The UK Politics & Brexit Thread

[m80]

There are rumours Sturgeon may be arrested.

If that does happen, perhaps Boris will be there waiting to hold the police station door open for her just for a laugh?

I'm thinking he's in his own greenhouse.
He's just a mini Trump, and feasibly just waiting for a Journo to find something less wriggleable.

 

[LTD]

Humza Yousaf now appointed SNP treasurer with the resignation of Beattie

Why isn’t Spitting Image still on TV ? It would be comedy gold at the moment

 

[m80]

Humza Yousaf now appointed SNP treasurer with the resignation of Beattie

Why isn’t Spitting Image still on TV ? It would be comedy gold at the moment

Is he going to become Chief Executive as well?
Aren't there enough people left to fill the roles these days?
Or maybe the Lassie that fills the rolls could carry a position.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

We’ve been through this before. There is actually evidence that masks do make a difference. Trawl back through the threads to find it

I see no evidence on mask mandating. Nor did / does Carl Heneghan of the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine.

It's not a tough ask, especially after the pandemic.

Medical leaders - Fauci et al, just got carried away by the populist demand "to just to do something"

And wasted billions upon billions on virtue signalling.

 

[markjay]

I see no evidence on mask mandating. Nor did / does Carl Heneghan of the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine.

It's not a tough ask, especially after the pandemic.

Medical leaders - Fauci et al, just got carried away by the populist demand "to just to do something"

And wasted billions upon billions on virtue signalling.

Some places still mandate face masks. Almost all oncology wards, for example. This wasn't the case before COVID. Make of it what you will....

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Some places still mandate face masks. Almost all oncology wards, for example. This wasn't the case before COVID. Make of it what you will....

Apologies if I wasn’t clear.

My point was about the lack of evidence to support universal mask wearing as a means of stopping Covid-19 transmission in Society. In schools, shops, streets etc.

Correctly handled, worn and disposed medical grade masks in high risk environments such as care homes and intimate medical situations is something quite different.

That said, there is still little evidence that even the N95’s actually slow transmission in those circumstances with high risk individuals. But my point was about the billions upon billions that were universally mandated despite a lack of evidence that they could make any difference at all.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

German food price inflation was 22.3% in March.

 

[como]

My GP Surgery insists that patients wear masks, despite none of the Reception staff, nurses or doctors wearing them. To make sense of this you would have to assume that all the Surgery staff live in one house, share the same transport to and from work and do not interact with anyone else outside of their group. I would imagine that's unlikely. To me, it's worrying when a professional medical authority ignores science/facts and mandates measures based on idle thinking.

 

[st13phil]

German food price inflation was 22.3% in March.

Presumably due to Brexit?

More seriously, if facts around inflation were honestly reported instead of being routinely used to support political positions, perhaps people would understand that the pretence individual governments can control all inflationary factors would get less traction.

 

[ChipChop]

My GP Surgery insists that patients wear masks, despite none of the Reception staff, nurses or doctors wearing them. To make sense of this you would have to assume that all the Surgery staff live in one house, share the same transport to and from work and do not interact with anyone else outside of their group. I would imagine that's unlikely. To me, it's worrying when a professional medical authority ignores science/facts and mandates measures based on idle thinking.

The Telegraph published the Lockdown Files back in late February this year.

Sheds light on why much of Government covid policy makes little sense. Predictably the UK media decided to ignore the revelations contained within the Lockdown Files and pushed a retired footballers ill advised comments into the public consciousness instead.

Odd they deemed Gary Lineker's comments as front page news but not the revelations such as the then Health secretary Matt Hancocks desire to "deploy a new covid varient to frighten the pants off the public". Or that MP's were denied the evidence needed to make a case against lockdowns. Or that facemasks were introduced in English secondary schools to avoid an 'argument' with Sturgeon. Or that Boris wanted to lift lockdown early but was told the public "wasn't ready".

The Lockdown Files

The Telegraph has obtained more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between the then health secretary Matt Hancock and other ministers and officials at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. In the Lockdown Files we reveal the contents of those messages – and the serious questions they raise

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Odd they deemed Gary Lineker's comments as front page news but not the revelations such as the then Health secretary Matt Hancocks desire to "deploy a new covid varient to frighten the pants off the public". Or that MP's were denied the evidence needed to make a case against lockdowns. Or that facemasks were introduced in English secondary schools to avoid an 'argument' with Sturgeon. Or that Boris wanted to lift lockdown early but was told the public "wasn't ready".

Need to be careful of the spin on these claims. Much as I think that Hancock, like most Health Secretaries, was a self-publicist cork adrift on a storm.... (see Labour changing Health Secretary every 18 months, peaking finally with that charming, over-promoted Postman whose only action was to give an unprecedented round of salary increases)....

