#COVID19

[Old Red Fart]

Will is a young man who has had greater authoritarian restrictions placed on him than has been experienced by anyone in British history.

No PM, no leader and no monarch, no matter how dictatorial, has ever come close to restricting British people's lives as Boris Johnson has done. Much is talked about what the World War II generation had to go through, but they never had anything close to these restrictions on lives; not remotely. Not allowed to go out? Not allowed to go to a shop? Or eat in a cafe? Will is living under far greater restrictions than even German Jews did pre-war. That isn't a moral comparison, but meant to make you understand that even a malevalant, potentially murderous regime didn't initially go this far.

And, as he points out, there is virtually zero danger to himself.

Maybe it is YOU who should reflect a little bit; you and the other elderly, who seem to think these aren't even sacrifices and that they should be taken as a matter of duty. These are sacrifices you never had to make as young people, instead making them now when they probably have the lowest impact of any other time in your lives.

Maybe YOU should take some time to actually understand why he thinks as he does rather than moralising because it suits you.

Apparenly the hospitals are filling up with middle aged people. That's my age group. That's scary. But I won't ever be so arrogant as to expect a 26 year old to give up another 6-12 months of their life to protect me as if it's nothing, as if it shouldn't even need to be mentioned, as if it's just a matter of course and not any kind of big deal.

Maybe that was the case in the first few months, but a year on I would expect your generation to have a little more reflection and gratitude. A lot is said about gratitude to the NHS but by God, we should be out there clapping the young who are complying as well.

Pope, on this occasion you're much too quick off the mark, you appear to have made your mind up before your brain is engaged.
I sympathise with Will to a large extent but I don't like to think that he's halfway to giving up. In fact it reminds me of the old adage "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog".
You do keep on about me and my generation but most of us do know what it is to be on the wrong side of having a good time and I think that most of us have learned to put up with the things that go wrong.

Your remarks in this case are unwarranted and perhaps I should remind you that we're all under the pump regardless of age.

 

[jbacsta]

That really is excellent. Hope you can start being as open minded and open hearted in your comments on the football. Happy new year, stay safe.

You may have noticed that i liked Wills post. That is because i have 100% sympathy with him and many others of his generation. However your opening two paragraphs are in my opinion an insult to the remnants of the generation that lived and died through WW2 as well as being completely wrong. Before you go off on one i am not and do not claim to be one of them.

 

[Ingy]

Page 696 chaps! Cornflakesman update the palindrome page spreadsheet chap.Regards Will's comments I don't blame him at all for thinking like it. I have two older teen daughters missing out on the best years of their lives.Admittedly as a dad of teenage daughters, selfishly, it is also a relief not having to worry about them being out as much! ORF is not wrong either as everyone is losing out,not just the young, on not seeing family,going out etc! It's a shame Forest can't cheer us up by being at least half decent.Personally if things don't start to improve by May ,I still expect to wear a mask and social distance for a few months after that, then I would be more than concerned for all of us.

 

[Pope John XXIII]

Pope, on this occasion you're much too quick off the mark, you appear to have made your mind up before your brain is engaged.
I sympathise with Will to a large extent but I don't like to think that he's halfway to giving up. In fact it reminds me of the old adage "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog".
You do keep on about me and my generation but most of us do know what it is to be on the wrong side of having a good time and I think that most of us have learned to put up with the things that go wrong.

Your remarks in this case are unwarranted and perhaps I should remind you that we're all under the pump regardless of age.

No ORF, as are not "all under the pump" at all and if your response to me is to be borderline insulting as well as condescending this conversation will end very quickly.

You have made no attempt to engage with what has been said. None whatsoever. Instead, you have gone through this self righteous nonsense that, effectively, Will should just shut up and get on with what YOU need him to do. Maybe, for a change, take a moment to reflect that that is EXACTLY how you come across, regardless of what you actually mean.

I'm not having any of the garbage about "my generation knows". Tell me at what point in your youth your generation were forbidden to leave home? Or go to a shop? Or meet with people? Or have food in a cafe? This is unprecedented in HISTORY. None of this happened for Spanish flu, the great plague or the black death; people just had to die.

Your very lives depend on the cooperation of people like Will. You should show some gratitude for that and drop the self righteousness and the sheer arrogance. If you think it's not really much of a sacrifice, maybe the young should stop bothering to make it and leave you and me to face the consequences?

