Coronavirus

[BillyStubbsTears]

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1630960569585999874?s=20

This is beyond depressing.

That's from July 2020.

5 months into the epidemic. And senior staff are having to wet nurse Johnson on GSCE level maths.

I have a business contact from China. He was astonished when I told him most of our senior politicians have an educational background in law or arts/humanities. He said the overwhelming majority of the Chinese politburo have scientific/engineering backgrounds.

How can we hope to have senior politicians make sensible decisions if they are functionally innumerate like Johnson here?

[drfchound]

Good grief, China now being held aloft as utopia.
Their policy on human rights isn’t too great and the oppression of the Muslim population says much about their politics.

[ncRover]

Hancock:

“We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain”

“When do we deploy the new variant?”

Perhaps time to admit that the lockdown sceptics who could see that fear was weaponised by the government had a point.

Classic weak man tuned villain drunk on power.

[Nudga]

Something very odd about these "leaks". Is it to make governments look incompetent in handling pandemics so they sign up to the WHO pandemic treaty?

[wilts rover]

Something very odd about these "leaks". Is it to make governments look incompetent in handling pandemics so they sign up to the WHO pandemic treaty?

No because they are not coming from the government. They are coming from a 'journalist' who was paid to read them by a former/sacked member of the government and then signed a non-disclosure agreement to say she would not release them.

Right-wing lockdown sceptics eh. Totally trustworthy.

[ncRover]

Still waiting for that summer covid crisis Starmer said we’d have also

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hancock:

“We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain”

“When do we deploy the new variant?”

Perhaps time to admit that the lockdown sceptics who could see that fear was weaponised by the government had a point.

Classic weak man tuned villain drunk on power.

I think Hancock is a Kitson on a dozen levels, but this absolutely misses the point by a million miles.

When he posted those messages, we were at the start of a wave that, even with a new hard lockdown, as about to kill 60,000 people in ten weeks. Given that Johnson was flouncing around saying everythin was alright and he wasn't going to let Starmer be the Grinch who Stole Xmas, ANY vaguely responsible Health Secretary who understood what was coming had a duty to frighten the pants off people.

It's cack handed wording from Hancock, but then again it was never meant to be aired publicly. Until Hancock gave his entire stash of messages to a far right, Covid-sceptic journalist...

I said at the time that COVID-sceptics would be like this after the event. Insulated from the horror of what would have happened if they'd had their way 2-3 years back, they would indulgently claim that it was all an unnecessary over reaction, or an Orwellian attempt to subjugate people.

Like kids complaining that they couldn't do exactly as they wanted without consequences.


Oakeshott and the Telegraph are playing a very clever long term game here. They know the Tory party is f**ked for a decade. They know there's going to be a bloodbath of a fight for its future soul. They know their favourites on the far Right of the party, the ones who brought us Brexit, are increasingly seen as idiots and charlatans who have unleashed a quarter of a century of economic damage on us.

So they need a new angle to make sure the far right head cases stay in control of the party, and (in their minds) hopefully the country by 2035.

So they hold up Hancock as the ineffectual laughing stock of a man that he undoubtedly is, by a week of leaks of messages chosen to amplify that side of him. Then they release these messages about what are perfectly sensible plans in the face of an impending catastrophe. And they reinforce the message to the gullible that COVID was deliberately overplayed by all politicians except a small, brave group on the far right of the Tory party, who were right all along.

Watching people lap this up is very depressing.

[ravenrover]

Hancock:

“We frighten the pants off everyone with the new strain”

“When do we deploy the new variant?”

Perhaps time to admit that the lockdown sceptics who could see that fear was weaponised by the government had a point.

Classic weak man tuned villain drunk on power.

I think Hancock is a Kitson on a dozen levels, but this absolutely misses the point by a million miles.

When he posted those messages, we were at the start of a wave that, even with a new hard lockdown, as about to kill 60,000 people in ten weeks. Given that Johnson was flouncing around saying everythin was alright and he wasn't going to let Starmer be the Grinch who Stole Xmas, ANY vaguely responsible Health Secretary who understood what was coming had a duty to frighten the pants off people.

It's cack handed wording from Hancock, but then again it was never meant to be aired publicly. Until Hancock gave his entire stash of messages to a far right, Covid-sceptic journalist...

I said at the time that COVID-sceptics would be like this after the event. Insulated from the horror of what would have happened if they'd had their way 2-3 years back, they would indulgently claim that it was all an unnecessary over reaction, or an Orwellian attempt to subjugate people.

Like kids complaining that they couldn't do exactly as they wanted without consequences.


