The power of presentation
It’s pretty interesting that today marks the first really tangible diversification between the Scottish and UK governments with regard to the coronavirus crisis: the Holyrood administration has rejected Westminster’s much-criticised new main slogan and will be sticking with the old “STAY HOME” message.
(Here at Wings we’re mainly upset that the extremely misguided new campaign will undermine our years-old pro-alertness position.)
Because what our latest Panelbase poll showed is that there’s a huge gulf between perception and reality in Scotland when it comes to virus strategy.
The Scottish Government’s response scored an overall 67%, compared to just 52% for the UK government. Its good/neutral/bad ratio was almost exactly 5/4/1, compared to roughly 1/1/1 for the UK government.
Yet when we put a poll on our now-banned Twitter feed on Friday which asked people if they could identify ANY significant policy differences between the two governments, nobody could name even a single one, even though around a quarter of people had answered that they thought the approaches had been substantially divergent.
The simple fact is that the Scottish Government has until this weekend done exactly the same as the UK government in terms of tackling the virus, but has been perceived in Scotland to have done much better, despite incidents like the shambolic handling of the Chief Medical Officer flouting the lockdown rules to visit her second home.
The best people could offer on the Twitter thread was that the First Minister had looked and sounded more authoritative on televised briefings – something not enormously difficult when the competition is the ever-changing parade of hapless dimwits speaking for the UK government.
Interestingly, though, by far the group most likely to think that the Scottish Government had stuck too closely to UK policy were SNP voters – of those who expressed a view either way, there was a fairly tight 59-41 split in favour of the lockstep approach:
While the other way round it was, unsurprisingly, mainly Tories who felt there’d been too much divergence by the devolved administration.
In terms of the actual strategy itself, opinions were mixed. If anything, the Scottish public wants a stricter lockdown than the one currently in place:
It also doesn’t as a whole think policing has been excessive, although a third of people either do or are unsure:
And a clear majority of Scots would be willing to carry a phone app that tracked their location and who they met in order to combat the virus, with just a third opposed to such a wholesale invasion of privacy:
Although ironically there was an even split on this question:
Most Scots (49-37) feel they can cope with an “indefinite” lockdown, but by 3:1 they still want it to be over by the end of summer:
By a 2:1 margin Scots think Brexit should be delayed as a result of the virus, yet only a quarter thought it was serious enough to postpone next year’s Scottish Parliament election for:
(Perhaps unexpectedly, while there was a huge gulf between Tory voters and everyone else on the Brexit question there was a far smaller difference on the Holyrood one. SNP voters were predictably the least keen, with the party currently riding high in the polls, but other voters weren’t much more enthusiastic about putting it off.)
And even though we’re less than halfway through May, only a quarter think life will be back to normal by 2021 (seven and a half months away), which is intriguing in the context of the question about postponing the Holyrood election:
Our last finding was also a striking one. No fewer than 40% of Scots claim that the virus has made a difference to their view on Scottish independence:
We must of course look with some scepticism on SNP voters claiming to have become more pro-indy and Tory voters claiming to have become more Unionist, since it’s a reasonable assumption that most of both groups were already pretty implacably set in their positions.
But the fact that 38% of Labour voters and 41% of Lib Dems say they’ve shifted on the constitution because of the virus – in the opposite net directions respectively – is a fascinating result, especially when seen in the light of the poll’s 50-50 dead heat on the indy question.
Overall, though, the poll suggests that the coronavirus has done little to alter the normal tribal nature of politics. Even 50,000 deaths hasn’t impeded the seemingly unstoppable march of feelings over facts, and that’s something a fact-based website like Wings finds very uncomfortable indeed.
Rev – that is what the “framing” research found. It isn’t facts alone that change people’s minds. It is putting them in the frame that appeals to the hearer.
That’s very interesting, especially the final one.
I just had a Facebook message exchange with a friend from fife, whose political views I don’t know. I only know her as a university classmate, so don’t know her outside of discussions about academic matters but she is certainly an intelligent woman.
She mentioned that the lockdown was getting her down, but that the PM was giving a speech today and she hoped he would announce some lifting of restrictions!
I returned the message informing her that it wouldn’t matter to us what the PM said it would be when Nicola Sturgeon lifted the restrictions in Scotland that would affect us.
It is interesting but sad, that even educated people whose lives are so affected by politics still don’t understand how we are governed.
The member of the public had a good question during yesterday’s UK briefing. Basically, he asked that since he lives nearer to Scotland than he does to England, should he be following the Scot Govt advice. The answer (unsurprisingly) was brief in that all four nations were following the same guidance.
With the trickling of information suggesting that there will be a relaxation of the lockdown – prior to the official announcement – I’m wondering if the UK Govt (or more accurately DC), is using the age old technique of leaking information in order to gauge the likely response. And as a result we have confusion which is going to last all day.
Regarding something Scotland does that the rest of the UK don’t do..
link to channel4.com
https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2019/10/17/meet-the-blob-a-creature-that-has-almost-720-sexes–but-no-brain/#6ca292fa7542
I think it’s a bit harsh to describe Stirling Uni YSI as a blob!
Scary stuff. We are only allowed out once a day, the hospitals are half empty and the economy is in ruins, but yet the Scottish people want a stricter lockdown. I guess that shows you the power of media hysteria.
It raises the question how much of the uk/scot govs glacially slow plans at relaxing the lockdown are actually based on public opinion rather than any scientific evidence.
It’s hardly surprising that people feel the Scottish Government has handled the virus better i.e. differently, but can’t cite examples. We would need a functioning media for that.
Nicola Sturgeon (we are told but not by the media) was not invited to the first 6 COBRA meetings.
Scottish ministers were not invited to attend SAGE meetings but could listen in but not ask questions unless they submitted them in writing in advance.
So Nicola Sturgeon set up her own group of scientific advisers early on in the pandemic. Not early enough perhaps but she may have expected the UK Government to take a UK approach in a crisis and not act as the Government of England.
NHS England has taken a different approach to reporting deaths. They have only reported deaths in hospital after a positive covid-19 test.
Scotland has reported all deaths, including deaths in the community and care homes, with covid-19 on the death certificate even though not tested. This started early on in the pandemic. It is still virtually impossible to find out how many people in England have died. The appalling totals are concealed.
NHS Scotland has taken a different approach to sourcing PPE. The UK Government has ordered suppliers in England and abroad not to help Scotland acquire PPE. So Scotland has made its own arrangements for supply from China and elsewhere and also Scottish manufacturers are now supplying it.
Scotland has taken a different approach to test, trace and isolate. England calls it test, trace and track. England has a centralised approach, which Allyson Pollock has described as useless, whereas Scotland is using the traditional community based approach to infection control. The UK Government has set up mobile testing centres, including 3? in Scotland, operated by private companies and/or the army. Staff from England are being told to drive for 7 hours to use Scottish Centres because they can’t get tests in England.
The whole set up of NHS England is completely different, fragmented and hopelessly hampered by the privatisation of much of the critical work required, such as hospital cleaning.
These are just a few of my observations. I’m not a journalist. So if the people answering the poll are not aware of the specific differences between the Scottish and UK approach, that’s because the media do not report them. In fact, the media deliberately lie about the Scottish approach. The media obscure the facts from people and supply an endless stream of propaganda using the usual suspects, e.g. Prof Pennington rtd.
People are not daft. They know it’s better handled here. They know the media are lying. Enough of us go online and ferret out the facts for ourselves. Now we have Boris Johnston about to announce VE day, go out and sunbathe. We have a different approach about that as well. Any guesses about how the media will present this?
@bipod;
I was speaking to a friend yesterday, who is very keen to continue with the lockdown for ‘as long as it takes’
She certainly isn’t happy with it, or keen on social distancing, but feels that since we have come this far, we would be as well continuing until the virus seems defeated.
OT;
The FriendsofWings twitter site is growing nicely again today! 🙂
The fact that so many Scots are for having a phone app that tracks their location and are too stupid to realise a lockdown cant be indefinitely maintained without economic collapse has me asking myself if Lamont wasn’t actually correct when she said Scots are not genetically built to make their own decisions. Its shameful
@ Joe – a great many Scots would welcome the collapse of casino capitalism and its replacement by a humane system more akin to the Scandinavian social democrat model. Anothe couple of months should do it.
Sturgeon is good at acting competent and capable but as far as I can gather most people see through it and are sick of it — oddly, it seems to appeal to people down south. I guess a lot of them are going through the “fool me once” stage where most of us have been fooled many times.
One thing that I have tried to give emphasis to over the last few days is the death toll in Scotland compared to England. Your polls pick up on a sense that things have been done differently or better up here and you allude to the fact that nobody could explain how or where we done things differently.
The death toll indicates we have done no better — at best it’s pretty close and difficult to determine one way or another — yet for some reason, again, people seem to think Scotland has done well and avoided the sort of holocaust they perceive to be taking place in England.
The only explanation of this is better public relations or propaganda. That raises additional questions though. Does it mean the establishment up here is giving Sturgeon an easy time of it? If so, why?
I predict that this issue will bring Sturgeon down. It isn’t complicated. Anyone can see that going into lockdown 2 weeks earlier would have saved thousands of Scottish lives. If you factor in the growth trend of the virus, we jumped from having a few hundred carriers in those two weeks to having tens if not hundreds of thousands. The R number was somewhere between 5 and 10 at the end of those two weeks (nobody knows exactly but anywhere between 5 and 10 and you have lost the battle).
I’ve heard many excuses for the delay in going into lockdown. Sturgeon reacts very badly when she is asked about it and basically refuses to give a straight answer. The most prevalent excuse (made for her, not by her) is that she had to go along with the UK approach because they would have deprived her of emergency funds otherwise. That’s actually one of the most scandalous things I’ve ever heard anyone say about her.
Everyone knew at the time that delaying lockdown (at that stage in in the growth curve) was to let the virus spread like wildfire through the Scottish population. Going along with the “herd immunity” strategy at that time was tantamount to throwing several thousand Scots under a bus. To suggest she did that in the full knowledge of the consequences so as to secure funds is a serious accusation, not a defence.
Would any normal person who found themselves in a position like that, and I don’t doubt that it was a difficult position, let a virus spread and kill people like that? Would you? If it was a block of flats that was on fire, would you let it spread and kill thousands of people, so that you could secure funding to deal with the consequences? If that’s true…. Jesus.
So, what would an alternative approach by Sturgeon look like? I’m obliged to offer one.
She could have called a press conference and came clean with the Scottish people. She could have said that we had to lockdown immediately rather than wait as the UK government wants to do. If there was any suggestion that the UK government was threatening to withhold funds, this was the time to tell us.
She could have offered to resign in these circumstances made even more difficult and impossible by the UK government which was hell bent on herd immunity and a willingness to sacrifice thousands of innocent lives.
Had she done that and made the difficult but noble choices back then, she’d be in a very different position today. We all would. We’d be in the same position as New Zealand and others who rejected the mass suicide pact of herd immunity and chose instead to save lives through Test, Track, and Isolate.
Instead we have this. A leader going through a tired old routine of acting like everything is under control when it isn’t. Airports are still open. There’s virtually no testing going on in Scotland outside of the medical services and our border with one of the most infected countries in the world is wide open. It’s tragic. We’ve been badly let down.
So, I can look forward to speeches about ‘Scotland won’t be dragged out of lockdown against its will’
That type of rhetoric has worked well so far.
At least the Scottish Border Control, will be handy for repelling the influx when lockdown is lifted elsewhere. We have one of those, right? The one that’s been operating since the beginning of the year and everyone is quite conditioned to now.
Which was handy if you were to, oh I don’t know, have aspirations of Independence and wondered if you could make an independent Border Control work and be accepted, but had no opportunity or means to test it.
Oh well, perhaps not.
I noticed a letter in the National recently which said, and I paraphrase, it would be career suicide for Nicola Sturgeon to push for independence during the coronavirus epidemic.
Says it all really
[…] Wings Over Scotland The power of presentation It’s pretty interesting that today marks the first really tangible diversification […]
Why do most questions look like question 19,with one 18 and one 17 in this post? Do Panelbase number them as subsets of the same question?
Off topic but important for you.
Something is going on with Twitter. Several people have received messages from Twitter (me included) thanking us for reporting your account. None of us did this.
The message states that it was violating the Twitter rule on managing multiple accounts for abusive purposes.
More than fishy!