 

[Ingy]

Page 696 chaps! Cornflakesman update the palindrome page spreadsheet chap.Regards Will's comments I don't blame him at all for thinking like it. I have two older teen daughters missing out on the best years of their lives.Admittedly as a dad of teenage daughters, selfishly, it is also a relief not having to worry about them being out as much! ORF is not wrong either as everyone is losing out,not just the young, on not seeing family,going out etc! It's a shame Forest can't cheer us up by being at least half decent.Personally if things don't start to improve by May ,I still expect to wear a mask and social distance for a few months after that, then I would be more than concerned for all of us.

How are Direct Line these days chap?

 

[Pope John XXIII]

You may have noticed that i liked Wills post. That is because i have 100% sympathy with him and many others of his generation. However your opening two paragraphs are in my opinion an insult to the remnants of the generation that lived and died through WW2 as well as being completely wrong. Before you go off on one i am not and do not claim to be one of them.

I'm not insulting anyone.

I am stating a categorical fact.

No whole generation or population in this countries history has had such authoritarian restrictions placed on them. Ever. Even when the Normans came and life went very far down south, no one forced serfs to actually stay in their houses.

The WWII generation faced a totally different threat, and one that was equally shared. But Churchill said we would fight them in the streets; he did not forbid British people to go out into the streets. The only comparison is to conscription, which of course was more extreme, but for a much smaller portion of the population. We look upon conscripts as national heroes, and rightly so. So why can't we have at least a modicum of appreciation for young people today who have been ordered to put on hold a portion of their young lives in a less dangerous, but still very real way?

It is impossible to get a sense of perspective in this because there is no perspective. This is unprecedented.

And I am not going to be so arrogant as to say that, as a middle aged bloke, the sacrifice I make day to day is remotely what the young are making. I had my time in my teens and 20s. I could do anything I liked within the money I had and no one told me otherwise. I had my time, I had my fun. As a middle aged bloke I don't get to see family and I don't get to see friends. I lost two family members this year who were very close to me and I saw them 3 times (between them) in the months before they died. I am someone who never stays in and on a day off would always be out somewhere.

But no one took a year of potentially the best years of my life away from me. No one took my exams away from me. No one made me pay £9k to receive absolutely sod all at university and be made a prisoner. How are young people meant to meet a potential partner in all this? Or progress a relationship where they don't already live together? It's all right me sat at home with Mrs Pope and two kids not worrying about this stuff, but I worried about it plenty back then and we shouldn't forget that.

I actually think the dismissal by older generations (and I include mine to an extent) of what young people are doing is a disgrace. Now we have cheery headlines telling us a full national lockdown will last deep into the summer and restrictions likely all year.

I'm sure many will disagree with me on this, but Will has clearly been struggling with this lockdown and I see the same despair every day at work from even younger people. To just have that casually dismissed, and even effectively be told he is wrong by ORF really, really gets my goat

 

[mao tse tung]

I’m nearly 27 and have a 0.0005% chance of dying from this and will be burdened with paying back the deficit through huge tax rises.

If you think I’m selfish for not wanting to spend the remaining years of my 20’s locked away for a disease that will never kill me and where the average UK victim is mid 80’s, when I’ve complied by these laws for a year, then I couldn’t give a shit.

Well said Will.

Although if huge Tax rises are implemented to lower the deficit, it will be a POLITICAL decision not a FINANCIAL one.

The word on the street is that National debt will trip over the 100% of GDP figure sometime early this year; while that is not by any means satisfactory, it is certainly not as dark a place as people are making out.

To start with, interest rates are at an all time low and the minute they go negative the Government are in a position were they only pay back 50p for every £1 they borrow.

Of course negative interest rates will impact on many other things like savings and the prices indices which will hurt the coffin dodgers more than anyone; and lets face it, when it comes to sharing the pain that may be too bitter a pill to swallow.

The Government could continue to print money but there are limits on what they can do before that becomes inflationary, and the Government have a self imposed, arbitrary ceiling figure of 2% for inflation; again, that is set to protect the select few and not the many.

Even if they choose to over look the tried and tested methods, there are a myriad of other Financial instruments which could come into play; Perpetual Bonds appears to be the most popular instrument being discussed.

There appears to be no question that Perpetual Bonds would work in the short term, but little is known about the long term effects.