Oakeshott and the Telegraph are playing a very clever long term game here. They know the Tory party is f**ked for a decade. They know there's going to be a bloodbath of a fight for its future soul. They know their favourites on the far Right of the party, the ones who brought us Brexit, are increasingly seen as idiots and charlatans who have unleashed a quarter of a century of economic damage on us.

So they need a new angle to make sure the far right head cases stay in control of the party, and (in their minds) hopefully the country by 2035.

So they hold up Hancock as the ineffectual laughing stock of a man that he undoubtedly is, by a week of leaks of messages chosen to amplify that side of him. Then they release these messages about what are perfectly sensible plans in the face of an impending catastrophe. And they reinforce the message to the gullible that COVID was deliberately overplayed by all politicians except a small, brave group on the far right of the Tory party, who were right all along.

Watching people lap this up is very depressing.

Re inforced by Chris Heaton-Harris this morning, avoided the comment about what did Sunak know regarding eat out, but all down to Hancock, looks like he is being set up as a stooge now his politicsl career is over
However this is the same man who went on to say Johnson is a honest man and he fully believes Johnson didn't mislead parliament

[ncRover]

It should never ever be a role of a government to frighten its population. No matter what the threat.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Of course it should in certain situations.

We had deliberately frightening advertising campaigns about the effects of not using seatbelts, about the danger of not practicing safe sex, about the danger of smoking.

We've been through this a thousand times on here. The middle of an epidemic which WOULD HAVE overwhelmed the NHS and killed maybe a quarter of a million in a couple of months if left uncontrolled wasn't the time for a libertarian experiment in individual self reliance.

[ncRover]

And I’m not saying that nothing should have been done.

“We need to frighten the pants off the public” is basically saying that the threat needs to be exaggerated, no?

Give people the information and treat them respectfully like adults. Perhaps then we wouldn’t have swathes of people down conspiracy rabbit holes.

[BillyStubbsTears]

No it's not saying it should be exaggerated. How do you reach that conclusion? It's saying it needs to be brutally effective. Not least to cut through the increasingly strident voices at that time saying lockdowns didn't work, and the b*llocks being spouted off the cuff by Johnson.

[ncRover]

When I read that and remember the rhetoric of the time, that’s what it feels like to me.

I remember when he was pictured playing in the park with his kids then he conveniently had covid the next day. That was probably some sort of tactic looking back.

I think they went too far and you think about right or not enough. Let’s leave it at that and agree that Hancock is a scummy man or else we’ll be going round in circles forever.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I've no real problem with people who had different opinions on the policy, although it was a matter of such existential importance it demanded robust approaches to discussion, not a "well everyone is entitled to their opinion, however unsupported by evidence" approach.

My issue is people seeing these messages and saying "See! I told you it was a conspiracy! This proves it!"

That is falling straight into the trap set by Oakeshott and the Telegraph.

[ncRover]

Yes I agree with you there. Its the erroneous belief that somehow Hancock has the ability to be some Palpatine level evil genius, he doesn’t.

Remember how the debate on covid origin was shut down and lab-leak was labelled as a conspiracy? It’s probably the prevailing mainstream theory now. Interested as to your thoughts on that.

1 last question BST - Are these public attitudes of the time evidence that the public were frightened too much and that the threat was over-exaggerated? Or do you think that they were perfectly rational views to have at the time?

-  49% of the UK public here in Nov 2020 thinking it should be illegal to not be vaccinated.

https://twitter.com/yougov/status/1328766064356954115s=46&t=Uj9lS9cW2ksdznjWwHqrkQ

- 40% in June 2021 thought masks should be compulsory on public transport forever for example. 26% thought that night clubs should be closed forever. Most had been vaccinated here as well.

https://twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/1413551414006190090?s=46&t=Uj9lS9cW2ksdznjWwHqrkQ

[BillyStubbsTears]

NC.

On the second point, there was a feeling among many people at that time that the virus was going to be a very serious threat for a very long time. Some attitudes go to extremes in those circumstances. I suspect the great majority of those people wouldn't have the same opinions now. But at the time, it was always better to err on the side of attitudes that helped us beat down the virus.

On your first point, I have a lot of sympathy with harsh approaches to those who refused vaccination. They were basically saying "My sovereign right to act as I want trumps any responsibility I have to society." I've given my opinion about that enough times to bore everyone shitless so I won't do it again. Suffice to say I think it was the ultimate in selfish behaviour.

Do I think it should have been illegal not to be vaccinated? No I don't, and I doubt many of those who agreed with that premise in that poll had thought through the consequences of how you'd administer that. But I understand where that frustration came from. My take was that anti-vaxxers had the right to act like that. And society had the right to exclude them.

[Nudga]

For a virus that was harmless to the vast majority of people??