OT a great quote from Tony Benn:
link to twitter.com
Capella says:
Indeed. Scotland is dreadfully ‘served’ by the MSM. We get a mix of irrelevant English news while being incorrectly told it’s UK focused. This false outlook is reinforced by omission and downplaying of our own national news. And constantly, there is an undertone of every Scottish has to be shite.
One of the few silver linings to this pandemic is that the power and biased influence of traditional newspapers is being eroded.
Yet, despite this deluge of misinformation, a lot of folks see reality. They talk, they have friends and relatives, all have real life experiences. They can, and many clearly do, access independent and foreign news sources.
As you say, it’s not about just hard facts, it’s about framing and how it all fits together with what people’s gut instinct is telling them.
The virus cannot be defeated without a vaccine, herd immunity never kills a virus, it just reduces it to a level governments consider acceptable. It could still be killing many every year.
The lockdown will work as long as the public sees it’s having an effect, if they see no progress then they will lose confidence in the method of suppression.
Also the only thing the Scotgov could do with minimum financial control is tinker around the edges. They could control the furlough of Scotgov financed services but there is no way they could finance the shutting down of business and the no doubt legal challenges if they diverged on this from the rest of the UK.
The new UK gov slogan might as well be ‘Stay Calm And Carry On’, it’s about as meaningless. Their slogan reads to me
Go Out
Catch The Virus
Die Quickly (You save lives that way by spreading it to less people)
Can anyone tell me when Nicola Sturgeon’s News conference is today?
John, above, it’s at 3pm and is live on BBC Scotland.
Thanks Jules.
3pm today
The MSM trying to spread the message that diverging from WM is confusing the public outside England. Any confusion is because the devolved nations are pumped with English news and English government decisions that don’t relate to them and journalists that are so ignorant and lazy regarding the devolved nations they can’t be bothered finding out the facts.
What Scotland needs is control of it’s own broadcasting, the UK gov corona virus update is almost totally irrelevant to Scotland, probably the same for Wales & NI too.
“The simple fact is that the Scottish Government has until this weekend done exactly the same as the UK government in terms of tackling the virus”
That’s not actually true. The closure of building sites in Scotland, and the setting up of Covid-19 centres in Scotland, are two differences that have been there since day 1
I’ve always recognised Sturgeon as a reasonably proficient colonial administrator, especially when compared to her UK political counterparts.
Sturgeon is usually very good at press conferences.
But she is weak on leadership ability.
And absolutely dire on leading Scotland to independence – but that’s deliberate, so not an indicator of competence.
@Capella
Oh yeah. Right. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.
Clearly the mass loss of jobs and closure of businesses and disruption of supply lines can only be a good thing.
Because in Scandinavia they pay their bills and fund their social programs by good will. They don’t have businesses and jobs in Scandinavia.
The fact that an adult human can believe anything so stupid as amazing to me. The fact that I know that a large amount of people actually agree is chilling.
But then, your complete lack of comprehension about how the basics of life are provided seem to be a thing in the indy movement.
I suppose if someone lived on benefits for long enough they really do think it all falls out of the sky?
Welcome the collapse of the economy!? No thank you, society is on a knife edge.
Review the lockdown everyday, release younger people to get back to work, travel, get on with things.
I totally sympathise with those who are at high risk of this covid but the economic collapse will be far worse.
Folk that I know are ignoring the rules anyway – I personally know a local Councillor who has been having little garden parties for weeks – which I’m not even bothered about.
Bipod i’m with you sorry if that offends anyone.
@Capella
Addition –
Casino capitalism refers to hedge funds and the investment class using massive amounts of capital in ways that are economically dangerous.
Casino capitalism is NOT ordinary people working and running businesses.
Guess which of these are most badly affected by the lockdown?
FFS
Joe
I’ve said on here many times, most of the contributors are either, unemployed, oap’s (like me),on benefits or unemployable.
They haven’t a clue about wealth creation but believe that the state can provide everything.
With that kind of mindset, how can Scotland ever be independent.
@Capella
You should never reply to Joe or pete, they hunt in packs.
“The simple fact is that the Scottish Government has until this weekend done exactly the same as the UK government”.
I didn’t see the poll or I’d have mentioned the construction industry I work in.
Pete says:
10 May, 2020 at 2:00 pm
Joe
Shut up ya knob, I’m none of those.
I’m x-service on incapacity and self employed, ya tit!
“The simple fact is that the Scottish Government has until this weekend done exactly the same as the UK government”.
Fair play to you Rev, or should you now be called the referee?
As you do apply your laser-analysis to both sides now.
And in equal measure.
No10 issues statement…. ‘explaining’….. new slogan…..
Well that’s clear then….
It isn’t that hard to strike a good balance between public safety and individual liberty, but only if you respect public health ethics. Neither contemporary British constitutional law nor trans-activism, are compatible with public health ethics. So Scotland is getting pumped from both ends. 🙁
Public Health And Personal Liberties: Striking A Balance
link to healthaffairs.org
I’m with you Robbo.
I’m 60 run my own business AND care for my Ex-Service Husband.
I did see the online survey and was considering listing all the differences I am aware of but the twitter account was taken down before I got round to answering. I forgot about the construction industry.
@ jfngw – yes I know. I was talking to everyone else actually. Richard Murphy’s site Tax Research has some interesting articles on the future of the economy if anyone is interested in the topic.
Going beyond mere presentation and stating a fact: remember when Britnats sneered at us in 2014 and said an independent Scotland would be as impoverished as Greece but without the sunshine?
Total Greek deaths from Covid-19 as of today=151, yes, 151. The figure for the UK on the same table is 31587 but of course we don’t know the full number of care home deaths in England from the virus.
Amazing how other wee diddy countries like Croatia, Bulgaria and Cuba can deal so well with a health emergency without London’s expertise.
Sorry, I forgot to add the link: link to realclearpolitics.com
I’m not sure if Pete and Joe are a team but they do not appear to be supporters of “enlightened self-interest”. They don’t appear to be the only ones though, just look at the SNP’s leadership, who lack a legal respect for the principle of universality. 😉
The Framework Convention On Global Health: A Call For Leadership From The Global Health Trio
link to healthaffairs.org
@ Tinto Chiel – I have a friend living on a Greek island – he can’t get home to Berlin because all flights were grounded weeks ago. Armed police patrol the streets. Supermarkets have strict social distancing, only a few people allowed in at a time. If you go out of your house you have to print off a form and fill in the reason for being out. He was fined 150 Euros for going out for a walk one day, not realising he needed to fill in a form.
That’s how they manage to keep deaths low. They don’t mess about with liberal laisse faire nonsense.
Linda McFarlane says:
10 May, 2020 at 2:38 pm
I’m with you Robbo.
I’m 60 run my own business AND care for my Ex-Service Husband.
——————-
Thumbs up Linda!!!
Seriously annoys me with this Britnat mentality that all UK forces are apparently all English brexit loving right wing tories and should be waving some crap butchers apron forever. That flag got more Scots killed in past 300 years than we ever had in the 1000 before it!.
Scotland had it’s own armed forces long, long before the sell out Union with England!
Absolute numbskulls.
To Joe and Pete,
Tax payers pay Tax, but Government spends money by selling bonds to the bond market. Conservatives are very good at doing this in countries all around the world.
@Capella: did you know laissez faire as employed by WM is your actually French for “We don’t give a flying fruit bat”?
🙂
Jfngw,
“The virus cannot be defeated without a vaccine, herd immunity never kills a virus”.
Are you suggesting that this lockdown should remain in place until there is a vaccine?
Despite the hysterical warnings of an impending catastrophic disaster caused by an unprecedented number of deaths from Covid-19, the data so far suggests around 0.24% of Scots have been infected & 0.034% of Scots have died from it.
You have a much greater chance of dying from an accident at home; drowning in the bathtub, falling down the stairs or electrocuting yourself during a botched electric shower repair.
Yes, the infection rate is likely higher, but the deaths are indisputable. If anything, they are exaggerated as patients who die & then test positive are declared victims of Covid-19 even though they may have been terminal anyway, quite common of course in geriatric wards & care homes.
The demographic is significant; over 91% of deaths are of people aged 65 & over. Not one infant, child or teenager in Scotland has died from it. Unlike Spanish Flu, this is a highly selective virus, attacking mostly old & vulnerable people. Of course, like any disease associated with sex/age groups, there are exceptions.
All death is tragic & emotionally challenging, but few analysts appear to be studying the excessive number of premature deaths of otherwise healthy people who have mostly been under house arrest for nearly 2 months.
There seems to be an appetite in Scotland for an even more draconian lock down & for much, much, longer but they should consider that long after the lock down is lifted, there will be an enormous economic catastrophe awaiting.
And staying at home is not a zero sum game; there are deadly consequences when people are forced to stay indoors for weeks & months on end. The Scottish Office for National Statistics has already recorded a substantial, unforeseen rise in deaths that are not directly linked to Covid-19.
Meanwhile, the tourism, travel & hospitality industries have all been eradicated. Hundreds if not thousands of small businesses; tour guides, coach drivers, grocers, plumbers, gardeners, dentists, hairdressers, mechanics, etc will no longer exist.
It is quite possible we will experience a 30% contraction in our economy & to put that into perspective, not one recession since WW2 was caused by a reduction of more than 2.5%. So a near extinction event in our economy is taking place right now, yet some people are already arguing that no matter how well intentioned, this is all going to be worth it.
For the 40% of the workforce employed directly or indirectly by the government, initially this may not matter much but for the remaining 60%, the exit from the lock down back into the real world will have biblical scale implications.
Soon the PR friendly slogan, “Stay at home, protect the NHS, saves lives” is going to be even more meaningless to the millions of destitute self-employed & previous small business owners queuing six feet apart, outside a food bank. Assuming they have not already committed suicide or drowned in the bathtub.
I’ve just listened to the FM make a very sensible announcement re. Scotland’s lock-down. So she is clearly capable of good practical reason, all she needs to do now is ensure such “practical logic” is applied consistently to the SNP’s approach to the constitution and gender laws.
International Governance of Global Health Pandemics
link to asil.org
@ G H Graham – the death rate atm is during a fairly strict lockdown. Remove the lockdown and the death rate will spiral. England already has the highest rate in the world.
link to twitter.com
If the UK Government introduced UBI, as Spain is reportedly doing, then there would be no destitution. Governments create money. The UK is currently guaranteeing billions in loans for businesses. These will inevitable have to be paid back. A completely new approach is necessary. Ian Blackford has already called for UBI.
Also, the cost of paying furlough wages is said to be approx £85 billion. HS2 is costing £!50 billion. Cancel that and pay the wages.
Also, the 1% have stashed their winnings from the casino in offshore tax havens. The amount is reckoned to be approx £3 trillion. It is almost identical to the amount stolen from the public in jobs and services and asset sell-offs. Repatriate these lost taxes.
Sorry I haven’t got links for ll these statements as I can’t be othered atm May do later.
@ Tinto Chiel I would say touche but can’t work out how to do acutes. 🙂
“Amazing how other wee diddy countries like Croatia, Bulgaria and Cuba can deal so well with a health emergency without London’s expertise.”
Or indeed without the most talented team in Holyrood as voted for by the people of Scotland.
G H Graham
Absolutely spot on.
What a load of crap from NS today.
She hasn’t a clue.
In the UK there are 15mn under 15’s and only 29 have died.
Only 2 have died out of 10mn under 10’s
Of the under 45’s only 350 have died.
Why are the schools shut?
Utter nonsense.
Really disappointed in Johnston and Sturgeon.
GH Graham
Statistical expert today stated that the UK has seen 10000 plus EXTRA non Covid deaths due to lack of hospital treatment being available.
A tragedy!!
I would love to know who these people are , what kind of life they lead , where they live and most importantly ALL the details about how they are chosen To take part.
There is no such thing as chosen randomly if one has to volunteer in the first place , volunteering is immensely important because the majority of people across Scotland , across the world I would say simply do not want to be bothered with polls especially polls that have a political slant .
I take the polls put up on this website with a pinch of salt now because so many of them are just not believable .
I do see the attraction though, if you want ammunition for your take on things nothing better than to do a poll , never does a poll get done without a leaning he way or the other.
Of course journalists in U.K. are very good at it , they’ve been doing it a long time ,learned from the advertising industry , in fact we still see the best of it on our tv,s , all those adverts that convince you to buy a product that you just know cannot possibly do what is claimed but it sounds so believable and is presented in such a persuasive way that only your greatest switched on willpower will deny it.
