Covid-19 Virus

We'll, there's you and Diane Abbot, for a start, surely he could find another six from somewhere.

 

There I am searching for ‘Watford’ on Twitter to get the latest transfer news and numerous times there are threats of boycotts of Watford businesses from mask sceptics.

Lots unhappy about this face off at Barclays. The comments reach a low point when Barclays is described as ‘Marxist’.

https://twitter.com/matthewfdonald/status/1311671360935137281?s=21

 

We've all been to one of those sort of do's

 

Don't ask me how i know who was there.
(He might have put the central heating on I'd have got a bigger tip......literally......)

 

God what a vile idiot. Poor bloke is just trying to do the job he's been asked to do in difficult circumstances.

 

I agree, it is impossible to be described any lower than that.

But yes, these, "I know my rights" people, are total idiots.

 

"They've got the guns, but we've got the numbers"

Okay Chipmunk, I'll bring a gun, you bring as many of your mates as possible.

 

Lovely landscapes, however if you go hiking for 850km you would be attached by >25 bears and >50 cougars.

 

So do you think the way regulations and laws have been changed at short notice, changes announced seemingly arbitrarily and massive fines levied without Parliamentary consent are a siphoning beacon of democracy in action?

 

And another graph. This time March deaths v current deaths:



(The bottom data is number of days)

Watch out for that tiddler of a second wave folks, it might get your shoes damp!

 

Good point.

Let's have a parliamentary debate over every possible decision on covid-19 followed by a vote. At least we will know our wonderful politicians (who of course have completely open and unbiased minds and experts in the field of virology, business and the economy), will be able to stand up and air their expert views (and repeating what was said by the previous speaker). I'm sure they can all come to a majority decision on what level of lockdown should be imposed on every area in the UK based on all the different data available, and if the vote was close, I'm sure that wont make any difference at all, and it will send everybody a clear and message that the decision was absolutely right for everybody.

I think that fines that are big enough to be a deterrent should be got rid of in favour of fines that no one worries about at all, or no enforcement at all as everyone will, of course be following the new democratic decisions to the letter.

All we need to do then is work out how we can help confused folk know if they live in Scotland or England, or Leicester or Newcastle so they know what parliament they listen to, and which parliamentary decision they must abide by.

All sorted, panic over.

 

This country is a democracy, not a dictatorship. Perhaps this had escaped your notice? It certainly seems to have escaped Johnson’s.

You would be the first to bleat if Corbyn had done all of this.

 

And I've described democratic decision making.

Somehow, this level of democracy forgets that there was a democratic GE in December, and the results of which now mean that we have democratically elected politicians that we expect to make decisions on our behalf anyway. But, oh well.

We'll await the next idea, that we can endlessly debate every decision made for the next budget, too. What do we need Rishi for?

 

If you have a vote on everything, you don't need a govt or parties - you just need MPs.

 

We didn’t have a pandemic in December. In any case, no one one votes for government to do precisely what it wishes without any checks. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of our constitutional arrangements if that is what you think.

You haven’t described democratic decision making anyway. You have caricatured it. No one is saying that Parliament should chew over every decision to the nth degree. But some degree of scrutiny of the measures is not asking too much. Heavens, even Matt Hancock has conceded the need for this.

 

Yeah but that’s not what I’m suggesting is needed to fill the democratic deficit. Nice try, though I’m not remotely surprised you’re completely happy with government ruling essentially by decree.

And your point about the fines is nonsense too. Fines should be voted upon and set out in law by Parliament as they traditionally are. In the space of about 4 months we’ve gone from £30, to £100, to £200 and now £1,000 for a breach of most of the standard regulations. There’s no reason that couldn’t have been debated. It’s particularly worrying given these fines can be levied by police or council officers and converted into a civil debt if unpaid. All without the criminal courts ever seeing the individual and assessing their ability to pay.

 

I didn’t say there should be a vote on everything, did I? But there could and should be more scrutiny by Parliament of what Government does.

If there is no scrutiny, we have dictatorship.

 

Quite clearly, there needs to be checks and balances/ parliamentary scrutiny. You might agree with the decisions being taken at the moment (no idea if you do or don't), but at another moment in time there will be decisions made by different government, and the decisions made now will set a precedent.

Imagine if Corbyn won the last election, and only allowed private businesses to re-open if they passed some sort of 'social value' threshold, which he invented. Or if he decided he wanted to appropriate private assets in the name of boosting public infrastructure.

