Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Musketeer Gripweed]

So that's the Isle of Man and Guernsey both back to a more normal life out of lockdown now as well as New Zealand.

Lucky island dwelling b*****ds. If only we stayed on an island we might have got away it better as well.

[Guest JTS98]

2 hours ago, superbigal said:

Check out how forward thinking Arlene Fraser is (Arlene Fraser FFS !!!).  We already know they have relaxed distancing in Schools to allow proper organisation.

Look at Dentistry this morning.  You will be lucky to get a tooth out in Scotland let alone see an AGP (Aerosol Generating Procedure) like sonic scaling, drilling. Yet the Irish are ready for 1st July !!!

Nicola is beginning to piss me off with her caution. its embarrassing

Aerosol-generating procedures (AGPs) will be permitted when phase three commences on the 20 July. A fast-track option of 1 July will be made available to practices able to demonstrate they can safely offer AGPs and non-urgent/routine care. This is part of the new timetable for restoring high street dentistry in Northern Ireland

Israel sent kids back to school. It became a vector for infection. Saudi Arabia has had a resurgence in cases, so much so that Jeddah is back under a curfew that had been lifted. The Chinese experience shows that just because European countries (tending to be a bit behind) haven't had a resurgence yet, that doesn't mean it's not coming.

I'm not sure why some people are in such a rush to take a risk.

[101]

6 minutes ago, JTS98 said:

Israel sent kids back to school. It became a vector for infection. Saudi Arabia has had a resurgence in cases, so much so that Jeddah is back under a curfew that had been lifted. The Chinese experience shows that just because European countries (tending to be a bit behind) haven't had a resurgence yet, that doesn't mean it's not coming.

I'm not sure why some people are in such a rush to take a risk.

Because they are bored...

[Wee Willie]

31 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

You are part of the problem.

Paying absolutely no attention to policy or performance and casting your vote forevermore based on an ideal is cult behaviour.

Are you calling me a cult?

Surely the end justifies the means.

What is wrong with wanting Scottish independence?

28 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Did you read what he actually said?

 

I dinnae think he has.

26 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Yes, he's made the point before.

He'd blindly vote for them regardless for the next 20 years purely because he wants independence.

Thanks, I'll be 97 then.

I'll ask again - what is wrong with that?

[Eddie Hitler]

34 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Yes, he's made the point before.

He'd blindly vote for them regardless for the next 20 years purely because he wants independence.

Stop being so patronising.

Most folk here are engaged enough to want to discuss the issue, so they are not blindly doing anything.

He's allowed to decide what he prioritises from a range of political issues.

He's also allowed to decide what he thinks has been bad policy and - guess what - his assessment might differ from yours and that doesn't necessarily make him wrong. Especially in relation to this where better minds than mines or yours don't have all the answers.

But even if he does agree that there has been bad policy, he is still allowed to prioritise other things ahead of them if he so wishes. His choice, not yours.

And if he's an indy-zealot as you allege, he doesn't seem to be any more of a zealot than you are about your hobby horse of 'things haven't opened up fast enough!'. You're entitled to that opinion, which is all that it is, just as others are entitled to think easy does it. You cheer on anything that supports your view just as 'blindly'.

You are too convinced of your own rectitude in relation to something that most of us - myself included - don't have a clue about beyond trying to follow some trends. Even then, anyone with a brain knows we are relying on a bunch of official figures that could be way out for many reasons, including poor data collection.

[Todd_is_God]

9 minutes ago, Wee Willie said:

Surely the end justifies the means.

What is wrong with wanting Scottish independence?

To the bit in bold, nothing. I want it too.

I responded to you about the end justifying the means, the fact that they haven't delivered "the end" in the last 17 years, and that it is now further away than 2014 a few days back.

No, the end does not justify the means if the means are another 15-20 years of essentially a one party state, under no pressure politically.

It's absolutely clear that what Scottish politics needs is a second, credible, pro-independence party. That way the SNP will face genuine opposition whilst maintaing a pro-indepence majority in Holyrood and in Westminster.