This stuff here is just like one of those adverts on telly
Smile and ignore
Hey Pete …keep up to date so you won’t make mistakes like you have today.
Children are at risk from covid19 there are cases around the world where children have been gravely ill or have died .
Papko….the talented team in Holyrood is doing a good job …..now…..at the outset it followed the advice from Westminster’s SAGE team the scientist group of experts chosen by Westminster gov however it was quickly realised that Westminster were excluding Holyrood and Cardiff and Belfast from the SAGE meetings because Westminster was hiding the fact that the DAGE experts were being overruled by politician .
By the time Holyrood experts discovered this the virus had spread quickly across Scotland nevertheless Holyrood initiated a lockdown within its powers which doesn’t include airports immigration , border control , railways so not a 100% lockdown as required.
If you want to blame someone blame the idiot Johnston and The Westminster slurry pit and the despotic British media
Whack-a-mole day at the MSM questions still going on.
Kinda fishing & egging the FM to tell the PM he is talking bollocks on all things to do with the corona virus new message …but no luck so far. 🙂
BBC websites have some numbers as do the SUN
Scotland………today……..10…….Total……1857….BBC
Wales…………today……..12…….Total……1111….BBC
N. Ireland…….today……..05…….Total…….435….BBC
England……….today……*178…….Total…..*23150..*SUN
===========================================================
UK……………today…(no figs)…..Total….>*31765..*SUN
@Breastplate @3:06
No, but I’m suggesting that it is kept in place until the infection numbers are as such that test, trace and isolate can work. It can’t if there are too many cases spreading in the community. I wrote earlier that lockdown will only hold if the population see it is having an effect and the numbers are falling.
I would also allow families to meet if they contained this to that small bubble of people, the problem here is those that will decide they have ten bubbles.
The health crises we face is the result of the Conservative party’s ideological hostility to the “precautionary principle” and public health ethics. Brexit legally consolidates this rejection of moral reason and public safety. The Scottish government needs to do better at defending Scotland.
How environmental treaties contribute to global health governance
link to globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com
Of course, the SNP will need to find a legal respect for biology and Natural Law, if they hope to serve Scotland and not Westminster.
Human Rights in Global Health Governance
link to hhrjournal.org
@G H Graham
‘You have a much greater chance of dying from an accident at home; drowning in the bathtub, falling down the stairs or electrocuting yourself during a botched electric shower repair.’
If you are going to troll at least make it believable.
Boris – These pesky Scots keep on voting for the party that wants independence from the mother country, and our staunch voters keep on splitting their votes between the other British parties in Scotland. What can we do?
Domminic – Why don’t we encourage other pesky Nats to start up their own (our) parties to split their votes?
Boris – Good thinking Dom, release the 77th!
@Breastplate
Should have added, if there is no vaccine (unlikely) we then need to decide what level it is acceptable and how many deaths we are willing to put up with.
Juteman
I won’t support a party that competes with the SNP but the party needs cured of legal parochialism, pronto.
COVID-19 outbreak is a matter of international law and human rights
link to rug.nl
Excellent letter from young Scots activists (not Wokus Dei) in SNP rejecting Stewart McDonald’s bid to set up National Service for young people to act as unpaid volunteers in the NHS. There is hope yet!
link to archive.fo
British constitutional practice and Westminster consider themselves impervious to international law. Tory philosophy considers humanity to be separate from, and above, nature. So the Tories are simply bigoted sociopaths without a concern for the future. Scotland must do better.
link to healthpolicy-watch.org
Jfngw,
I can agree to an extent but it is important that we all accept that there are consequences for whatever side of the debate you stand on.
@ Juteman – perhaps you missed Gavin Barrie’s article in WoS last year explaining how the D’Hondt system works and why the SNP can never gain enough seats in the Regional vote to guarantee a majority. Without a majority they depend on the Greens.
I would prefer them to depend on a party not infected with toxic identity politics. (BTW that also rules out Labour and the Lib Dems and nobody will deal with the Tories).
link to wingsoverscotland.com
link to weforum.org
The great worry is that national governments may no longer be in control. It seems to be the case in the UK where the management team has the appearance of frightened rabbits.
Global corporatism has had a shot of adrenalin thanks to virus frenzy; restructuring ie getting rid of people, more automation, China-model inspired labour methods, further alienation of producer from production but $£€¥ for a manipulative set of ‘global influencers.
In this new ‘dispensation’ Scotland must think for herself.
@Capella.
Never missed any Wings post since I started contributing and reading since around 2012.
A respect for international law and human rights is essential to global sustainability.
International Human Rights Law and Global Health: The Right to Health in Theory and Practice
link to dlsph.utoronto.ca
English/British nationalists are determined their brexit will go ahead, with or without a deal, this year, regardless of the health crisis and dire economic consequences.
With so many respondents stating they are for a postponement of brexit English/British nationalist pigheadedness on this issue, as with their cavalier approach to the health crisis, can only piss off more people in Scotland and push them towards supporting independence. Previous polls predicting this have not been undermined.
English/British nationalist arrogance, ignorance and incompetence continues to be beneficial for the independence movement in Scotland.
ou will get a lower death rate by maintaining a reasonable lockdown until such time as the known infected numbers are under control through testing.
At present the known infected rate is still for a highly contagious virus at very risky levels.
You need to observe these levels to fall to almost zero before you can be sure you that coronavirus will not explode amoung the population for a second time.
Westminster isn’t ready for a second outbreak, there is still a shortage of PPE in the NHS throughout many parts of England.
If you lift restrictions then you will still require the population to wear covering for nose, mouth, eyes and ears to reduce the virus from continuing to spread.
All new cases have already been happening under ‘lockdown’.
Doug
Never been a better time to get Brexit done.
EU solidarity is shot to pieces.
The German court bombed out the proposed bond issuing programme
Ah! Boris Johnson being wheeled out to give a pre-recorded motivational address to England. Starting to remind me of the Star Trek TOS episode ‘Patterns of Force’, except of course Johnson is only brain dead.
Spain to become the first country in Europe to roll out Universal Basic Income. Not archived because there is a video.
link to independent.co.uk
Also, EU policy makers considering it. Of course, that won’t affect us if we aren’t in the EU.
link to euronews.com
Oh, people don’t answer me much here because im a troll?
I actually think its because its easier to dismiss me as a troll than defend the painful level of stupidity that is frequently on display to be honest.
@Breastplate
Of course there is, I don’t think anyone would dispute that, well some will but that’s the way things are. It’s either loss of life or loss of profits, society has to make a choice. If it chooses loss of life then we would have to hope the virus less lethal than it first appears.
From: indyref2.space
Forum – posted by Ann B
‘The UK Govt’s Department of International Trade & The Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued an instruction to foreign companies telling them *NOT TO SUPPLY PPE* to the devolved administrations.’
Contains a twitter link and Jeane Freeman talking on youtube.
@joe
No, you were correct first time, we didn’t need an option.
Meanwhile, as rabid English/British nationalists gain dubious succour from watching their WWII movies:
link to talkingupscotlandtwo.com
Yes lets. Have another Independence Party to get these list votes on our side for a change play the unionists at their own game after all it was them that thought it up like the seargent in hill street blues said Lets get out there and do it to them before they do it to us.
On my 20th coffee trying to stay Alert, now I’m really zinging. I believe I can now control the virus, hope I’m not delusional.
re young people not being affected by covid-19:
link to twitter.com
Jesus, these results are staggering……mind blowing even
I am beginning to think my ultra unionist uncle (who moved to England to get away from us) is correct in assuming we are too small, too stupid and too poor to run our own affairs.
…..and it also sort of looks like we are a bunch of wee nazi sympathisers easily fooled by government propaganda.
Sorry Jfngw,
You may have misunderstood me and I should have been cleare but I’m trying to do a couple of other things and sought brevity as a solution.
People will die with or without a lockdown and the economy will also be affected adversely with or without a lockdown.
It is a matter of balance and there is no win-win scenario here.
To make the correct decisions we need to face unpleasant truths.
from The Daily Record,(may it rot in hell)
The Daily Record would like to apologise to
Nicola Sturgeon
for the poor choice of wording in an earlier headline regarding lockdown.
The headline should have said Nicola was easing lockdown restrictions and not lifting them. We have amended the headline.
Mrs. Murrell:
“Go out and take more exercise, but stay at home.”
Doesn’t anybody see a problem with this?
Hello again from Finland!
I feel it’s important to show my support after Twitter banned all our good Rev Stu’s old, alternative accounts as well. With help from the SNP “Twitler Youth”? I dunno, and I’m not usually a conspiracy nut, but what with the Alex Salmond smear/show trial and Nicola Sturgeon’s inexplicapble lack of a Plan B… Plus all the focus on GRA and Humza Yusaf’s proposed “hate crime” bill that looks more like a wrongthink bill… WTF is going on?
I last wrote a comment here on WOS at the end of March, when Uusimaa province (containing plague central Helsinki, the capital) was about to be “isolated” (=border put up and patrolled by police, with help from the military). Soooo, what’s that you say? That a country, such as the UK has to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach, sink or swim, in lockstep, it is not possible to put up internal borders to control a disease? – That’s BS, and only political. Plenty independent countries have restricted movement between parts of the country. To control the disease.
It’s different, of course, if you don’t actually want to control the disease but use it as a prop for whipping up mindless patriotic feeling. Invoking the Dunkirk and Blitz spirit. Yay! Flag waving and a flyover of the Red Arrows will send the nasty foreign virus packing! Yay!
That sounds like a parody but it’s actually the UK government strategy.
Our government’s response to Covid-19 has been a mixture. Started with strict quaranteening, testing, contact tracing & quarenteening all the contacts. It then came “unviable”, because there wasn’t enough testing (and tracing) capability, so we gradually moved into a kind of “lockdown”.
The latest figures available in Finland (pop. 5.5M) today, Sunday, 10.5.: 5962 confirmed cases. 267 deaths. Mostly in the 80+ age group.
I saw a Europe-wide graph of usual monthly mortality, and has it been added onto. The UK was way above normal death rate. Finland was actually BELOW the normal, expected death rate from seasonal flu etc. Because people wash hands and social distance!
Finland is a very different contry from the UK, but quite similar to Scotland in some ways. Different in others, we’re soooo much bigger (2 or 3 times the size of the whole UK), sparsely populated.
Social distancing comes naturally to us. No Finn ever gets nearer than 2m to anybody who isn’t immediate family or very close friend. I have friendly, good relations with my neighbours but we always stand 2 or 3 metres apart when chatting. Before this coronavirus malarkey.
The other Nordics, Norway and Denmark have had similar “lockdowns”, Sweden has not, they appeal to people’s common sense with recommendations about social distancing, hand washing etc. Sweden has 5 times the infections and 5 times the deaths compared to Finland/Norway/Denmark. And yet, Sweden has a lower death rate per capita than the UK. The Swedes are apparently more commonsensical than UK people.
Maybe Sweden (and the UK) will have deflected the coming second wave, with letting the disease run its course, kill the oldies and weaks now, in the first wave. Yeah, I can see the cynical logic.
Of the Nordics, Sweden has always been the most similar to England. Nobility land-owners, past glories, an “empire”, it does something to a national psyche… Except the Swedes have been SJWs for a few decades now. Always discuss things and never make anybody feel bad or sad.
Until today Sturgeon followed the union on acting against the virus. A union that’s handled this pandemic woefully that’s cost countless lives that might have been saved, if measures had bee put in place earlier and the proper PPE purchased sooner, alas this divergence by Sturgeon should not be seen as the worm turning.
Some Scots can’t can’t bring themselves to split from their precious union which drains Scotland whilst spying on it, and feeding it propaganda.
As for UK government app, it will eventually be used as a tracking application, infringing on our privacy, just now its dressed up as tracking Covid-19. I for one won’t be downloading it
The prospect of a List Seats only Independence party winning seats and so ejecting the many inadequate UnionistMSPs currently sitting in Holyrood is very appealing.
Another appealing prospect of a List Only party is a forced expedient survival clear out of the “soft on Indy”,alternative agenda, and GRA types currently spoiling the SNP. Once that shake out is achieved I’ll renew my 30 year past, SNP membership.
