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17 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Burnham seemingly was. But (a) he has nothing to do with the Yorkshire areas and (b) evidently he’s didn’t tell city councillors as the city councils (and a number of MPs) said they couldn’t give any more detail to the people than Hancock’s four tweets... 

He said in an interview this morning he had spoken with council leaders as I recall

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4 minutes ago, Van wink said:

He said in an interview this morning he had spoken with council leaders as I recall

In Yorkshire as well?

Interesting that he had a separate interview with the MEN this afternoon saying he hasn’t got enough detail...Burnham quotes below:

We would strongly recommend that, where any future announcements of this nature are to be made, full supporting details should be available to the public at the moment any public or media statement is made”

 

The mayor said he and local leaders are 'not convinced' the decision to apply restrictions to gardens was a proportionate measure.

"We therefore call on the government provide further evidence or amend the regulations," he said.

 

I’ll take your word on it VW that he said he had told council leaders, but I can’t find that quote anywhere. I can see from an interview today that he found out about it on Wednesday but he said he hadn’t told anyone about it on Wednesday as he needed to make sure he and the government had all the detail before they announced it to the public  (which frankly then makes you wonder why it took the government over 24 hours to come up with four vague tweets and nothing more, and the Secretary of State was still confused about what the rules actually were even on the Friday)...

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I don’t know why it was all rushed out so late Aggy, sadly it’s par for the course. Maybe they think it makes them look like they are decisive? I don’t know but it’s a P1SS poor strategy on communications.

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22 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

I doubt we'll ever see it!

Nope. Even the mayor of greater Manchester calling the government out and asking for more evidence or to change the regulations. As I’ve said a few times now (I might get out my thesaurus soon) , absolute shambles.

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A quite damning account

"That’s because a key part of it operates not as part of the NHS, but in parallel to it – as a network of commercial, privatised testing labs, drive-through centres and call centres. The chaos this has brought has resulted in huge gaps in information available to local services, causing delays in accessing results and hampering efforts to control the outbreak."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/31/outsourcing-england-test-trace-nhs-private

 

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1 minute ago, Van wink said:

I don’t know why it was all rushed out so late Aggy, sadly it’s par for the course. Maybe they think it makes them look like they are decisive? I don’t know but it’s a P1SS poor strategy on communications.

It’s not just the communication that bothers me...

Let’s remember these regulations limiting people’s ability to go about their normal every day lives and see their families, are being pushed through without parliamentary scrutiny, using emergency powers that allow the Secretary of State to impose emergency regs. Yet the Secretary of State, the morning after announcing the new regs, doesn’t seem to know what the new regs say (as evidenced by his interview on TV talking about beer gardens which was then contradicted by the governments own advice on its own website) and the mayor of greater Manchester says he and local leaders don’t think the governments new regulations are proportionate and should be changed unless evidence can be provided to support them (which has still not been provided).

Theres a much wider point here that they’re literally playing with people’s lives but appear to be making it up as they go along, don’t know the detail, and evidently aren’t giving enough information to the local government bodies directly affected by the new regulations.

Interestingly the Merriam Webster thesaurus lists as a synonym of ‘shambles’ the phrases “anarchy”, “lawlessness” and “misrule”.

Anyway, I’m going for a beer - at home 😉 - and switching off the news before I get even more grumpy about these bunch of jokers.

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51 minutes ago, Aggy said:

It’s not just the communication that bothers me...

Let’s remember these regulations limiting people’s ability to go about their normal every day lives and see their families, are being pushed through without parliamentary scrutiny, using emergency powers that allow the Secretary of State to impose emergency regs. Yet the Secretary of State, the morning after announcing the new regs, doesn’t seem to know what the new regs say (as evidenced by his interview on TV talking about beer gardens which was then contradicted by the governments own advice on its own website) and the mayor of greater Manchester says he and local leaders don’t think the governments new regulations are proportionate and should be changed unless evidence can be provided to support them (which has still not been provided).

Theres a much wider point here that they’re literally playing with people’s lives but appear to be making it up as they go along, don’t know the detail, and evidently aren’t giving enough information to the local government bodies directly affected by the new regulations.

Interestingly the Merriam Webster thesaurus lists as a synonym of ‘shambles’ the phrases “anarchy”, “lawlessness” and “misrule”.