[Todd_is_God]

5 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

Most folk here are engaged enough to want to discuss the issue, so they are not blindly doing anything.

I didn't suggest most folk were. I was very specific in that regard.

[vikingTON]

2 hours ago, doulikefish said:

They should be listening to guys on a football forum that are choking for pint imo 

In countries whose government hasn't made a complete and utter c**t of handling the pandemic, they've managed to go from imposing a full lockdown back to tasty pints in the pub within eight weeks. That's who they should actually be listening to instead of ploughing ahead with their bespoke worst of all worlds response.

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe because the evidence for hospitality is not going to be available for another 2 weeks?

 

Then why did the SG put the hospitality sector in its phase 2 and then pretend yesterday that we had successfully entered said phase? They're in control of both the timetable and the ordering in their own exit plan and were presumably aware of the date of publication for this super-important study.

Anyone who buys into this 'we're just waiting on the evidence' line is gullible as f**k. It is quite clearly yet another political decision to avoid moving ahead of the other parts of the UK so that the SG doesn't get the flak for 'putting lives at risk'. 

[Musketeer Gripweed]

I've read one theory that she is making it last as long as possible and ask for an extension for JRS money so when Boris tells her to bolt, she can blame Westminster for not helping Scotland. Bullshit if you ask me, no way would she politicize the current situation.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

The CMOs for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have reviewed the evidence and agree with thr recommendation to move to Level 3 across the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/update-from-the-uk-chief-medical-officers-on-the-uk-alert-level

[Marshmallo]

16 minutes ago, virginton said:

In countries whose government hasn't made a complete and utter c**t of handling the pandemic, they've managed to go from imposing a full lockdown back to tasty pints in the pub within eight weeks. That's who they should actually be listening to instead of ploughing ahead with their bespoke worst of all worlds response.

Yip. We are getting fucked over now because we never had a lockdown and the goal has become having less deaths/cases than rUK.

[NotThePars]

33 minutes ago, Wee Willie said:

Are you calling me a cult?

Surely the end justifies the means.

What is wrong with wanting Scottish independence?

I dinnae think he has.

Thanks, I'll be 97 then.

I'll ask again - what is wrong with that?

Because it lets the SNP f**k over more and more vulnerable groups if they know they'll still command 45% of the vote every election. At least kidding on to your local candidate that you're considering voting Green on the list or staying home might have them think twice before, say, voting with the Tories to shut down protection for renters during a pandemic or in your case they might reconsider their slavish devotion to the English monarch if you said it was a wedge issue for you. 

[Florentine_Pogen]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/18/our-ministers-show-how-world-beating-they-are-all-over-again

For months now the government has been prefacing all its coronavirus briefings as world-beating when the only thing in which we appeared to be global leaders was our mortality rates. But now I’m beginning to think Boris Johnson and his cabinet may have been on to something after all. Because it’s beginning to look more and more as if we are genuine world beaters: if only in total incompetence.

Check out the evidence. In Johnson we have a prime minister who lumbers from one screw-up to the next, blinded to his own failures by a narcissism that borders on the sociopathic. On Thursday, he was meeting President Macron to celebrate the 80th anniversary of De Gaulle’s speech to the French resistance: let’s hope he didn’t give Macron a copy of his book on why Churchill was exactly like Boris, in which he basically wrote off De Gaulle as completely useless.

Then we have Dominic Raab. A foreign secretary who knows so little about foreign affairs and Black Lives Matters that he thought taking the knee was something out of Game of Thrones. At this rate it would come as no surprise to find that Gavin Williamson had been labouring under the impression that the free school meals campaign had been inspired by Grange Hill. What did we do to deserve politicians quite so dim as this?

But all the recent U-turns and moronic posturing are as nothing compared to the ongoing humiliation of Matt Hancock. Poor Matt. He started out with so many good intentions of being a better health secretary than his two predecessors, Andrew Lansley and Jeremy Hunt, but now just finds himself a worthy addition to the confederacy of dunces. His ambition easily outstripped his natural abilities and he merely lurches from crisis to crisis. You can see it in his eyes. His enthusiasm has been replaced by deep suspicion of everyone around him. He also looks dead on his feet. Mattbeth doth murder sleep.