@Doug: interesting stuff. Duncan Duff’s “Scotland’s War Losses” used to be available on-line from Electric Scotland and he calculated an even higher % for our war losses, IIRC. He actually fought in WW1 so wouldn’t know as much about it as our contemporary Sandhurst-trained military historians 🙂
You can still buy copies of his book on A_____n.
There was dirty work at the Google crossroads too, of course. Any search for “Scotland’s war dead” or similar directed you first to Hew Strachan’s (pron. Strawn’s, apparently) crapola article in The Hootsman, which denied disproportionate Scottish losses.
Verily, The Union never sleeps.
Cant see it/Cant hear it/Cant feel it/Cant touch it
Who writes those slogans Fuckin Idiots ( ah know ah know )
Stay In Stay Safe except for essential tasks .
ahundredthidiot
You appear to think your some some of smart-arse, where as, I think your simply a bit of an irrational arse. Gonnae no be such an irresponsible dick?
Global governance, international health law and WHO: looking towards the future
link to scielosp.org
@breastplate
I think I took your point, I was not trying to indicate this was a zero game either way, there is always going to be a loss of life and profits. My point was society needs to decide where that balance sits, of course they could decide to leave it to the politicians and take no responsibility, that’s a common trait as it allows the ‘I didn’t choose that option’ avoidance of blame.
Some of my post are not appearing on here, has anyone else noticed that?
CBB
You wrote “ So the Tories are simply bigoted sociopaths without a concern for the future.”
… still going with the bigotry I see.
Bipod
How would we know if your posts hadn’t appeared? ?
With respect to the arguments for and against extending the lockdown, I find the question very difficult and do not have the certainty that many above demonstrate. One argument I listened to made the point that if, say, the true death rate amongst those that were infected is 1% then, based upon 40,000 people having died, that suggests that just 4m have been infected so far. If the rate is 0.5% then 8m. But the UK population is over 60m. How real is the possibility of a big second peak?
Some people still deluding themselves over lockdown as a response to the virus.
Countries all over the world are implementing lockdowns of some form or other. The fact that countries as diverse as Russia and the USA are doing it ought to be a clue that this is the sensible approach backed by science.
They will have listened to the experts and come to the conclusion that, although it will be damaging to the world’s economy, lockdown is the correct response. They will have seen the computer modelling and concluded that the alternatives are worse.
There really is no other logical explanation for the behaviour of the Worlds governments.
The only people really protesting this are the fascists who like the idea of only the strong survive and that the virus appears to affect the BAME groups more severely and the conspiracy nutters who see a conspiracy in everything.
bipod says:
10 May, 2020 at 6:27 pm
Some of my post are not appearing on here, has anyone else noticed that?
Maybe not a bad thing. Just saying.
@sensibledave
Poor phrasing. Has anyone else noticed your own posts not appearing after you submit them.
Sensibledave
No dave, I simply understand a bit the human condition and what makes the Tories tick. I also understand ideology and have studied political and legal philosophy.
You still haven’t acknowledge whether you support the principle if universal rights. Do you still have a closed mind to limited government and equality in law (see John Locke)?
Jfngw,
Agreed and my apologies to you.
Sensibledave
The thing is dave, I understand politics and you don’t. So between us, I’m obviously the less bigoted. Simples. 😉
From a political anthropology to an anthropology of policy: interview with Cris Shore
link to journals.openedition.org
Did Borris Johnston record this for Cbeebes ffs
CBB
It takes someone with a Masters in bigotry to write the phrase “ The thing is dave, I understand politics and you don’t”. Wow!
Its facist to protest against the government telling us all how many times we can leave the house a day, what and how many friends we are allowed to talk to, that we are not allowed to get within 2m of another person, the censorship of dissenting voices on social media and police Scotland shutting down any protest about the lockdown. Some people here are howling.
Just because everyone else is doing it (not every country is following the lockdown approach i.e sweden) doesn’t mean it is right
Did I hear right, did Johnson actively encourage those that cannot work from home to get back to work? If so, the streets of England will be a much busier place come next week.
Sensibledave
I’m simply following the principles of critical realism yah dick. I acknowledge academia is in crises but you simply appear to be a reactionary Tory. 😉
In Search of Conservative Sociology
link to socialsciencespace.com
I shouldve added that while Johnson is urging folk in England to get back to work, he also added that they should avoid public transport if possible.
That just isn’t feasible in say a city the size of London, where public transport is the main form of transport to get to work.
Also, I’d like to point out some differences with Finnish and UK social distancing, and the mentality.
We have to remember that Finland is a much larger country, less, much less people per km2. A couple of cities might be tightly packed UK style. So our Corona response will be different.
Just this weekend, I and my brothers and families went to the country. Second Sunday in May is Mother’s Day in Finland. Mother and father (77 and 79 yr old respectively) were getting a bit stir crazy with being quaranteened for their own good. We all kids and grandkids visited. Stayed 2m apart, had lunch outside on several separate tables. It was soooo gooood to see (but not touch) family. What we did is totally allowed, nobody could clype or socialmedia shame us. We were being SENSIBLE.
Government advice in Finland has been – in lieu of gym excercise – go outside! Ski! (if only we had snow) Walk! Picnic! Run! Cycle! Climb! Do whatever suits you outside – only, not in a group. People do. No neighbours twitching curtains and clyping about someone going outside twice a day or police harrassing people sitting and taking a socially-distanced rest in the park.
It’s really difficult to get my head around to UK people and police being so readily authoritarian.
We Finns are mostly very law-abiding. If not law, a recommendation. We make up our minds to yeah, follow the recommendation. Knowing what we know of how the virus spreads etc. So. Even ordinary people in Finland have pretty much info available. It’s not a political thing like it is in the UK, or, US/Trump most of all.
The Coronavirus will be used in a totally cynical way to gain some short-term political advantage. By Trump and Dominic Cummings. That idea makes me sick. Vomiting kind of sick.
I think the attitude of the Scottish people will change once the magic furlough money has dried up and they realise there is going to be a big change in their quality of life.
The media like to fixate on the deaths of younger people to produce a fear that this virus could strike anyone down at anytime (afraid yet?). The facts are that less than 1% of all those who have died in the UK are under the age of 45, if you are young you have as much chance of dying from this as you do from the flu.
A neo-liberal approach to government and a rejection of the “precautionary principle”, are the causes of this crises. More right-wing ‘logic’ will not improve the situation.
If you want to understand the origins of this clusterfuck, you need to look at the evolution of the Anglo-American New Right.
Sociology, Liberalism and the Radical Right
link to newleftreview.org
Capella says:
10 May, 2020 at 2:49 pm
@ Tinto Chiel – I have a friend living on a Greek island…
Friend of mine’s brother lives in the Middle East (forgot where!). The fine for breaching lockdown is about 30,000 dollars. Ouch.
Liz G
I wondered what happened to Tinky Winky….
Eh oh!
@Joe says:
10 May, 2020 at 5:17 pm
Oh, people don’t answer me much here because im a troll?
I actually think its because its easier to dismiss me as a troll than defend the painful level of stupidity that is frequently on display to be honest.
Well stop posting
The biggest difference in policy is the FACT that the Scottish Government wants the borders and airports closed and the UK Government doesn’t. That’s pretty significantly diverse and opposite don’t you think? The fact that the Scottish Government cant close our border is a significant argument in favour of Independence. How about concentrating on that instead of attacking the Scottish Government because you perceive them to be pro transgender to the detriment of everything else when it ISNT.
“The biggest difference in policy is the FACT that the Scottish Government wants the borders and airports closed and the UK Government doesn’t. That’s pretty significantly diverse and opposite don’t you think?”
I don’t give a shit what they WANT, what they WANT makes no difference to anything and is therefore not “significant” in any way whatsoever. I care about what they DO.
RepublicofScotland He did not say that actually, he said construction workers and manufacturing workers who cannot work at home can get back to work, travelling there by car. That was it
lumilumi won this thread
everyone else, fuckoff
🙂 🙂 🙂
bipod says:
10 May, 2020 at 7:30 pm
I think the attitude of the Scottish people will change once the magic furlough money has dried up and they realise there is going to be a big change in their quality of life.
——————-
You mean our own fecking money aye?
Simple answer .Scotland keeps all it’s own revenue and spends it how it wishes on Scotland! Not like the current model,with being attached to rUK, like telling us what we can spend it on and not having the powers to borrow funds like every other country in the world.
Tell me again -what is the current UK debt and how in gods earth will that ever be paid back?
Never mind answering,like you never do answer anything resembling coherent in the tory mindset.
HERE – link to nationaldebtclock.co.uk
I’m beginning to feel sorry for the English. Decent, sensible folk are going to die because of their knuckle-dragger element (we have them to a much lesser extent) doing whatever Clowning Street tells them.
Fuck.
bipod says:
10 May, 2020 at 7:30 pm
“The media like to fixate on the deaths of younger people to produce a fear that this virus could strike anyone down at anytime (afraid yet?). The facts are that less than 1% of all those who have died in the UK are under the age of 45, if you are young you have as much chance of dying from this as you do from the flu”
Lovely fascist sentiments there, under 45s are ok so fuck you if you are over 45.
Showing solidarity with your German comrades who are out in the street throwing bottles at the police.
@robbo
Do you actually think that the government can continue paying millions of people 80% of their salary for not doing any work indefinitely? It doesn’t matter what economic model you support, when nobody is paying taxes or producing anything we are in trouble. The government can’t pull money out of thin air forever.
It is surprising how many don’t care that millions of workers are heading towards poverty inflicted by this lockdown.
Also, I had a really good reason for going to the country.
The extra brake pedal was there, and had to be installed.
My car is the only one in the extended families with a stick shift, clutch thing. Manual transmission. Two years ago I taught my nephew to drive on it. Now I’ll teach my niece (and maybe her boyfriend) to drive on it. The dad (my brother) wants offspring to learn stickshift, and he grudgingy admits that his sister who passed her driving test at fist go (brothers took 4 or 5 goes) and never has had any tickets (except 2 parking ones, and I can explain…) is actually the best driver in the family. Grandpa says, the only one he’s not afraid to be driven by.
Teaching teenagers to drive is a great way to connect with them. I remember when I was in that situation!
Plus, teaching teenagers to drive has impoved my own driving! haha! You have to remember all the laws and rules, and raeally look over your shoulders; I even re-learned to back into a parking spot. (My parallel parking has been top-notch for decades. Swing out, swing in. Nephew learned it fairly well.)
“It is surprising how many don’t care that millions of workers are heading towards poverty inflicted by this lock-down.”
A lock-down that is the result of English Torydum. A lock-down that is coherent with Global Health Regulations. Anyone promoting easing the restrictions now, is a complete and utter FANNY.
International Law and Justice
link to un.org
It looks like in Edinburgh that if you own a 4×4 Range Rover you can travel as you please, park as you please, speed along as you please and out as long as you like as you please,
evetone else, essential journeys only!
Fill your boots.
Book review: Research Handbook on Global Health Law
link to script-ed.org
bipod says:
10 May, 2020 at 8:02 pm
@robbo
Do you actually think that the government can continue paying millions of people 80% of their salary for not doing any work indefinitely? It doesn’t matter what economic model you support, when nobody is paying taxes or producing anything we are in trouble. The government can’t pull money out of thin air forever.
It is surprising how many don’t care that millions of workers are heading towards poverty inflicted by this lockdown.
——————-
Quite simple to me.Bring back, in fact naw, seize the illicit funds stolen by the elite over the centuries from all of the UK and stored in tax havens all over the world.
They reckon in region of £3-4 trillion! yes near £4,000,000,000,000 spondoolies . That should pay off the total current debt, the paltry £750 billion he said is invested in corona loan debt funding.
Should leave us all in UK with a good few quid to get bladdered fund.
Beaker @ 7.30
I think you’ve got it 🙂
Now we just need to work out where Dipsy went… LOL
Its not fuck the over 45s. A more sensible apporach would be to allow everyone who is not at risk to go about their life, and everyone who is at risk should self isolate themselves voluntarily. What we have done is place everyone under house arrest even if they are not in any real danger of dying from the virus and crashed the economy, potentially killing more people in the long run. Not to mention we are not even protecting the people most at risk thanks to the NHS bungling it and sending patients that they knew were infected back into cares homes so they could infect more people.
robbo
If you want to clean up the City, you need to take of the gloves. The Anglo-American Establishment are heavily invested in the global trade of narcotics and the finance of terrorism. Wall Street couldn’t survive without the support of profits boosted through narcotics. The HSBC is the British end of the scam.