Anyway, I’m going for a beer - at home 😉 - and switching off the news before I get even more grumpy about these bunch of jokers.

Don’t overdo the beer, it’s bad for your liver 😉

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24 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Image

Difficult not to support it with a vaccine hopefully just around the corner and good to see that we are targeting the response.

Feel for the guys that miss out on festivities but others have gone through the same.

I honestly can't see why there is so much criticism.  It feels rushed but then I dont suppose the virus has handed out its plan of attack in advance.

 

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I'll make it even simpler for you Barbe as you seem to be struggling with what is being written. 

Are local lock downs a good idea? Yes, if all the data is pointing to a rapid rise in infections then this is a better way of doing it than locking down the whole country. (Why this method wasn't applied to Spain is anyone's guess.) 

Was it handled and communicated badly? Also yes. 

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38 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

I honestly can't see why there is so much criticism.  It feels rushed but then I dont suppose the virus has handed out its plan of attack in advance.

 

If you lived in West Yorkshire (or one of the other areas affected) then you would probably have a much clearer view, plus the benefit of hearing the criticism first hand from people who rightly still have a reputation for calling a spade a spade 😀

As for the virus, I think we've been well aware of its plan of attack for weeks if not months - trouble is we are a country being run by dimwits who at every stage of this crisis have failed to plan effectively to counter it, in fact to plan at all as far as I can see - they are literally making it up as they go along.

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21 minutes ago, Herman said:

I'll make it even simpler for you Barbe as you seem to be struggling with what is being written. 

Are local lock downs a good idea? Yes, if all the data is pointing to a rapid rise in infections then this is a better way of doing it than locking down the whole country. (Why this method wasn't applied to Spain is anyone's guess.) 

Was it handled and communicated badly? Also yes. 

No need for the aggression. 

So how would you have communicated it?  You find out on Wednesday that there is significant community spread mainly driven by infections within the household.   A major event where households will mix is coming up in just over 24 hours.  

What will you do?

Edited by Barbe bleu

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11 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

If you lived in West Yorkshire (or one of the other areas affected) then you would probably have a much clearer view, plus the benefit of hearing the criticism first hand from people who rightly still have a reputation for calling a spade a spade 😀

As for the virus, I think we've been well aware of its plan of attack for weeks if not months - trouble is we are a country being run by dimwits who at every stage of this crisis have failed to plan effectively to counter it, in fact to plan at all as far as I can see - they are literally making it up as they go along.

But this is the plan we are enacting.  Targetted local lockdowns.  

What would you have done differently? 

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3 hours ago, Van wink said:

What makes you think this is a "lockdown" and that it was sprung on local councils? Andy Burnham and it appears most Council Leaders approve.

Maybe it is because that is what Andy Burnham and the Northern Council leaders tell us.

You may think that anouncing policy changes for the next day that involve legal sanction in a tweet at 9.15 pm is the sign of a functioning democracy, most would differ. The council leaders want to do the right thing but this is difficult with an incompentent and ideological government.

The leaders of Greater Manchester’s 10 local authorities and the region’s mayor Andy Burnham have condemned the government’s communication of the change as causing “confusion and distress for our residents”.

In a press conference, Burnham said he first heard about the proposed measures when he was called by Matt Hancock shortly before 5pm when the health and social care secretary was due to have a meeting with England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty.

The meeting was delayed slightly at Burnham’s request, the mayor said, so that he could feed in information from local health officials.

While Burnham said he supported the extra measures, he was concerned that they were first announced by Hancock on Twitter at 9.16pm without any additional detail.

He also said the rules announced were slightly different to those briefed by Hancock on the phone earlier in the evening. Hancock had earlier suggested that the new measures would a larger part of the north of England, Burnham said, and would not restrict visits to people’s gardens.

He added:

 

The picture did change and did cause us some surprise but obviously it’s for the government to make those decisions.

Sir Richard Leese, the leader of Manchester city council, added:

 

I think it’s fairly clear that what was announced in guidance is not what we were expecting on the basis of conversations last night. And it’s also equally clear that we’re not clear about what the guidance is precisely.

Leese said he agreed that the government needed to act quickly but that it was important to be “on exactly the same page” as government ministers and officials and that they were now hoping to have “real engagement” about refining the guidance.

The 10 local authority leaders have asked for urgent clarification was needed on several areas:

How many people are allowed together in an outdoor space in the affected area? Is it 30, as is the rule in the rest of England, or is it only six?

Hospitality businesses need clarity on their ability to continue to operate if they have outdoor areas, they said.

The leaders also asked for the government to confirm that shielding arrangements would be extended for clinically vulnerable people in the areas affected where the new rules apply.

They said they are not convinced that banning people from meeting in private gardens is a “proportionate measure” and call on the government to provide further evidence or amend the regulations.

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20 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

No need for the aggression. 

So how would you have communicated it?  You find out on Wednesday that there is significant community spread mainly driven by infections within the household.   A major event where households will mix is coming up in just over 24 hours.  

What will you do?

I would spend the whole of the day and next, if that is all they actually had, using the resources of a government to inform and update all local leaders, political, community, religious, medical and then used national media to inform the people, in the regions that would be affected, of what is going on. I would have spent some time in the previous months to formulate contingency plans, for all different scenarios, which could have been used to make clear rules for what is going to happen.

I woldn't have dumped out a twitter thread with muddy and confusing rules. It's **** governance and quite cowardly.

 

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6 minutes ago, Herman said:

I would spend the whole of the day and next, if that is all they actually had, using the resources of a government to inform and update all local leaders, political, community, religious, medical and then used national media to inform the people, in the regions that would be affected, of what is going on. I would have spent some time in the previous months to formulate contingency plans, for all different scenarios, which could have been used to make clear rules for what is going to happen.

I woldn't have dumped out a twitter thread with muddy and confusing rules. It's **** governance and quite cowardly.

 

If only you'd stood for Parliament we might have been in a much better place now.

How fickle is fate.

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Too true Ricardo, but I have a cupboard crammed with skeletons and wouldn't last a minute unless i toed the whips and Sun's line.😀

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18 minutes ago, Herman said:

Too true Ricardo, but I have a cupboard crammed with skeletons and wouldn't last a minute unless i toed the whips and Sun's line.😀

If Boris can get away with all his baggage you should breeze in.

Just think of having your portrait on the stairs at No10, next to Maggie😀

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30 minutes ago, Herman said:

I would spend the whole of the day and next, if that is all they actually had, using the resources of a government to inform and update all local leaders, political, community, religious, medical and then used national media to inform the people, in the regions that would be affected, of what is going on. I would have spent some time in the previous months to formulate contingency plans, for all different scenarios, which could have been used to make clear rules for what is going to happen.

I woldn't have dumped out a twitter thread with muddy and confusing rules. It's **** governance and quite cowardly.

 

It seems that your main complaint is that the message went out on twitter first and rhen that it took a little while longer to get the formal guidance published.

I dont disagree but I'd sooner they act swiftly, even if it is at the expense of clarity.

I can think of worse things that have happened and I dont see this as a big deal at all.

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20 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

It seems that your main complaint is that the message went out on twitter first and rhen that it took a little while longer to get the formal guidance published.

I dont disagree but I'd sooner they act swiftly, even if it is at the expense of clarity.

I can think of worse things that have happened and I dont see this as a big deal at all.

What were they doing between Wednesday at 5pm (they must have known earlier than that realistically if that’s the time they spoke to Burnham) and 21:30 on Thursday? That their efforts in over twenty eight and a half hours of trying  to formulate plans which would affect the day to day lives of millions of people amounted to four vague tweets says it all about this government.

Even the following morning the Secretary of State didn’t know what the rules actually said and contradicted the government’s own website. That’s not acting decisively at the expense of clarity, it’s not having a clue what to do or how to do it and having to fudge something at the last minute.

 

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As previously stated and now seen in practice we have -

"Boris Johnson’s government has confused and alienated the public on crucial health messages with its “deplorable” last-minute announcement of changes to coronavirus rules, experts have claimed.

The Independent Sage group of scientists said the government’s failure to explain the new regional ban on different households meeting indoors with any clarity would damage public engagement with the guidance, which is soon to be law."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-lockdown-england-confused-government-messages-independent-sage-a9648101.html

No weasel words from hand crank/RTBB who unsurprisingly is trying to excuse the government's failings, will change what is obvious to pretty much the whole country - those who live here that is

"Professor Stephen Reicher said the handling of the announcements for Leicester and the north of England were “in many ways deplorable – at the last minute in the evening on Twitter”.