(Chris Whity's words btw)

I'm not vaxxed, I wasn't really poorly when I got it, I didn't pass it on to anyone else and no one died around me.

But yeah, I should have been excluded while big pharma hoover up massive profits.

[danumdon]

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1630960569585999874?s=20

This is beyond depressing.

That's from July 2020.

5 months into the epidemic. And senior staff are having to wet nurse Johnson on GSCE level maths.

I have a business contact from China. He was astonished when I told him most of our senior politicians have an educational background in law or arts/humanities. He said the overwhelming majority of the Chinese politburo have scientific/engineering backgrounds.

How can we hope to have senior politicians make sensible decisions if they are functionally innumerate like Johnson here?

Been saying this for long enough, we have too many who are just apolitical animals and have no grasp of being able to manage a ministry in the least. Or even be in a position to understand what their leading civil servants are telling them.

All these PSE graduates have steadily over the years resulted in government and opposition talking shops with no great or lasting value to us the electorate. Also highlights how important it is that the department civil servants are totally impartial in a political slant to enable the country to be run according to the ballot box results.

After the release old messages from the last week I’m just wondering to what extent the outcome that resulted would of been handled by a risk averse Starmer, I think we may still be under some sort of restriction with the economy going complete to pot allowing his activists to agitate some sort of emergency tie in back with the EU, I would not put it last him at all. If we think the tests demonstrate a government scaremongering the populace into action just what would we have had and still be subject to under an alternative government.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yes DD, I'm sure Starmer would still have us under lockdown.

Jesus...

[danumdon]

Yes DD, I'm sure Starmer would still have us under lockdown.

Jesus...

I did say "restriction" only you mentioned "lockdown" to sensationalise your point!

[bpoolrover]

For a virus that was harmless to the vast majority of people??

(Chris Whity's words btw)

I'm not vaxxed, I wasn't really poorly when I got it, I didn't pass it on to anyone else and no one died around me.

But yeah, I should have been excluded while big pharma hoover up massive profits.

how do you know if you passed it onto anyone else? You might have had it and had very few signs of it?

[SydneyRover]

good question bp

[BillyStubbsTears]

Once again Nudga. It was not about what it did to you personally. It was about the overall picture.

A virus that was harmless to the vast majority was very serious to a small minority.

Issue is that that small percentage of 68 million is a very large number. Way more than the NHS could deal with.

So if everyone had taken your approach, the vast majority would have been fine. But the small minority that weren't would have swamped the NHS. So when my mother had a heart attack then, she wouldn't have got treated.

That's the selfishness I'm talking about.

[TommyC]

NC.

On the second point, there was a feeling among many people at that time that the virus was going to be a very serious threat for a very long time. Some attitudes go to extremes in those circumstances. I suspect the great majority of those people wouldn't have the same opinions now. But at the time, it was always better to err on the side of attitudes that helped us beat down the virus.

On your first point, I have a lot of sympathy with harsh approaches to those who refused vaccination. They were basically saying "My sovereign right to act as I want trumps any responsibility I have to society." I've given my opinion about that enough times to bore everyone shitless so I won't do it again. Suffice to say I think it was the ultimate in selfish behaviour.

Do I think it should have been illegal not to be vaccinated? No I don't, and I doubt many of those who agreed with that premise in that poll had thought through the consequences of how you'd administer that. But I understand where that frustration came from. My take was that anti-vaxxers had the right to act like that. And society had the right to exclude them.

"And society had the right to exclude them".

That's where you and I are absolutely ideologically oppposed. "Society" in my view shouldn't be achieved by design and by Governments actively deciding what society should like and for example, curtailing the freedoms of people who choose not to undertake a medical procedure. Without being presumptious, it's clear that you approve of that level of state control as you feel your view of what society should look like, very much can and should be achieved by design. Effectively by submitting to the belief that big-Government knows best. To put it crudely, that is always the view of the left as they know that when left unchecked, human behaviour will naturally always revert back to prioritising self-interest and on that playing field, "socialism" will always be doomed to failure. Without governments actively legislating to make it possible, socialism would never ever prevail anywhere because it runs contrary to human nature. 

Conversely, the old "there's no such thing as society" quote is often thrown about as a lazy example of how nasty and right wing Mrs Thatcher was. What is often ignored is what she then went on to say in that quote. She essentially was getting at the fact that "society" tends to be shaped by spontaneous evolution, rituals, customs and practices evolving over generations (my preference) rather than by intellectual design and government control (your preference). 

"Society" as you put it could only exclude people from public life in response to not being vaccinated, if that outcome was planned for and legislated for by the government. I find that concept terrifying.

[BillyStubbsTears]

NC.

Do you agree that Society has the right to remove someone's freedom to drive a car if they are caught driving after supping 8 pints?