CLEANING UP DIRTY MONEY: THE
ILLEGAL NARCOTICS TRADE AND
MONEY LAUNDERING
link to faculty.sites.uci.edu
Of course, Westminster is central to the Establishment’s ability to commit obscene level of financial crime. This has horrendous implications for the global poor.
Illicit Financial Flows and their Developmental Impacts: An Overview
link to journals.openedition.org
If your policy framework lacks coherence (see the SNP), you can’t support honest government. Simples.
Improving coherence in the illicit financial flows agenda
link to u4.no
link to twitter.com
Do wan Boris.
“HYUFD says:
10 May, 2020 at 7:46 pm
RepublicofScotland He did not say that actually, he said construction workers and manufacturing workers who cannot work at home can get back to work, travelling there by car. That was it”
Oh right, but it will probably be misconstrued by the public, or seen as a green light for other to return to work. I’m pretty sure Johnson and Co know that.
Been reading the comments on Wings over Scotland for many ,many years now. In the last few months its been an extension of S in U and the 77th Brigade.
Stuart Campbells hatred of Ms Sturgeon,the SNP and the GRA has really, really,really caused him to completely lose the Plot !
Cuckoo Cuckoo !
Has Sky News never thought of writing,,
“England Only”, when they deliver their News bulletins?
They just batter on telling the hard of thinking, facts that only involves England.
I wonder how many thick Scots who watch Sky News will head to work this week and after work head to the beach for some relaxation with the family???
Actually, the government CAN produce money out of thin air. In fact, Matt Hancock, proved it ,just a few weeks ago, he literally wrote off all the accrued debts of all the English NHS trust, with a click of his fingers. It just depends upon priorities. All that debt they had been fighting to handle for deacdes, just wiped away in an instant.
link to independent.co.uk
That is what ‘made-up’ or so-called FIAT money, such as the pound, allows you to do.
link to investopedia.com
euan0709
I’d suggest the site owner simply respects the rule-of-law. Something you are unable to do if you support gender-ideology in law. As the SNP’s management and leadership appear to do.
@ bipod 8.27pm
I read too much into your 45s comment and I apologise for that.
Your suggestion for how the government should have done things seems like one they would have considered – it’s not outlandish and has merit.
To me, the government will have access to more data than the public and there must be a reason why they haven’t gone down that route. I don’t know what that is, but I’m sure there will be something that has dissuaded them from that path.
Governments don’t deliberately go down the route to a possible deep recession without a reason.
euan0709
I don’t mean to be hostile, it’s just I understand the mess the SNP has managed to get itself in. I want to help the membership reclaim their party, so that I can hope for better protection of my human rights.
Law and the JEE: Lessons for IHR Implementation
link to liebertpub.com
Tell them to cancel Trident Renewal and HS2 and London Crossrail upgrades
Save you Hundreds of Billions of pounds
That’s a helluva lot of PPE
euan0709
If the SNP wish to serve Scotland rather than Westminster, they need to boot all the trans-activists out of the party, and start respecting international law. So no more playing at British constitutionalism either.
This is the approach towards the law the SNP will need to adopt if they want to support democracy. Full text
Bioethics and Human Rights in the Constitutional Formation of Global Health
link to mdpi.com
Here’s an interview for those interested in global justice and sustainability.
Global Health Law – an interview with Larry Gostin
link to youtube.com
The SNP needs to coordinate it’s thinking better, so they can use the force of law for positive purposes. Not for creating a legal and policy environment that is hostile to democracy.
Full text.
link to link.springer.com
Is it not abundantly clear that the messaging is ‘nudge’ theory in practice?
They ‘can’t’ order people back to work so let them make that decision for themselves even though many sectors haven’t as yet got their new set ups in place, it will create confusion, it will be a ‘green light’ to those frustrated with lockdown and it will bring about the second wave, but…they the Tories get to say ‘no flies on us’ we said ‘stay alert’ and therefore the onus is on the public to make the decision to go back to work.
I don’t understand why people can’t see the Tories for what they are. They want to put the people of England at further risk by altering the message in a way that allow them to deny responsibility for the further deaths that will follow, watch the R number rise in the next 2 weeks and come back and tell us all how this ‘messaging’ change wasn’t ‘really’ a problem.
Euan0709
The FM’s chief of staff perjured herself in order to falsely imprison someone who the FM perceives as a threat to her power.
Long prison sentences for all concerned. No statute of limitations in Scotland. Her day will come.
euan 0709
I don’t know what or who you are but you are on another planet.
Stu Campbell has endured a hell of a lot of stress running this site which has given us a venue of hope especially after the `14 defeat.
He has only ever told it as it is and doesn’t hate Sturgeon but like many of us are angry and frustrated with the total disinterest shown by the SNP for independence over the past six years.
The only people who think Sturgeon is doing a great job for indy are unionists.
But hey start you own site for worshipers of the FM.
My company policy for return to work is if you can work from home you will continue to do so and presently that is for the foreseeable future as they want to keep employees within sites to a minimum to preserve employee safety.
If you use public transport this is a definite no, and we are not encouraged to car share.
Therefore out with the above options, what we have open are if you are within a reasonable distance are walking or cycling ??. I live walking, but not a hope.
Lollysmum clock in so that I know your ok .X
link to twitter.com
.
Euan0709.
You state you have been reading Wings Over Scotland for years. If that is the case, please respond to the FACTS here as just one example…
link to wingsoverscotland.com
It is not clear whether you are a troll or a fanboy of GRA + Nicola’s Coven to jail the INNOCENT best first Minister Scotland has every had.
What is evident is that you have NEITHER read, NOR understood the serious, legitimate concerns many independent minded Independence supporters that Stuart Campbell has given several years of his life to.
It is quite ignorant to invite yourself onto a website of any discription and conduct yourself in such a rude, juvenile and insulting manner.
Don’t let the door skelp yer erse on the road out.
McDuff
This site is full of “Flat Earthers”
For some reason they want Sturgeon to come out of next year’s election with a whopping majority to do more of the same with, only this time, unchallenged.
Independence will NEVER get a mention.
At least a truly Indy Party would hold the SNP to account.
Big names need to start coming out of the shadows to get a list Party off the ground.
And while I am here talking of Sturgeon, how did she manage to con Alex Salmond for all those years?
Surely he must have saw something of her Gradualist approach to Indy?
And of course she not only conned Alex Salmond, she also conned the whole of Scotland.
All those waisted years is beyond forgiveness,. You little Unionist bastard Sturgeon.
Resign ASAP.
And why has Cherry and co gone all quite?
Scottish politics, where everything is done in deadly silence
Re: return to work.
If someone is paying you 80% of your wages to stay at home with relatively no risk to your health, you are going to accept it, I would think.
So when this same person is told to go back to work, at great risk to their health, maybe even death, for an extra 20%
of your wages, you are going to think about it for about ten seconds and then tell the person forcing you back to work to go and take a run and jump.
And that extra 20% in your wages would be used for travel and food expenses going to and from work.
So it really wouldn’t be a surprise if the majority don’t take up Boris’s offer to return to work.
It would really help the Scottish government to tackle this crises, if the Scottish civil service were to approach the law in a manner that is compatible with Global Health Law. Unfortunately, this is not the case, as they have been instructed to accommodate gender-ideology, which is incompatible with a legal respect for the human genome. As such, the potential of accessing justice in Scotland has been seriously curtailed. As has Scotland’s chances of achieving constitutional justice.
Biomedical and Environmental Ethics Alliance: Common Causes and Grounds
link to link.springer.com
@jfngw, 1.03
The virus cannot be defeated without a vaccine
SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus just like SARS, MERS and HIV. Attempts to create vaccines to counteract these viruses have not been successful. The focus needs to be on developing anti-viral drugs. It is encouraging that lopinavir and ritonavir, anti-viral drugs developed to counteract HIV, were used successfully to treat SARS-CoV-2 by China and Singapore. As more is understood about SARS-CoV-2, it will be possible to develop specific anti-viral treatments.
Hi Lumilumi – great to hear from you again and that Finns are living up to their reputation. Interesting to hear your take on Swedes. I found that travelling in Scandinavia, the Swedes were generally much more assertive than I expected. But what are SWJs?
still wetting the bed over covid cammy?
BOO!
at least our english overlords are making more sense than NS
I agree with K1 at 10.18. Johnson’s statement was probably deliberately vague except for the advice to go to work ‘if you can’. Tomorrow no less, oh and don’t use public transport. We look forward to hearing the ‘clarification’ tomorrow. More likely, obfuscation.
It beggars belief that he is contemplating lifting restrictions while the virus is still raging through care homes. The reason for a fall in deaths within hospitals is because belatedly the UK government did instigate a lockdown.
Getting things ‘back to normal’ is simply, in the absence of vaccine or effective drug treatment, taking us back to the beginning by making fresh bodies available to the virus and promoting a new accelerating peak.
The Scandinavian experience unfortunately is not a model for Scotland since we are part of an island with a huge population to the south of us and no attempt was made to close the borders. To boot there has been a steady influx of people of over 3 million through UK airports with no health checks or testing or any tracing. It is a scandal of monumental proportions that this situation was allowed to continue uncontrolled.
Ann @ 10:32
guessing you work for the public sector……you…..dont…..get….an….opinion!
Jesus, if anyoe hasnt sussed by now that covid is as damaging as flu, there literally is no helping them.
panzies the lot.
Everything is to complicated in this computer age, but one thing has never changed over the century’s, what Scotland needs is someone like William Wallace, Jimmy Reid and Robert The Bruce someone who can handle hand to hand combat and win, and then have the brains to realise why their doing what they do.
@lumi lumi, 7.24pm
Thank you for that great post.
Government advice in Finland has been – in lieu of gym excercise – go outside! Ski! (if only we had snow) Walk! Picnic! Run! Cycle! Climb! Do whatever suits you outside – only, not in a group. People do. No neighbours twitching curtains and clyping about someone going outside twice a day or police harrassing people sitting and taking a socially-distanced rest in the park.
Why was this not the policy in Scotland? Why is there no control at the border?
JGedd
you literally have no science to back up your claim.
None.
There is only opinion that lockdown works – see Sweden. It may even makenthings worse – see NYC
and deaths are no longer rampant in care homes, that settled down two weeks ago.
data is all that matters.
its over folks, and SG have been told, they just dont want to hear it………that should be more worrying!
I smell drink!
🙂
@ K1.
Just in case they didn’t get the message, Sunak looks set to reduce furlough pay to 60% on Tuesday, so yes Johnson isn’t telling them, but many will be forced by the reduction in furlough pay. Cynical, manipulative, evil.
I believe Nicola has already written to the Treasury on this matter.
Did Bojo The Liar actually say that he had consulted the devolved governments re his latest proposals?
Ahundredthidiot
You appear to be on a similar wavelength to Trump, so do you think his claim credible that the USA is getting great praise for the way it is handling the pandemic? Mind now, be honest.
Coronavirus and the Politics of Care
link to lpeblog.org
cirsium says:
10 May, 2020 at 11:17 pm
@jfngw, 1.03
The virus cannot be defeated without a vaccine
SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus just like SARS, MERS and HIV. Attempts to create vaccines to counteract these viruses have not been successful.
—————————————————————————————————————
Corona is not a virus like HIV, they are both RNA viruses, but not of the same type and they replicate and function differently. A vaccine for HIV has been elusive for a number of scientific reasons e.g. the way it infects immune cells themselves, the way it can mutate rendering potential vaccines obsolete quickly etc. link to avert.org.
According to Dr Faucci (on an interview he gave on FOX news) there was a vaccine for SARS, but they hadn’t got through its whole development, when the virus just ‘disappeared’ (his word, not mine). See
link to theconversation.com
link to medscape.com, from 2009.
Capella, SJW – social justice warrior , I believe is what Lumilumi was referring to.
link to sciencemag.org
Just the flu, eh?
Ahundredthidiot says:
10 May, 2020 at 11:30 pm
Jesus, if anyoe hasnt sussed by now that covid is as damaging as flu, there literally is no helping them.
panzies the lot.
——————–
Oh aye,big brave man.
Why don’t you and do bit of volunteering on a covid infected ward in a NHS hospital or care home then ya pansy, eh!
Boris here, now then after one’s roaring success in managing
This Covid Virus, delivering Zillions of PPE Kit,
Post out testing kits across England UK All together one nation.
