Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

Breaking news ... a further message from the Prime Minister;

 

People of Britain! Yesterday evening I outlined how we might begin to ease the restrictions to which you, in your sacrificial magnificence, have all been adhering, so magnificently and at great sacrifice. I believe I was clear about what we might, might, be able to do if, and only if, certain conditions were met starting today, Monday 11 May.  

 

The message is clear! "Stay at Home and Die Alone!" has been replaced by "Go to Work and Stay Alert!"!

 

Yet I am told that many do not understand what that means! Should I go to work today? If so, where is the Alpine Tunnel I must pass through on the way? And so forth.

 

So! I have ordered the Boffins at the Ministry of Information to draw up this simple chart so that you will each know whether or not to go to work today!

 

Let's get Britain back to work!!!

 

 

 

 

Edited May 11, 2020 by Edwardian
spelling!

[Nearholmer]

The Irish Government publishes some really easy to understand (provided you can read) charts that show what you can do under each alert level (their alert levels are the reverse of ours, 1 being the highest).

 

If our lot don’t crack the simple communication problem similarly, and bl00dy quick, and get leaflets and posters out fast, a complete muddle will ensue.

 

But, you all know that already!

 

PS: Disaster!!! A government minister had just told people to “use common sense”.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Donw]

Well I suppose for the legal profession it is problematic. There might be room for perhaps three jurors in the box and if barristers had to wear a face mask it  would make impassion oratory a touch more difficult. I suppose witnesses could be done over a video link. But probably not practical. However there are many areas where it is practical.  Flexi time was popular in offices where I worked perhaps many could work out a rota so that only 50% of staff were in the office at one time. The local builders merchants are busier than ever. They closed the showroom but you can order over the phone either for delivery or for small orders they will give you a time to collect at the gate. Items are placed outside the gate when you arrive and the staff step back so you can pick it up. The local hardware shop is busier than ever. You may have to wait in the queue outside but that takes less time than driving to a big superstore. We can order a lot of stuff online. We have a note of the door telling delivery people  to leave things by the meter boxes which they are happy to do.  They can take a photo of the signed note on the door in lieu of a signature.

The is a problem in big cities were people use public transport much more. I believe Sadiq Khan allowed the number of tube trains to be cut which must have been nice for all the keyworkers needing to use them. Perhaps they wanted to ensure they were packed as usual. Restoring the full number of trains and buses would be necessary.  The Taunton Bus which passes by our house has been kept running despite there being very few passengers. Which has meant those without a car can get to shps etc.

The government seem to be getting a lot of stick over this but what do people expect them to do. Magic wands are in short supply. The outline given by Boris sounds quite sensible no doubt the will be a lot of details to be worked out for different situations. Those with underlying health conditions will need to keep isolated but I cannot see any way round that at this stage.

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Donw said:

The outline given by Boris sounds quite sensible no doubt the will be a lot of details to be worked out for different situations

As a basic framework, not only is it sensible but Hobson’s choice, given the UK’s fragile situation. That isn’t really the issue IMO; the issue is with how clumsily it has been communicated, with endless leaking, absence of clarity etc.

 

To get it to work 68M people on a bell-curve of intelligence, and with very varied motivations have to ‘get it’ and ‘do it’. My jury is far out on whether that can be achieved with the sort of communication we’ve seen in the past ten days.

 

Better approach yesterday would have been to say “ here is a system of alert levels; we are currently at level 4, and the rules stay exactly the same; you will get a leaflet, and there will be hourly TV briefings, on Thursday and Friday telling you what you can do at Level 3; then, next Saturday at 0900 we will move to level 3; stick to the current rules until then, or you could get fined heavily.”

 

As it was, it included too many ‘half carrots’, and more have been waved this morning, which will lead to ‘over-stepping’.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Nearholmer

[wagonman]

If people had used 'common sense' we wouldn't have this bunch of incompetents trying to run the country. They started by dismantling the very structures that would have managed the outbreak, starved the public sector (including the NHS) of resources – we were 40000 nurses and 10000 doctors short before this all started – they failed to 'follow the science' when in 2016 it told them their stocks of PPE were woefully inadequate, failed to join the EU ventilator procurement programme, failed to test and contact trace arrivals at ports and airports, failed to lockdown until it was almost too late, belatedly started testing but instead of using existing, experienced staff in local government, they decided to throw yet more money at their mates in the outsourcing world like G4S and Serco – both of which have been caught defrauding the government, not to mention the debacle of the Olympic Games security. Add in PR stunts like the Nightingale hospitals and it's no wonder the UK has the second highest death toll in the world.

 

And now it seems they failed to ensure a proper supply of magic wands...

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

They have now published a plan/strategy document, but that is about as suitable as a mass communication tool as a set of clay tablets covered in early Aramaic, and presumably isn’t intended as a mass communication tool. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/884171/FINAL_6.6637_CO_HMG_C19_Recovery_FINAL_110520_v2_WEB__1_.pdf

 

Its the ‘understandable by a dim eleven year old’ stuff that is desperately needed. Simple leaflets, simple posters, simple TV and internet videos fifteen seconds long.

[RedGemAlchemist]

18 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss... 

[brack]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

As it was, it included too many ‘half carrots’, and more have been waved this morning, which will lead to ‘over-stepping’.

It's more the big build up  - all week they were telling us that Boris had a big announcement on Sunday about how we come out of lockdown and putting schools on notice to reopen. TV schedules were cleared for this momentous speech.

In which he announced, well nothing really except that you can sit on park benches, pass the portal of your front door multiple times per day and talk to people outside from a couple of metres away (which in practice is unlikely to make any difference to what was happening anyway). Oh, and drive somewhere to be alone (which frankly never had any transmission risk attached anyway).

 

If they hadnt announced the announcement that didnt announce anything much I dont think people would have been as annoyed.

[Joseph_Pestell]

19 minutes ago, brack said:

It's more the big build up  - all week they were telling us that Boris had a big announcement on Sunday about how we come out of lockdown and putting schools on notice to reopen. TV schedules were cleared for this momentous speech.

In which he announced, well nothing really except that you can sit on park benches, pass the portal of your front door multiple times per day and talk to people outside from a couple of metres away (which in practice is unlikely to make any difference to what was happening anyway). Oh, and drive somewhere to be alone (which frankly never had any transmission risk attached anyway).

 

If they hadnt announced the announcement that didnt announce anything much I dont think people would have been as annoyed.

 

Annoyed is bad enough. Confused is worse! For those of us trying to plan the re-opening of a business, it is fairly impossible without a bit more certainty about what the Govt is aiming to achieve. I think that we are big enough to understand that plans may change if necessary. But we can't plan at all in an environment of total uncertainty.

 

I think that this is the direct consequence of having so many career politicians these days. Very little real-life experience around the table.

[Nearholmer]

It certainly doesn’t speak of experience of the practicalities of genuinely leading groups of people through challenging circumstances.

 

 

[Compound2632]

26 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

But we can't plan at all in an environment of total uncertainty.

 

I would have thought you would be used to that by now...

 

12 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It certainly doesn’t speak of experience of the practicalities of genuinely leading groups of people through challenging circumstances.

 

... not inspiring confidence for the execution of their avowed grand projet.

[brack]

Among the more damning things about it is that this was pre recorded (polished) Boris. Theyd had all week to write clear, concise policy. Yet still full of blather and devoid of content. When do we find out the plan? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow....

[Nearholmer]

The Plan is now visible https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/884171/FINAL_6.6637_CO_HMG_C19_Recovery_FINAL_110520_v2_WEB__1_.pdf

 

Having skimmed it, IMO it looks pretty sound; not the plan we’d like to have, but the one we have to have. There is a bit of the usual flannel in it, and the short section about travelling unlimited distances to outdoor public spaces is an invitation to trouble (pity the poor residents of outdoor tourist hot-spots like the seaside and national parks!), but many of the core parts don’t pull their punches.

 

If this was all available yesterday, as it must have been, why such messy communication? 

 

 

Edited May 11, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Anotheran]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

To get it to work 68M people on a bell-curve of intelligence, and with very varied motivations have to ‘get it’ and ‘do it’. My jury is far out on whether that can be achieved with the sort of communication we’ve seen in the past ten days.

 

That should read 56M people. Which was just one of the problems of his "UK" speech. Almost everything he said applied to England only. In the previous couple of days Scotland, Wales and NI had all continued the original "four nations" lockstep approach. Now it's three nations as England has decided to change the approach. This was done while looking like he was talking to the UK as a whole. So we now have the possibility of someone in Herefordshire deciding that they can drive a short distance to exercise and being fined just over the border in Wales where you must not drive to exercise. When he's speaking for England only he should say that because the BBC seems incapable of only showing it in the correct countries or putting up a big banner along the bottom saying it's only England people.

 

I suppose it's only been two decades, so why should a prime minister know about devolution...

[Nearholmer]

1 minute ago, Anotheran said:

That should read 56M

Sort of true, but he seemed to elide between talking about the UK and talking solely about England, so 68M people do need to understand, just not all understand exactly the same things. Which is asking for trouble.

[Anotheran]

8 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Sort of true, but he seemed to elide between talking about the UK and talking solely about England, so 68M people do need to understand, just not all understand exactly the same things. Which is asking for trouble.

 

That's very much my point. Mark Drakeford and Nicola Sturgeon had been very explicit that they were talking only about Wales and Scotland respectively and were only broadcast in the relevant countries (and also that the message wasn't changing much at all). Boris should have made it clear that he was talking about England only or only been broadcast in England. The plan you've linked to is only marginally better. Trumpeting on the front page that it's the plan of the UK government, then paying the odd nod to devolution every few pages, but outlining a plan that is almost all just England as most of it deals with things that the "UK" government has no say over in Scotland, Wales and NI and those devolved governments have not agreed to.

 

But I'll get off my hobby horse now as, as far as I am aware, there is currently no devolution in Edwardian Norfolk leaving the Mad Man of Upper East Side NYC to be the right person to be speaking for Castle Aching.

[Edwardian]

14 minutes ago, Anotheran said:

 

That's very much my point. Mark Drakeford and Nicola Sturgeon had been very explicit that they were talking only about Wales and Scotland respectively and were only broadcast in the relevant countries (and also that the message wasn't changing much at all). Boris should have made it clear that he was talking about England only or only been broadcast in England. The plan you've linked to is only marginally better. Trumpeting on the front page that it's the plan of the UK government, then paying the odd nod to devolution every few pages, but outlining a plan that is almost all just England as most of it deals with things that the "UK" government has no say over in Scotland, Wales and NI and those devolved governments have not agreed to.

 

But I'll get off my hobby horse now as, as far as I am aware, there is currently no devolution in Edwardian Norfolk leaving the Mad Man of Upper East Side NYC to be the right person to be speaking for Castle Aching.

 

Perhaps we might view the world of Castle Aching, or what the Young People hereabouts call the Achingverse, as a sort of devolved reality?

[petethemole]

6 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Perhaps we might view the world of Castle Aching, or what the Young People hereabouts call the Achingverse, as a sort of devolved reality?

 

I'm now imagining Edwardian West Norfolk being invaded from Space by the a sort of steampunk version of the Necromongers, " Obedience without question. Loyalty until Achingverse come!"

[Donw]

1 hour ago, brack said:

It's more the big build up  - all week they were telling us that Boris had a big announcement on Sunday about how we come out of lockdown and putting schools on notice to reopen. TV schedules were cleared for this momentous speech.

In which he announced, well nothing really except that you can sit on park benches, pass the portal of your front door multiple times per day and talk to people outside from a couple of metres away (which in practice is unlikely to make any difference to what was happening anyway). Oh, and drive somewhere to be alone (which frankly never had any transmission risk attached anyway).

 

If they hadnt announced the announcement that didnt announce anything much I dont think people would have been as annoyed.

 

Well everyone has been demanding that the Government should publish a plan of how we will move out of lockdown which is what they have done. A lot of the big build up has come from the media who have been trying to nudge the government into relaxing the rules. There have been suggestions of what they might do which they then complain that the government hasn't done them. Marion listens quite a lot to 24hr news and it is full of the opinions of people who will never be held to account for them saying what the government should do.

I take the point Kevin makes about a idiot proof message. To achieve that it would be better not to publish the plan/road map of coming out and just change the message as and when. However it became clear that not publishing the plan was becoming politically unacceptable. The opposition leader was one of those demanding a plan and obviously didn't think about how that could confuse the public. Even MPs debating the possibility of what a plan might look like mixes up the message by spreading ideas that are not part of policy.

Don

[Edwardian]

Mind you, I'm not sure I believe Nicola Sturgeon when she says she doesn't understand what "keep alert" means ....

 

[petethemole]

Looking at that, I'd say she does, he doesn't.

[Donw]

29 minutes ago, Anotheran said:

 

That's very much my point. Mark Drakeford and Nicola Sturgeon had been very explicit that they were talking only about Wales and Scotland respectively and were only broadcast in the relevant countries (and also that the message wasn't changing much at all). Boris should have made it clear that he was talking about England only or only been broadcast in England. The plan you've linked to is only marginally better. Trumpeting on the front page that it's the plan of the UK government, then paying the odd nod to devolution every few pages, but outlining a plan that is almost all just England as most of it deals with things that the "UK" government has no say over in Scotland, Wales and NI and those devolved governments have not agreed to.

 

But I'll get off my hobby horse now as, as far as I am aware, there is currently no devolution in Edwardian Norfolk leaving the Mad Man of Upper East Side NYC to be the right person to be speaking for Castle Aching.

 

Well devolution was not thought out properly. Either the devolved governments have to be subservient to the government of the whole union or it is full of holes. The logic would have been to have devolved government for England as well. So the full national govenment would not need to discuss devolved matters where they relate to England only.  Mind you I think that would probably increase the likelyhood of the union breaking up. 

Don

[Nearholmer]

12 minutes ago, Donw said:

To achieve that it would be better not to publish the plan/road map of coming out and just change the message as and when.

 

Its perfectly possible to publish a strategic plan, and simultaneously to communicate, in very specific detail, to those who need to follow specific items within it.

 

As an instance, any big engineering works project has a strategy and a strategic-plan, as well as time-based programmes of activity, but it also uses a series of very specifically tailored "bite sized messages" for different audiences. Most of the people "on the tools" don't need or want to read the strategy, and the time-based programmes are usually too detailed to serve as communication tools. What most people other than senior decision-makers need are really clear instructions about "their bit"or, in the case of external stakeholders like people living adjacent the worksites, very specific information about what is intended "in their patch".

 

Good practice is to make the adopted/agreed/ratified strategy and at least a summary of the plan available to everybody (although barely anyone below very senior level reads them, once any public consultation phase is over).

 

Of course, the current circumstance is a whole lot more complicated and high-stakes than an engineering project, but surely the principles are the same: consult with key strategic partners (like the heads of devolved administrations and mayors of huge conurbations, and possibly even the heads of the biggest TUs that you need on-side); get the strategic plan agreed (accepting that involves public debate in parliament, which will expose alternatives in public); then issue 'idiot proof' instructions and guidance.

 

Issuing a short verbal summary of the strategy, the strategic plan, and the instructions and guidance, all at once, before the strategic plan has been fully ratified, doesn't sound like a good idea to me. That sort of sweep of coverage can't be done justice in a few minutes. 

 

(Edwardian - feel free to tell me when to be quiet; I am dimly conscious that I might have "steam up" over this subject!)

[Edwardian]

8 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

(Edwardian - feel free to tell me when to be quiet; I am dimly conscious that I might have "steam up" over this subject!)

 

Neither wish nor warrant to interfere.  This topic may be a unique human achievement so far as the internet goes; we debate these things and we never fall out.

 

 

[sem34090]

That is the wonderful wonder of this thread - There are people here of sometimes completely opposing views and yet no-one ever seems to get unduly offended on behalf of themselves or others. Views might be challenged, they often are, but most seem to be respected regardless of disagreement over them.

 

Long may it continue!