[Ldr]

NC.

Do you agree that Society has the right to remove someone's freedom to drive a car if they are caught driving after supping 8 pints?

Totally irrelevant, one is a crime one is not

[TommyC]

NC.

Do you agree that Society has the right to remove someone's freedom to drive a car if they are caught driving after supping 8 pints?

A better example would be the smoking ban in pubs and restaurants. Smoking is harmful to those around you and generally unpleasant. I daresay nobody would like to go back to the days of stinking of stale fags every time they went out for a drink or someone blowing fag smoke across your table whilst you're eating your dinner. Having said that though, I said it at the time and i still believe to this day, that it was absolutely wrong that if I owned a pub and I wanted to cater for smokers then I was legally prevented from doing so. That to me was and is completely wrong. It was an example of big Government over reaching itself when an element of individual choice should have been allowed. If I owned a pub and I wanted to let smokers in, why should I be prevented from letting those who are daft enough to smoke, come in and do so if I wanted to let them in? By all means ban me from having kids in anywhere that permits smoking and encourage proprietors towards open non-smoking establishments, perhaps with financial inducements or government grants. It's the difference between providing encouragement to people to behave in a healthier and more considerate manner without out and out demonising those who choose not to and the state mandating good behaviour! It's the difference between the carrot and the stick isnt it. My view remains that history will show us that the carrot was/is more appropriate to the Covid pandemic and the stick should never even have been contemplated.

[ncRover]

NC.

Do you agree that Society has the right to remove someone's freedom to drive a car if they are caught driving after supping 8 pints?

Do you still think it’s 95% efficacy for stopping transmission? Yes reduced risk you’ll say but not much and certainly not to the level of being the same threat as a drunk driver.

If you think somebody *still* should have their freedoms removed for such a thing, how is that any different to throwing them in jail? Or are you talking about separate carriages and toilets?

In response to your first reply to me. If people thought it was going to remain a threat for a long long time, perhaps that was as a result of government and media playing down the solid science of natural immunity.

Headlines like “antibodies wane after months”. Of course they do, that’s when the immunological memory gets transferred over to T cells.

The downplaying of which also helped with the demonisation of the unvaccinated.

That is scaremongering and propaganda to deny that. But they were happy to overplay the transmission reducing effects of the jabs. But you think the end justifies the means and public health messaging isn’t just about giving people information.

There has also never been any solid science on masks. The optics of which continued to in-still a sense of emergency to people long after the vulnerable had been protected.

Here is a summary of a recent Cochran review that found them to be little to no use.

https://twitter.com/carlheneghan/status/1620175395516743682?s=46&t=Uj9lS9cW2ksdznjWwHqrkQ

Focus on the evidence referenced rather than tweeter as it bores me when you lot do that.

I can give more examples of inappropriate scaremongering if you like.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Nc.

Of course it isn't irrelevant. It establishes the principle that there are actions which Society is prepared to penalise people for because of their negative effects on Society. The fact that this specific one is labelled "crime" is neither simply a matter of degree.

Tommy, you are right that that is a far closer example. The problem with your balanced solution of course is that it wouldn't work. All pubs would allow smoking just as they did before. If there'd been a market opportunity for non-smoking pubs without the legal sanction, someone would have filled it.

The smoking ban is an interesting one, because it's positive effects are twofold - 1) Non smokers aren't exposed to smoke. 2) Over time, the number of smokers reduces, leading to better overall health outcomes for the population at large. That second one is a major positive for Society and reduces unnecessary cost burdens on the health service. (The argument that smokers pay for their own treatment through high taxes doesn't stand up. If they didn't smoke, they would have more money to spend on other goods and services, which would both be an overall economic stimulus and also be taxed itself, wile they were requiring less attention from the health service, therefore putting a lower demand on that tax income.) That second point is a major reason why Society had a right to expect everyone to take sensible precautions against COVID - because the selfish minority that didn't were choosing to impose higher costs on the rest of Society.

There's a similar rationale for the compulsory use of seat belts. If you don't wear a seat belt and you choose to risk getting your face mangled in a car crash when you could have taken very simple steps to avoid that, you impose a very high cost on Society for your subsequent health care. Society therefore has a right to impose a sanction on those stupid and selfish enough to insist on their right to not wear a seat belt.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Nc.

Please God not Carl Heneghan. He's a pariah among genuine scientists. What he did in Autumn 2020 was utterly disgraceful. A report on the efficacy of mask wearing was published in Denmark. He wrote an article for The Spectator claiming that report said the exact opposite of the authors' own words.

The man is a disgrace to the idea of honest, unbiased science. What he did there is the biggest crime you can ever commit in science.