Some of these kits have return addresses on them and just as
Soon as we find someone who knows what to do with them we
Can see if the new App has any idea who sent them.
We have a 5, that’s 5, let me show you this value in fingers,
Sorry, that was my Churchill 2 fingers. Is this the right way around?
1, Open Kit, first ensuring you know the 3 different pieces of scientific
Advice on how long Covid can live on paper.
2, Ensure you understand the instructions that our scientists say any 3rd year nurse could understand.
3, Check to see if there is a Government IOU note there as we may not yet have all the parts that we
Ordered from Turkey.
4, If your Sir Name is Johnson it Gove, don’t not start the test until your VIP Medical Team arrives
In one of the NHS Trucks that are always on their way to deliver PPE but never actually arrives.
5, Place your Blood Sample in the envelop marked “ Black Pudding Factory”
Send the Urine Sample to the Tory Cabinet as they are taking the piss
and finally your spit should be sent to the SNP HQ.
Now if you can return to work in the Construction industry, you should take a 3 hour walk to get there
But don’t go out. You will no longer linger over layout drawings with your colleagues, you will not deliver mortar directly to the bricklayer to the opposite side of the building.
Each rung of the ladder should be sanitised as you carry a full hod of bricks.
Don’t forget that if you want to share a vehicle or use public transport to get home, you can’t.
The new relaxation of the Lockdown rules will be know as Tampax.
Just as suggested on the Tampax Box, you can now Swim, Play Golf, and take part in Gymnastics without worry.?
Some of you may question my claim of 200,000 tests per day.
Well Parliament tomorrow will vote to extend the 24 hours in a day to the
New standard of 100 hours.
The number of kits sent out will now count the envelope and the stamp as kit.
Schools will go back the day after they stop for the Summer Holidays.
Libraries will be open but to the Chief Librarian only
and Skin Divers with Chicken Pox will be brought up to scratch.
Only England could vote in this bungling buffoon to rule their country.
Need to go now and catch up on all the movies and documentaries about
Churchill and how he won the war singing the Eskimo song-
“Whale Meat Again’.
I just heard one of the talking heads on Sky suggest that if the health service is no longer under threat of collapse, it would be acceptable for folk to go about normal life so long as they accepted the risk was on their own heads.
I’d suggest this shows zero concern for front-line medical staff, Global Health Law, and is not really an ethically valid position to take. And he was the allegedly sensible commentator. If this is the level of expertise guiding the general public, then this virus is going to hang around killing folk for an awful lot longer than necessary.
There is little social justice in rushing to save an economy crippled by English Torydum.
Truths and Lies about this Pandemic: What are the lessons for health rights and social justice?
link to gi-escr.org
@Hamerdoon, 12.04
The work on the SARS vaccine was abandoned because it caused Antibody Dependent Enhancement. ADE kills.
“ golfnut @ 1143 “ if this reduction to 60 percent on “ furlough” transpires as early as Tuesday then
“Battle lines “ must surely be drawn between Edinburgh and London. ( and not before time ) . No doubt Sunak will inform Sturgeon that the Scotgov is quite at liberty to “ top up” the 20 percent from their own funding. My reply would to promise the people of Scotland a mandate end to the Union at the next Holyrood election .
Ronnie Anderson @ 10.40
Lollysmum was on Twitter earlier on
Yes Golfnut, the threat of winding up the furlough scheme is being used as an ‘incentive’ to push people back to work before we are anywhere near ‘safe’. Never trust the tories.
One can be sure that not a single Tory party member is prepared to put themselves and their families at risk, we need look no further than the commons right now, if it is safe to go back to work ‘if you can’ then surely the right thing to do is for the cabinet and all MP’s to get back to work in a ‘social distancing’ set up, oh that’s right they are already doing that…is that the same as the social distancing in a construction site, will that be the same ‘static’ social distancing that kids returning to schools in England will have to deal with etc etc
The Tories can literally go fuck themselves, they and their Tory light Labour buds found the money to bail out the banks and it was a never ending ‘quantitive easing’ of trillions, while unnecessary insufferable austerity costing thousands of lives, rolling back the social security system and ripping the safety net to shreds was the fate doled out to the plebs. Contrast and compare that response to an actual real live pandemic where lives aren’t worth the same as ‘too big to fail’ banks, the chancellor of this exchequer even before though we are nowhere close to the end of this crisis threatens the population with withdrawing the very funds that were only put in place less than 6 weeks ago, as a means to get the plebs ‘back to work’, it’s tragic that people will fall for this shit and it’s even more tragic what the outcome of it will be.
Sigh…
re: 80% of wages being paid.
I heard it will soon be reduced to 60%. has anyone else heard this?
@ Alan Mackintosh – thx. Learn something every day on here. 🙂
The english can’t drive up here, so now there’s proof there is a border between Scotland and england, but we’ve still to listen to english television channels and radio stations and mostly englified newspapers, nows the time to start our own broadcasting company’s, so here in Scotland we don’t have to tune into an English Channel to hear what happening in Scotland, does any other country in the world have to do this, nows the time to really end this farce of a union. The Scottish government must see this is the time.
Is the British Conservative Party the most life threatening organisation in the world? Like the Mafia but with an army, navy and nuclear weapons. Or is it safe to go back to work?
No. The GOP wins the title.
Now it’s time for the news, travel and weather where you are, we’re in Scotland getting news about Scotland from england. Why does Scotland put up with this it’s baffling.
Capella , me too!
Crazycat , thanks for that. A better understanding as to how it attacked a friend via her kidneys .
Ronnie Anderson , giving you a wave and hoping all is well with you and yours!
I find it hard to believe the stupidity in Westminster and especially at number 10. Mr. Johnson, the world’s stupidest political leader.
I’ve actually come to the conclusion that the real problem with Mr. Johnson, is he is interminably lazy. I mean really lazy. Hence we have the shoddy apearance, the lack of foresight, the lack of coherence in anything he says.
Mr Johnson, the English Prime Minister elected by the people of England, is just a fat, lazy, stupid, pig-ignorant clown, with a posh accent. Mainly, just lazy.
Which is why HIS GOVERNMENT have allowed so many people to die from COVID 19. The highest death toll in Europe. He is a disgrace, on every level.
Judging from his letter in Scotsman this morning, it seems Hugh Pennington is upset that some have pointed out he, like Johnson, doesn’t know his Rs from his elbow.
Latest updates on #COVID19 global confirmed cases in hardest-hit countries by Johns Hopkins University:
World: 4,101,060
U.S.: 1,329,203
Spain: 224,350
Britain: 220,449
Italy: 219,070
Russia: 209,688
France: 177,094
Germany: 171,879
Brazil: 162,699
Turkey: 138,657
China: 84,434
Dorothy Devine at 0732am,
Yip, anybody who tells you that it is just like the flu, is an idiot. With each passing day, clinicians are finding even more complexities to the infection – the latest Kawasaki – like disease in children.
I do actually feel sorry for some folk in England, who because of their lazy, idiot prime minister, will now be forced back to work by greedy business owners.
This is one hell of a nasty viral infection to catch, much more complex than anybody first thought. I am not in an at-risk group, but I am going out of my way to avoid catching this infection. It is very, very nasty, and incredibly unpredictable.
As a result the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales are right to refuse to join Mr. Johnson’s stupidity, and are rightly telling folk to stay at home.
It is not just a vaccine that will help, but understanding the infection better and developing new treatments. HIV wasn’t ‘fixed’ by a vaccine, but by the development (after many failed treatments) of a strong anti- retroviral therapy. So, even if a vaccine cannot be developed quickly, better treatments and drug options could make things better.
CBB @12:02
I found a wall – I would rather bash my head off it.
robbo @ 12:23
No need to volunteer for that – I know plenty of folks in paid employment all saying the same thing, it was over for the NHS nearly 3 weeks ago and a week after that it was more or less over for care homes (save a few isolated care homes, where it established – just like flu does in care homes).
Containment was over within 24 hours of the virus moving from the locus in wuhan – so that was all BS. Community spread happened WEEKS before lockdown came into place – so house arrest is pointless – the only way forward now (and correct way) is herd immunity. Not that that is a choice mind – its happening whether we like it or not.
Frankly, given all the covid hysteria being whipped up, I am more afraid of everyone rushing to take bill gates new ‘vaccine’ (probably the one on the cover of bob dylans new album) since he is on record saying we need to get the worlds population down.
Sinky at 0742am,
Sadly, according to the media in Scotland, and the propagandist BBC, Hugh Pennington is the world’s authority on COVID-19. Except, in reality, he isn’t.
Re the organised take-down of Wings/Rev Twitter accounts, the evidence doesn’t get more blatant than this:
‘We got him, well done folks. #DontPlatformHate. Thank you
@TwitterSupport but he won’t stop and will only come back worse. It shouldn’t be a challenge to remove him and his accounts for good.’
@Miss_Leeze, May 8th 10.51am
link to twitter.com
RE: COVID-19
Do we have a forum for information exchange on this? I mean information from people smart enough to be asking serious questions and understand that the real risk isnt a virus but tyranny – we dont need.to share BBC or CNN talking points.
I am getting a little fed up posting this, but hey ho
in the winter of 2014 into 2015 the UK experienced 44,000 EXCESS DEATHS
@ Patrick Roden.
My post at 11:43.
@Ian Brotherhood
Rather ironic Leeze using that hashtag ain’t it…
link to wingsoverscotland.com
(laptop playing silly buggers)
…..due to a particularly nasty strain of FLU (flu kills people btw!)….I can tell you, there were bodies piled up in corridors outside mortuaries, a Ward was even used to store them (nicknamed ward 13), funeral directors were working their socks off….when it got into a care home, man did it do some damage…
……where was all the concern back then?
The reason im asking about some dedicated forum is that it would be nice to form solid intelligence on the situation without risking WOS being labelled as a place of dangerous conspiracy disinfo on the matter. It would also be nice to get the best info together to help inform those who are asleep.
@Miss_Leeze
Could you try not to be such a bigoted, misogynistic, fascist? TA.
Guidelines for psychologists working with
gender, sexuality and relationship diversity
islssl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Supiot_CapeTown_September_2015_EN.pdf
OMG! A voice of reason against the happy clappy lockdown zealots.
link to spiked-online.com
@Miss_Leeze
I hope you realise you have just shown yourself up for being an ignorant bigot. So it would help everyone if you educated yourself so that you no longer seek to influence policy by quacking out your arse. Mkay!
Women and men, morality and ethics.
homepages.se.edu/cvonbergen/files/2013/01/Women-and-Men-Morality-and-Ethics.pdf
Ottomanboi
If you are urging a relaxation of lock-down now, your are urging action that is incompatible with Global Health Law. That’s a rather bold position to take, so would you mind indicating your professional background? Just so we can get a better idea of your ethical competence. TA.
@
Ian Brotherhood,
the Leeze person canny stand the truth so it blocks it out,
they smother/suffocate freedom of speech so as not to let the truth out,
these are the tools of the fascist,
just cause it has rainbows and unicorns doesn`t stop it being a fascist.
This is good from Indy girls.
link to facebook.com
Absolutely loving your posts bipod, ahudrethidiot, Joe, Ottomanboi and more – the first and hopefully last time in my life I side with the tories over Scotgov :((
cirsium says:
11 May, 2020 at 1:15 am
@Hamerdoon, 12.04
The work on the SARS vaccine was abandoned because it caused Antibody Dependent Enhancement. ADE kills.
————————————————————————————
Yes, but I’m not sure that’s the whole story. They hadn’t yet found the right antigenic approach and then the virus ‘disappeared’. For some reason, work then appears to have frittered out on vaccine development – a bit short-sighted IMO, but scientists need to get research funding from somewhere and maybe the money dried up? Like all potential vaccines, depending on what’s presented to the body, and how it’s presented, they can cause different reactions from the immune system, some of which could cause ill health or worse. Even with approved vaccines, some people can react badly to them (just like some medication).
The first link I provided suggested that the types of antigen being developed for COVID-2 vaccine are different to those for SARS (I.e. based on the COVID-2 viral RNA structure, or specific parts of viral proteins). I suspect, but don’t know, they will be packaged in an established presentation system, reducing their chances of causing ill health, but testing is required to find that out; the antigen part of the vaccine itself could trigger a deleterious immune response.
