O/T - General Politics thread

They're the kind of people who love refering to the war but would have cried about being told to turn their lights off during the blitz!

It's not without irony than some of the more fervent anti-mask MPs to the mid/far right are angry and taking away people's liberties in having to wear a mask whilst indoors in public places but were equally happy to remove your right to travel and live abroad in the EU.

My particular favourite was Marcus Fysh denouncing vaccine passports as we aren't a "papers please" country yet voting FOR people to have to bring ID to vote. Shameful.

How?
I've lived and worked across Latin America and even late 80s Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary for 3 years, when times were very different. What's your problem? Compliance with local entry and residence regulations too much of an existential or intellectual challenge?
I used to have to register monthly with the local Police in Warsaw and Brno (Hungarians were more chilled) as a resident alien. What's the issue?
Who has stopped you travelling and living in EU?(Other than Boris and his on-the-make fans of the "Gesundheitpass" championed now and historically by the members of the Bundestag and your buddies in Bruxelles)
Where and when do you want to go and live and I'll look up the regulations for you.
Do you ever travel to USA? Just turn up?

Do you also choose to wear a mask?

They're the kind of people who love refering to the war but would have cried about being told to turn their lights off during the blitz!

Another one, Desmond Swayne just said in the Commons road deaths were higher than CovId deaths (road deaths in UK >2,000; CovId in excess of 50,000 in 2021). He’s spreading dangerous misinformation.

It's not without irony than some of the more fervent anti-mask MPs to the mid/far right are angry and taking away people's liberties in having to wear a mask whilst indoors in public places but were equally happy to remove your right to travel and live abroad in the EU.

My particular favourite was Marcus Fysh denouncing vaccine passports as we aren't a "papers please" country yet voting FOR people to have to bring ID to vote. Shameful.

How?
I've lived and worked across Latin America and even late 80s Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary for 3 years, when times were very different. What's your problem? Compliance with local entry and residence regulations too much of an existential or intellectual challenge?
I used to have to register monthly with the local Police in Warsaw and Brno (Hungarians were more chilled) as a resident alien. What's the issue?
Who has stopped you travelling and living in EU?(Other than Boris and his on-the-make fans of the "Gesundheitpass" championed now and historically by the members of the Bundestag and your buddies in Bruxelles)
Where and when do you want to go and live and I'll look up the regulations for you.
Do you ever travel to USA? Just turn up?

Do you also choose to wear a mask?

Sorry Bod I don’t know where to start with this. But yes I wore a mask on the train today. My children are unable to go and freely work and live in the EU, well until their Irish passports come through.

It's not without irony than some of the more fervent anti-mask MPs to the mid/far right are angry and taking away people's liberties in having to wear a mask whilst indoors in public places but were equally happy to remove your right to travel and live abroad in the EU.

My particular favourite was Marcus Fysh denouncing vaccine passports as we aren't a "papers please" country yet voting FOR people to have to bring ID to vote. Shameful.

How?
I've lived and worked across Latin America and even late 80s Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary for 3 years, when times were very different. What's your problem? Compliance with local entry and residence regulations too much of an existential or intellectual challenge?
I used to have to register monthly with the local Police in Warsaw and Brno (Hungarians were more chilled) as a resident alien. What's the issue?
Who has stopped you travelling and living in EU?(Other than Boris and his on-the-make fans of the "Gesundheitpass" championed now and historically by the members of the Bundestag and your buddies in Bruxelles)
Where and when do you want to go and live and I'll look up the regulations for you.
Do you ever travel to USA? Just turn up?

Do you also choose to wear a mask?

More to the point, how does Ant Man breathe, if he is smaller than an air molucle?

Boris told us there was no party, and that’s good enough for me….

Boris told us there was no party, and that’s good enough for me….

Well. he's trying his best to destroy a party

The Tories have still had enough of experts so it seems.

Chris Witty is going to be take a naturally risk averse stance (which is fair in the context of keeping people alive and the NHS running) and is presented purely from his field of expertise. He won't factor in 'the economy' or 'mental health' etc as that's for other experts to present on.

We need experts across a wide range of fields to keep one another in check. Conversely, if there were no epidemiologists or doctors present, though only economists or whatever then decisions could possibly skew to the other side of the spectrum i.e. sod public health/ the NHS it's all about keeping the economy going, oh what do you mean we now have bodies littering the outside of hospitals etc.

So the MP is quite correct. Chris Witty is one of many advisors that the PM seeks counsel from, alongside Sir Patrick Vallance, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, Prof Stephen Powis, Maria Zambon and many others. The collective ministerial responsibility will then back the PM on any decision made. If it all goes wrong, I can sack Boris. I am unable to sack Chris Witty.

And the MP is quite correct. Chris Witty is one of many advisors that the PM seeks counsel from, alongside Sir Patrick Vallance, Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, Prof Stephen Powis, Maria Zambon and many others. The collective ministerial responsibility will then back the PM on any decision made. If it all goes wrong, I can sack Boris. I am unable to sack Chris Witty.

Or are you happy for the RAF to start bombing any country it fancies?

That is quite the non sequitur at the end there. Chris Whitty is simply offering advice in response to a question - he has no power to enforce this view and the public has no obligation to follow it.

And the argument from Joy Morrissey (a word and a name I never thought that I would ever see together in the same sentence, by the way...) that a senior government adviser offering advice makes us 'a public health socialist state' is an transparent and bad faith attempt to paint herself as a defender of democracy. This is Tea Party and #MAGA rhetoric - we don't need it here.

Regardless of Chris Whitty's comments, everyone I know and work with has taken the choice this week to scale back social plans in advance of Christmas, the fear being that they will have to isolate on the 25th and 26th and not see family. I am sure this is similar for most on Shedweb as well - people are not fools.