The rhetoric that facemarks were introduced to avoid an argument with Sturgeon "forgets" that the Teaching Unions were going bonkers about the "need" to mandate masks in all classrooms despite unambiguous evidence that teachers were less likely to catch Covid relative to the rest of the population, the knowledge that "masks in the classroom" were nonsense given that kids were not wearing them to socialise or commute en masse, and that endless lobbying to keep schools closed.

Covid-19: Boris Johnson admits school face mask advice might change

Confusion over face masks as some schools in England could relax rules within days

 

[markjay]

I asked ChatGPT, and this is the reply:

"Can facemasks prevent COVID transmission?

Yes, facemasks can help prevent the transmission of COVID-19. COVID-19 is primarily spread through respiratory droplets that are released when an infected person talks, coughs, or sneezes. When these droplets are inhaled by another person, it can lead to transmission of the virus.

Facemasks can act as a barrier to prevent respiratory droplets from being released into the air and spreading to others. They can also protect the wearer by reducing the amount of respiratory droplets they come into contact with.

It is important to note that not all masks are created equal. N95 respirators offer the highest level of protection against COVID-19, but they are in limited supply and should be reserved for healthcare workers. Surgical masks and cloth masks can also be effective in preventing transmission, but they offer varying levels of protection depending on their construction and fit.

In addition to wearing masks, other preventive measures such as social distancing, hand hygiene, and vaccination can also help reduce the spread of COVID-19."

Your argument is not with me, it's with ChatGPT

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I asked ChatGPT, and this is the reply:

"Can facemasks prevent COVID transmission?

Yes, facemasks can help prevent the transmission of COVID-19. COVID-19 is primarily spread through respiratory droplets that are released when an infected person talks, coughs, or sneezes. When these droplets are inhaled by another person, it can lead to transmission of the virus.

Facemasks can act as a barrier to prevent respiratory droplets from being released into the air and spreading to others. They can also protect the wearer by reducing the amount of respiratory droplets they come into contact with.

It is important to note that not all masks are created equal. N95 respirators offer the highest level of protection against COVID-19, but they are in limited supply and should be reserved for healthcare workers. Surgical masks and cloth masks can also be effective in preventing transmission, but they offer varying levels of protection depending on their construction and fit.

In addition to wearing masks, other preventive measures such as social distancing, hand hygiene, and vaccination can also help reduce the spread of COVID-19."

Important contribution. ChatGPT might be a little bit right in that masks do something to stop infection leaving the wearer. It does seems obviou that they aren't going to "protect" the wearer - despite that whole DC Comics tradition...

My point was simply that no-one's been able to produce a gold standard medical evidence of masks slowing community transmission that would justify that universal mask mandate that wasted billions, and scared the Western world into spending more time with their children, learning how to make banana bread, and taking up golf.

 

[markjay]

Important contribution. ChatGPT might be a little bit right in that masks do something to stop infection leaving the wearer. It does seems obviou that they aren't going to "protect" the wearer - despite that whole DC Comics tradition...

My point was simply that no-one's been able to produce a gold standard medical evidence of masks slowing community transmission that would justify that universal mask mandate that wasted billions, and scared the Western world into spending more time with their children, learning how to make banana bread, and taking up golf.

Understood. To clarify, I wasn't aiming at having a medical discussion regarding the merits (or lack of) of mask wearing.

The pertinent question to my mind - in relation to this thread's topic - is whether the decisions taken by our government were reasonable at the time.

It seems to me that the wider scientific community was overall of the opinion that facemasks will help reduce the spread of the disease.

The fact that a smaller number if experts thought that it wouldn't (or that we shouldn't try to stop the spread in the first place), does not mean that the government wasn't acting reasonably when it accepted the advice based on the views of the majority of the scientific community and took the actions that they did.

As for medical evidence, that's not the government's job, they have to rely on expert opinion. And experts are expected to make recommendations based on the information available to them at the time, even if the evidence isn't fully available yet. When you don't know what you're facing, the sensible thing to do is to use your experience rather than do nothing until (months or years later) the peer-reviewed studies are published in the Lancet.

As far as I can see both the politicians (Johnson and Hancock) and the professional public servants (Whitty, Vallance, and Van-Tam) acted reasonably and responsibly by implementing the measures that were recommended by the scientific community.

Of course, it's important to analyse what went wrong in order to ensure that we are better equipped to deal with the next pandemic that comes out way.

But to use the benefit of hindsight in order to vilify those who made the decisions at the time is in my view very wrong (not aimed at you MikeInWimbledon).

 

[st13phil]

As far as I can see both the politicians (Johnson and Hancock) and the professional public servants (Whitty, Vallance, and Van-Tam) acted reasonably and responsibly by implementing the measures that were recommended by the scientific community.

