Christmas F##### then | Page 4 | Vital Football

Christmas F##### then

ThreeSixes said:
Yep. It's so boring. How can the government possibly get this right? All the choices are bad, it's just a question of trying to choose the least bad one all the time
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Its tough but its about being realistic, honest and not setting false expectations.

Most rational people can deal with bad news as long as its given honestly and with adequate time to prepare for it.

Johnson is a populist, his popularity is more important than anything else . Its why he didn't want to be the one to deliver bad news and left it to the last minute when he probably had no choice.

Months ago he should have said this will not be a normal Christmas, don't make plans, its not going to happen. Unless, we make super human efforts to control the spread now (e.g. October time). Prepare for the worst and maybe we can relax it closer to the time.

Instead he promised and couldn't deliver. Even last week when challenged at PMQs he made it clear that he wasn't going to change course - three days later.

Even yesterday he said "I would carefully consider" - no leadership again. The medic answered the question "unpack do not travel" - that's leadership even if you don't like the answer.

No doubt the paparazzi will snap various high ranking MPs mixing and holding parties (sorry business meetings).

It is about the least bad choices. Dithering until the last minute and chopping and changing just makes them worse.

Hopefully people will remember this the next time the ballot box opens.
 
It`s unfortunate that, aided and abetted by a callous media, a national, nay, an international, pandemic is too frequently trivialised into a political debate. It`s easy to criticize in retrospect, but right now PMs & Presidents around the world have to make speedy decisions that are more important than party politics and subject to rapidly moving science.

The new strain of the virus should make most open-minded of people sit up and acknowledge the worrying volatility of Covid. Who`s to say what other bi-products or strains of the virus lay ahead. There`s too much about this virus that we don`t yet understand; those who among us who dismiss Covid as simply an inconvenience and invasion of their freedoms worry me. We live in a free society but perhaps it`s time for some to reappraise their notion of responsibility.
 
markinkent said:
Its tough but its about being realistic, honest and not setting false expectations.

Most rational people can deal with bad news as long as its given honestly and with adequate time to prepare for it.

.
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I hate the fact that I'm defending him, but no one knows exactly what would have happened (even WayneKerr was adamant that there wouldn't be a vaccine this year and that was wrong). I don't think people on this board - middle / upper working class middle aged white men are indicative of the country as a whole - some of my colleagues and families are distraught that Christmas with their families was cancelled. I don't think that there was anything wrong with giving people hope, and something to look forward to, it just didn't work out.

I'm going to be on my own this Christmas, not going to my parents and not seeing my teenagers. I'm happy enough with that, it wouldn't have been a "proper" Christmas any way, but as I said I know a number of people personally that have been really affected by the announcement
 
RotherhitheGill said:
Which empire by nature hasn't been tyrannical?

To say that WW1 was fought on the basis of freeing the appressed is somewhat farcical.
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I didn't say anything about freeing the appressed or even or oppressed. I said stopping Europe being overtaken by tyranny. Yes, all Empires are tyrannical, but I's suggest, had we lost World War I, and the Yanks helped us win it, Europe controlled by the Axix powers as part of their Empires would be a lot more tyrannical.
 
ramager said:
This new strain could play a part in getting us out of this mess - assuming it's both more contagious and less deadly, which is the usual way viruses evolve, by speeding up immunity in a less harmful manner. Naturally over time this would become the dominant mutation. In a couple of months when the more vulnerable groups have been vaccinated and herd immunity has been reached (or is about to be reached) the virus will still be circulating, predominately amongst younger people for a while as the 'r' rate steadily falls
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It’ll be more than that. If you do the vaccine calculators it’ll be August - October before it’s your turn for the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. Obviously we hope the Oxford one gets approved and a mass rollout done for them too, but you’re still not looking at getting the vaccine until possibly the Summer.
 
Trashbat said:
A lot of people, like you, have been citing the 0.1% death rate because of some stupid claim in the Daily Mail that is now been discredited.
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Which edition of the DM ?
Was this the only place you claim to have seen "0.1%" ?
If so was it the first source ?

(Surely you wouldn't be making a sweeping dismissal of the DM by any chance :oops:?

As for "discredited"....pretty much anything that the Guardian has to say about certain subjects can be "discredited".
 
Tarian said:
Which edition of the DM ?
Was this the only place you claim to have seen "0.1%" ?
If so was it the first source ?

(Surely you wouldn't be making a sweeping dismissal of the DM by any chance :oops:?

As for "discredited"....pretty much anything that the Guardian has to say about certain subjects can be "discredited".
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The Guardian is infuriating for bleating on about the same subject and will aim every story to their own opinion, but at least they use facts.
 
SteveTreacle said:
I don't doubt our government hasn't dealt with the Covid crisis well and am not one of those burying my head in the sand. Equally, I'm not one of those using it as a stick to beat the government as I have an long-running agenda against them. Most of Europe is all over the place at the moment due to Covid and locking down over Christmas - even the messiah of remainers, Merkel, seems to have got this one wrong and is coming under pressure; Macron is even less popular than Boris in his own country; Italy, Spain, Belgium, Poland and most of the rest of Eastern Europe have hugely increasing rates. So, what this boils down to is that this is a worldwide epedemic.

I also think that it is hugely important that the whole world does not forget where this pandemic started and who caused it and when this is all done, the whole world should be on China's doorstep with an bill for the havoc they have unleashed.