It was sod’s law of course that Matt was sent out to take the Downing Street press conference on the day both the latest fairly rubbish human test and trace figures were published and the “world-beating” app that had been promised for 1 June was finally consigned to the dustbin. Yet Hancock accepted his role and grudgingly took centre stage with Dido Harding, the chief executive of test and trace. There is no indignity that Boris could inflict that Matt wouldn’t willingly suck up just to be allowed to keep his job for a few days or weeks longer because he doesn’t have the self-worth to face Johnson down.

Matt took a few deep breaths and tried to start off on an optimistic note. Although there was as yet no vaccine for the coronavirus, he had bought up massive supplies of all the ones that were being trialled just on the off chance that one of them happened to work. It was as good as an open invitation for any snake-oil salesman to come hammering at the Department of Health’s door. Then Matt moved on to the figures for the human test and trace, which even he couldn’t spin in a positive light as it appeared that the system was missing well over half the people with the coronavirus.

Then he steadied himself and tackled the unhappy app situation head on. He had discovered months ago that the “world-beating” UK app was actually useless as it couldn’t connect with Apple phones, so he had secretly set up a second programme with Apple and Google to see if they could make their systems more effective. The Germans and Koreans might be happy with the distance at which the Apple system operated, but he wasn’t.

Here we came to the real genius of Hancock’s cunning plan. Because faced with the choice of testing a system on the Isle of Wight that everyone knew didn’t work or one that could possibly be improved, Matt had opted to waste several months testing the one that was a complete non-starter.

Brilliant. This was “world-beating” science at its absolute best. Testing the useless one was spearheading the international effort to show other countries precisely what not to do. It was an act of supreme “world-beating” self sacrifice for the UK to take one for the global team. The 60,000 Brits who have died of Covid-19 could rest assured they hadn’t done so in vain.

Inevitably, Matt found himself struggling with the questions from journalists. All he could do was try to pretend that the “world-beating” app had never been that important – “the cherry on Dido’s cake” – and that people shouldn’t be too worried if it wasn’t working properly until some time in the late autumn at the earliest. This after both Boris and Matt had been insistent that the app was key to relaxing lockdown restrictions, which was already taking place. It was beginning to sound as if the prime minister and health secretary were actively trying to kill people. Mattbeth doth murder more than sleep.

In desperation, Matt handed over to Harding. Unfortunately, Dido is an equally unreliable narrator having not had tremendous success with data breaches at Talk Talk and giving the go-ahead to the Cheltenham festival a week after many scientists had been pleading for a lockdown. The baroness is one of that elite club of chief executives who consistently manages to fail upwards. So her insistence that though the test and trace figures were basically crap they were still better than nothing wasn’t as reassuring as it might have been.

The briefing ended in an uneasy truce, with Matt struggling to contain his tetchiness. There’s only so much embarrassment even he can take. What he needed was a “world-beating” hero on his side. If only he had a number for Daniel Rashford.

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, Musketeer Gripweed said:

I've read one theory that she is making it last as long as possible and ask for an extension for JRS money so when Boris tells her to bolt, she can blame Westminster for not helping Scotland. Bullshit if you ask me, no way would she politicize the current situation.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Then why did the SG put the hospitality sector in its phase 2 and then pretend yesterday that we had successfully entered said phase? They're in control of both the timetable and the ordering in their own exit plan and were presumably aware of the date of publication for this super-important study. Anyone who buys into this 'we're just waiting on the evidence' line is gullible as f**k. It is quite clearly yet another political decision to avoid moving ahead of the other parts of the UK so that the SG doesn't get the flak for 'putting lives at risk'. 

 

Wasn't the study commissioned after the publication of the route map? 

 

 

I would not disagree that there will be a political dimension to this.

 

That being said I think it is much more to do with the generally cautious nature of the SNP leadership and the Scottish Government.