This isn't war. We are talking about a disease with around a 1% death rate, which is falling as modern medicine advances. The original argument was to protect the NHS, because you can't be in a situation where people are dying in corridors because of poor state planning.

But we are now in a situation where we are taking away individual liberties and human rights, when we absolutely can debate them in parliament. Which is a horrible, slippery slope, usually seen during the demise of democracies.

The mask refusers are idiots. But to punish them, we need a transparent and democratic lawmaking process.

 

The very nature of C19 means that decisions often need to be made very quickly. Therefore having to have a full parliamentary debate on every C19 decision before that decision can be made is not practical.

I'm not against parliament having it's say, but the government executive has to have the power to make an initial decision and implement it immediately if they believe it is necessary to save lives.

However, if parliament feel that any C19 decision may be wrong they should have the right to demand a debate and vote on that decision, but that must be done retrospectively and the original executive decision should remain in place in the mean time. Then after debate parliament will be entitled to a binding vote to either ratify the executive decision or rescind it if they deem it was indeed the wrong one.

This way the government can act swiftly to put in place what they believe is best for the nation, but parliament can act retrospectively to change that decision with a binding vote if they believe the government have got it wrong.

 

This is spot on. But the process used to date has had very little parliamentary involvement at all. It doesn’t need a full debate but there should be some scope to check and question the measures being taken.

It could be helpful, too. For example, wider involvement of Parliament might have alerted the government to the fact that the local differences are confusing to the public.

 

It all sounds so wonderful doesn't it. Yes, let's have more scrutiny. The government is being pilloried for starting lockdown several days too late in March, do you honestly think that the decision would have been made more quickly with extra scrutiny? With 650 MP's having their say?

It all sounds so great, yet in an extremely fast moving environment every extra bit of scrutiny will be like an emergency debate every few hours.

Well make some practical suggestions then, instead of just making a blanket statement as you did. Decisions need to be made every day, how are you wanting to build extra democractic scrutiny into the processs?

And why is my point about fines nonsense? As far as I know, our democratically elected Parliament voted through the Law in the Spring that gives the power to the elected government to make decisions on lockdown and fines.

 

I saw one of these gammongasms yesterday evening in a garage. Mr & Mrs Wetherspoon were doing their shopping (garage >100m from Tesco 24h superstore) & young girl behind the counter asks them to put on their masks or would they like a pair to wear. They start screaming about "...their rights..." a little old boy points out that along with "...their rights..." also come their responsibilities - Wayne & Waynetta explode...

 

More Covid statutory instruments should be subject to the ‘made affirmative’ process.

 

So, we would then have decisions made and implemented, and then retrospectively un-implimented by Parliament who will not have the benefit of the same expert advice given them in Parliament, and in any case, everything will have moved on by then.

Great, that will clear up the confusion, and will give our public even more confidence in each decision.

 

What are you on about? This would still be done by statutory instrument, allowing for speed, and in the vast majority of cases these would go through on the nod. It would simply allow Parliament the opportunity to raise concerns in the most egregious of cases.

it really would make little practical difference but it would enhance legitimacy and, as I have said, the Government has already promised to move in this direction so I am unclear why you think it is so problematic.

 

The government has a majority of 80. I’m not sure it need get too bogged down if, as you suggest, these are sensible and prudent steps to take. There are lots of capable minds in Parliament on all sides who are experienced in offering improvements and introducing valuable safeguards into proposed legislation. Pitfalls and excesses can be written out while there would little scope for opposition grandstanding.

@Keighley just gave one example. While there have been various breathless announcements by Boris or Hancock in the last few months, there then almost always follows a period of several days - sometimes up to a fortnight - before the government actually publishes the statutory instrument that gives legal force to its words. The case for every measure being an emergency and needed right here, right now is very thin.

And as I understand it, the government is using never-before-used dusty old powers given to the Heath Secretary under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 to levy the fines, not the 2020 law. I doubt there’s an MP currently in Parliament who voted for it.

 

Yes, although the 1984 Act was amended in 2008.

 

u shore u no the difference between a 'reactive' and 'prophylactic' response m8

 

The longer some people exercise their "rights" the longer this thing will
keep hold of us . Also it would be particularly difficult for anyone to make
a bigger mess of things than Bojo and his mob .
This is not to say the alternatives would have filled me with confidence

 

...is the question government ministers should be asked every time they try to compare the situation to March.