The lockdown should have come earlier and it should have come a lot harder. Sadly, a lot of people are just too stupid and/or selfish to do the right thing to stop its spread so asking then to do the right thing just doesn't work. They need the law laid down to them and for it to be enforced
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I was with you up until "the lockdown should have come earlier and harder."

Far too many critics have been beating up the Government - for a novel situation - where even "experts" didn't know everything - and still don't.
Different responses needed to be tried.
So the Spring "lockdown" was forgivable - despite bans on sunbathing and beach-visiting - amongst other nonsensical inconsistencies.

But trashing the economy won't "protect the NHS".
The Government has no business deciding which shops are "necessary".

Limiting the number of people in confined spaces should have been enough.

Encouraging people to confine themselves to family "bubbles" made some sense. But the "Rule of 6" was stupid.
It allowed, maybe encouraged, people from 6 different households to mix.

In a similar vein, until the changes, why permit (encourage?) 3 households to meet for Christmas in a confined space.....
.....if visiting a bowling alley is supposed to be a problem ?

The latest restriction is another over-reaction by rabbits in headlights - scared about what "might" happen.

The "vast majority" ( as someone said) are not "stupid".
 
Trev_GFC said:
The Guardian is infuriating for bleating on about the same subject and will aim every story to their own opinion, but at least they use facts.
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.....selectively and/or creatively.

I'm never quite sure whether the mis-use of statistics by so many journalists and broadcasters is ignorant or malicious.

Given the paucity of maths / science degrees one suspect the former....
...but their unwillingness to apply a "sense check", suggests the latter.
 
SteveTreacle said:
- The hysterical reactions we saw from sad-acts whose life it is to go to the gym when they were rightly shut during the lockdown. I think due to their childish, stupid, pathetic and hysterical reactions, gyms stayed open during Tier 3 and I daresay did their but to spread this mutation?
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Using my own experience of going to the gym as the original lock down was easing, my own gym has a capacity of about 200 machines and in order to use them you had to pre-book. There was a limit of 20 people per hour slot.

At practically every machine there was access to hand santitiser and you were banned from using a machine that was next to another machine that was being used and this was even if the machines were more than 6ft apart. The 4-5 members of staff who were in the gym would watch and then make a point of spraying down the machines as people got off them, even if the gymusers were also spraying the sanitisers.

People like to rag on gym users but from my own experience and antedotal experience from friends, the gyms were one of the best sanitised locations to hang around in. Gyms certainly weren't a gathering of hot sweaty people leaving their body fluids on all the machines and spreading diseases that people who probably haven't recently been to a gym like to think.
 
Gills 58 said:
For once I'll say that at least Johnson hasn't given in to the nut jobs on the right of his party who oppose lockdowns. Meatheads like Steve Baker. These people think they know better than the scientists. Some say "scientists get it wrong sometimes". Well, yes, of course, but in these matters I'd follow their advice rather than some no mark jerk. My car needs its MOT soon. I'll take it to my trusted garage, not my hairdresser.
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I was with you until the MOT. Total racket encouraging a throwaway culture. And I wouldn’t even go to a hair ahem stylist about my hair. Never mind my car.
 
Tarian said:
Which edition of the DM ?
Was this the only place you claim to have seen "0.1%" ?
If so was it the first source ?

(Surely you wouldn't be making a sweeping dismissal of the DM by any chance :oops:?

As for "discredited"....pretty much anything that the Guardian has to say about certain subjects can be "discredited".
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Do your own research.

The 0.1% figure originated from a Tweet, which the DM jumped on. The originator of the Tweet has subsequently removed it.

I’m pretty confident that you don’t agree with the 0.1% figure - you just have some weird pleasure with disagreeing with everything that anyone says.
 
markinkent said:
Johnson is a populist, his popularity is more important than anything else . Its why he didn't want to be the one to deliver bad news and left it to the last minute when he probably had no choice.

Months ago he should have said this will not be a normal Christmas, don't make plans, its not going to happen. Unless, we make super human efforts to control the spread now (e.g. October time). Prepare for the worst and maybe we can relax it closer to the time.

Instead he promised and couldn't deliver. Even last week when challenged at PMQs he made it clear that he wasn't going to change course - three days later.
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When he made the comment that a limited Christmas looked possible then that was using the latest science models and making the comments based upon the various statistics and trends. Months ago the government would not have known a new mutation would have made itself known a week or so prior to Christmas. If this new variation hadn't made an appearance then Boris would have kept his promise.

I notice that Italy in the last 24 hours have also now decided to lock down for Christmas https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55372491

It seems as if a lot of people in the EU are going into their own pre-planned lockdowns of which some of them seem to be under less strict guidelines than what Boris was planning.

What seems to be the case is that any change of policy as a result of new information is seem as some sort of confession that prior policy was wrong.
 
Boris got his heart’s desire -to be PM, and he got it in spades, by God. Talk about natural justice and Providence. And it seems to be making a man of him. Contrast with Trump who is sulking. No addresses to the nation. No calls for sacrifices or courage. Just me me me. I’m with Lancs re leaders and challenges. I’m still not convinced there will be much variation in public policy outcomes between countries by the time this is over.

btw what’s the point of being tier 1 on the IOW? Nowhere to go.
 
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