Emergency legislation - information and commentary

[anonymous-user]

jm doc said:

....

For someone who promotes himself on here as a voice of logic and reason you really dropped one with that comment. Just embarassing.

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Sarcasm not a thing where you are? You can Google it. I am sorry that you feel embarrassed, and suggest that you don't worry, as this is only the internet.

The vet has been cited by contrarian nutters such as Peter Hitchens as a reason to just crack on as normal. The vet's views do not, however, appear to have much relevance to what is happening.

[anonymous-user]

jm doc said:

Misunderstood again. I wasn't embarassed, but you should be, I probably didn't make it clear enough, apologies.

The vet's comments are very pertinent inasmuch as the economy is heading for possibly the biggest recession ever seen as a result of a policy which is based on, at the very least, some dubious computer modelling, and his experience casts further doubt on it.

As you legal chaps might say, they seem to have previous

Nope, still not embarrassed. Still sorry for you that you don't know what sarcasm is, but feel happier knowing you have time to look it up online.

I know that some think that being a contrarian is edgy and cool. Twitter is full of (mostly Gen Z) coolsters saying "it's all a fuss about nothing", and "that 21 year old who died was probably sick anyway and who cares", and "only the oldies will die", and so on. Utilitarianism is of course a real thing, and if we truly valued all human life we would take steps such as banning cars and so forth, but we don't. What are Governments to do, faced with real (not modelled) deaths on a scale that matters not to the contrarian edgelords, until one of the deaths happens to be of someone they care about (if there is any such person)? You appear to be in the "screw it , crack on, people all die anyway" camp, and perhaps would be one of those who could sit in a War Room and say "the casualties will only be [number], and that's acceptable", but that's a hard sell for any Government, and some think, perhaps quaintly, that some prices are too high.

Should we be guided by vets writing letters to the Times? I am going to vote no on that one.


Turning back to the new Act: It's in my view, as indicated above, trying to do too much at once. It is too wide in scope, and is fraught with uncertainties. In addition, police resources for enforcement are strained. One thing that the current events are showing us is that a system built on a concept of efficiencies that leaves no room for things not well anticipated may not be the best system

[anonymous-user]

I am all for ambition and trying to take firm and decisive action (not too much evidence of that from HMG in recent weeks), but I am not in favour of new legislation as the default solution for everything. Legislating pleases the tabloids. Blair used to legislate like crazy, and would layer upon layer. OMG, someone was stabbed! Let's legislate against stabbing! (Narrator's voice "Stabbing people had been illegal for totally forever") .

Amidst great hoo-hah, and detailed scrutiny, the 2004 Act was passed. NOTE: it was not passed during an emergency. The Act was there to provide for emergencies. The 2004 Act has been sidelined. Instead, a Government that has a poor reputation for honesty and for competence, has slammed in a large new Act, in a rush, during a real crisis. Hmmmm.

[anonymous-user]

barian said:

Breadvan72 said:

One thing that the current events are showing us is that a system built on a concept of efficiencies that leaves no room for things not well anticipated may not be the best system

I would go further. It also leaves no room for things that are well anticipated. Risk management, which is what we are talking about, involves spending money on things that might not happen. How many of the soon to be procured additional ventilators will be in stock, maintained and ready for issue at short notice in five years time?

I agree. My late father would have been very interested in all this. He was an Industrial Engineer, mostly in BL. He started out - when he moved from working as a lathe operator and then toolsetter - as the dreaded Time And Motion Man, annoying his former workmates by watching them work, and making notes. Later in his career he did Production Management, and got involved in crisis management and trouble shooting (NB: BL- late 70s/80s). Even in the 1980s, he despaired of the accountancy models that were reducing the resilience of the car factories that he worked in, and that was before all of the just in time, critical pathway stuff had really got going.