But, given SARS and COVID are highly related viruses, with very, very similar genotypes, a safe vaccine might be difficult to develop in the short term. It remains to be seen.
Is it ethical to squat on a popular, successful website for the purposes of self promotion?
Didn’t take long. Apparently Dominic Raab has fecked up the message already.
Pierce Morgan flipping a wee while ago.
What bloody shambles these tories.
Waving back at U Dorothy X
Stuart Anderson
If I interpret you correctly, I hope you appreciate I’m not attacking [c]onservatively minded Scots. I’m attacking the moral psychology of English Torydum. 😉
defo
Is that me?
Lockdown is a nonsense which makes no sense.
Covid is a disease which kills predominantly the elderly, the obese and, apparently BAME people.
Up to date it has killed 350 people under 45 and most of those have had underlying conditions.
Therefore to decimate the economy and, as a consequence cause unemployment, ill health and depression, is just madness.
Since this started the ONS estimates that there have been 10000 extra deaths due to non Covid conditions due to people not getting proper NHS treatment.
Strangely, the contributor with ‘idiot in his name is the most sensible person on this forum.
In seems that Bojo’s Right Hand man Rabb the Rabid,
Told BBC Propaganda station radio 4 this morning that
You can visit both patients in an open space 2 meters apart?
Just last night Boris said one parent only?
ITV breakfast show tore the Tories apart for yet more mixed messaging.
Morgan contacted the government this morning to see who is right.
It’s seems the right hand had no idea whether the left hand is up Sooty or Sweep
as they decided Rabb is wrong?
Nicola gave a good performance on the show and was complimented however Morgan
Did say that the entire Tory Cabinet refused to go on the show as he tears apart and embarrasses
Their sheer incompetence at every opportunity.
So England go back to work with 12 hours notice, no need to check that your Employer will be there,
That with no notice he has all the safe distances marked out, anti bacterial and PPE kit, a one way system to avoid contact etc.
You see these old Etonians like Boris De Piffle,Gideon Osbourne, and Grease Mogg have a Fag at
School to look after them and then Latin speaking servants to do all the little mundane tasks for them
Like working in the real world.
How anyone would vote for a spoiled brat with no idea of how ordinary citizens live has me beat.
Heavy bombardment from the Trolls today.
Always a good sign that they know their government is an utter disaster and Independence is coming!
PETEGATE.
Get it trending ya bams!
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s unlikely to posses a particularly moral outlook. Just saying.
link to kcl.ac.uk
Sorreee.
Missed #.
So #forpetessakegate.
A nice wee song to reinforce the message.
Stay at home.
link to facebook.com
Pete says ‘Let them die’.
IMHO, Brexit needs to be viewed as a right-wing coupe that challenges the international rule of law. There is the lack of concern for Treaty law, for a start, but just how did it get Treasury approval?
Brexit also ‘liberates’ the Tories from a legal respect for the “precautionary principle”, and EU regulations relating to bio-engineering. Given there appears to be a keen eugenicist influencing policy, it is time for all Scots who consider morals to be important, to decide whether maintaining British nationalist tradition is really worth the pain.
Karl Mannheim’s Sociology of Political Knowledge
link to e-ir.info
@ Golfnut:
My post at 11:43.
Yes, I saw it, thanks.
Strange that the strongest anti-lockdown ranters on here are also the strongest anti-Sturgeon, anti-SNP ranters.
If you feel so passionately about it, go and do your own thing. Breaking lockdown isn’t difficult, the Polis are thin on the ground. Fill yer boots, kill yer grannies, just stop using it as a stick to beat the Scottish Government, all you are doing is suggesting Boris knows best and the Scots are not fit to make their own decisions.
CameronB Brodie.10.09am though painful as it is for us Scots to accept. Quite a lot of Scots dont have morals.
Pete says ” Lockdown makes no sense”.
That must rank as the most stupid, assinine observation I have ever read on this forum.
Bob Mack 10.29
Why?
@Stuart Anderson
Cheers Stuart.
The reason I stick around is because on every online forum I have seen is this insane, rhetoric spewing group-think that at times seems to border on mental illness.
Sensible people who can think for themselves tend to back off from such situations and let the idiots get on with it, but that cedes the territory to the zombies.
I appreciate the others you mentioned also.
Obviously the real appreciation goes to WOS for allowing a (nearly) open forum.
Mike d
That’s an uncomfortable and sad truth.
link to journals.sagepub.com
@ Bob Mack
Tell that to the Swedes and the Turks (who also used Chloroquine).
I never even watched bojo’s speech. I knew it would be waffled sh**e as usual, and I was’nt disappointed. And sorry, but I haven’t got the least bit of sympathy for these eejits down here in England who voted for him.they deserve everything that’s coming to them in spades.
Well that merely confirms my view of the matter, best summed up by Mark Twain.
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it is time to pause and reflect”.
I read with concern that the Chancellor may soon be announcing a curtailment of the furlough scheme.
And that dear readers will force workers back to work whether it is safe for them or the wider public. Put simply, If you don’t work, you don’t eat. That is the message.
And there’s nothing the devolved Scottish Government can do about in other than bend over and take it on the bum. As the Tory line goes, to bad if a few pensioners die.
RE: lockdown
Lucky im just a troll and not worth answering. Eh?
That of course won’t explain why Sweden didn’t lock down and Turkey only partially locked down (and used Chloroquine) and kept their economies running.
That would be difficult to explain while you’re telling other people they are stupid (murderous) for suggesting a similar strategy.
Or is the strategy of Sweden and Turkey just another Tory plot?
Joe
You lack ethical competence to make medical judgement, so appear to lack empathy for the needs of others. Just saying. 😉
Jings!
Boris is coming back on big Auntie later to have another go at explaining what he really really meant! FGS!
Oh wait! Raab tells us it’s not Monday…it’s Wednesday that it starts,… Boris fogot to say.
Quarantine…every traveller entering the UK of course er! by plane. er!
Except the Irish and… Oh! wait anyone coming off a plane from France. Hope that’s sorted it for you.
Common sense…common sense!
Joe
re. Chloroquine. Here’s what The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine has to say on the matter. So would you kindly stop quacking so frantically? We are trying to have an adult conversation here. TA. 😉
link
link to cebm.net
Did anyone expect anything different than being able to see your boss before you are able to see your loved ones?
Nhs staff criticise the street parties in Wales on VE Day and they expect a 2nd wave of infections after the street parties in approx 10-14 days , expect England will be the same with the amount of street parties that were held in England . Don’t think Scotland were daft enough to hold any street parties .
link to bbc.co.uk
link to statista.com
Spot the 2 countries I know of from the top of my head that didn’t have a full or any lockdown.
Also – why would all those 3rd world countries (crowded living, no sanitation, no PPE, no healthcare, poor diet) all have such low death rates?
As someone mentioned before – is it because a certain malarial drug is common in those areas?
Or is there an enormous amount of bullshitting happening?
Bob Mack @ 10:29
You have no scientific data to back up the assertions that lock down works – none, nada, ziltch.
There is also no evidence that no lockdown works.
this is all one big experiment and when we look at the data so far it does NOT support lockdown.
The data even suggests that staying at home is far more dangerous (see NYC where 66% of cases are people in isolation) – this could be (could be) due to breathing in higher droplet content as everyone was ALREADY INFECTED!
there is no such thing as an expert in COVID19 – however, there are many risk management experts who would take a mitigation approach – similar to Sweden.
I think it is reasonable to pose this question;
If the government provided just universal credit to those on furlough – would it affect public opinion/support for the current measures?
If you do support these current measures and this question gives you pause – then I would further suggest that you are bought and paid for.
Paper ‘Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread’ link to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The interview with whistle blower scientist:
link to bitchute.com
For more background on how corrupt big pharma is (in this one subject, there are many more): link to bitchute.com
Apologies for the website but Youtube appears to be doing a Twitter on this subject.
Fof all on this site, You need an economy to pay for money pulled out of Government arse.No economy no broo money. Covid tracking app is security state nightmare. You can get back to your knitting now.
@CameroB Brodie
I’ll do you this favour – I wont be answering you, or the information you post, until you can bring yourself to honestly answer myself and Ian Brotherhood in a previous article.
I don’t see why I should honestly address your posts when you simply avoid anyone else by citing ‘ethical competence’.
Cheers
Lockdown rules are different in Scotland and England. Will there be roadblocks at the frontier?
Joe
You appear to think your judgement superior to medical and legal science. Are you allowed out on your own?
link to aier.org
Joe
So you wish me to comment in an ethically competent manner, on a subject I lack sufficient knowledge of? You’re also looking to make me look shifty if I do not comply with your nonsensical request. You’ll need to get up much earlier in the day, lad.
Who are you Mike ,the Pope?
jfngw,Stop defaming people.
‘If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.’ Albert Einstein
The Buchan Loony
11.16
Don’t tell me you’re not seeing your relatives.
More fool you.
You’re obviously one of the sheep!
Dog Biscuit agrees ‘Let them die’.
Dog biscuit
Brexit is a rejection of the moral law and an acceptance of constitutional law and public policy grounded in ethnic nationalism. It articulates an ethnically informed cultural narcissism that doubles down on the cultural damage caused by austerity. Scotland accepted a devo++ Max on steroids in 2014. Scotland gets stripped of her legal identity instead.
I think Mike has a point, the moral psychology of the nation has been damaged through union with a culturally aggressive neighbour. We were unsure in 2014 but we are damn sure we are EU citizens. If only the SNP had sufficient legal imagination to ensure Scotland’s EU status.
Full text.
European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling
Volume 18, 2016 – Issue 3
Brexit, psychotherapy and moral psychology: individualism versus the common good
link to tandfonline.com
No 10 states :
“Stay alert by washing your hands regularly”.
Confused ?….Don’t be….cause….
I remember once I went to an area that was slightly dodgy…well I was right to stay alert in this area……as I nearly got mugged…however I had washed my hands before going out that night….had I not…I would have been unable to stay alert to this risk…..so come on….stay alert by washing your hands regularly ….and you too will be safe from crime….
Staying alert by washing your hands in relation to Covid 19 is only applicable if you think someone is going to steal your soap when you go to wash your hands…Stay alert…..simples.
@hundredtheidiot.
Apt moniker for you. Evidence is already here that easing lockdown allows the resurgence of the virus.China,.S Korea,Germany. What does it take to make a halfwit see what the intelligent see already?
The level of subserviance to fear on this site is unbelievable. Buying propaganda.Idiots dae it wur ain way ,that is,fully comply with petit fascist Sturgeon. There are dreamers on here who think Scandinavia is some kind of cosy commie student rooming house. They are capitalist societies like everywhere else. Also I believe Finland and Sweden are armed societies which snowflakes will baulk at. Capitalism is intrinsic to human nature so is sociability. Social-physical-distancing will make it difficult to organise politically and will drive a wedge through society. Those who are frightened have no right to hold free people as hostages. No economy no recovery.
Bob Mack Stop believing the hype the medis works you like a marionette.
jfngw,you fucking cunt !
@Dog biscuit
Don’t mention it, your ire is my pleasure.
Good news more people ignoring the fool Sturgeon and getting on with living .You cowards can stay in your ditch.
jfngw,away have your wank now.
@Dog biscuit
Is this you?
link to youtube.com
Dog biscuit has a point.
The management of the Skye care home,yes that one, took dog biscuits advice and shipped in infected staff from Kent.
@Dog biscuit,
No hype. Practical family experience.
Any ditch I hide in would already be full of pond life like yourself
The thing is I think, if this divergence gets out of hand in the way that it’s being played up in the media, then Boris Johnson could just put his foot down and overrule Holyrood. He is after all, the PM of the UK, not just England so effectively, he could just order Scotland (and Wales and NI), to follow the advice that he’s issued.
And what could the other nations do about it?
It’s been postulated here before that Johnson could shut down Holyrood, so he (or others within his party) could see this as the opportune moment to do so.
And all Mrs. Murrell could do about it is moan and whine about the injustice of it all but ultimately, have to accept it.
Ladies, Ladies!
A bit of decorum please!
Bob Mack @12:19
I’m sorry, that is incorrect. I heard that rubbish last week about a spike in Germany – which was true for the Monday ONLY – all other days the figures came down. Why do we have Monday spikes? people don’t want to/cant register deaths at weekends.
That Monday feeling is worse here as the NHS aren’t really staffed appropriately to register at weekends either, so we get a double whammy.
