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Tag Archives: Covid-19

Lib Dems react to new Covid restrictions and Christmas misery

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 19th December 2020 - 9:38 pm

For the second time in 6 weeks, the prelude to Strictly involved the Prime Minister announcing tougher restrictions to deal with a new strain of Coronavirus which, although no more lethal, can spread up to 70% faster.

Much of London and the South East have been put on a much stricter Tier 4 from midnight tonight and the 5 day Christmas bubble is now no longer allowed. Outside of Tier 4 areas, bubbles will be able to see each other on Christmas Day only – but the advice is very much “only if you have to.”

The thing that struck me most …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ed davey, jane dodds and willie rennie | 42 Comments

Observations of an expat: A bad year

By Tom Arms | Fri 18th December 2020 - 5:36 pm

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2020 has been a bad year. It is certainly the worst I can remember and I have been around for 71 of them.

The main cause is, of course, coronavirus or covid-19. It started in Wuhan, China almost exactly 12 months ago, and as the year draws to a close about two million people worldwide have lost their lives to this deadly virus.

Coronavirus has destroyed lives and livelihoods and although vaccines are now being distributed, it will be some time before the world returns to normal—if ever.

The Chinese were initially slow to respond to the threat. Whether their tardiness was in response to a lack of medical knowledge or political considerations is unclear. It was most likely a combination of the two.

The Chinese appeared to have relatively quickly stopped the spread of the virus; helped partly by long years of experience of pandemics and epidemics and partly as a result of a tightly-controlled society. As a general rule, Asians have fared better than their counterparts in other parts of the world. Most scientists have ascribed their relative success to experience of dealing with similar viruses such as SARS (an earlier form of coronavirus) and Avian bird flu.

Those that have fared better than most were countries who could quickly and efficiently shut their borders to the rest of the world. Iceland, New Zealand, Taiwan and Australia are four examples, although almost everyone is suffering as winter and covid-fatigue set in.

The worst hit were the countries of the West – Europe and North and South America. There the combined emphasis on individual liberties, lack of experience and knowledge, political ineptitude and an emphasis on wealth over health led to the greatest number of deaths.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged china and donald trump | 25 Comments

How many people will miss the vaccine because they don’t have a GP?

By Mary Reid | Thu 17th December 2020 - 11:12 am

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I am looking forward to having the Covid-19 vaccine. Well, not the actual act of having a jab in my arm (twice), but because it will open up my life. Apart from a short window in the summer, we have not had any social visits in our home since March and we still only leave the house for walks or for medical reasons.

We can both be confident that we will be called in for the vaccine at some point in the New Year. But it appears that an unknown number of eligible people may be missed. Thousands of people in the UK are not registered with a GP. We can only speculate on the reasons why anyone may not be registered – it could be down to something simple like moving house, or it could be something more complex around immigration irregularities, even because someone is the victim of trafficking.

To be effective, as many people as possible should be vaccinated, whatever their immigration status. So surely the NHS needs to know how many people in the country are not registered, so they can be traced and contacted?

Munira Wilson asked Health Minister Jo Churchill how many people are not registered in England, and was told “No such estimate has been made.” In other words, they don’t know.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged munira, munira wilson and vaccine | 69 Comments

Munira Wilson leads parliamentary debate on Excluded

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 13th December 2020 - 10:35 am

It’s a year today since Munira Wilson was elected as MP for Twickenham. Since then, she has held one of the most stressful roles, as Health Spokesperson, holding the Government to account for its often reckless and chaotic handling of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Like all other MPs, though, she will have a lot of casework from people who have had the financial rug pulled from under them – owners of small businesses whose activities have been curtailed or stopped altogether during the pandemic. People who run events companies, creative industry freelancers such as make-up artists are just some examples of those who simply have had no income and no support since March. Then they were struggling. Now they are desperate.

Lib Dems have led the fight for support for this group. Jamie Stone set up an all-Party Parliamentary Group and our MPs have repeatedly pressed the Government to do more.

