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Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905


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I think the young person response to this discussion is OMFG. I have relatives in the medical professions in hospitals. They are pretty clear how close we have sailed, and are sailing to public health disaster. They live it and work it every day. The problem is caused by pitifully low levels of medical facilities for a civilised country but it is too late to do anything about that at short notice. The issue of businesses suffering is not that restrictions should be eased, but that support for businesses should be provided (we manage it for finance with "quantitative easing" which has been authorised this month at the level of £875 billion, or over £13,000 for every adult and child in the UK). My current view as a humane liberal sort of chap is that those who consider precautions too strict should be allowed to enjoy their freedom in special holiday camps for everyone else's safety, and those who deliberately flout mask requirements should be shot.

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28 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Ian

Thank you for that thought out response.  I don't agree with much that you say but I do accept that a lot of thought has been put into the answer.

 

Just one point of detail regarding the vaccine.  The vaccines are not designed to eliminate the disease.   They are intended to protect people from the effects of the disease which is not the same thing.  It is highly likely that C-19 will be with us for many years to come therefore and that is why, as I said above, booster jabs may well be required.  So yes we may well be getting our shots in 2030.  What I do not believe is that we will be having lock downs in 2030.  

 

Based on evidence (not fear), I concur that it is highly likely that C-19 will be with us for many years to come.

 

What's the evidence for that? It's the three previous flu outbreaks in the UK. The very long tail end of which is still with us, without vaccines, but with booster jabs. Except hardly anyone makes a fuss (or a lockdown) about it, because now it is "just" called Seasonal Influenza (or "ordinary" causes of death).

 

My evidence (m'lud) is the UK's own official ONS statistics.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending13november2020

 

 

 

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26 minutes ago, webbcompound said:

My current view as a humane liberal sort of chap is that those who consider precautions too strict should be allowed to enjoy their freedom in special holiday camps for everyone else's safety, and those who deliberately flout mask requirements should be shot.

 

I appreciate the sincerity of your view. Most of us feel we are humane liberal sorts in our own ways. However, some might wonder at the zealous nature of your response, as the "mask requirements" are not legally binding (with reasonable cause), so some might say being shot is an disproportionate, or even excessive, response.

 

You might recall a previous socialist government that had, publically at least, many good caring green policies. It is just within living memory. It too arranged special camps for people that disagreed with official policy, and also shot people who were especially troublesome. That started in 1933, in Germany, and they called it the most humane solution.

 

Be careful what you wish for.

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1 hour ago, webbcompound said:

 My current view as a humane liberal sort of chap is that those who consider precautions too strict should be allowed to enjoy their freedom in special holiday camps for everyone else's safety, and those who deliberately flout mask requirements should be shot.

We have our own arrangements down here - previously shown on the Jokes thread!

 

 

Tyburn on sea 2020.jpg

 

P.S. My 5 or 6 times great uncle was hung at York for wearing a mask and causing bother on public transport.

Edited by phil_sutters
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1 hour ago, webbcompound said:

My current view as a humane liberal sort of chap is that those who consider precautions too strict should be allowed to enjoy their freedom in special holiday camps for everyone else's safety, and those who deliberately flout mask requirements should be shot.

 

1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

I appreciate the sincerity of your view. Most of us feel we are humane liberal sorts in our own ways. However, some might wonder at the zealous nature of your response, as the "mask requirements" are not legally binding (with reasonable cause), so some might say being shot is an disproportionate, or even excessive, response.


I really don’t think Webbcompound was being totally serious with that suggestion:rolleyes:.)

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My sympathies go to those in the UK with your COVID-19 problems. Here in Victoria, Australia we thought we had it beat back at the end of the first wave and restrictions in June. Then some really dopey low intellect private security guards in the companies hired by our government to manage the quarantine hotels caught the thing of those in quarantine and gleefully spread it in a cluster of low rent suburbs where they lived. That's when everything went pear shaped and the second wave took off. Which meant basically 3 months of stage 4 restrictions and compulsory mask wearing, social distancing etc. for a hell of a lot of people who had had the good sense to take care from day one. The second outbreak was largely confined to a group of three working class suburbs in the NW of the metropolitan area with one outlying concentration in another working class suburb in the SE.  

 

We are now have had nearly 4 weeks without new cases or deaths due to rigidly following the rules, a vital part of which was a 5km, restriction on travel unless work related and an enforced  quarantine of the  entire Melbourne suburban area from the rest of the state. Police were armed with the power to impose very hefty fines. It worked but that doesn't mean that I accept that the virus is beaten. So like most sensible people I go on wearing a mask in public places and make sure that i maintain distancing. An effective vaccine is the only sure thing but when that arrives is anyone's guess.

 

Meanwhile in the US their now conservative weighted Supreme Court upheld an appeal against the New York Governor's decision to restrict numbers at religion gatherings. Seems that conservatives think that the US Constitution is worth more than trying to save people's lives, but that's the conservatives for you. I wonder why it is always religious groups everywhere who are the ones to put their superstitions ahead of saving lives - and to think we idiots (or at least some of us) enshrine that as a right.

 

However on a bright note I see that the "stable" genius sitting in the White House paid $3 million for a recount of the votes in two counties in Wisconsin. The first recount (Milwaukee County) was finished and an extra 132 vote were found for Biden whose win in the two counties Trump was challenging. That means that getting Biden an extra 132 votes cost the "stable" genius $27,727 per vote. I'd say that if you are going to buy votes then at least do the correct corrupt thing and buy them for yourself, not your opponent ...... ^_^          

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12 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

You might recall a previous socialist government that had, publically at least, many good caring green policies. It is just within living memory. It too arranged special camps for people that disagreed with official policy, and also shot people who were especially troublesome. That started in 1933, in Germany, and they called it the most humane solution.

 

I don't recall Germany having a socialist government starting in 1933. Putting socialist in the party name does not a socialist make.

 

(There have been actual socialist governments that were just as bad, so I have no idea why people always go to a nationalist / conservative one as an example)

Edited by BlueLightning
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32 minutes ago, BlueLightning said:

 

I don't recall Germany having a socialist government starting in 1933. Putting socialist in the party name does not a socialist make.

 

(There have been actual socialist governments that were just as bad, so I have no idea why people always go to a nationalist / conservative one as an example)

 

Socialism on its own is good.

Socialism combined with nationalism, paranoia or xenophobia is bad.

 

 

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Back in 2003 we had SARS-CoV1 which had a mortality rate of about 10% overall but nearer 50% in the over-60s. It was however harder to catch and prompt action has all but eliminated it. SARS-CoV2 – the current version – is easier to catch but less deadly.

 

Thanks to the 'genius' of people like George Osborne we no longer have the mechanism in place to control epidemics at the local level where it is most effective. What we do have is a government of fools led by a clown incapable of controlling the spread of a disease without the use of the most draconian, and economically destructive, means. At the beginning of the outbreak no attempt was made to screen passengers arriving in the country, even those coming from Wuhan. All the people I know personally who have had the disease caught it while on holiday and brought it back with them. Compare and contrast with NZ. 

 

Ian does have a point when he says the damage to the economy, on top of the mayhem that will follow 1 January, will adversely affect a lot of people's lives and livelihoods for years to come. The new vaccines may help to eradicate the disease as with SARS1 or merely make it controllable like 'winter flu'. We may have to come to a decision about the relative importance of a nation's economic health versus some premature deaths. There is a danger that our deliberately under-resourced NHS has to reduce care for cancer and heart-disease patients (still the two most common causes of death) as it is swamped with Covid patients, thereby contributing to the excess deaths total.

 

I really don't know what the answer is. Personally, I'm going to keep my head down...

 

 

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1 minute ago, Nearholmer said:

I’ve now reached the same position as my father on the topic: socialism would work wonderfully, if it wasn’t for people.

 

I suspect that applies to a lot of things. Democracy for one...

 

 

 

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And public transport: great for other people...

5 minutes ago, wagonman said:

What we do have is a government of fools led by a clown incapable of controlling the spread of a disease without the use of the most draconian, and economically destructive, means.

Which takes us back to Ian’s point, and squares the circle:

We are in a mess, or more accurately a stinking pile of horse manure that has yet to rot down and be useful (when it will cease to stink). Whether we got here through cynical lack of investment under George Osborne (“austerity” didn’t apply to the banks, who were bailed out via QE - a loan to ourselves, effectively, not to businesses, where corporation tax was halved, not to large businesses like Google, as CT is paid where the business HQ is located, not where the transactions took place) or incompetent crisis management under BJ, on top of a series of broken promises made during the Brexit campaign (turns out “Project Fear” was “Project Reality”, not that the Remain campaign even turned up to the event), it doesn’t really matter anymore:

 

We are royally stuffed.

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On that happy note, I will point out that for all the dysfunctionality, factionalism, and downright looniness surrounding the US response to Covid, and our tendency to point at them and shake our heads, up to now they have a significantly lower per capita fatality rate than we have.

 

Clearly there is “everything to play for in the second half”, but we have not done at all well so far.
 

We seem to have managed to have pretty tight lockdowns causing severe economic damage, and a combination of poorly equipped health services, incompetent management by HMG, and a disengaged response from some of the population, leading to lots of deaths too. 

 

A couple of other European countries have screwed it up too though, so we aren’t alone!

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3 hours ago, wagonman said:

 

In practice too. It's given us the NHS and the welfare state, what's left of it.

 

 

 

No, that's the concept of the NHS and the welfare state, which owe their origins to the Labour and Liberal parties respectively, and are examples good old British good sense, decency, moderation and pragmatism. When we were capable of such things.

 

Applied Socialism has never been attempted in the UK, thank God!

 

There are plenty of examples of it elsewhere. 

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53 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

No, that's the concept of the NHS and the welfare state, which owe their origins to the Labour and Liberal parties respectively, and are examples good old British good sense, decency, moderation and pragmatism. When we were capable of such things.

 

These things and the parties that were behind them have their roots in Nonconformist religion. It's perhaps not surprising that the collapse of the Nonconformist denominations should be followed by a decline in support for those institutions. 

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IMO, the withering-away of non-conformist religion has cost us very dear, because it managed to inculcate a very positively powerful combination of self-confidence and a combined individual and collective sense of responsibility, and its members sure as heck didn’t get overly caught-up in consumerist aspirations. It played forward into the positive aspects of trades unionism, Fabian socialism, enlightened liberalism and a host of other things.

 

I think what I’d really like is all of that, but without the need for faith, but that is one of the places where human nature gets in the way slightly, because we find it very hard to act like that without at least a distant prospect of divine retribution if we don’t. And, the connection to environmental unsustainability as a sort of deity-free retribution hasn’t really ‘clicked’ yet.

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2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

No, that's the concept of the NHS and the welfare state, which owe their origins to the Labour and Liberal parties respectively, and are examples good old British good sense, decency, moderation and pragmatism. When we were capable of such things.

 

Applied Socialism has never been attempted in the UK, thank God!

 

There are plenty of examples of it elsewhere. 

 

You have a very narrow, almost Bolshevik, view of what constitutes Socialism. I would regard the Attlee government as very much a Socialist one. Imperfect no doubt but near enough. It created a new consensus, a new Social Contract if you like, that lasted until the 1970s – and is overdue a come-back.

Edited by wagonman
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16 minutes ago, wagonman said:

 

You have a very narrow, almost Bolshevik, view of what constitutes Socialism. I would regard the Attlee government as very much a Socialist one. Imperfect no doubt but near enough. It created a new consensus, a new Social Contract if you like, that lasted until the 1970s – and is overdue a come-back.

 

I have a view of Socialism based upon its history.  I agree to this extent, Atlee's government came as close as it was sensible to get towards Socialism, and as close as we were ever likely to get. I don't think that any British Labour government, even that one, can really be called Socialist in any meaningful sense of that term.  They would have failed if they had been. Go beyond that post-War settlement, moderate and successful enough to gain decades of consensus over its essential constituents, and you start to put ideology before reality and dogma before people. Ultimately its a counter-factual delusion, frustrated attempts to implement it, which lead only to suffering. If you want a whole country run like Momentum, with its intolerance and bullying and weird leadership cult go right ahead.  That's where 'pure' "isms" of all kinds end up. 

 

But, call the sane, social contract you advocate what you will.  I suspect you and I are disagreeing more over what to call it than over what should be in it. For me, the term "Socialism" has too many deaths and too much suffering associated with it to have other than negative connotations.  So, let it lie.  It produces an unpleasant enough smell from where it rots in the dustbin of history, and attempts to re-animate its corpse only make the stench worse.  

 

Anarchism, on the other hand, seems to have an increasing appeal .... ! 

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I'll just throw this in :

 

"Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice. Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality"  

 

A quote from Mikhail Bukharin , one of the original Bolsheviks subsequently murdered by  the NKVD  on Stalin's orders  and who rather late in the day seemed to have recognised that some form of social democracy / left of centre liberal democracy was probably the best possible / least bad political system.


 

Edited by CKPR
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Like most economic and political “theories”*, the concept of socialism is sound, but is an ideal based on ignoring some certain aspects of human nature, particularly the propensity for psychopaths to grab the reins of power...

 

* In quotation marks, as a true theory produces a testable hypotheses, whereas theory here means “idea”.

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2 hours ago, wagonman said:

 

You have a very narrow, almost Bolshevik, view of what constitutes Socialism. I would regard the Attlee government as very much a Socialist one. Imperfect no doubt but near enough. It created a new consensus, a new Social Contract if you like, that lasted until the 1970s – and is overdue a come-back.


For an alternative interpretation of Attlee’s government, worth reading Edgerton’s Rise and Fall of the British Nation (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rise-Fall-British-Nation-Twentieth-Century/dp/1846147751).  He points out that socialism is only mentioned once in the 1945 manifesto.  I think it’s fair to argue that much of what that Government achieved had its roots in earlier thinking notably Beveridge.

 

Book, as are his others, are thought provoking.  The descriptions of why Britain wanted an export led boom in the 50s are interesting and, in my view, give rise to some of the myths of going back to when Britain made stuff myths and how Britain won the war that we’ve seen reheated ad nauseam in recent election campaigns.

 

David

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