Do you want to see people die, Bob, or get a handle on the best way forward for our Country? – because you – and a lot of other people on here – might need to have a serious re-think about the claptrap you’ve all bought into. The anger from cognitive dissonance on here is akin to the response from Unionists over Scottish Independence.
It is easier to fool a man, than to convince a man he has been fooled. (Mark Twain)
@hundredtheidiot,
There is a man called John Ferraro who gained fame for being able to hammer nails into wood using only his forehead. It would of course kill many of us,but John insists it’s safe enough.
His skull Of course is double the density of most peoples.
You remind me of him oddly enough
Did I spot some SNP types tweeting about how better it would be to change the Holyrood voting system, a change that would remove parties that only stand on the list. See they can move quickly if they want on constitutional matters.
link to twitter.com
Bob Mack
I supported lockdown initially as this virus was the great unknown. Now we know that we are dealing with a virus which is similar in nature and consequences of Flu.
Difference between me and you is that I am capable of changing my mind and seeing the danger ahead of continued lockdown/house arrest and the great loss of Freedom and Liberty which your type seem so keen to trade.
So, what is your great suggestion? we wait for a vaccine? 12 months, two years, NEVER!…..
…..or maybe you would like to (properly) lock up all those who disagree with you!
Germanys reinfection rate has risen beyond one (r), since the lockdown was lifted. This is nothing to do with the related admissions and death rates
Pete Wishart in the National newspaper today, urging folk not to vote for any other indy party next year except the SNP.
Wishart claims the other indy parties including one that the Rev might form are full with flawed characters that will do nothing but bicker among themselves, and damage the indy cause.
Wishart should look closer to home at the SNP, which is full of flawed woke characters who promised we’d remain the EU and promised us independence over the last four years but delivered neither.
They are good at fitting up old leaders though. Meanwhile the (ISP) the Independence for Scotland Party, which I will give my list to, has already been slandered by the woke community calling it a TERF party, a derogatory term for women, the party was founded by women.
I urge everyone to give their list vote next year to the Independence for Scotland Party, unless of course the Rev’s party (If he forms one that is) is approved by the Electoral Commission in time.
@Bob Mack
Still waiting on an answer. Silence or an ad hominem (however clever) = avoidance
Similar to flu? Afraid not. Just imagine the advances in medicine since 1920, when eighty thousand died, yet we still have over 30,000 citizens succumbed to this virus and counting.
We can treat it or rather the symptoms,but as yet we can’t kill it once it enters the host. It hasn’t gone away.Many who leave hospital today would have died in the last for sure.
Many will still did it we don’t find an inhibitor of some sort. Facts. Just facts.
Bob Mack
R?…..you want to start talking about R do you?
I don’t seem to remember the R debate 3 fucking weeks ago – why? – because that is the sound of the goal posts moving you fucking halfwit.
Jesus – and you think I should hammer nails in with my head.
Here, would you like to buy some snake oil? does the trick for COVID you know!!
@Joe,
Your silence is golden and adds to the debate by its presence.
@Bob Mack
Not an answer
If lock down is so effective why do we see such a low death rate in countries such as Sweden (no lock down) and in Turkey (partial lock down with chloroquine)?
@hundredtheidiot,
I mistakenly gave you credit for intellect. We learn by Christmas I suppose.
@Marco Biagi
In what way is the SNP’s position re. the constitution and gender laws, compatible with human right and global health law? Are you sure you want to start talking political science?
link to journals.sagepub.com
Look everybody. Joe has found the answer that every scientist and lab the world over has been looking for. It was under our very noses all the time. Chloroquinine.
Hurrah. I’ll phone the WHO and let them know today. They are very lax at finding out about that gem from Joe.!!!
@hundredtheidiot,
The R debate has been angling all the time. You may not have seen it in your Daily Record reports,but it has been there since the beginning.
350 persons under the age of 45 have died,but
the rest of the under 45s are carriers of this fiendish disease.
We are all potential asymptomatic carriers.
Stay at home or maintain the two metre rule—-it saves lives.
Seems to be a lot of science deniers on here, even trying to give the impression the R number is just something thought up to fool us. Every government in the world is working in co-ordination to suppress the masses, not just a tin foil hat but a full helmet here.
Anyway there is a great experiment going on in the UK, we can compare what happens with a looser lockdown in England to the rest of the UK. Not sure if the difference is enough totally prove things though as many I suspect will ignore Johnson and stay in lockdowm.
@Bob Mack
Thats not an answer.
Please tell us why someone is stupid and/or murderous for suggesting that the lockdown is not quite as effective as claimed when there are countries with much lower death rates who did not lock down (Sweden) and partial lock down while administering chloroquine (Turkey).
If any of the rest want a crack at it im happy for you to help out this struggling fool
I suppose voting for an Indy list party would be better than wiping my arse with the ballot but we still need a First Minister to set the game afoot. I think its a dangerous sign when First Minister tells us we are ‘permitted’ to have excercise. Permission? So much for sovereign Scots eh? All who have free hearts should despise such language from a public servant.
@ Bob Mack @ 1.24pm
Bob…you made me laugh out loud…..this was really funny.
Come on Joe…admit it you laughed too…..
I don’t totally blame the SNP for the lack of independence, after Brexit and the virus shambles you would have thought the clamour would be deafening, but next to no change.
The problem is we seem to be a supine country, think braveheart but in reality feartheart would be more apt. Not willing to take the risk to try and improve things, will sell their soul for the thought of a gong from a discredited establishment.
@Joe,
Your not strugging. You clearly have made your mind up and are sticking to it regardless of sense,evidence,or accepted theory. Good luck.
@Marco Biagi
Just appear to think you’re some sort of intellectual royalty. Stop yapping and prove it.
European Constitutional Law Review
Volume 15, Issue 2 June 2019 , pp. 194-219
Enhancing Political Representation Through the European Economic Constitution? Regressive Politics of Democratic Inclusion
link to cambridge.org
@Joe
Sweden is in the top ten of deaths per million (319), compared to their neighbours Norway (40) and Finland (48).
You appear….
The Global Model of Constitutional Rights:
Introduction
eprints.lse.ac.uk/48992/1/WPS2013-04_Moller.pdf
Just for Joe.
Chloroquine has been the subject of many research papers from China and other nations.
Bottom line. It doesn’t stop you getting infected. It does in cases shorten your stay in intensive care. However
In the roses required the Doctors risk killing you or making you permanently blind. Those are the findings in medical journals. Hope that helps.
@ Bob Mack
Still doesn’t answer the question.
@Jfnjw
Yes and they did not lock down. Still getting lower results than the ones who did. That also doesn’t address Turkey at all.
@Joe,
130,000 cases in Turkey. Only 3,500 deaths. Since 11th March.
Demographics. Young population and high intensive care facilities. Keeps figures down.
R has always been there, yes, but never a part of the criteria to justify the measures, now it is……goal posts moving.
what if house arrest is never going to be lifted….ever….
I actually think some sick fucks are enjoying this – Lockdown Terrorists right enough
You are not going to get any rational sense out of the pathologically partisan mind.
link to journals.sagepub.com
@Rev.
That one in moderation is concerned with the sociology of understanding covid, and comes from SAGE. Sorry if you think I’m posting too much, but I thought it relevant to the discussion.
Jack Murphy,
People who are asymptomatic will be a carrier for a limited time.
Some people are arguing their point on an emotional level, this is never a good thing.
As I have also said before, we have information that tells us that the older demographic are at risk of loss of life if contracting Covid19, they should self isolate.
It is immaterial whether there is a lockdown or not, the vulnerable MUST self isolate.
There is no more chance of Mr Octogenarian catching the virus if his neighbour is going to work in a lockdown or if his neighbour is going to work in no lockdown.
That is entirely the point of self isolation.
For goodness sake people, use the information to hand for logical thought.
The real danger is not having enough PPE for people working with the vulnerable.
On the subject of going back to work, we already have information on who is in danger.
The working population, especially under 50 without no underlying health problems is at a tiny risk of death, this is information that is already available.
So to labour the point, NO vulnerable person will die if they self isolate.
Those people who can’t self isolate and need to be cared for are at risk from the careers if they do not have proper PPE or use it inappropriately. This also is not a lockdown problem, it is a resource or procedural problem. These people need protected with or without a lockdown.
Having no lockdown does not mean executing people ffs.
Breastplate
Lock-down was intended to stop the spread of the virus, which threatened the potential collapse of the health system. Do you think we no longer need to be concerned about transmission and spread within the population? Do you think there is sufficient health infrastructure in place, to ensure public safety?
@Bob Mack
That’s your argument? That’s not an argument. Its theatrics. Its you wriggling on a hook you made for yourself and you are too dishonest to say ‘I don’t really know’.
link to statista.com
So Sweden with no lockdown scores 6th on this list of deaths per 1,000,000 people.
Turkey with no lockdown scores about 25th.
link to worldlifeexpectancy.com
This from 2017 shows that Sweden has a flu and pneumonia death rate of 15 per 100,000. Or 150 per million. Turkey was just very slightly lower at just under 150 per million
So an unlocked down Sweden without restrictions has a COVID-19 (316 per million) death rate of double the 2017 flu death rate (150 per million).
An partially locked down Turkey has a 3x higher 2017 flu death rate (140 per million) than the current COVID-19 death rate (45 per million).
* Turkey with partial lockdown
@Joe,
You talk as if this is all over. Time will tell.
CBB,
The lockdown was put into effect too late. The virus is now prevalent among us. We discovered very early on in the lockdown that the containment phase was a complete failure. We moved to and are still in the delay phase.
I would like to answer your question with another question.
Do I believe the NHS can cope with the rise in cases nationwide in the younger demographic going back to work? (these would be non vulnerable people).
Yes I do.
There is information to support this.
Breastplate
I’m not so sure it would be safe, for example, the virus mutates. I’m just glad I’m not making the decision. 😉
CBB,
The virus mutating certainly is a problem for everyone, lockdown or not, especially if we’re looking for a vaccine.
Breastplate @ 2:22
you said;
‘So to labour the point, NO vulnerable person will die if they self isolate.’
I wish that were true, I really do, but the data coming out of NYC is telling us that 66% of COVID cases are from people who have self-isolated. The only other way to negotiate the data is IF they were sharing a ventilation system – a far stretch in anyones book.
Horse bolted long before lockdown. Community spread was well established when NS was still using words like ‘containment’…..jeez
Ahundredthidiot,
Nobody can get the virus if they have not been exposed to it.
If anyone in self isolation has picked up the virus, it is because they haven’t been practising self isolation properly.
In other words, they have not been self isolating.
Sorry ahunderdthidiot,
I’m not suggesting that people are deserving of getting the virus if not practising self isolation properly. Access to the appropriate information is the solution.
Golfnut at 09.59 – that was a brilliant wee vid and song and as I just watched it, has 5k likes and 48k shares. Wonder if he/we could get it trending or to no. 1. I think it’s fab.
Fantastic shots of an empty Edinburgh too – well except for one shot of bams.
Breastplate says: 11 May, 2020 at 4:46 pm
Self-isolation does not guarantee 100% success against exposure. You can practice that and there are still ways of being exposed. There are so many ways that this can happen but I’m going to list a few to give you an idea.
1) Postie or delivering letter or person in depot previously handled letter is affected.
2) The above occurs with medicine being delivered.
3) Affected individual sneezes of food item being delivered
4) If living in a close with neighbours not self-isolating, they can bring virus by touch on door handles.
5) Person doing essential annual Gas boiler service is infected.
6) Individuals required to do essential repairs to house is infected.
These are a few and the list is going to get higher and more probable if self-isolation for certain groups require to be long term and the lock down is eased for the rest in which turns, complacency amongst that group increases the probability of infection of individuals who self-isolate even more.
Boris
If you are considering putting children back to school as an experiment why not start with some of your own including your latest sprog, I’m sure he would love nursery.
My children are not going to be part of your mad lottery.
Pacman,
If you are telling me that exposing yourself to the virus means that you could contract the virus then you are correct and I quite agree.
Surely that cannot be a surprise to anyone?
But let me ask you this;
Do those 6 points you mentioned only work if there’s a lockdown, no lockdown or both?
Take your time.
Did someone say vaccine?
I will not be accepting a ‘vaccine’ for any reason until a number of things are made clear.
1 small one being why Sweden can have less than 27000 cases with no lock down
Fuck right off. You should all join me.