FlyTheNest

Morning all.

Good morning.


Thread from Clive Lewis

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Clive Lewis MP
@labourlewis
Replying to
@labourlewis
9. So let’s not let this Govt off the hook by blaming their incompetence alone or succumb to their attempts to blame the public. This mess is is their own making and one that’s been in the making for the past 40 years.

Good morning, everyone.

gilsey wrote:Good morning.


Thread from Clive Lewis

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Clive Lewis MP
@labourlewis
Replying to
@labourlewis
9. So let’s not let this Govt off the hook by blaming their incompetence alone or succumb to their attempts to blame the public. This mess is is their own making and one that’s been in the making for the past 40 years.

Some people do maybe get a bit hung up on polls that offer a binary option of "blame the public" or "blame the government". The latter's approval ratings tell their own story.

I read that more as the need to hold the government to account for their deliberate policy decisions that have left people in insecure work and poor, overcrowded housing rather than just poor, incompetent decisions in response to the pandemic which a lot of people (inexplicably to me) seem happy to excuse because it's such an unprecedented crisis (like we don't pick governments precisely to deal with and make decisions about unprecedented events).

Willow904 wrote:I read that more as the need to hold the government to account for their deliberate policy decisions that have left people in insecure work and poor, overcrowded housing rather than just poor, incompetent decisions in response to the pandemic which a lot of people (inexplicably to me) seem happy to excuse because it's such an unprecedented crisis (like we don't pick governments precisely to deal with and make decisions about unprecedented events).

It just goes to show how successful the message government isn't responsible for protecting people has been.

In the 52 weeks to Christmas Day, 604,045 deaths were registered in England and Wales.

...this number is...nearly without precedent.

If you look at civilian deaths, the only other year in which more than 600,000 people died in England and Wales was 1918... .

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-how ... s-12185275" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yeah, no wonder this government is doing a bewildering distraction campaign
Johnson's bizarre bike ride brouhaha
personally denigrating the Labour party leader, misrepresenting his work

Lateral flow tests 'may increase not reduce' Covid spread because of inaccuracies, experts claim
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... a2a9aa9b89" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

about half of these test return false negatives

The rapid test kits most widely used in UK universities, schools, and care homes detect just 48.89% of covid-19 infections in asymptomatic people when compared with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, real world data from the Liverpool pilot have shown.

December 2020
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4848" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(cJA bold)

Willow904 wrote:I read that more as the need to hold the government to account for their deliberate policy decisions that have left people in insecure work and poor, overcrowded housing rather than just poor, incompetent decisions in response to the pandemic which a lot of people (inexplicably to me) seem happy to excuse because it's such an unprecedented crisis (like we don't pick governments precisely to deal with and make decisions about unprecedented events).

But basic human psychology plays a part here - people blatantly breaking the rules is more "visible" than much of the other stuff you mention.

Willow904 wrote:I read that more as the need to hold the government to account for their deliberate policy decisions that have left people in insecure work and poor, overcrowded housing rather than just poor, incompetent decisions in response to the pandemic which a lot of people (inexplicably to me) seem happy to excuse because it's such an unprecedented crisis (like we don't pick governments precisely to deal with and make decisions about unprecedented events).

I read it in exactly the same way - ie don't think they're (possibly even well-meaning) bumbling idiots. What they do, and the results therefrom, are calculatedly deliberate.

Yes, this is the main argument against the "incompetence" framing.

(the thing is, they *are* highly incompetent - but a lot of the time that has its roots in ideology)

Analysis of all-cause mortality allows us to examine the impact of the pandemic not only from deaths due to COVID-19 but also excess deaths that have occurred as a result.

For excess death, we compare numbers and rates to a five-year average, this ensures that we are comparing like for like in terms of life expectancy, advances in healthcare, population size and shape.

2020 was an unprecedented year in many ways, including the number of deaths; the overall number of deaths registered in 2020 was 75,925 higher than we would expect when looking at the five-year average between 2015 and 2019.

https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/01/12/coun ... in-review/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(cJA bold)

The incompetence, though, is incidental (albeit highly damaging).

The prime minister’s spokesman said the contents of some free school meal food parcels being sent to families (see 12.49pm) was “completely unacceptable”. He said:

We’re aware of those images circulating on social media, and it is clear that the contents of those food parcels are completely unacceptable. The Department for Education is looking into this urgently and the minister for children, Vicky Ford, is speaking to the company responsible and they will be making it clear that boxes like this should not be given to families.

No. You don't just give them a "jolly good talking to". You cancel their sodding contract and level a hefty financial penalty. And you don't employ either them (under whatever guise they may subsequently adopt) or, if there is one, their "umbrella" group (eg Serco etc, etc) again. Oh, and you level a hefty fine on any "umbrella group", too.