This week, Munira led a parliamentary debate to highlight the plight of those 3 million people who have been excluded from the Government’s support schemes:

"Debt is rising. Rachel from the SE says:

'I am selling my house, cannot get a mortgage, selling my personal belongings just to put food on the table. Never been so scared. I’m also a single parent & it’s heart-breaking telling my daughter Santa can’t afford much this year.'" pic.twitter.com/Mg2BACIs2k

— Munira Wilson MP 🇺🇦 (@munirawilson) December 9, 2020

You can read the whole debate here.

In her opening speech, Munira highlighted the impact the Government’s failure to provide support has had:

There has, at times, been a suggestion that some of the excluded are highly paid and dodging tax in some way, especially those paid via dividends. My constituent, Fraser Wilkin, who runs a travel company in Twickenham, pays himself by dividends because of the huge fluctuation in annual income due to events outside his control, such as the coronavirus. If he had drawn a regular salary through the year, he would have been unable to fulfil his statutory and contractual obligations to his clients, in terms of prompt refunds when their holidays were cancelled due to the pandemic.

Universal credit is cited as the fall-back. A survey of more than 3,000 individuals found that almost three quarters were unable to access universal credit. Let us face it: we all know that universal credit is not meaningful support. Otherwise, the Government would not have felt the need to create the furlough scheme or the self-employed income support scheme.

We know that the mental health impacts on many of those excluded from support have been stark. There have already been eight reported suicides, and one respondent to the House of Commons digital engagement team said that she almost took her life several times, and one week spent every day in contact with the Samaritans.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged christine jardine, coronavirus, excluded and munira wilson | 12 Comments

Have the Government handled the Covid-19 pandemic well?

By Gillian Douglass | Wed 2nd December 2020 - 12:00 pm

It’s a difficult question, and the Covid-19 pandemic has been a challenge for governments worldwide. The fact is that, while the government has done well in terms of an initial lockdown, there have been serious failings. It will be interesting to read the review when it’s published.

Firstly, the government, with SAGE’s advice, took the position that they did not want to lockdown too early as people may not accept it. This was obviously an error as thousands of lives could have been saved by locking down a week earlier. Later in the year, the government has again delayed a lockdown, going against the advice of SAGE who called for a short, sharp circuit breaker. I assume that they wanted to prove to their supporters that it was entirely necessary, but, again, it will have led to unnecessary deaths.

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Posted in News | Also tagged Government contracts and PPE | 28 Comments

Vaccine breakthrough takes our eye off the ball

By Chris Bowers | Thu 12th November 2020 - 12:30 pm

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Forgive me if I seem the pre-Christmas Scrooge, but I can’t get as excited as everyone else at the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that has sent share prices rocketing (or falling) and a member of Sage saying we’ll be back to normal by the spring. I feel we are in danger of taking our eye off the ball.

The tendency when any of us are faced with a big problem is to see if we can solve it with minimum effort. It’s understandable; our lives are fairly full, so problems are irritants. But sometimes a problem requires a structural rethink, demanding root and branch reform rather than just tinkering with a failing element of the whole.

Issues like Covid-19 and climate change are problems that demand root and branch reform of the way the world does business, yet we are treating them like irritants. With climate change, we know our lifestyles are warming the planet to dangerous levels, yet we cling to the hope that some technology – like electric cars or planes running on biofuels – can be invented to stop us having to confront how we live and allow us to go back with a clear conscience to the life we know.

It’s the same with Covid. Although we don’t know for certain what caused it, the most likely explanation is our breaking down the barriers between the human and animal realms, to the point where bats, pangolins and perhaps even mink mingle with humans and cause a highly contagious killer virus. We need to look at our global lifestyle and re-establish that barrier, among other things through eating less meat and leaving forests intact – measures that will also help in the fight against climate change.

Yet instead, we hope for the magic wand of technology in the form of a vaccine. To me, it has long felt like lazy journalism or lazy politics to throw in the half-sentence “until we have a vaccine” to any thought about the coronavirus. It’s as if we don’t want to face up to the need to address the fundamental failings in our modus vivendi, and that can be dangerous.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged vaccination | 28 Comments

Welsh Government News: Education Minister announces Christmas travel plan

By Kirsty Williams AM | Wed 11th November 2020 - 1:00 pm

A message from Kirsty Williams: –

Universities are working together to help students make safer plans for the end of term.

