#COVID19 | Page 138 | Vital Football

#COVID19

Polly 433 said:
Here is a genuine question. I feel I can ask this as I am both in the risk group due to age and with an under lying health condition. Why are we risking putting our economy in ICU for generations and not just letting those at risk die. 10,000 people die every week in the U.K. most in the above 70+age range. Most with underlying health conditions. Of the 3,500 that have died of reported covid19 this week, how many would have died anyway? We hear died of Covid but this is only saying they had covid19. Not covid19 actually killed them. Some died of an underlying condition but just happened to have the virus. Others the virus was a significant factor in the death. The lad in Coventry that was 18, statistically counts as a covid19 death but he happened to have the virus but it was his underlying condition that brought about his death. He probably would have died anyway. We as a country need to know these figures to be able to make a decision as to when and how lockdown ceases and a return to normality, to some extent returns. The longer in lockdown the poorer as a nation we become, the more difficult it is to pay for health and social care in the future the more people die tomorrow. We need more data as I feel the deaths of a few elderly, who are probably going to die this year anyway, will out weigh the deaths of many over the next decade. I know this is heartless to some and there are many outliers that are fit and young that the virus will carry away but statistically this question needs to be asked. How many probably would have died anyway? Where is the line? Where are the figures to know when we reach that line?
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The simple answer to this is it is difficult to know since we can never know what might have been had we have done something different. Deciding when to end the lockdown will be an educated guess not a scientific cut off. Testing would make that decision both easier and more robust but does not look likely any time soon.

Its a slippery slope polly, making these decisions. If it is not worth saving people now then why should we do so under 'normal' conditions? This type of strategy can have profound impacts on social cohesion moving forwards. This debate, if, when it becomes necessary needs to be transparent imo
 
da fuq said:
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I have no liking for Rees Mogg, but he is being treated very unfairly on this one.

SCM, the Company he has a stake in, are trying to encourage people to invest again, something which is desperately needed on a far larger scale.

It is in everyone's interest to get the markets back up to as close to a pre Covid level as possible.

Pensions and jobs depend on this happening.

Do not confuse what is happening here with what Blackrock Investment and Marshall Wace have been doing, shorting stocks for personnel gain.

Both have ignored what Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England has asked for: "Anybody who says I can make a load of money by shorting, which may not be in the interests of the economy or the people, just stop what you are doing"

Blackrock and Marshall Wace have so far made over 75m shorting the stocks of Companies, some of whom are providing vital services throughout the crisis.
 
Agree Redford. To be transparent surely we need this information so the country can support or challenge when such decisions are taken. They I’ll be taken as much for political reasons as scientific.
 
mao tse tung said:
I have no liking for Rees Mogg, but he is being treated very unfairly on this one.

SCM, the Company he has a stake in, are trying to encourage people to invest again, something which is desperately needed on a far larger scale.

It is in everyone's interest to get the markets back up to as close to a pre Covid level as possible.

Pensions and jobs depend on this happening.

Do not confuse what is happening here with what Blackrock Investment and Marshall Wace have been doing, shorting stocks for personnel gain.

Both have ignored what Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England has asked for: "Anybody who says I can make a load of money by shorting, which may not be in the interests of the economy or the people, just stop what you are doing"

Blackrock and Marshall Wace have so far made over 75m shorting the stocks of Companies, some of whom are providing vital services throughout the crisis.
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Come on mao, all three of those mentioned have or are behaving like scum.

Like what her maj said yesterday, when this is over we need to celebrate all those who have done their bit. Those that didnt will need a reckoning. (I probably added that last bit tbf)
 
radfordinlondon said:
Come on mao, all three of those mentioned have or are behaving like scum.

Like what her maj said yesterday, when this is over we need to celebrate all those who have done their bit. Those that didnt will need a reckoning. (I probably added that last bit tbf)
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Well if that's the case the Governor of the Bank of England will need to be added to that list; by introducing a new round of Quantitative easing he is also encouraging the purchase of equity.

There is no doubt that Rees Mogg is scum, its just that he has done nowt wrong in this instance; all investment houses and stockbrokers should be doing the same.

The last thing we need on top of a pandemic is a jobs crisis, and that could well happen unless the markets improve.

Action certainly needs to be taken against the firms shorting stocks; it might not be illegal but it is certainly immoral.
 
It was a particularly bad day for Mad Matt yesterday.

First he threatens to ban outdoor exercise if people continue to sun bathe, only to row back on that one later in the day; then he gives Boris the all clear during his Covid update only for him to be rushed into Hospital.

