COVID-19

Least hopefully now everyone fully understands Boris doesn't give a jot about the north.

Well done Manchester for standing up to that idiot and highlighting him as the fraud he is.

 

That is some bewildering point of view, perhaps you're not aware there's a killer virus rampaging throughout the planet, we must all make sacrifices, 67% of your wage for sitting on yer 'arris ...
Burnham is just posturing for next year's local elections...

 

The government has stopped people working and is offering them 67% of what they could be making. nobodys paying 67% rent and 67 % bills which is why it isn't enough.


Slightly unrelated but the arts recovery funding is starting to make its way to venues, however some of the decisions on funding are baffling.

 

I'm interested to know, how many cases will be avoided by closing a few pubs without food, bookies, casinos, and children's play centres (when children are still going to school with each other).

My guess is not many, however how many places will go bust and how many jobs will be lost, my guess is quite a few.

There is no certainty going forward, no end game just a fingers crossed and hope for a virus vaccine. Well the HIV virus has been with us since 1980s and there is no vaccine. There is no cure for cancer it literally has to be cut out of you, and flu changes year on year.

I'm not a Labour voter you only have to revisit the election thread to see that, but Burnham is right in this, the virus is more than just a number of hospital admissions, it's people at their wits end not knowing if they will have a job and be able to feed their families. It's an increase is suicide and a massive decline in mental wellbeing.

It seems it is unfair to shield the vulnerable and to lock them up to protect them from the virus but it is fair to destroy any business that isn't a global corporation who can weather the storm.

At the moment Burnham speaks for me far more than Boris does.

 

Good post - similar sentiments.

 

I respect your opinion but all avenues must be explored but again we must ALL make sacrifices ( and we are re family/social life) but we (government) have wasted so much money as it is and it ain't free money, it has to be paid back at some time so lets cut our cloth now....

 

Every job lost is a lost taxpayer.
Every business shut is a lost tax source.
Every business or job lost is an extra burden on the finance of country via the benefits system.

The more business and jobs that get through the other side the more tax revenues you can gain back what has been spent. Spending less now and seeing huge unemployment won't put us in a better situation down the line.

 

Why would not many cases be stopped from lessening the opportunities for people to meet each other?

Isn't that the exact way that cases would stop? What other way is there?

 

They could get second jobs to make up the 13% shortfall couldn't they?

 

We are talking about a handful of cases ffs. Why not restaurants, what is the difference between them and a pub? It's like an extra lifeboat on the titanic, it's nowhere near enough and will have very little if any effect.

 

How do you know it's a handful of cases "ffs" when nobody actually knows where the virus jumps from one person to the next?

The point remains - it does limit people coming into contact with each other and that's the way the virus spreads. So how can it not have any effect?

For the record I would have closed restaurants too, I don't see a difference. They're obviously trying to keep as much open as they dare though which I'm guessing the people employed in that industry are grateful for. I also agree that it probably won't be enough but that's different to saying it will have no effect.

 

Are you actually on the wind up? Unemployment is going through the roof, and people is jobs in Covid secure venues are

To many half measure meaning endless restrictions. I'd rather they closed everything in the north for two weeks rather than bits here and bits there for what has already been 3 months.

 

Firstly. Not on a wind up. It was a question. I was checking whether they weren't obligated to sticking with just the 67%,

Okay but how do you know it is only a few cases?

That's fine and I don't think there's any right or wrong answer. I just can't quite figure out the benefit of closing places in Scarborough (with the same economic problems) because the cases in Manchester are high.

I'm also not sure why a 2 week lockdown would solve the issue. 2 weeks of lockdown in March didn't solve the problem. If it just delays the progress by 28 days as they said then what do we do 4 weeks later when we're back in the same position? Lockdown for 2 weeks again?

If it was 2 weeks of lockdown and then we're done with it then I'd be fine but I can't see any logical reason why that would be the case.

 

You seem to overlook the fact that local Tory MPs and councillors are in full agreement with Burnham and urged him to stand up to the government.

It's almost impossible to overstate the scale of corruption and wasted public money perpetrated by this utter disgrace of a government. It's laid out here in all its glory, appalling detail.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/21/government-covid-contracts-britain-nhs-corporate-executives-test-and-trace?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

 

You really couldn't make this up. This government is using the pandemic to further sideline public services and reward serial failure private sector companies, run by their mates, at our great expense.
The government has betrayed the trust of the British people by handing over vital track & trace services to incompetents, thereby condemning us to a winter of discontent and unnecessary deaths.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/21/government-covid-contracts-britain-nhs-corporate-executives-test-and-trace?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

 

All Burnham was trying to do in the end was scoring political points for himself. Maybe he achieved what he set out to do in that score to some extent, but dont kid yourself that he or anyone else in the Labour party would have handled the economical side of this crisis any better than Johnson or Sunak, if they were in charge.

 

Those Guardian articles are so lacking in context and detail they're basically impossible to read as a neutral. The intrinsic bias against anything private sector kust shines through everything.

Like being mad that a testing programme set up from scratch costs £12 billion. Its obviously a lot it money but what would be an appropriate number to spend?

 

It's not completely true is it?

Which other MPs and councillors were advocating a national lockdown?

The MPs are fighting for their constituents, which is what they are there to do but talk of national lockdown and putting tier 3 restrictions to parliamentary votes is quite clearly political posturing.

 

Stop with your weak mindset!

I don't care what Labour or bloody you might do. I can only judge those in change and The Conservatives with Boris Johnson in charge are failing the country. Hes an extremely poor leader.

In terms of Burnham I see nothing wrong with trying to get more money. Unlike Bradford council who will bend over for a fiver.

Sage said we need a 2 week circuit breaker and that's what the whole country should be doing.

The failure here is the lack of testing & track and trace. Let's not hide behind anything else.

 

So which of the facts quoted in the article is untrue?
Why spaff money up the wall handing lucrative contracts (with no competitive tendering) to companies with no experience in the field whatsoever (that just happen to be owned/run by your chums) when an existing level of nationwide local public sector expertise could have been built on, for far less expense and far greater effectiveness? Because, of the government's 'intrinsic bias' against the public sector and their endemic cronyism, that's why.