 

Rock and a hard place whatever they do - opportunistic wanks like Carlaw and Leonard will use it as a stick to beat the Scottish Government with no matter what they did.

 

 

 

[Todd_is_God]

"Stay Safe" is a strange slogan

[NotThePars]

14 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

Wasn't the study commissioned after the publication of the route map? 

 

 

I would not disagree that there will be a political dimension to this.

 

That being said I think it is much more to do with the generally cautious nature of the SNP leadership and the Scottish Government.

 

Rock and a hard place whatever they do - opportunistic wanks like Carlaw and Leonard will use it as a stick to beat the Scottish Government with no matter what they did.

 

 

 

That third line is a political dimension in and of itself.

 

Also, I don't think the SNP are, or should, be remotely concerned with what Carlaw and Leonard are doing given they're both irrelevances that will be fighting each other for scraps next year. 

[Wee Willie]

27 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

Stop being so patronising.

Most folk here are engaged enough to want to discuss the issue, so they are not blindly doing anything.

He's allowed to decide what he prioritises from a range of political issues.

He's also allowed to decide what he thinks has been bad policy and - guess what - his assessment might differ from yours and that doesn't necessarily make him wrong. Especially in relation to this where better minds than mines or yours don't have all the answers.

But even if he does agree that there has been bad policy, he is still allowed to prioritise other things ahead of them if he so wishes. His choice, not yours.

And if he's an indy-zealot as you allege, he doesn't seem to be any more of a zealot than you are about your hobby horse of 'things haven't opened up fast enough!'. You're entitled to that opinion, which is all that it is, just as others are entitled to think easy does it. You cheer on anything that supports your view just as 'blindly'.

You are too convinced of your own rectitude in relation to something that most of us - myself included - don't have a clue about beyond trying to follow some trends. Even then, anyone with a brain knows we are relying on a bunch of official figures that could be way out for many reasons, including poor data collection.

Well said Eddie and I liked you in Bottom. (I've still got the vids)

23 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

To the bit in bold, nothing. I want it too.

I responded to you about the end justifying the means, the fact that they haven't delivered "the end" in the last 17 years, and that it is now further away than 2014 a few days back.

No, the end does not justify the means if the means are another 15-20 years of essentially a one party state, under no pressure politically.

It's absolutely clear that what Scottish politics needs is a second, credible, pro-independence party. That way the SNP will face genuine opposition whilst maintaing a pro-indepence majority in Holyrood and in Westminster.

And who's fault is that? Surely it's the NO voters in Scotland. (And folk like you who dither about voting for the SNP)

What a loada shite! Scotland is no big enough to have another Indy party. All it would do is split the vote. As I've already said vote for the SNP until we gain our independence THEN go our different ways. You  appear to want your cake and to eat it at the same time.

 

2 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

Because it lets the SNP f**k over more and more vulnerable groups if they know they'll still command 45% of the vote every election. At least kidding on to your local candidate that you're considering voting Green on the list or staying home might have them think twice before, say, voting with the Tories to shut down protection for renters during a pandemic or in your case they might reconsider their slavish devotion to the English monarch if you said it was a wedge issue for you. 

Funny enough last month I got an email from my local SNP branch saying if I had any worries then I was to tell them and they would make sure they were forwarded to the appropriate people. I complained about the subservient attitude of the then Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, Catherine Calderwood and the SG both who did not criticize Charlie Windsor and his gang when they flew from London to Balmoral and then caused the Grampian Health Board to divert their virus team to Birkhill to test that self-centred sod and his entourage.

They replied with a condescending email saying that a lot of people had contacted the SNP because of their dealings with Charlie Windsor. But they then carried on and waffled about all the good the SG does. I replied that I have voted at every opportunity for the SNP since 1961 and I didnae need them to tell me about the benevolence of the SG. I've never heard from them since. BUT just this morning I've paid my yearly subscription + a donation to the SNP coffers. I still believe in independence.

[renton]

21 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

"Stay Safe" is a strange slogan

Stay home is nice, easy and based on a definite location, everything after that is a PR firm's wet dream in terms of charging an account.