You probably saw this a few days ago, but I suspect now is an important moment to reinforce the point: a YouGov poll was conducted on Thursday to test support for a lockdown in London, and found that people were overwhelmingly in favour.
At this time, would you support or oppose London being placed under a "lockdown" where people are not allowed to leave their homes except to go to work or get essential supplies?
Support: 64%
Oppose: 17%
There was strong support even among the subsample of London residents, ie. those who would be directly affected - 57% of Londoners were in favour, and only 27% were opposed. It's reasonable to assume that majority will just keep getting bigger as people wake up to the scale of the catastrophe that is unfolding.
Hopefully also the narrative has moved on since the poll was conducted, due to the disgraceful scenes all over the UK of people ignoring social distancing guidelines and acting like they're on a bank holiday break. Any lockdown self-evidently needs to be UK-wide. If there's any suggestion of it being confined to London, Nicola Sturgeon should insist (publicly if needs be) that it's expanded to cover Scotland.
The public demand a lockdown. The science favours a lockdown. (Needless to say I mean the international science associated with the WHO, not the discredited Blighty Knows Best "science" pushed by the herd immunity triumvirate of Cummings, Vallance and Whitty.) What remaining excuse has Boris Johnson got for not acting decisively to save hundreds of thousands of lives?
Now they've been caught redhanded with herd immunity, the Johnson/Cummings plan may be to deliberately delay the lockdown until it's too late and the virus is too widely dispersed for suppression to work. Then they’ll belatedly bring in the lockdown and quickly say it's obviously not working, drop it and get on with herd immunity by default, and the economy can recover somewhat just in time for that other exceptionalist wheeze, a No Deal Brexit.
ReplyDeleteWe now have confirmation from Buzzfeed that as we guessed, because he's a fucking psychopath, Cummings was the driving force behind herd immunity all along. And he doesn't strike me as a guy to let op-ed writers or bloggers like JK dictate whether or not he gets to kill off hundreds of thousands of the least productive members of society. He'll get his cull one way or another. (Now I know it's Cummings I'm fine with calling it a cull; picture the diamond cutter on the guy when Vallance first explained herd immunity).
Pop quiz: can anybody name a single UK govt course of action in their lifetime that was worse than this? Iraq comes to mind but the UK only had a share of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, not complete responsibility themselves. If not in our lifetime, when was the last UK govt course of action as bad as this?
Completely agree.
DeleteHi James
ReplyDeleteCould you let me know that if there is not a UK lock down does the Scot Gov have the power to close the boarder to non essential traffic? I and others have assumed that this could be done.
I just don't understand why the government is not explaining itself, why is it not acting? When we see what's happening in Italy and Spain and France and Germany and Ireland, why are we not doing those things? If there's a good reason, what is it?
ReplyDeleteThis is what I am wondering. The opinion poll figures in James article, above, suggest a substantial minority are opposed to strict self-isolation. The actual proportion opposing self-isolation is certainly higher than these figures, because people answering a poll question know what the "right" or socially acceptable answer should be. That kind of number (10-30%) not taking self-isolating seriously, inevitably means that it rips through the population, with the consequence of NHS being swamped, health workers getting ill, and so on. Even at the level of advocating voluntary self-isolation, the government message is not strong enough. By emphasising those who are vulnerable, or who have symptoms, there is an implication that everyone else can just get on with business as usual.
DeleteThe 120,000..the welfare reforms have snuffed out, obviously isn't enough for the likes of Johnson, IDS and Cummings.
ReplyDeleteThe Johnson plan has always been to allow the virus to *move through the population* with deaths at a pace that's acceptable to the population while at the same time keeping business going
ReplyDeleteIf Johnson orders a lockdown he has to enforce it and that'll make him unpopular so he will continue to resist measures like that and keep himself in the position of blaming the public for not doing what he asked them too if and when they get sick
Only if business and the economy looks like not being saved will he lockdown because then he'll have lots of deaths to point to for the new strategy
It's all about numbers whether it's money or people and what do we think counts most folks
Ok, so hopefully the BBC can now concentrate on important news.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52004285
Alex Salmond cleared of all sexual assault charges
Personally, I did think it a bit odd that Salmond suddenly became this sexual monster on moving into Bute house, but I don't know the guy personally, so just waited to see what the jury found.
I'm pleased for him and his family.
The correct result in the AS trial and I'm very pleased for the former FM
ReplyDeleteThe Wings idiot of course uses his piece to blame Nicola Sturgeon for all the ills of mankind now that his GRA nonsense has petered out, so we can expect regular *I hate Nicola Sturgeon* articles regularly from now on
All I can say about the Wings bampot is keep it up and that'll be another women dragging him through the courts to be found guilty of the kind af abuse he dishes out to keep trying to make a name for himself
Why are comments on a lot of Scottish independence sites beening lost or deleted, i have noticed a big drop in comments on all Scottish sites over the last year, we are all independence supporters still. Curious?
ReplyDeleteSCOTTISH MSM = F##@#@G GUTTED!
ReplyDeleteAnd every other Yoon b@#@#@D!
GIRFUY!
Wheres that auld bampot GWC?
DeleteIs he crying intae his warm beer oan the maryhill village cricket lawn about alec slamond getting acquitted?
The whole thing has been a disgrace about alec salmond from start to finish.Really happy fur the guy and his family.
Questions must now be asked and stones unturned to find out whats going on behind the scenes at the snp and scot government. The whole thing stinks from start to finish.
STV news, still stirring the pot.. even interviewed David(no surrender) Clegg to continue the slur!
ReplyDeleteI found Craig Murray's blogging on the Salmond case remarkable and implausible - but here are senior figures in the SNP, including Joanna Cherry, seeming (at least on my reading) to hint at endorsing it with their public statements. That gives me some pause. But jeez is the SNP going to tear itself apart for the next few months now. They are lucky no-one will be watching.
ReplyDeleteThe cause of independence is greater than any individual, however Alex Salmond's acquittal today is great news for the independence movement in Scotland.
ReplyDeleteThe cause is everything.