The Independent Sage called on the government to release the data on local transmission between households."

 

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2 hours ago, BigFish said:

Maybe it is because that is what Andy Burnham and the Northern Council leaders tell us.

You may think that anouncing policy changes for the next day that involve legal sanction in a tweet at 9.15 pm is the sign of a functioning democracy, most would differ. The council leaders want to do the right thing but this is difficult with an incompentent and ideological government.

The leaders of Greater Manchester’s 10 local authorities and the region’s mayor Andy Burnham have condemned the government’s communication of the change as causing “confusion and distress for our residents”.

In a press conference, Burnham said he first heard about the proposed measures when he was called by Matt Hancock shortly before 5pm when the health and social care secretary was due to have a meeting with England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty.

The meeting was delayed slightly at Burnham’s request, the mayor said, so that he could feed in information from local health officials.

While Burnham said he supported the extra measures, he was concerned that they were first announced by Hancock on Twitter at 9.16pm without any additional detail.

He also said the rules announced were slightly different to those briefed by Hancock on the phone earlier in the evening. Hancock had earlier suggested that the new measures would a larger part of the north of England, Burnham said, and would not restrict visits to people’s gardens.

He added:

 

The picture did change and did cause us some surprise but obviously it’s for the government to make those decisions.

Sir Richard Leese, the leader of Manchester city council, added:

 

I think it’s fairly clear that what was announced in guidance is not what we were expecting on the basis of conversations last night. And it’s also equally clear that we’re not clear about what the guidance is precisely.

Leese said he agreed that the government needed to act quickly but that it was important to be “on exactly the same page” as government ministers and officials and that they were now hoping to have “real engagement” about refining the guidance.

The 10 local authority leaders have asked for urgent clarification was needed on several areas:

How many people are allowed together in an outdoor space in the affected area? Is it 30, as is the rule in the rest of England, or is it only six?

Hospitality businesses need clarity on their ability to continue to operate if they have outdoor areas, they said.

The leaders also asked for the government to confirm that shielding arrangements would be extended for clinically vulnerable people in the areas affected where the new rules apply.

They said they are not convinced that banning people from meeting in private gardens is a “proportionate measure” and call on the government to provide further evidence or amend the regulations.

I’ve not said anything about “functioning democracy” or any of the other stuff that you talk about. As for announcing policy when they did I have already said it’s shocking All I asked is why you refer to a lockdown. To me that implies a much more draconian regime which I don’t think this is.
There is no need to attribute opinions that have not been expressed.  
The politics of this is SH1T.... can I make that any clearer for you? I m more interested in preventing spread of a potentially lethal disease.

Edited by Van wink

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35 minutes ago, Van wink said:


There is no need to attribute opinions that have not been expressed.  
 

No, as that is your job, whether as your self or posting as RTB or BB

A constant twisting of other folk's words to answer that instead of what you have been caught out on

Maybe some might begin to twig why post from all three names use the same terminology and post the same toadying apology for the government

Bon nuit, mon crank

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8 hours ago, Bill said:

No, as that is your job, whether as your self or posting as RTB or BB

A constant twisting of other folk's words to answer that instead of what you have been caught out on

Maybe some might begin to twig why post from all three names use the same terminology and post the same toadying apology for the government

Bon nuit, mon crank

Mad as a hatter 😂

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11 hours ago, Van wink said:

I’ve not said anything about “functioning democracy” or any of the other stuff that you talk about. As for announcing policy when they did I have already said it’s shocking All I asked is why you refer to a lockdown. To me that implies a much more draconian regime which I don’t think this is.
There is no need to attribute opinions that have not been expressed.  
The politics of this is SH1T.... can I make that any clearer for you? I m more interested in preventing spread of a potentially lethal disease.

The key is that Johnson's "whack a mole" strategy has very little about controlling the spread of a potentially lethal desease. It is all about getting the economy moving & minimising the political impact. Only a zero-Covid strategy is going provide control and that requires heavy, proactive and localised testing. In these areas the government should test everyone immediately and again in 5 days time. Shielding the vulnerable and isolating the infected.