New covid-19 lateral flow tests, designed to diagnose people without symptoms, will be provided to students who are planning to travel home for the holiday.

Universities across Wales will also end face-to-face lessons in the week ending 8^th December, allowing anyone who tests positive for coronavirus to self-isolate for 14 days before travelling home for the Christmas break.

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Posted in News | Also tagged Christmas holidays, university and welsh assembly | Leave a comment

LibLink – Vince Cable: Is Rishi Sunak about to go from hero to zero?

By NewsHound | Tue 27th October 2020 - 9:01 am

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Writing in the Independent, Vince Cable says that ‘the chancellor’s rapid transition from spendthrift to Scrooge has not yet been noticed by the admiring public but a change has undoubtedly occurred’:

One of the hot stocks of 2020, British chancellor Rishi Sunak, is starting to look seriously overvalued. His political allies, having talked up Sunak earlier in the year, tipping him for the top job, are now hedging their bets. The hero of the spring offensive may be on the brink of becoming the zero of the autumn retreat.

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged rishi sunak and vince cable | 13 Comments

Why hygiene, testing and shielding are better than lockdown and furlough

By Geoff Crocker | Thu 22nd October 2020 - 1:41 pm

We need the current argument between Westminster and Manchester on the best strategy to tackle coronavirus. The issues involved need wider informed debate than has so far been allowed. Both government and science should accept challenge, and refine policy accordingly.

We are told that policy is science-led and evidence-based. But extensive use continues to be made of blunt lockdown and furlough measures, without scientific evidence of their efficacy. These are both clearly extremely harmful in themselves. Here is an evidence-based case for the superiority of infection control, testing, and shielding.

1. Infection control works

After extensive mortality in March-May, UK care homes have reduced both infection and excess mortality rates to zero.

This has been achieved through rigorous infection control procedures. Note that the initial increased mortality affected all elderly people, not just those in care homes.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged coronavirus | 167 Comments

Wendy Chamberlain reminds Boris about the Scottish border

By The Voice | Sat 17th October 2020 - 8:55 am

Wendy Chamberlain got to question the Prime Minister this week. She asked him to sort out the issue that means that she and other Scots travelling between Scotland and England, and everyone living in the Borders, who may cross from Scotland to England several times a day, to sort out a problem with the respective English and Scottish test and trace apps.

Anyone crossing the border has to manually switch between apps. It doesn’t happen automatically. So you might think that your app is working, but it isn’t if you haven’t made the change between them.

See Wendy in action here:

The English and Scottish test and trace apps don't work together. You have to switch manually between them, a huge problem for border communities.

After my question at PMQs, the PM has committed to ensure app interoperability. I’ll be holding him to this commitment! pic.twitter.com/0U22Lprwhw

— Wendy Chamberlain MP (@wendychambLD) October 14, 2020

Boris Johnson sounded pretty clueless in response, as you would expect. He did say he’d sort it, though.

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Posted in News | Also tagged NHS tracing app, test and protect and wendy chamberlain | 2 Comments

Cancel the 2021 GCSEs to save our future

By Ian Jones | Tue 13th October 2020 - 1:50 pm

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The government has turned crisis into catastrophe by deciding to retain the 2021 GCSE and A Level examinations and institute rigorous mock exams beforehand. It displays a woeful ignorance of teaching and learning, combined with a total failure to learn from past mistakes.

Students have not been at school for six months and their return this autumn is marked by further periods of absence due to Covid-19 outbreaks and quarantine requirements: something highly likely to increase as autumn turns to winter.

The current pressure on both students and teachers to catch up on missed learning, while managing ongoing disruptions in attendance, is doubled by a requirement to revise for their mocks what they may have not yet sufficiently covered in class, and then for exams that may still have to be cancelled – whatever the government says.

