Time For Boris And Hancock To Go?

[youngmafbog]

This is getting ridiculous now. Chopping changing rules here rules there but never anything done when left wing protests happen. Who won the election, was it Jezza after all?

The other day Rishi hands out cash to try to get people to go out. Compulsory face-masks (far too late now so clearly just a Government control thing) will put many off going out - it could well be the end of the high street.

So for me Boris needs to go along with Hancock. Let Rishi step up to the plate.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8519177/Police-hand-spot-fines-not-wearing-face-covering-shops-July-24.html#

[New Judge]

///..so in this regard why is Covid-19 the only disease for which that question is ever raised?//

Because it’s the only disease where governments have succeeded in destroying large parts of their economies by the actions they have taken to try to prevent its spread.

//Even if, then, the official death toll is inaccurate, it is still a completely different measure from the one you are abusing in the 1968 flu.//

Why is it? Nobody knows for sure how many people suffered or died from the 1968 outbreak. Nobody knows for sure how many have suffered or died from this outbreak. Even if the figures are not precise, they demonstrate that they are in the same ball park. In the UK hundreds of thousands of people contracted the 1968 disease and tens of thousands of them died; hundreds of thousands contracted this latest virus and tens of thousands of them died. We’re not talking about differences of a hundred fold. But the difference in the approach to the outbreak is (if it could be quantified) certainly differences of a hundred fold. There is simply no comparison between the two. I can remember the 1968 outbreak and I would be very surprised if it caused much of a dent in the economy. In fact looking at basic charts for GDP figures in the 1960s and early 70s there is no significant fluctuation at all around 1968-69. Of course in 1968 nobody expected to live forever and nobody expected the government to fully protect them from the various infectious diseases that reared their ugly heads from time to time. They certainly didn’t expect them to destroy the economy in an attempt to do so.

//..but we will feel the pain of having to pay it back for the next 15 years.//

And a lot longer besides.

//It’s funny that the same people who bemoaned Gordon Brown spending out of the last World crisis are actively supporting Sunak, for doing exactly the same (with knobs on).//

I’m not among them. There is absolutely no reason why the taxpayer should provide funds to large multi-national concerns to help them deal with this crisis. To give them their credit, quite a few firms have said they will not be accepting such payments – Primark and John Lewis among them. But Tata Steel look like copping £2.7m of taxpayers’ hard-earned. That global concern showed an operating profit of £4.6bn last year and its major shareholders are members of probably the richest family in India. Youngs the brewers made a profit of £63m last year but look like picking up a healthy £4.5m “furlough” payment. It is preposterous that taxpayers’ money should be used to mitigate the risks which should be borne by shareholders. And please don’t start me on Sunak’s “£10 for a dinner” idea.

[jim360]

The reason it is a different measure is that:

1. the 1968 flu toll is an estimate after the fact -- and, again, let me point out that you have deliberately chosen the upper limit rather than acknowledging the massive uncertainty; the CDC estimate of the 1968 toll is 1 million, for example: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.html . The Covid-19 toll, whatever else its flaws, is currently calculated primarily on deaths among those who tested positive (and usually, but not exclusively, in hospitals/care homes/similar settings).

2. The 1968 pandemic is now over, in any meaningful sense (although, as I understand it, the same virus is part of the seasonal flu). The Covid-19 pandemic is ongoing, and the toll is certain to increase for months yet. There is, for example, no sign of the death toll decreasing in Brazil, and in the US it's even increasing.

In any case, the death tolls from 1968 v. 2020 are based on completely different measures. It is an abuse of statistics to treat them as comparable. Even if you have a point that the approach has been excessively damaging, at least take the trouble to get your facts and evidence straight.

[jno]

debts aren't necessarily painful. Britain paid off WW2 debt in about 2005. And Osborne announced six years ago that he was paying off debts related to the South Sea Bubble, which was in 1720. The country had been coping okay.

[New Judge]

//In any case, the death tolls from 1968 v. 2020 are based on completely different measures.//

However they are measured there is little doubt that the 1968 event caused many hundreds of thousands of deaths and I would suggest that the outbreaks are comparable in scale even if not identical in the result. The 1968 outbreak was of an infectious disease which was spread in much the same way as Covid and which caused many deaths. It was also similar in that the vast majority of those infected did not die. I remember the outbreak and I knew quite a few people who contracted the virus (and a hell of a lot more who did not).

I also remember the way it was handled and there was simply no comparison. When the reaction to this pandemic is examined in the cold light of day I believe those examining it will gasp with incredulity when the risks of the disease and the damage caused by the "cure" are compared.

[gulliver1]

The present Govt has borrowed more money than all the past labour Govts put together. WOW , Spend and Tax .

[ToraToraTora]

"The present Govt has borrowed more money than all the past labour Govts put together." - indeed, there have been many fewer labour governments! Only 4 Labour leaders have won an election in 120 years! PMSL!