PorFavor wrote:The incompetence, though, is incidental (albeit highly damaging).

Or is the incompetence a fundamental aspect of Johnsonian ideology? Johnson is representative of a privileged, Eton educated elite who are taught that they are literally more important than other people. He also subscribes to a small state philosophy that deliberately seeks to remove the long-standing state responsibilities to the citizens that elect it. Throw in a personal aversion to hard work and a pathological tendency to not give a shit about anyone but himself and it seems to me that the incompetence is an inevitable, rather than incidental, consequence of who Johnson is.

Someone who cared about people, someone who believes the state shares responsibility for people's lives, would make more effort to get things right in the first place and if they failed would stand aside and let someone else try because they don't put themselves above everybody else.

PorFavor wrote:

The prime minister’s spokesman said the contents of some free school meal food parcels being sent to families (see 12.49pm) was “completely unacceptable”. He said:

We’re aware of those images circulating on social media, and it is clear that the contents of those food parcels are completely unacceptable. The Department for Education is looking into this urgently and the minister for children, Vicky Ford, is speaking to the company responsible and they will be making it clear that boxes like this should not be given to families.

No. You don't just give them a "jolly good talking to". You cancel their sodding contract and level a hefty financial penalty. And you don't employ either them (under whatever guise they may subsequently adopt) or, if there is one, their "umbrella" group (eg Serco etc, etc) again. Oh, and you level a hefty fine on any "umbrella group", too.

The argument against giving the benefit as a cash payment is that the feckless parents might not spend the money on food, the irony being, in this case, that the private company given responsibility for providing the benefit doesn't appear to have spent the money on food either.....

Wouldn't it be good, though, if the press asked more useful questions. Such as what provision had the government made for ensuring free school meals money is efficiently spent and how did this inadequate provision get past their quality monitoring?

'quality monitoring'


Ha. Just about any govt contract would fail on that score.

Willow904 wrote: is the incompetence a fundamental aspect of Johnsonian ideology?

I saw these tweets the other day and sometimes wish I hadn't.


Joe Bilsborough
@joebilsborough
i think a lot of the issues in the UK have come from a really clear-sighted refusal (sometimes they've given in) on the part of the Conservative Party not to set precedents they're not gonna keep in normal times: sanctions; sick pay; renters' rights; so on and so forth

Jeremy Gilbert
@jemgilbert
What if this government is neither irrational nor incompetent, but simply pursuing the interests that it serves rather than any others, while possessing a very clear sense of exactly what its own electoral base will tolerate and what it won’t?

I'm not sure the latter part of that second tweet is always true actually. Otherwise they are both in the right ballpark.

Re Johnson's bike ride, if he cycled to the Olympic Park from Downing St, that's fine by me. If the bike was in the back of a car until he got there, not.
Do we know which it was?

AnatolyKasparov wrote:I'm not sure the latter part of that second tweet is always true actually.

We'd like to think they'll get it spectacularly wrong at some stage, certainly.

Good old Pelagius, still winding up right wing nutjobs after 1,600 years.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/opin ... cracy.html

gilsey wrote:

AnatolyKasparov wrote:I'm not sure the latter part of that second tweet is always true actually.

We'd like to think they'll get it spectacularly wrong at some stage, certainly.

Cummingsgate led to a rapid - and permanent - fall in their poll ratings.

@Sky'sGoneOut

I'll have the pagan secularism.

(please)

PorFavor wrote:@Sky'sGoneOut

I'll have the pagan secularism.

Will you wear the garlands I've weaved?

At the end of the day, Johnson's bike ride is not important. Indeed, it could actually be an at least partly deliberate distraction.

trump appears to be making threats

Independent

It's causing tremendous anger and division and pain far greater than most people will ever understand, which is very dangerous for the USA, especially at this very tender time,” Mr Trump said on Tuesday at a segment of the US-Mexico border wall in Alamo, Texas.

("It" being the impeachment)

AnatolyKasparov wrote:At the end of the day, Johnson's bike ride is not important. Indeed, it could actually be an at least partly deliberate distraction.

Johnson won't mind the distraction.

Sam Coates pointing to the elephant in the room at Patel's presser

Dawn Foster
@DawnHFoster
Great question from
@SamCoatesSky
pointing out people meeting in parks are easy targets - what are the government and police doing about non-compliant bosses forcing people into unsafe workplaces?

Quick, let's talk about the definition of 'local'.

AnatolyKasparov wrote: Cummingsgate led to a rapid - and permanent - fall in their poll ratings.

they entered this with a rentier economy, a punitive welfare state, etc, and with about 45% support. They'll leave it with all of the above and 40% support.

Joe Bilsborough again.

goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA