Lockdown effects now killing/harming more people than Covid

[bramling]

Laura Dodsworth's reflections on this in her very readable, and disturbing, book 'A State Of Fear,' are very perceptive/ insightful.

A State of Fear

This is a book about fear. Fear of a virus. Fear of death. Fear of losing our jobs, our democracy, our human connections, our health and our minds. It's also about how the government weaponised our fear against us – supposedly in our best interests – until we were one of the most frightened...

www.google.co.uk

Yes I’m not really one for conspiracy theories, but there is certainly some merit in the way we seem to be deliberately kept in fear.

It’s all rather weird really, as despite all the doom and gloom about energy bills and mortgage repayments, round here at least I see little tangible evidence of belts being tightened. Which means either the whole thing is being hyped, or there is a massive debt bubble which *is* going to burst some time in the next few months. I guess we’ll get our answer on that one in due course!

The establishment certainly seems to like the type of person who lives from pay day to pay day, has either sky-high rent or mortgage commitments, has no savings, but likes to have the latest iPhone, or likes to default on a credit card after purchasing a ginormous TV. Such people are *very* easy to be manipulated into voting in a particular way.

 

[takno]

Yes I’m not really one for conspiracy theories, but there is certainly some merit in the way we seem to be deliberately kept in fear.

It’s all rather weird really, as despite all the doom and gloom about energy bills and mortgage repayments, round here at least I see little tangible evidence of belts being tightened. Which means either the whole thing is being hyped, or there is a massive debt bubble which *is* going to burst some time in the next few months. I guess we’ll get our answer on that one in due course!

The establishment certainly seems to like the type of person who lives from pay day to pay day, has either sky-high rent or mortgage commitments, has no savings, but likes to have the latest iPhone, or likes to default on a credit card after purchasing a ginormous TV.

Most people are still in jobs, and plenty of jobs are still well-paid. The belt-tightening is mostly being done by the people who had the tightest belts to start with.

We simultaneously have people starving and freezing, probably to death over the winter, and people burning money like they have it on tap. The key thing to remember is that they aren't the same people.

 

[bramling]

Most people are still in jobs, and plenty of jobs are still well-paid. The belt-tightening is mostly being done by the people who had the tightest belts to start with.

We simultaneously have people starving and freezing, probably to death over the winter, and people burning money like they have it on tap. The key thing to remember is that they aren't the same people.

Yes this is a fair point IMO.

 

[nw1]

What I’m attempting to say is that the current so-called swing towards Labour is as bizarre as it is illogical.

Given the experiences we've had with Johnson and Truss, and given Sunak seems to be almost as bad (re-appointing hard-right-winger Braverman) I think it's quite logical.

Labour have traditionally been the party of the less well-off and given that we're going through a period of high energy bills and potential spending cuts, a swing to the left is completely and utterly natural as far as I'm concerned.

There are other good reasons not to vote Tory, but I won't mention them here as they will, I'm sure, stir up a hornets' nest.

I don’t have a solution to all this as to be frank I’d rather have my stomach eaten by maggots than vote for Labour or the Conservatives at the moment, however voting Labour really doesn’t seem like the solution. Indeed if I’m honest I have to say I’m a little suspicious at the motives behind people advocating either a general election and/or voting Labour, as it seems more of an attempt to exploit the situation to boost what would normally be their own preferred political persuasion, rather than a pragmatic solution to a serious problem.

This is going OT but (whereas I would personally much prefer a Labour government) I would see the offer of a spring or early summer 2023 election as an admission by the government that they have messed up.

Persisting until June 2024 (or whenever) just smacks of arrogance and a refusal to admit they've done anything wrong. Having a second unelected Prime Minister, in particular, is ridiculous. People did not vote for Sunak, they voted for Boris; in fact I would go so far as to say that the 2019 vote was a vote for Boris, rather than the Tories. Or, perhaps, a vote against Corbyn: but he's gone now. I won't persist with this however, as it's nothing to do with Covid or lockdown.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Oct 2022 ==

Yes I’m not really one for conspiracy theories, but there is certainly some merit in the way we seem to be deliberately kept in fear.

It’s all rather weird really, as despite all the doom and gloom about energy bills and mortgage repayments, round here at least I see little tangible evidence of belts being tightened. Which means either the whole thing is being hyped, or there is a massive debt bubble which *is* going to burst some time in the next few months. I guess we’ll get our answer on that one in due course!

To be fair we are just finishing one of the mildest Octobers on record, so people's energy usage will be substantially below the norm for this time of year. Temperatures have been consistently around 18C for weeks, which is more normal for the second half of September.

I rather suspect the crisis will peak in January and early February.

I also think it depends on location though, as another poster said. If you're reasonably well off the energy hikes won't hit you as much as those who are less well off.

 

[DustyBin]

Yes I’m not really one for conspiracy theories, but there is certainly some merit in the way we seem to be deliberately kept in fear.

It’s all rather weird really, as despite all the doom and gloom about energy bills and mortgage repayments, round here at least I see little tangible evidence of belts being tightened. Which means either the whole thing is being hyped, or there is a massive debt bubble which *is* going to burst some time in the next few months. I guess we’ll get our answer on that one in due course!

The establishment certainly seems to like the type of person who lives from pay day to pay day, has either sky-high rent or mortgage commitments, has no savings, but likes to have the latest iPhone, or likes to default on a credit card after purchasing a ginormous TV. Such people are *very* easy to be manipulated into voting in a particular way.

Most people are still in jobs, and plenty of jobs are still well-paid. The belt-tightening is mostly being done by the people who had the tightest belts to start with.

We simultaneously have people starving and freezing, probably to death over the winter, and people burning money like they have it on tap. The key thing to remember is that they aren't the same people.

I agree with both of you here. Whilst I think cutting income tax for the very highest earners was rather silly under the circumstances, I’m also suspicious of the “tax the rich” narrative that seems to be gaining traction. Who exactly are the rich, and will they pay? My concern is that yet again it will be those in the middle that get squeezed, and that “levelling up” becomes more levelling down.

Any way back on topic(!) I don’t think Labour can be trusted with our freedom, they were far to eager to take it away for my liking. With the state the Conservative party is in I’m politically homeless.

 

[Richard Scott]

I agree with both of you here. Whilst I think cutting income tax for the very highest earners was rather silly under the circumstances, I’m also suspicious of the “tax the rich” narrative that seems to be gaining traction. Who exactly are the rich, and will they pay? My concern is that yet again it will be those in the middle that get squeezed, and that “levelling up” becomes more levelling down.

Any way back on topic(!) I don’t think Labour can be trusted with our freedom, they were far to eager to take it away for my liking. With the state the Conservative party is in I’m politically homeless.

The problem with taxing the rich is that the rich can afford to move and will do so to pay less tax in another country (note a lot of rich French people live here to avoid paying so much tax) and if they do move then they pay no tax at all here. Then not only do we have lockdown effects causing problems we have even less tax revenue so issues escalate.

 

[DustyBin]

The problem with taxing the rich is that the rich can afford to move and will do so to pay less tax in another country (note a lot of rich French people live here to avoid paying so much tax) and if they do move then they pay no tax at all here. Then not only do we have lockdown effects causing problems we have even less tax revenue so issues escalate.

Yes, this is exactly what I was alluding to. The truly rich won’t pay, so the burden will fall on those who’ve had the audacity to work hard and get on a bit in life instead.

 

[bramling]

Given the experiences we've had with Johnson and Truss, and given Sunak seems to be almost as bad (re-appointing hard-right-winger Braverman)

I don’t dispute any of that. The Conservatives are utterly dire at the moment.

Labour have traditionally been the party of the less well-off and given that we're going through a period of high energy bills and potential spending cuts, a swing to the left is completely and utterly natural as far as I'm concerned.

Okay, so Labour are supposedly traditionally the party of the less well-off. Lockdowns also seem to have disproportionally affected the less well-off, and the current inflationary situation will certainly be doing so too. It doesn’t seem natural at all to me for people concerned about the less well-off to swing to a party who (1) *very* heavily advocated a policy which severely and disproportionately affected the less well-off, and where (2) pretty much all the key players in that are still in post.

Assuming Labour would have actually implemented what they were advocating if in power, things would have been a damn sight worse now had we had Labour in power. Much as Truss made a complete mess of things, it does seem to be the general view that stuff like the interest rate rises would have happened anyway - in reality her performance has simply attached a blue rosette to it all.

This is going OT but (whereas I would personally much prefer a Labour government) I would see the offer of a spring or early summer 2023 election as an admission by the government that they have messed up.

In actual fact, from a humility point of view I don’t disagree, given how awful the current lot have been. I just don’t think it will benefit the country.

Having a second unelected Prime Minister, in particular, is ridiculous. People did not vote for Sunak, they voted for Boris; in fact I would go so far as to say that the 2019 vote was a vote for Boris, rather than the Tories.

Completely disagree on this. Anyone voting thinking they’re electing a PM is simply misguided, as we do not have a presidential system. We elect our own MP, and that’s it. Having said that, yes Britain does need to make its mind up on this matter.

To be fair we are just finishing one of the mildest Octobers on record, so people's energy usage will be substantially below the norm for this time of year. Temperatures have been consistently around 18C for weeks, which is more normal for the second half of September.

I rather suspect the crisis will peak in January and early February.

I also think it depends on location though, as another poster said. If you're reasonably well off the energy hikes won't hit you as much as those who are less well off.

It isn’t all about energy, of course. Pretty much everything has inflated, and the higher energy prices are going to feed through. For example, my local corner shop is expecting his energy bills to increase four-fold, and says he will only be able to continue as a viable business by passing much of this on to customers in the form of price rises across the board. Realistically I can’t see this inflationary situation peaking until such time as a decent proportion of people physically cannot afford to pay the higher prices. The potential consequences of that won’t be pretty.

 

[nw1]

I don’t dispute any of that. The Conservatives are utterly dire at the moment.



Okay, so Labour are supposedly traditionally the party of the less well-off. Lockdowns also seem to have disproportionally affected the less well-off, and the current inflationary situation will certainly be doing so too. It doesn’t seem natural at all to me for people concerned about the less well-off to swing to a party who (1) *very* heavily advocated a policy which severely and disproportionately affected the less well-off, and where (2) pretty much all the key players in that are still in post.

Maybe, and I do agree that prolonged lockdown was a bad idea as it has worsened the economic crisis - but I maintain that it will not be amongst the main issues in 2023/24 and beyond and people need to consider the big picture when voting.

Completely disagree on this. Anyone voting thinking they’re electing a PM is simply misguided, as we do not have a presidential system. We elect our own MP, and that’s it. Having said that, yes Britain does need to make its mind up on this matter.

That may be the case, but in actuality, I suspect a huge number of people in 2019 voted for Boris despite him being a Tory, rather than because he was a Tory. I also suspect that many people do not even know who their MP is. Long-standing MPs such as Dominic Grieve losing their seat is testament to that. People may have liked Grieve, but in that seat they obviously preferred Boris to Corbyn, so voted for some faceless Tory as a proxy for Boris, rather than the anti-Boris Grieve who they will have seen (rightly or wrongly) as a proxy for Corbyn. Sad (Grieve was a better person than any current Tory MP), but that's the way it actually works.

Thus, bearing this in mind, with Boris no longer in power we really need to see if the country actually wants a non-Boris-led Tory party.

And certainly five years is a ridiculously long amount of time to wait until another election. Time we ditched five-year terms, but, like FPTP, such things benefit powerful incumbent parties so I'm not sure we will unless there is a lot of protest.

It isn’t all about energy, of course. Pretty much everything has inflated, and the higher energy prices are going to feed through. For example, my local corner shop is expecting his energy bills to increase four-fold, and says he will only be able to continue as a viable business by passing much of this on to customers in the form of price rises across the board. Realistically I can’t see this inflationary situation peaking until such time as a decent proportion of people physically cannot afford to pay the higher prices. The potential consequences of that won’t be pretty.

I completely agree, I wasn't trying to play down the effects of the price rises, quite the converse - but I was trying to make the point that certain people (poorer people, and small-business owners as you say) will be hit harder than others.

 

[bramling]

Maybe, and I do agree that prolonged lockdown was a bad idea as it has worsened the economic crisis - but I maintain that it will not be amongst the main issues in 2023/24

You may well be right that this is what will happen in practice. However it’s barely logical for people to throw their force en-masse behind a party, still with the same people at the helm, who have heavily advocated restrictions - seemingly either (1) because they couldn’t put practicality over naked ideology, and/or (2) it was a good opportunity to throw cheap shots at the sitting government.

So in essence let’s all vote for a party who were prepared to throw the less well-off under the bus for two pretty frivolous reasons. It makes no sense at all.

I’m not saying that on balance there isn’t a case for a change of government at this point given how horrific the Conservatives have been, however massive swings to Labour will bring unintended consequences, just like they did in 97, and the less well-off wouldn’t be immune from that, in fact potentially on the contrary. Remember it wasn’t all that long ago that Starmer was being pilloried for being part of the champagne North London set, and it could be argued that his Covid stance reinforces that.

To be honest at this point a 2010 style result and outcome would seem to be the least-worst outcome.

That may be the case, but in actuality, I suspect a huge number of people in 2019 voted for Boris despite him being a Tory, rather than because he was a Tory. I also suspect that many people do not even know who their MP is.

The harsh reality on this is that if people can’t be bothered to take the simple trouble to find out how the political system works, then more fool them.

Perhaps if people weren’t quite so influenced by personality, we as a country might have been spared Johnson in the first place, as for starters he wouldn’t have been seen as such a potential vote-catcher.

It doesn’t of course help that the media are happy to play their part in the personality cult politics, which is remiss.

Long-standing MPs such as Dominic Grieve losing their seat is testament to that. People may have liked Grieve, but in that seat they obviously preferred Boris to Corbyn, so voted for some faceless Tory as a proxy for Boris, rather than the anti-Boris Grieve who they will have seen (rightly or wrongly) as a proxy for Corbyn. Sad (Grieve was a better person than any current Tory MP), but that's the way it actually works.

I think the Grieve situation was rather more complex than that. Firstly, Beaconsfield was 51% remain, which by definition means 49% leave. His heavily pro-remain stance is highly likely to have alienated a good proportion of those 49% (obviously we don’t know for sure how many of the 49% aligned to the Conservative vote share). Then there was the whole deselection saga.

Really people should be voting based on manifesto, though how many people actually know what a manifesto is?

And certainly five years is a ridiculously long amount of time to wait until another election. Time we ditched five-year terms, but, like FPTP, such things benefit powerful incumbent parties so I'm not sure we will unless there is a lot of protest.

I do tend to agree that 4 years seems better, though of course there needs to be some flexibility so you don’t end up with elections in the middle of a crisis. Unintended consequences again.

I completely agree, I wasn't trying to play down the effects of the price rises, quite the converse - but I was trying to make the point that certain people (poorer people, and small-business owners as you say) will be hit harder than others.

Which is fine, however we absolutely should not forget that Labour very strongly advocated policies which have heavily contributed to these price rises. So either Starmer didn’t foresee this consequence, thus incompetence, or he did but didn’t care. Is this *really* the politician who is the solution to all this?

We also shouldn’t forget that the quality of Labour’s opposition has been dire for many years. Mediocre under Miliband, utterly dire under Corbyn, and again mediocre under Starmer. As official opposition, subsidised by the taxpayer, their poor performance has likely contributed to the shambles we’ve seen from the Conservatives. This doesn’t excuse the Conservatives, but equally it’s not a compelling reason for Labour to reap rewards. Our functioning political system relies on an official opposition, and Labour haven’t proved up to the task there.

 

[island]

I’m also suspicious of the “tax the rich” narrative that seems to be gaining traction. Who exactly are the rich, and will they pay?

Online forums and debates – present company excepted – generally tend to have an idea that there is a nebulous cadre of "rich" people who are readily available to hand over thousands/millions/billions (delete as necessary) to the government, if only they were asked.

Back in the real world, meanwhile, we have several issues. First of all

The problem with taxing the rich is that the rich can afford to move and will do so to pay less tax in another country (note a lot of rich French people live here to avoid paying so much tax) and if they do move then they pay no tax at all here. Then not only do we have lockdown effects causing problems we have even less tax revenue so issues escalate.

Indeed. Better X% of something than Y% of nothing.

Secondly, the "tax the rich" argument tends to try to match once-off wealth taxes ("take 50% of Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos/Mark Zuckerberg/Akshatha Murthy's assets, they won't miss it, they'll still be billionaires") with recurring expenses. So even if you could wipe the NHS's backlog/doctor shortage in a stroke, it will build back up again and now the once off tax raid is gone.

Thirdly, many of these nebulous "rich" people have got their net worth tied up in assets, which whilst having a notional market value attached, could not be turned into ready money promptly or at all, and/or would suffer a considerable loss in doing so. Most of Elon Musk's wealth is locked up in Tesla and now Twitter stock. The number of people who could or would pay anything close to market value for it is negligible (and presumably such people would also be part of the putative "the rich" who are getting taxed and would have their own problems to deal with.

So no, "tax the rich" isn't a solution, just a rant. At its core, the narrative is just a variation on the "rules for thee and not for me" stuff we saw during the pandemic. "I pay enough already, 'other people' should be forced to give more."

 

[bramling]

Online forums and debates – present company excepted – generally tend to have an idea that there is a nebulous cadre of "rich" people who are readily available to hand over thousands/millions/billions (delete as necessary) to the government, if only they were asked.

Back in the real world, meanwhile, we have several issues. First of all

Indeed. Better X% of something than Y% of nothing.

Secondly, the "tax the rich" argument tends to try to match once-off wealth taxes ("take 50% of Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos/Mark Zuckerberg/Akshatha Murthy's assets, they won't miss it, they'll still be billionaires") with recurring expenses. So even if you could wipe the NHS's backlog/doctor shortage in a stroke, it will build back up again and now the once off tax raid is gone.

Thirdly, many of these nebulous "rich" people have got their net worth tied up in assets, which whilst having a notional market value attached, could not be turned into ready money promptly or at all, and/or would suffer a considerable loss in doing so. Most of Elon Musk's wealth is locked up in Tesla and now Twitter stock. The number of people who could or would pay anything close to market value for it is negligible (and presumably such people would also be part of the putative "the rich" who are getting taxed and would have their own problems to deal with.

So no, "tax the rich" isn't a solution, just a rant. At its core, the narrative is just a variation on the "rules for thee and not for me" stuff we saw during the pandemic. "I pay enough already, 'other people' should be forced to give more."

Yes the whole “tax the rich” thing is not serious politics.

Elements of this country seem to have developed a pretty stinking attitude in recent times, namely the idea that if they don’t have the money for something then they can have it anyway, and to hell with the consequences. The government’s frit approach on the Covid response is partly to blame for this, as it’s quite clear Johnson (and Sunak by not being prepared to stick his neck out and force the issue) took the populist line rather than the strong one.

No doubt it’s for similar reasons that we read elsewhere that supermarkets are experiencing increases levels of crime post-Covid, which is certainly my experience on the railways as well, people seem to feel they can now behave exactly as they please with no recourse (I realise the appalling example set by Johnson’s behaviour has also likely contributed to this).

I’m afraid that even with the cost of living issues, there is a subset of people (and I realise it’s by no means everyone) who seem to feel they want their bills paid for by someone else whilst *at the same time* maintaining all their luxuries - and no doubt in some of the self-same cases having relished all the extra time off they had in 2020 and possibly 2021 too. Completely dis-realistic.

 

[Bikeman78]

Most people are still in jobs, and plenty of jobs are still well-paid. The belt-tightening is mostly being done by the people who had the tightest belts to start with.

We simultaneously have people starving and freezing, probably to death over the winter, and people burning money like they have it on tap. The key thing to remember is that they aren't the same people.

During the summer I met someone who has two jobs but lives in a flat that is barely bigger than a typical Premier Inn room. She doesn't have a car so relies mainly on busses. Leaves the flat around 06:45 and doesn't get home until 20:00. Quite an eye opener to be honest. There must be thousands of people in a similar situation.

 

[DustyBin]

During the summer I met someone who has two jobs but lives in a flat that is barely bigger than a typical Premier Inn room. She doesn't have a car so relies mainly on busses. Leaves the flat around 06:45 and doesn't get home until 20:00. Quite an eye opener to be honest. There must be thousands of people in a similar situation.

These are often the same people who suffered most during lockdowns as well.

 

[VauxhallandI]

These are often the same people who suffered most during lockdowns as well.

The hard working people that Labour so desperately wanted to mollycoddle by taking their livelihoods away from them.

 

[Cheshire Rover]

The problem with taxing the rich is that the rich can afford to move and will do so to pay less tax in another country (note a lot of rich French people live here to avoid paying so much tax) and if they do move then they pay no tax at all here. Then not only do we have lockdown effects causing problems we have even less tax revenue so issues escalate.

Also how do you 'tax the rich'? The real rich don't have incomes to tax, they have assets and take dividends or value out of them for day to day living. How can you tax assets without hammering ordinary people? You can't because those same assets sit in our pension funds or we live in them or rely on them for power generation etc.
So not only are you correct that they can easily move any cash they hold around and away from the taxmen, we can't overtax them on their assets either. So all this tax the rich nonsense means that people on good incomes, but not necessarily rich people, get hammered and the real wealth (Gates, Branson, Blackrock, Musk etc) pay nowt.

 

[DustyBin]

Also how do you 'tax the rich'? The real rich don't have incomes to tax, they have assets and take dividends or value out of them for day to day living. How can you tax assets without hammering ordinary people? You can't because those same assets sit in our pension funds or we live in them or rely on them for power generation etc.
So not only are you correct that they can easily move any cash they hold around and away from the taxmen, we can't overtax them on their assets either. So all this tax the rich nonsense means that people on good incomes, but not necessarily rich people, get hammered and the real wealth (Gates, Branson, Blackrock, Musk etc) pay nowt.

I completely agree with you, and the other posters up thread. I’m pleased it’s not just me that sees the problem with this (ahem) simple solution.

 

[takno]

Also how do you 'tax the rich'? The real rich don't have incomes to tax, they have assets and take dividends or value out of them for day to day living. How can you tax assets without hammering ordinary people? You can't because those same assets sit in our pension funds or we live in them or rely on them for power generation etc.
So not only are you correct that they can easily move any cash they hold around and away from the taxmen, we can't overtax them on their assets either. So all this tax the rich nonsense means that people on good incomes, but not necessarily rich people, get hammered and the real wealth (Gates, Branson, Blackrock, Musk etc) pay nowt.

This is certainly a position the super-rich have managed to promote. There are quite a lot of things you can do, but starting from a position of it not even being worth trying isn't going to achieve any of them. In any case, the implied idea that somebody on 90 grand or more is part of the squeezed middle is problematic. We've created a really quite rich upper middle class who weirdly believe themselves to be poor, and therefore deserving of tax breaks.

 

[bramling]

This is certainly a position the super-rich have managed to promote. There are quite a lot of things you can do, but starting from a position of it not even being worth trying isn't going to achieve any of them. In any case, the implied idea that somebody on 90 grand or more is part of the squeezed middle is problematic. We've created a really quite rich upper middle class who weirdly believe themselves to be poor, and therefore deserving of tax breaks.

I find it problematic to expect something like a train driver on 90k (who to achieve that will have worked quite a lot of overtime) to be heavily taxed, especially to support paying someone else’s gas bill or furlough, or even worse to subsidise some of the other rubbish we saw during Covid like the track & trace debacle or some of the sham loans.

Clearly the prolonged Covid response was utterly unaffordable, and that seems to be the real problem. Who would have thought it?

At some point some government is going to have to grow a pair and be prepared to be strong and say no on certain things.

 

[takno]

I find it problematic to expect something like a train driver on 90k (who to achieve that will have worked quite a lot of overtime) to be heavily taxed, especially to support paying someone else’s gas bill or furlough, or even worse to subsidise some of the other rubbish we saw during Covid like the track & trace debacle or some of the sham loans.