Another U-Turn is required because teachers need whatever time will be available to concentrate on teaching and to support students who are undergoing the biggest disruption to education since World War II.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged gcses and schools | 14 Comments

Passing the buck on Coronavirus

By Geoff Crocker | Fri 9th October 2020 - 7:31 pm

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Opposition parties are right to challenge government mismanagement of the coronavirus epidemic. Competence is crucial to saving lives, maintaining wider public health, and not unnecessarily constraining personal liberty. So far, the UK government has got it spectacularly wrong on all these counts.

The twin major government failures in managing the pandemic have been

Insufficient PPE in March. As a result, many thousands of people died. Care homes have since achieved zero infection with full PPE.
Insufficient tests in September. As a result, thousands of uninfected people are now subject to 14 days avoidable quarantine, losing their liberty and their work.

Germany shows how to do it far better, limiting mortality to 115 deaths per million population compared to the UK rate of 627. People arriving in Germany from UK and EU take a test and are not quarantined if negative. All very sensible and effective.

Not only government ministers, but also their medical and scientific advisors, share responsibility for this UK failure. Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty gave a presentation (text here), on the current level of threat. But this fell short of being the ‘best science’ by lack of any peer review, scrutiny, or questions.

Vallance claimed that the increase in infection is not due to greater testing, but to increased positive test outcomes (quote ‘Could that increase be due to increased testing? The answer is no.’). He’s wrong. The current huge increase in infections must be partly due to increased testing. Vallance should have attributed increased infections between these two causes.

Having long dismissed international Covid comparisons because they show the UK in a very bad light, Vallance then presented current infection data from France and Spain, whilst ignoring the German outcome which requires their scientific explanation. This matters, because it determines best policy recommendations.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged coronavirus | 36 Comments

Observations of an expat: Trump, Covid and me

By Tom Arms | Fri 9th October 2020 - 5:44 pm

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Donald Trump and I have something in common. We are both on steroids. And I can tell you from personal experience, that heavy doses of steroids can affect you mentally – and physically.

It can make you angry and a shade irrational. Just ask my wife. In fact she says I should delete the word “shade”. In my case it affects my feet and hands as well; swelling the feet and making the hands shake.

The reason for these changes is that steroids dramatically and rapidly push up your sugar levels. It is a bit like suddenly swallowing a kilo of the white stuff in one 10 second sitting. You become hyper. I have also become a steroid diabetic. As President Trump weighs about 20 kilos more than me, it is possible that he has suffered the same or similar fate.

In my case, I have to take steroids for a chronic cancer called Multiple Myeloma. The bad news is that the nature of the cancer, the steroids and a bewildering cocktail of other drugs, means that I will be boring you with this column for many years to come. Steroids affect your behaviour and your quality of life. But they save lives. They don’t end them.

Your body also adjusts to the initial onslaught of steroids and the chemicals that accompany them. In my case it took about four months and a reduction in steroid intake. I have no idea how long it will take Trump to physically and mentally acclimatise. But, I can assure you that a weekend at Walter Reed Hospital – no matter how good the doctors are – is insufficient.

Of course, Donald Trump’s behaviour was erratic in the extreme long before he swallowed his first dose of dexamethasone. He stands apart as a person who refuses to accept that the laws of nature and man apply to him. Facts, historical records and evidence of our own senses are an irrelevancy as far as Donald J. Trump is concerned.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged donald trump | 2 Comments

The NHS Track and Trace app is here to stay, what should Liberals say?

By David Chadwick | Wed 30th September 2020 - 4:00 pm

The NHS Track and Trace app is here to stay. Even if Covid-19 were to disappear from the planet tomorrow, there is no turning back from this point; track and trace apps will become a permanent fixture of the health service. And now that we know what an app should be able to do, why would we rely on one for Covid-19? If it helps to save lives, then surely an app could help us to guard against annual winter flu pandemics; what about chickenpox and a whole host of other infectious diseases? Thinking ahead, it is not inconceivable to imagine that we will have all be required to have a permanent mobile app, which can be used to track our exposure to deadly diseases, but also hold our personal medical records.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Track and Trace app | 21 Comments

Brexit: Heading for Disaster or Brinkmanship? Part Two

By Chris Perry | Wed 23rd September 2020 - 1:45 pm

The Irish Border was always going to be the stumbling block to BREXIT. Part of the problem is that the House of Commons is not representative as the 7 Sinn Fein MPs have not taken up their seats as it would mean them taking the oath of allegiance to the Queen. The people of Northern Ireland voted to “remain” whereas the 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs favour BREXIT. A border down the Irish Sea would not be acceptable to the DUP any more than a border in Ireland would be acceptable to Sinn Fein.