For me, the issue was that the scientists were addressing a single issue (how to minimise the medical harm from a novel virus), and thought that "someone else" was considering the broader societal impacts of their recommendations and advising politicians on those matters so they could make a properly considered and balanced decision over the aggregate benefits and harms. Except the "someone else" didn't exists, and our politicians failed to consider the broader societal impacts before simply implementing the scientific recommendations. In that respect, I disagree that they acted responsibly.

 

[markjay]

....our politicians failed to consider the broader societal impacts before simply implementing the scientific recommendations. In that respect, I disagree that they acted responsibly.

I am assuming that you are referring to mandatory use of face covering in public places and the lockdowns - what do you think they should have done differently?

 

[st13phil]

I am assuming that you are referring to mandatory use of face covering in public places and the lockdowns

More the school closures, enforced closure of shops, businesses and other facilities.

Basically everything that’s wrecked a generation’s education and screwed the economy.

They seemed to forget the strong correlation between wealth and health, mistakenly trading the former on a grand scale for a questionable (and transitory) improvement in the latter.

On the “what could have been done better” question, I’d suggest that the path Sweden followed would have been a good model. You know, the one that they were vilified for at the time that has turned out to have achieved amongst the best outcomes?

 

[Harrythedog]

Understood. To clarify, I wasn't aiming at having a medical discussion regarding the merits (or lack of) of mask wearing.

The pertinent question to my mind - in relation to this thread's topic - is whether the decisions taken by our government were reasonable at the time.

It seems to me that the wider scientific community was overall of the opinion that facemasks will help reduce the spread of the disease.

The fact that a smaller number if experts thought that it wouldn't (or that we shouldn't try to stop the spread in the first place), does not mean that the government wasn't acting reasonably when it accepted the advice based on the views of the majority of the scientific community and took the actions that they did.

As for medical evidence, that's not the government's job, they have to rely on expert opinion. And experts are expected to make recommendations based on the information available to them at the time, even if the evidence isn't fully available yet. When you don't know what you're facing, the sensible thing to do is to use your experience rather than do nothing until (months or years later) the peer-reviewed studies are published in the Lancet.

As far as I can see both the politicians (Johnson and Hancock) and the professional public servants (Whitty, Vallance, and Van-Tam) acted reasonably and responsibly by implementing the measures that were recommended by the scientific community.

Of course, it's important to analyse what went wrong in order to ensure that we are better equipped to deal with the next pandemic that comes out way.

But to use the benefit of hindsight in order to vilify those who made the decisions at the time is in my view very wrong (not aimed at you MikeInWimbledon).

Just to add to comments MJ.
When my eldest son was born in 1983 I went into the delivery theatre fully gowned, masked and shies covered. When my second son was born in 1985 I was in the delivery room wearing the clothes I went to work in and no mask.
My aunt was the senior nursing officer on the maternity unit so I asked her why.
Her reply was that there had been an earthquake in Mexico and they were pulling new borns out of the rubble after sometimes days and they were perfectly healthy. I was then decided that new borns were far more resilient than previously thought therefore the PPE measures were no longer necessary.

 

[markjay]

Just to add to comments MJ.
When my eldest son was born in 1983 I went into the delivery theatre fully gowned, masked and shies covered. When my second son was born in 1985 I was in the delivery room wearing the clothes I went to work in and no mask.
My aunt was the senior nursing officer on the maternity unit so I asked her why.
Her reply was that there had been an earthquake in Mexico and they were pulling new borns out of the rubble after sometimes days and they were perfectly healthy. I was then decided that new borns were far more resilient than previously thought therefore the PPE measures were no longer necessary.

Firstly, very belated congratulations....

Then, I would say that in both cases, those in charge acted based on the advice given at the time, and the advice was given based on the information that was available at the time. I would deem both to have acted correctly in the circumstances. When new information came to light, the advice changed, and so did the measures taken by those in charge. I see nothing wrong with the actions of either hospital managers.

I also take st13Phil's point that the social and economic implications may have been misjudged, but even so, I would argue that the underlying medical advice provided to the government was sound based on what was known at the time. What the government did with this advice is a different matter.

 

[Harrythedog]

Firstly, very belated congratulations....

Then, I would say that in both cases, those in charge acted based on the advice given at the time, and the advice was given based on the information that was available at the time. I would deem both to have acted correctly in the circumstances. When new information came to light, the advice changed, and so did the measures taken by those in charge. I see nothing wrong with the actions of either hospital managers.

I also take st13Phil's point that the social and economic implications may have been misjudged, but even so, I would argue that the underlying medical advice provided to the government was sound based on what was known at the time. What the government did with this advice is a different matter.

Totally agree. You can only act using your knowledge base when lives are at stake, anything else would be a gamble and reckless