four businesses in the nightclubs, live music, events and hospitality sector and I’ve never voted Tory in my life and never will, and I’ve never espoused conservative beliefs (either with a large or small c). My vote traditionally went to Labour, but I’ve mainly voted SNP in the last decade or so, and I voted for Independence, precisely because I envision Scotland’s future as a moderately left-leaning state with a social conscience, ideally reintegrated within the European Community, which I thought (and despite my dissatisfaction with Sturgeon and disillusionment with the quality of those around her, still think) would be hugely preferable to decades of Tory hegemony, Brexit and continuing to be ruled from Westminster. 

It’s incredible how quickly heavy-handed governmental measures that would’ve been formerly regarded as authoritarian and illiberal have been normalised and embraced by the centre left, and there is doubtless an element of schadenfreude involved in some quarters at seeing businesses and entrepreneurs struggle, even if the pandemic has disproportionally crippled small Scottish businesses and disproportionately rewarded the multinationals and the super rich. The death of the high street and the decline of the Scottish arts and entertainment scene has only further lined the tax-avoiding pockets of the likes of Jeff Bezos, Rupert Murdoch and Reed Hastings (Netflix). A welfare state needs to harness the economic power of the young to service the welfare needs of the elderly, and it simply cannot be predicated upon a moribund economy and a demoralised business community.

I don’t run my businesses because I’m a rampant Tory capitalist, and I don’t come from a privileged background (I inherited nothing and built my businesses from scratch). I do it because I’m passionate about music in particular and culture in general. During the first lockdown, I paid all my full-time staff 100% despite furlough being 80% (and lower), and now during this (minimum) three week shutdown for nightclubs with no furlough, I’m still paying my full-time staff 100%, with absolutely no government support, other than the vague promise of Sturgeon’s ‘lucky dip’, an as yet unspecified (and almost certainly insufficient) amount of support to be given to those nightclubs that elect to close rather than repurpose themselves as socially-distanced bars. So far am I from being a right wing fat cat, that for the majority of our working lives, my wife (a hairdresser) has earned more than I have, and indeed our mortgage was secured primarily on the basis of her secure income, as my businesses were regarded as ‘too high risk.’ Only in the four or five years before Covid did my investment of 30+ years in my respective businesses result in my earnings finally exceeding those of my wife. I was never in it for the money tbh, so it never mattered to me that I never made any more than a relatively modest living, even from working 80+ hours a week, 7 days a week. One thing’s for sure though, I know how much tax revenue my businesses have contributed to the economy over the last three decades, and it’s certainly not negligible.

I’ve already said that I think Corporation Tax should be raised in Scotland and the increased tax revenue ring-fenced for investment in our massively under-funded and long-neglected NHS, which was in crisis long before Covid hit. I’m not sure that aligns very well with an ‘individualistic, essentially right wing standpoint’. 

My contention since the start of the pandemic is that younger generations are being disproportionately penalised and stigmatised (the nadir of which was the ‘don’t kill grandpa / granny’ TV ads run by Scot Gov back at the height of the first wave). Ultimately this virus has never really represented a significant threat to the health of the young, yet they’re not only expected to make huge sacrifices to protect the sick and elderly, which the vast majority are happy to do without complaint, their jobs are now regarded as disposable, and their passions and interests (football, live music, clubbing, culture) are the first activities to be restricted by the government, irrespective of the data, vaccination levels or the vaccine passport scheme, that were until recently the key to returning to normality, or the massive amounts these sectors have invested in Covid mitigations.

Not only do hospitality, live music, events and related cultural (theatre, cinema, arts etc.) sectors primarily service the interests and passions of younger generations, they overwhelmingly employ younger people. And in the events, arts and live music sectors particularly there are huge numbers of young freelancers (and self-employed) who barely received any government support during the first lockdown and haven’t even been part of the conversation during this new Scottish mini-lockdown (which effectively extends from nightclubs to live music and arts - almost all concerts, and many theatrical productions, pantomimes etc. have been cancelled due to the pingdemic, or the new social distancing regulations rendering events unviable). I know countless self-employed freelancers who have worked for decades in the music and arts sectors who have had to abandon their careers, often taking menial jobs in less vulnerable sectors due to the lack of government support. Similarly a huge proportion of young people who formerly worked in hospitality (one of the largest employers in the country, particularly of young people) have had to bail out due to the ongoing uncertainly affecting hospitality and the utterly demoralised state of the sector. These sectors are now in existential crisis. They have been consistently marginalised, stigmatised and now vandalised by the government, who at no point have acknowledged their importance to the economy, to mental health or to young people’s social development.

It’s all too easy for the entitled older generation with their comfortable nest eggs, property and pension schemes (built up during the halcyon days before Covid), to demand of the young that they keep them safe, but to erode their job opportunities, and the social and cultural opportunities (that they themselves doubtless enjoyed to the full as young people) by consistently stigmatising and scapegoating these sectors strikes me as fundamentally selfish and indefensible

Protective safety-first measures that prioritised public health over the economy that were perfectly understandable during the pandemic phase of Covid are no longer fit for purpose during the endemic stage, with successively weaker variants encountering a considerably more immune (both by vaccination and natural infection) population. The mountain of accumulated debt already incurred by putting everything on hold for the best part of two years will need to be paid off, and most of us in business acknowledge that a more onerous tax regime is an inevitable part of that, and the only way to achieve this is by re-energising the economy, not by continuing to panic and close it down every time a new variant rears its head and the media slips back into scaremongering mode.

[UsedToGoToCentralPark]

3 times today