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11 hours ago, Van wink said:

I’ve not said anything about “functioning democracy” or any of the other stuff that you talk about. As for announcing policy when they did I have already said it’s shocking All I asked is why you refer to a lockdown. To me that implies a much more draconian regime which I don’t think this is.
There is no need to attribute opinions that have not been expressed.  
The politics of this is SH1T.... can I make that any clearer for you? I m more interested in preventing spread of a potentially lethal disease.

Btw the way it was you who asked what made us think this was sprung on local government leaders. I just provided you a link to the local leaders saying this was the case. Lockdown didn't come into it, so you would seem to be guilty of your own accusation e.g. "attribute opinions that have not been expressed", well not by me anyway.

While the government continue to make this political, it remains appropriate to criticise the politics.

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10 minutes ago, BigFish said:

The key is that Johnson's "whack a mole" strategy has very little about controlling the spread of a potentially lethal desease. It is all about getting the economy moving & minimising the political impact. Only a zero-Covid strategy is going provide control and that requires heavy, proactive and localised testing. In these areas the government should test everyone immediately and again in 5 days time. Shielding the vulnerable and isolating the infected.

Testing the entire population every five days migbt be a bit difficult but I suspect that testing will be increased across the region.  In leicester as well as being able to get a test if you have symptoms or have been in contact there were/are places where testers are going door to door.

But really testing alone is not enough if asymptomatic spread is common, there must also be restrictions on gatherings.  Your message is a bit ambiguous as to your support for a local 'lockdown', interested to hear your thoughts

 

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16 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

But this is the plan we are enacting.  Targetted local lockdowns.  

What would you have done differently? 

There is no plan - they are making it up as they go along. If there was a plan then it would cater for a variety of scenarios and in each case contain a very clear definitions of what restrictions/rules were to be put in place (and why might be helpful) plus a communications strategy to notify councils in advance to allow them to generate appropriate local information/advice and  businesses & general public be given very clear and detailed advice about what is required.

Absolutely none of that happened to the extent that even government ministers were giving out conflicting messages (as usual!) and the MPs for the affected areas were apparently briefed with 15 minutes warning ahead of the announcement and immediately raised a host of questions which went totally unanswered. So if any sort of plan exists then it isn't worth the bag of the fag packet its written on!

And it isn't targetted local lockdowns either - do you have any idea how big Greater Manchester is, or the other areas for that matter??? As has already been pointed out many times, our data still isn't good enough or timely enough to do genuinely local and targetted lockdowns.

If you cast your mind back to a few weeks before the unlock started, Johnson listed several criteria and insisted that they had to be met before the unlock. In reality I don't think any of the criteria were actually met before the unlock started anyway, and the key requirement an effective (or world beating as Johnson likes to describe it) test, track and trace system is still not there.

Without really good data there is no way of targetting genuinely 'local' lockdowns so it looks likely we will see other regional lockdowns. But that doesn't excuse or explain why none of the other elements of a 'plan' were in place.

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2 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

Testing the entire population every five days migbt be a bit difficult but I suspect that testing will be increased across the region.  In leicester as well as being able to get a test if you have symptoms or have been in contact there were/are places where testers are going door to door.

But really testing alone is not enough if asymptomatic spread is common, there must also be restrictions on gatherings.  Your message is a bit ambiguous as to your support for a local 'lockdown', interested to hear your thoughts

Being asymptomatic isn't an issue when adopting a zero covid approach, the approach targets an entire population and then tests everyone in that population, whether they demonstrate symptoms or not. The repeat  later catches those infected but whose bodies are yet to respond.

Agree with you that testing alone is not a complete strategy. However restrictions on gatherings is part of what is additionally required. There needs to restrictions on movement, isoation and shielding as well.

This remains an England problem, but there are vast swathes of the country that could be made Covid free but only if protected from incoming infection from outside, and particularly those hot spots we are debating.

Any workable strategy would set the objectives, set a reasonable time scale and then set the actions needed to put this place. Johnson/Cummings hasn't done this, in part because of the influence of the revolutionary communists at the heart of the Brexit/Tory/RCP nexus of current thinking. That is why in these areas you can't gather at home, but you can do down the pub. Go figure.

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