All parties agree that a “no-deal BREXIT” would be disastrous for the economy in that 44% of our exports go to Europe (with only 18% of Europe’s exports coming to Britain) and a further 20% of Britain’s exports go via trade agreements with Europe. Most of our food comes from Europe, and Spain in particular, and the World Trade Organisation Tariffs could add up to 10% to prices. No amount of trade deals around the world could compensate for the loss of trade with our nearest neighbours. The recent deal with Japan replicates the deal the UK already had with Japan via the EU.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged brexit and Irish border | 6 Comments

Brexit: Heading for Disaster or Brinkmanship? Part One

By Chris Perry | Wed 23rd September 2020 - 12:15 pm

The Coronavirus possibly poses a greater threat to the human-race than did the second world war and the unleashing of nuclear bombs. The UK should have locked down earlier, worn masks earlier, had test and trace earlier, stopped admissions to care homes earlier, admitted people in care homes with symptoms to a hospital where they could have benefitted from oxygen, ventilators and intensive care. However, we are where we are and quite rightly when announcing further measures to combat Coronavirus (on Tuesday 22nd September) the Prime Minister put saving lives first (and I am delighted that people working in restaurants both in the kitchens and serving are to wear masks). Still, he also said he was keen to strike a balance in protecting the economy and jobs. Given that the Coronavirus is likely to trigger a world recession why then is he persevering with the “UK Internal Market Bill” which risks alienating our closest trading partners, undermining trust in the UK worldwide and scoring an own goal by inflicting untold harm on the economy with a potential no-deal BREXIT in January, whilst undermining the peace process in Ireland?

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged brexit and Irish border | 13 Comments

LISTEN: Christine Jardine on Any Questions challenges government on Brexit and Covid

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 12th September 2020 - 8:55 am

In a week when Boris Johnson’s government has reached “give the toddler a box of matches and a can of petrol” levels of irresponsibility, Christine Jardine challenged Employment Minister Mims Davies on both their inept handling of Covid-19 and their “specific and limited” breach of international law. They were on the BBC’s Any Questions programme last night and you can listen to the whole thing here.

“This is a treaty that your government negotiated and got through Parliament and now you’re reneging on it. How is that responsible?” she asked Ms Davies.

Christine pointed out that the Government is out of control, its moral authority inside and outside the country is plummeting and that Brexit is descending into farce.

She also attached the government for ending the furlough scheme, which has kept so many jobs going, as early as next month, pointing out that other countries are extending them for much longer. She asked the Government to extend it until next June at least.

This week in her first Commons speech in her new Treasury brief, she highlighted why this was so important:

Covid 19 has been the challenge of a lifetime, but also offers us an opportunity to create a new, stronger, greener economy- but to do that the furlough scheme needs to be extended until June 2021, as I say- pic.twitter.com/sMVkZqiUHb

— Christine Jardine 🔶 (@cajardineMP) September 9, 2020

Earlier, on Talk Radio, Christine asked how on earth we could attack Russia and China for their nonchalant attitude to international law when we were guilty of the same thing.

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Posted in News | Also tagged any questions, brexit and christine jardine | 7 Comments

Ed gets his listening tour off to a great start by dishing out fish and chips

By Paul Walter | Tue 8th September 2020 - 1:54 pm

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Paddy did a listening tour back in the early 1990s. Because it was Paddy, it was very sleeves-rolled-up, get-stuck-in. And, of course, typical Paddy as well, he wrote a book about it.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ed davey | 11 Comments

Jo Swinson on the impact of the pandemic on gender equality

By NewsHound | Sat 5th September 2020 - 10:51 am

Former leader Jo Swinson highlighted the ways i which the covid-19 pandemic could adversely affect gender equality in the workplace.