Another day like that and he will have reached Chris Grayling standards of competence.
 
mao tse tung said:
It was a particularly bad day for Mad Matt yesterday.

First he threatens to ban outdoor exercise if people continue to sun bathe, only to row back on that one later in the day; then he gives Boris the all clear during his Covid update only for him to be rushed into Hospital.

Another day like that and he will have reached Chris Grayling standards of competence.
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Don't exaggerate. Nobody will EVER come close to Grayling.
 
Good to see Milliband back in


Another honourable man that was the victim of media slurs

He had a bit of a mental health breakdown and is now back firing
 
I still havn’t figured why on earth would a good Jewish lad like Ed eat a bacon sandwich. Everyone knows it is a practiced art. Particularly if eaten with ketchup.
 
radfordinlondon said:
Spot on. I love being able to tell the boss to go shove it cos i want to make a change 😆
My business is getting smashed, will furlough 2 workers this week. As feco says hang tough, you'll be back!
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That reminds me chap...How are your fave band of all time New Kids On The Block chap?
 
This is a good read

Keir Starmer has announced his full shadow cabinet now, and it's nowhere near as bad as many on the left had feared. The dominance of the neoliberal right of the Labour party has clearly been absolutely broken, and the team Starmer has assembled is way to the left of what Ed Miliband was shackled with between 2010 and 2015.

There are some big omissions that most on the left will be disappointed about: Clive Lewis, Richard Burgon, Dawn Butler, Ian Lavery, and Barry Gardiner, but they've all indicated that they'll serve loyally from the back benches, rather than deliberately wrecking from within because they didn't get their own way like the Labour right have been doing pretty much ever since Gordon Brown took over in 2007.

The neoliberal right of the party fared dreadfully. In 2010 Miliband made the catastrophic mistake of handing them the shadow treasury and control over Labour's economic policy, which resulted in austerity-lite and the absolute flunking of the 2015 general election.

Who would have thought that behaving like a disloyal bunch of internal-wrecking shit heads for the entirety of the Corbyn leadership would have resulted in Starmer deciding not to trust them with any serious positions of authority?

Most of Starmer's picks are from the centre-left of the party, with the right limited to only minor token positions, like Rachel Reeves being given the ceremonial Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster position, and Ian Murray returning as Scottish secretary (they could hardly have picked anyone else for that position given he's the only Labour MP in Scotland!).

I don't have the time to do fully detailed appraisals of every single appointment, and I doubt that you'd have the inclination to read a 10,000 word essay on a load of people you'd mainly never heard of until today, so I'll try to keep it relatively brief, starting with the most important positions, and then covering most of the rest of the appointments in no particular order.

⚫️Shadow Chancellor: Annaliesse Dodds
She's from the left. She's got the John McDonnell seal of approval. She's pro-public ownership and anti-austerity. Not a polished public speaker, but clearly intelligent. She's a good appointment, but she'll have a tough time if it comes down to a superficial popularity contest between her and the slickness of Rishi Sunak.

⚫️ Shadow Home Secretary: Nick Thomas-Symonds
Soft-left. His legal expertise should allow him to absolutely run rings around Priti Patel. Biographer of Attlee and Bevan, which means he'd relish being part of a radical and transformative Labour government.

⚫️ Shadow Health: John Ashworth
Sensible to keep him in place. We're in the middle of the worst public health crisis in a century. Shifting him now would come across as foolish and self-indulgent.

⚫️ Shadow Business, Energy, and Industrial: Ed Miliband
Soft-left Ed became Labour leader in 2010 as the most left-wing of the leadership options, but he was horribly constrained by the still-dominant party right. I'm really looking forward to seeing the genuine Ed Miliband unleashed. He's already talking about the importance of a "Green New Deal" and he's unlikely to pay much heed to small-minded right-wing detractors these days.

⚫️ Shadow Education: Rebecca Long-Bailey
Labour left. Strong opponent of university tuition fees. Supporter of the fantastic National Education Service policy. If anyone is going to get to grips with the absolutely farcical mess the Tories have made of the education system over the last ten years, it's her.

⚫️ Shadow employment: Andy McDonald
Old school left-wing. British workers are going to need a powerful personality to stand up to the inevitable Tory assault when the coronavirus crisis recedes. The Middlesbrough bulldog is just the man for the job, and a much needed working class voice in the shadow cabinet.

⚫️Shadow foreign affairs: Lisa Nandy
To me I thought she would have made a much better fit somewhere like local government or transport, given her track record of raising issues like left-behind towns and failing public transport, and speaking well on them. It's a really odd appointment.