What, for example, if One Trillion Pounds worth of Bonds are auctioned off and they are purchased by the Chinese?

It would certainly be interesting to see what the morons who witter on about taking back control have to say about that prospect.

The current level of debt is entirely manageable; its just a case of which method of management is preferred.

If the austerity route is chosen, then you know what to expect; alternatively, an expansionist programme focussed on growth, similar to the one used in the 50s and 60s, when the Post War National debt stood at 250% of GDP might be more palatable.

 

[Ingy]

To be fair to those in WW2 the emotional stress of families involved in Operation Pied Piper must have been awful too.

 

[mao tse tung]

You may have noticed that i liked Wills post. That is because i have 100% sympathy with him and many others of his generation. However your opening two paragraphs are in my opinion an insult to the remnants of the generation that lived and died through WW2 as well as being completely wrong. Before you go off on one i am not and do not claim to be one of them.

I tend to find that when WWII or any other armed conflict is mentioned, it is not the people who put their lives on the line who are the ones doing the talking.

It tends to be the ones who were privileged enough to miss out on the conflict for one reason or another.

When I hear people spouting garbage like "your generation should be proud of the sacrifices made" then they should qualify the remark by stating that they took no fucking part in any conflict either.

Most, if not all, of the people I know who have survived conflict, have the horrors indelibly etched on their memories that they prefer not to talk about it.

 

[Old Red Fart]

Pope, I'm coming close to getting a bit cranky reading your opinions, condesc ending, arrogant, insulting, and all the rest of it which I am in your opinion. Why don't you just stick to the difference of opinions instead of getting your big stick out. I have not insulted Will, and wouldn't either, I respect his views even when I perhaps don't agree with them and it might be an idea if you read again my original post.
I'm old enough to have been through a few bad times of one sort or another and sympathize with him but the fact remains that conditions could be worse and maybe will be before it's all over. And we're all in the same boat.

 

[Pope John XXIII]

Pope, I'm coming close to getting a bit cranky reading your opinions, condesc ending, arrogant, insulting, and all the rest of it which I am in your opinion. Why don't you just stick to the difference of opinions instead of getting your big stick out. I have not insulted Will, and wouldn't either, I respect his views even when I perhaps don't agree with them and it might be an idea if you read again my original post.
I'm old enough to have been through a few bad times of one sort or another and sympathize with him but the fact remains that conditions could be worse and maybe will be before it's all over. And we're all in the same boat.

I don't care in the least how cranky you are feeling ORF and you can fall out with me all you want. You get cranky if you like.

Perhaps you need to be triggered a little bit before you might actually start to understand their perspective, because from what I can see, you aren't even attempting to.

I have a daughter who is 9 and a boy who is 6. She won't ever be 9 again, and when I think of the experiences we have not been able to have it breaks my heart just as much as losing family did. She has spent nearly a year not able to play with her friends outside of school, a year of not being able to have friends over. She had over four months of not being able to see any friends, at all.
What children have had that since the evacuations? Which was only a fairly small proportion of kids in any case. And that was in aid of stopping Germans walking down our boulevards; this is to stop older people getting an illness.

When this is all over, both my generation and yours owe these young people a massive debt of gratitude and it sickens me to see anyone dismissing or denying that

 

[Lienking]

No PM, no leader and no monarch, no matter how dictatorial, has ever come close to restricting British people's lives as Boris Johnson has done. Much is talked about what the World War II generation had to go through, but they never had anything close to these restrictions on lives; not remotely. Not allowed to go out? Not allowed to go to a shop? Or eat in a cafe? Will is living under far greater restrictions than even German Jews did pre-war. That isn't a moral comparison, but meant to make you understand that even a malevalant, potentially murderous regime didn't initially go this far.

.

I sympathise with Will, as my son is a similar age. However I must have missed some of the rules.

When have we not been allowed to go out ?
When were we not allowed to go to the shops every week to get the food ?

WW2 people never had any restrictions close to those now ? I thought you studied history. Many young children (evacuees) were sent away from their families for years. Soldiers etc were sent away for years. I don't read history books, but I would guess they weren't allowed to nip to the shops or sit in cafe's. Were cafes even open during the war ? Bearing in mind food was rationed, I wouldn't have thought so.