She was giving a lecture on the future of work to Cranfield School of Management which was reported on Personnel Today.

There are some inequalities there which might well be a lasting legacy of the pandemic, despite the fact that there are other elements which ought to make things better for people who have caring responsibilities, by making it more accessible to work flexibly and to work from home,” she said.

She set out her concern that marginalised groups may find themselves at the sharp end of poor employment practice:

Swinson was concerned that those in groups that are already marginalised, such as BAME workers and those with disabilities, will experience greater challenges in the turbulent jobs market that is likely to be seen over the coming months.

My fear is that employment prospects, which are looking pretty stark for the next few months particularly as the furlough scheme and support for jobs comes to an end… will be restricted as the number of applicants per job sky rocket. There is a danger that we will go backwards ,” she said.

In times where employers can recruit very easily there’s less of a market pressure for them to make sure they are valuing each employee. Good employers will recognise the benefits of doing that… but there’s no doubt there will be employers who will look for the opportunity to slash costs to the bone, to not treat their employees well, and easier to get away with it.”

But there may, said Jo, be a positive aspect from the new ways of working we’ve found during the pandemic.

However, Swinson thought that the new ways of working brought about by the lockdown have the potential to increase the employment rate among certain groups, such as those with long-term conditions or disabilities who are unable to commute or work long hours.

“The idea that everybody needs to be working the same hours will recede because if people are going into the office they still might prefer to go in earlier, or at half past 10 when the public transport will be quieter,” she said.

“In the UK we notoriously work very long hours – is that what people feel is required?”

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Posted in News | Also tagged employment and Jo Swinson | 21 Comments

Exam Results and Gradings

By Ianto Stevens | Wed 12th August 2020 - 3:00 pm

Students and teachers are often disappointed with some or all of their grades, and this will always be so. Don’t let us be consoled by this and dismiss the anxiety over grades as a temporary, COVID driven problem requiring only an immediate, pragmatic solution.

I was for several years in the early 2000s, a senior A level examiner. I set papers, wrote mark schemes and participated in grade reviews before grades were published.

I participated in meetings that manipulated mark schemes after students had completed papers but before they were marked – also in the meetings which manipulated grade boundaries after marking. These manipulations had four aims:

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Posted in education and Op-eds | Also tagged education and exam results | 17 Comments

The geopolitics of COVID-19: Can liberalism win the day?

By George Cunningham | Fri 31st July 2020 - 3:42 pm

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The pandemic is an unprecedented global challenge affecting all humanity, which is suffering the consequences at very considerable social and economic cost.

The world was already in disorder before COVID-19 made its appearance but the crisis has undoubtedly deepened the great power rivalry between China and the U.S., aggravated by a far-reaching trade war starting sometime before the pandemic hit.

Trust in international systems of cooperation have been impacted. Although coordination is better right now, and concrete initiatives are underway to try and ensure that the eventual vaccine is a global public good for health, the scramble between countries to be first to have their populations vaccinated will sorely test the world’s ability to cooperate together again.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged liberalism | 6 Comments

Last minute Northern lockdown is “beyond comprehension”

By NewsHound | Fri 31st July 2020 - 11:48 am

Responding to the Government’s change in guidance stating that separate households will not be able to meet indoors from today in Greater Manchester, East Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire, Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Munira Wilson said:

Throughout this crisis, the Government’s communications have been an utter disaster. To announce a regional lockdown of millions of people not only just hours before it’s enforced, but with no clarity on the new rules coming into place, is beyond comprehension.

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Posted in News | Also tagged munira wilson | 34 Comments

Will the next LibDem Leader have national ballot appeal?

By L M Sue-Too | Tue 28th July 2020 - 4:08 pm

Who are the Liberal Democrats? How far does their leader embody their party? In what way would their leader be a desirable UK Prime Minister?

As Liberal Democrats go to the polls to elect a leader these should be the questions members of the party have at the front and centre of their minds. These are the questions voters will ask. We need a leader who has manifold capacities to govern the country, providing sound leadership on a global stage into the next decade.