⚫️ Shadow Justice: David Lammy
The 'centrists' are delighted with this one, but he's somewhat further to the left than a lot of them would care to acknowledge, after all he was one of the rebel Labour MPs who defied the party orders to abstain on George Osborne's savage austerity cuts in 2015, to join Corbyn in rebelling and voting against it (the pivotal vote that basically handed the party leadership to Corbyn on a silver platter). The biggest stain on his record is the abstention on Theresa May's institutionally racist "Hostile Environment" legislation in 2014. He was warned that it would be used against black British citizens, but he followed party orders to let it slide through parliament unopposed. Since then he's made numerous passionate speeches about the Windrush scandal, but he's made no public apology for the role he played in allowing it to happen. Hopefully he doesn't let any more unlawfully racist Tory malice slip through.

⚫️ Shadow Defence: John Healey
Voted in favour of the Iraq War, and against an investigation into the Iraq war. Appointing an unapologietic Iraq war-mongerer as defence secretary is probably the biggest departure from Corbynism, and a signal to international arms dealers that a Labour government would be unlikely to stand in the way of their death-profiteering.

⚫️ Shadow Communities and Local Government: Steve Reed
The return of Corbyn's original pick as communities and local government minister who quit during the spectacularly failed Anyone But Corbyn coup. Hopefully he's better at the job second time around, and works to hold the Tories to account over the ruinous impact of their austerity cuts to local government budgets up and down the country. One of Labour's biggest failings ever since 2010 is their failure to explain how much damage austerity extremism has actually done to our local communities.

⚫️ Shadow Housing: Thangam Debbonaire
A thoroughly uninspiring appointment. Does she really have the passion, focus, and determination to deal with the massive challenges of the housing shortage, unsustainable house price inflation, homelessness, lack of social housing, and the virtually unregulated rip-off private rental market? It seems unlikely to me, but I'm willing to be proven wrong. Literally millions of people are relying on her to get it right.

⚫️ Shadow Transport: Jim McMahon
Working class background. Former leader of Oldham Council. Became an MP in 2015. Served under Corbyn. Advocate of rail expansion in the north. Apparently a supporter of rail renationalisation, Looks like a good pick.

⚫️ Shadow International Trade: Emily Thornberry
With Labour's other excellent communicator Barry Gardiner frozen out of cabinet over the weekend, I was worried Thornberry would be gone too. Technically she's been demoted, but she's still there in a pretty important role, which is a good thing.

⚫️Shadow Mental Health: Rosena Allin-Khan
A lot of people had this qualified doctor down as their pick for shadow health secretary. Given her relative inexperience, this role seems like a very good fit, with the possibility of progression to the main health secretary job if she excels at it.

Shadow Women and Equalities: Marsha de Cordova
Another of the 2017 intake. A solid pick for the position.

⚫️ Shadow Environment: Luke Pollard
Soft-left. One of Labour's 2017 intake of new MPs. Described as a "rising star". Definitely a wait and see appointment because even most politics nerds have barely heard of him.

All in all this doesn't look all that bad, but what's really interesting is the radical shift isn't just in personnel, it's in purpose too.

Corbyn's Labour between 2015 and 2019 could be seen as radical left people trying to develop a 'centre of the road' agenda that's acceptable to the rest of the party.

Starmer's Labour is 'centre of the road' people, who by necessity are going to have to develop a radical left agenda to deal with the devastating fallout from the coronavirus crisis (the second existential crisis of the capitalist orthodoxy in the space of just 12 years).

"More of the same" simply isn't an option any more. Starmer, Dodds, Thomas-Symonds, Miliband and the like are all plenty smart enough to understand it.

So let's see what they come up with ...
 
mao tse tung said:
Well if that's the case the Governor of the Bank of England will need to be added to that list; by introducing a new round of Quantitative easing he is also encouraging the purchase of equity.

There is no doubt that Rees Mogg is scum, its just that he has done nowt wrong in this instance; all investment houses and stockbrokers should be doing the same.

The last thing we need on top of a pandemic is a jobs crisis, and that could well happen unless the markets improve.

Action certainly needs to be taken against the firms shorting stocks; it might not be illegal but it is certainly immoral.
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Give over mao, not saying he is doing owt illegal but it ought to be at a time like this.

Tbf the stimulus is shit imo does nothing but enforce social divisions with different schemes for different bits. Its not joined up and expensive and slow to administer.
 
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