Soldiers/RAF/Navy personnel could be away for years , but of course that impacted on mothers/siblings/wives/girlfriends etc far more than having to go a few weeks having to have a takeaway rather than eating in a cafe. I would be surprised if more than a handful of people weren't affected in a much greater way in WW2.

 

[Calvin Plummer]

I’m nearly 27 and have a 0.0005% chance of dying from this and will be burdened with paying back the deficit through huge tax rises.

If you think I’m selfish for not wanting to spend the remaining years of my 20’s locked away for a disease that will never kill me and where the average UK victim is mid 80’s, when I’ve complied by these laws for a year, then I couldn’t give a shit.

It's not about you dying chap...

Hospitals currently have more men in their 40s than 80s in them with Covid. That's half the forum.

 

[Calvin Plummer]

Pretending the virus doesn't exist will quite probably devestate the economy far more than if we had locked down effectively and promptly as advised, and had a workable track and trace programme.

This cluster fuck is mostly because Johnson is more concerned with being liked than actual science.

The young are clearly bearing the brunt, and that's unfortunate but there is no other option if we want to keep mortality rates relatively low.

 

[jbacsta]

I tend to find that when WWII or any other armed conflict is mentioned, it is not the people who put their lives on the line who are the ones doing the talking.

It tends to be the ones who were privileged enough to miss out on the conflict for one reason or another.

When I hear people spouting garbage like "your generation should be proud of the sacrifices made" then they should qualify the remark by stating that they took no fucking part in any conflict either.

Most, if not all, of the people I know who have survived conflict, have the horrors indelibly etched on their memories that they prefer not to talk about it.

Pope was making reference to this generation of young people being the first to live through the draconian measures needed in a time of national crisis. I mentioned the WW2 generation to point out that he was wrong. I have never included myself in that generation because very obviously i am not.

 

[Pope John XXIII]

I sympathise with Will, as my son is a similar age. However I must have missed some of the rules.

When have we not been allowed to go out ?
When were we not allowed to go to the shops every week to get the food ?

WW2 people never had any restrictions close to those now ? I thought you studied history. Many young children (evacuees) were sent away from their families for years. Soldiers etc were sent away for years. I don't read history books, but I would guess they weren't allowed to nip to the shops or sit in cafe's. Were cafes even open during the war ? Bearing in mind food was rationed, I wouldn't have thought so.

Soldiers/RAF/Navy personnel could be away for years , but of course that impacted on mothers/siblings/wives/girlfriends etc far more than having to go a few weeks having to have a takeaway rather than eating in a cafe. I would be surprised if more than a handful of people weren't affected in a much greater way in WW2.

To take points in turn.

Cafes and all shops were perfectly open during the war, and in many places you could get food from cafes off ration. Cafe culture actually boomed in London as a result of that.

I have acknowledged that conscription was a greater curtailment of freedom, given that you are forced into dangerous labour. However

- this obviously only applied to young men.
- these young men were perfectly permitted to "nip to shops" off duty or on leave, if these were available in their theatre. They were permitted to drink, eat and socialise together in mess halls.

I am not trying to negate the sacrifice made by these men (and it should be pointed out that this is a sacrifice that has been demanded of some young men by their leaders for the last 1000 years, conscription is nothing new) but to illustrate the significance of the restrictions. These men were forced into a duty, not restrictions.

As for now, unless you were Dominic Cummings, the message in March was very simple; you must stay at home. We were permitted one form of exercise a day and to go out to essential shops only. So yes, I can go down my local Tesco's. But I am somewhat limited to being able to buy what they sell.

As I pointed out, no government in history has mandated the mass closure of shops or eateries. This isn't an interpretation or analysis, it is a fact. No government has ever said to its citizens "you must stay at home". We haven't had a monarch restrict people from leaving their local area since the 14th century.

I am not arguing against the restrictions, because a) I don't want to die and b) I don't what you to die (as in, anyone else).

But it's easy enough for me to make sacrifices when about half the people in London ICUs are around my age or just a little older. It's in my own interests.

But I also don't want to see what happens to me and my genereration if we lose the willing cooperation of young people; because if we refuse to appreciate what they are giving up or are dismissive of it, then eventually that is what is going to happen. And then people like you and me are going to die.