Many will not believe such a thing possible. Many unbelievers will be Liberal Democrats. But just think for …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged brexit and liberal democrat leadership election 2020 | 37 Comments

100% face masks in English shops on Friday? They’re having a laugh…..

By Paul Walter | Wed 22nd July 2020 - 3:00 pm

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We’re sailing breezily towards Friday when, suddenly, everybody is meant to be wearing face masks in shops.

It’s not going to happen.

I see hardly any face masks being worn out at the moment.

To expect a sudden pivot on Friday is just ridiculous.

The police aren’t going to enforce the rule to any significant extent.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged face masks | 130 Comments

Neo-liberalism is deceitfully plundering society

By Steve Trevethan | Tue 21st July 2020 - 9:30 am

We face interactive networks of problems. Some were and are easily perceived, some not. All need analysis and addressing.

The U.K. is amongst the worst performing nations in the protection of its citizens against the current plague.

A chronic cause is under-investment in national health infrastructures.

An immediate cause is serial governmental ineptitude.

A foundation cause is the power of the theory of Neo-liberalism, with its policies of social programme cuts, the transfer of wealth to the wealthiest, the reduction of the costs to “Big Business” and its associates, the opening up of public infrastructures for profitable exploitation etc.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged neo-liberalism | 81 Comments

Two options

By Mark Lavender | Wed 15th July 2020 - 12:15 pm

I never thought that I would end up having a fear about my job! I currently have two part-time jobs. One, there is no problem at all, but the second has become quite a worry. That is because it is working behind the bar in a social club, and I have type1 diabetes, which I have had for 34 years.

I have pretty much had the concern about starting back behind the bar since we went into lockdown. As the months have flown by, and more of the restrictions have been lifted, I have realised that I have a constant niggle in the back of my head!!

With certain things, I am not so perceptive, but with other things, I am extremely observant. None so more than when I have been out shopping, or for prescriptions. This constant niggle, which I have become very aware of, is from my observations of people while I have been out, which is once a week. Are they wearing a mask, have they sanitised their hands when walking through the shop door, how far away from others are they, and so on.

My impression is that a lot of people have pretty much gone back to the way we were before isolation. I thought that might be where I am currently living in England, but after observing what is happening around the rest of the UK and the world, this mentality does not seem to be restricted to just where I live.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged diabetics and Lock down | 4 Comments

Every so often, it’s worth having a look at this table…

By Paul Walter | Tue 14th July 2020 - 10:23 am

OK, I know that countries have very different ways of reporting deaths from Covid-19.

But this table, from Worldometer (excluding a couple of micro-states), gives us some idea how the UK is doing in terms of Covid-19 deaths per million of population.

Badly.

We are second in the world for the rate of deaths, after Belgium.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged coronavirus | 68 Comments

I went to the pub…light the blue touchpaper and stand well back

By Paul Walter | Tue 7th July 2020 - 9:00 am

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I figured that last weekend would be a bit crowded in pubs, so I reserved time in my (not-so)busy diary to visit the pub yesterday. Monday is the new Saturday.

All went well. The pub I visited seem to have lots of measures in place, and well-trained staff.

I enjoyed an excellent couple of pints of a local brew (Loddon Brewery’s Citra-Quad, since you ask). I had a meal which was obviously well-familiar with the inside of a microwave but still, as they used to say, “filled a hole”.

So far, so uncontroversial.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged pubs and wetherspoons | 32 Comments

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Tristan Ward
“Let’s start by arguing that the economic benefits of the Single Market far exceed having to accept freedom of movement into the UK, and take it from there....
Chloe
'Needless to say the poorest in British society paid the price for this' I remember canvassing , the poorer the area the less interested they were. Membership ...
GWYN WILLIAMS
A balanced and fair assessment of the Senedd campaign. Unlike in Scotland, Wales has not as yet polarised into for and against Independence camps. The Welsh Lib...
Jana
The logic of this article is that we should be rejoining the Single Market. That is different from signing up to complete political Union by joining the EU. ...
Pawel Urbanski
Good piece, Tom. I would just split it into two things 1/ The principle: someone living off their assets should not pay less tax than someone living off a wage...