Clearly the prolonged Covid response was utterly unaffordable, and that seems to be the real problem. Who would have thought it?

At some point some government is going to have to grow a pair and be prepared to be strong and say no on certain things.

I find a lot of the spending in the pandemic unaffordable and pointless. It's money that has been spent however and is now sitting on the government's balance sheet. A lot of people are going to have to pay for it, and it isn't going to be fair for any of them

 

[bramling]

I find a lot of the spending in the pandemic unaffordable and pointless. It's money that has been spent however and is now sitting on the government's balance sheet. A lot of people are going to have to pay for it, and it isn't going to be fair for any of them

The spending on energy bills hasn’t been spent just yet. Perhaps there needs to be a realisation that it simply isn’t affordable for the government to be subsidising this. Indeed the support has already been scaled back from what was originally planned by Truss.

It was never going to realistic to expect to inflate our way out of the Covid spending. It’s madness that anyone ever thought that was viable, even before Putin turbocharged the whole situation.

I can really see all this descending into serious public cohesion issues. Was it really all worth it to enjoy some extra days on the beach, to buy a new set of cycles for the family, or to have a year and a half on furlough immediately prior to retirement?

 

[greyman42]

We simultaneously have people starving and freezing, probably to death over the winter, and people burning money like they have it on tap.

I live in York and every weekend appears to be one big spendfest with the city packed to the rafters.

 

[DustyBin]

I live in York and every weekend appears to be one big spendfest with the city packed to the rafters.

It’s a great place for a day out to be fair (and I don’t actually mean at the NRM, although that’s worth a visit too!).

 

[Bikeman78]

These are often the same people who suffered most during lockdowns as well.

Yep, she's a teaching assistant and an office cleaner so I guess it was furlough for one job and sod all for the other. Not to mention being stuck in a tiny flat for weeks on end. As mentioned by others, Labour is supposed to be looking out for people like this but it wanted more restrictions and longer lockdowns. We didn't even "save the NHS." If seven million people on waiting lists doesn't count as overwhelmed then I don't know does.

 

[Eyersey468]

Yep, she's a teaching assistant and an office cleaner so I guess it was furlough for one job and sod all for the other. Not to mention being stuck in a tiny flat for weeks on end. As mentioned by others, Labour is supposed to be looking out for people like this but it wanted more restrictions and longer lockdowns. We didn't even "save the NHS." If seven million people on waiting lists doesn't count as overwhelmed then I don't know does.

It only mattered if Covid overwhelmed the NHS not the backlogs caused by the shutdown.

 

[Bikeman78]

It only mattered if Covid overwhelmed the NHS not the backlogs caused by the shutdown.

Which, as we all know, was a bonkers policy. If I had cancer two years ago, I'd rather they cracked on with the treatment and possibly die of Covid than not have the treatment and definitely die of cancer. Why are the so called experts scratching their heads over excess deaths now? The reason is plainly obvious.

 

[Eyersey468]

Which, as we all know, was a bonkers policy. If I had cancer two years ago, I'd rather they cracked on with the treatment and possibly die of Covid than not have the treatment and definitely die of cancer. Why are the so called experts scratching their heads over excess deaths now? The reason is plainly obvious.

I agree, things like cancer treatment, heart disease etc should never have been suspended. I can understand postponing non urgent stuff.

 

[VauxhallandI]

I agree, things like cancer treatment, heart disease etc should never have been suspended. I can understand postponing non urgent stuff.

Non urgent and urgent are in the eye of the beholder are they not?

 

[bramling]

Non urgent and urgent are in the eye of the beholder are they not?

Seeing a GP seems to have been filed in the non-urgent box!

 

[kristiang85]

Suffering chronic knee pain that isn't life threatening would probably be deemed non urgent by the NHS, but would be very debilitating for the individual and they would consider it urgent to get an op.

Not to mention many niggling pains elsewhere can be the first sign of something more serious, and be missed if not seen by a GP.

It's all a mess really.