Someone made another point to me the other day; if this disease was reversed and killed far more younger people and hardly any older people, how willing would the older generations (including mine) be to lockdown so completely for them? I don't doubt the morality of anyone on this forum, but I know a hell of a lot of people in my local area who would insist on their rights to pack the local wetherspoons, young people be damned

 

[Calvin Plummer]

To take points in turn.

Cafes and all shops were perfectly open during the war, and in many places you could get food from cafes off ration. Cafe culture actually boomed in London as a result of that.

I have acknowledged that conscription was a greater curtailment of freedom, given that you are forced into dangerous labour. However

- this obviously only applied to young men.
- these young men were perfectly permitted to "nip to shops" off duty or on leave, if these were available in their theatre. They were permitted to drink, eat and socialise together in mess halls.

I am not trying to negate the sacrifice made by these men (and it should be pointed out that this is a sacrifice that has been demanded of some young men by their leaders for the last 1000 years, conscription is nothing new) but to illustrate the significance of the restrictions. These men were forced into a duty, not restrictions.

As for now, unless you were Dominic Cummings, the message in March was very simple; you must stay at home. We were permitted one form of exercise a day and to go out to essential shops only. So yes, I can go down my local Tesco's. But I am somewhat limited to being able to buy what they sell.

As I pointed out, no government in history has mandated the mass closure of shops or eateries. This isn't an interpretation or analysis, it is a fact. No government has ever said to its citizens "you must stay at home". We haven't had a monarch restrict people from leaving their local area since the 14th century.

I am not arguing against the restrictions, because a) I don't want to die and b) I don't what you to die (as in, anyone else).

But it's easy enough for me to make sacrifices when about half the people in London ICUs are around my age or just a little older. It's in my own interests.

But I also don't want to see what happens to me and my genereration if we lose the willing cooperation of young people; because if we refuse to appreciate what they are giving up or are dismissive of it, then eventually that is what is going to happen. And then people like you and me are going to die.

Someone made another point to me the other day; if this disease was reversed and killed far more younger people and hardly any older people, how willing would the older generations (including mine) be to lockdown so completely for them? I don't doubt the morality of anyone on this forum, but I know a hell of a lot of people in my local area who would insist on their rights to pack the local wetherspoons, young people be damned

You think being forced to stay home, watch TV and read a book is worse than living in a trench watching your mates die?

 

[Pope John XXIII]

You think being forced to stay home, watch TV and read a book is worse than living in a trench watching your mates die?

No, and I don't think you need to leap to the most extreme example in British history in order to virtue signal away my point.

What young people have been asked to do this year doesn't need to be directly comparable to one of the greatest and most murderous wrongs instigated on British men in this country's history.

But I also don't believe it is "nothing" as you suggest. What they are being asked to do is not a small deal. Not at all. It deserves respect and gratitude, which to the young seems in very short supply

 

[Calvin Plummer]

No, and I don't think you need to leap to the most extreme example in British history in order to virtue signal away my point.

What young people have been asked to do this year doesn't need to be directly comparable to one of the greatest and most murderous wrongs instigated on British men in this country's history.

But I also don't believe it is "nothing" as you suggest. What they are being asked to do is not a small deal. Not at all. It deserves respect and gratitude, which to the young seems in very short supply

How does the phrase bearing the brunt imply it's nothing? I used a silly example because you insisted the sacrifice of the young is the greatest ever made in this country. I'm just saying bullshit.

It's undoubtedly hard for many, will have lasting consequences etc but again just pretending it doesn't exist won't bring normality back. People just need to accept life for the foreseeable future has changed.

 

[Pope John XXIII]

How does the phrase bearing the brunt imply it's nothing? I used a silly example because you insisted the sacrifice of the young is the greatest ever made in this country. I'm just saying bullshit.

It's undoubtedly hard for many, will have lasting consequences etc but again just pretending it doesn't exist won't bring normality back. People just need to accept life for the foreseeable future has changed.

No, no no. I didnt ever say the sacrifice made by the young is the greatest ever made in this country.

I said that the restrictions they have faced are the greatest ever imposed by any government in this country's history. This is true.

And I have tried to illustrate that the sacrifices they, as a generation, are making are far more significant than a lot of people are willing to acknowledge. Doubly so when you consider that they are going to end up paying for it the longest and probably the most severely as well.

My point is that people of our generation, and even more so the older generations, owe them gratitude and acknowledgment, not dismissal.