I am not saying that just in time, critical pathway stuff is all wrong, but the risk planning and contingency elements seem to have been downplayed in a number of business and government contexts. The legal system, pared to the bone by cut after cut, has shown itself to be unready for crisis. In my industry, large sets of chambers and large law firms all have sophisticated disaster plans in place (lawyers think about risk a great deal), and have switched to home working fairly easily, but the court system lags behind.

[anonymous-user]

That looks to me, as a non-expert and on a quick read, as a sensible summary.

Staying closer to home turf, if I get time later this week, I might try to do some more analysis of the Act's provisions, and where the problems may lie.

[anonymous-user]

barian said:

Breadvan72 said:

Later in his career he did Production Management, and got involved in crisis management and trouble shooting (NB: BL- late 70s/80s).

As I recall, in the late 70s/80s anyone in BL who wasn't involved in crisis management and trouble shooting would have been engaged in crisis and trouble creation.

You recall incorrectly! There are many myths about BL, and that is one of them! Michael Edwardes' book is a good read. My father had his dream job, teaching young engineers at the BL Staff College near Warwick, when Edwardes insisted that he my dad join his recovery team. So my dad worked for Edwardes, and admired him, but he always missed that teaching job.

[anonymous-user]

V1nce Fox said:

I'd certainly appreciate that and I suspect so would others.

Cheers! No promises! But I will try.

[anonymous-user]

I have obtained a click and collect at an Asda about eight miles away for next Tuesday. This is, I gather, winning at life.

I bought a new mobile phone online on Tuesday, and it arrived today. I wonder if purchases of extra monitors and other home working kit will be delivered - that sort of stuff is arguably important. I just wish that shop workers and delivery drivers were given PPE.

[anonymous-user]

unident said:

barian said:

Certainly worth discussing. I can't locate the paper referred to, only the press reports. The main points seem to be that the disease has been circulating in the UK since January, and that the infection rate in the population is higher than assumed, because many cases are mild or asymptomatic. Like all modelling, the Imperial paper relied on estimates (or assumptions if you prefer). In fact, it assumed that the infection was seeded in the UK in early January. It estimated that about two thirds of infections were sufficiently symptomatic to be recognised. Now if that estimate is wide of the mark, it will presumably have a big impact on the future trajectory of the disease. When and if more extensive testing of the population is carried out we will know better. But in the immediate future there seems to be little reason to doubt (looking at Italy and Spain) that there will be severe pressure on the NHS and it would be reckless to dispense with the precautions now being taken. So this is really a debate about what will happen when the current peak has passed. If the population exposure is already high then maybe we will have seen the majority of the severe cases that will occur. What is now in place (although perhaps not properly explained) is an adaptive strategy in which controls will gradually be lifted, to be reimposed if the NHS capacity limits are threatened and continued cyclically until a vaccine is available. If, contrary to the current modelling assumptions, herd immunity has been acquired (or is close to being acquired) we will find that things can go back to normal more quickly. The point is that the current strategy is robust to this uncertainty, so even if the Oxford expert is correct it wouldn't change anything we are currently doing - something which the press reports suggests he seems to recognise.

Again, I sort of agree with that, but at the same time, I’m looking at other countries and they are having major issues regionally. Italy isn’t Italy as a whole it’s a specific part of northern Italy that has had the issue. When / if it spreads to southern Italy will the issues be the same? Lots being made of them taking over Excel in London, but what does that mean? Some are assuming it will be full within a day, others wondering if it will be needed. What about the rest of the country though? Why not the NEC in Birmingham / a convention centre in Manchester etc?

I’ve got views on this and they hopefully sit somewhere in the middle, well away from the sensationalism being displayed in many places, but still applying sensible precautions.

Looks like it’s already in southern Italy according to the BBC.

“The Italian region hardest hit by coronavirus has seen a steep decline in the number of deaths and infections but worries are growing that the country's south could become the next hotspot.
Recent numbers from the northern region of Lombardy suggested the epidemic might be slowing at its epicentre.
But poorer southern parts are seeing a sharp rise in deaths, raising fears the health service could be overwhelmed.
Italy has reported 8,215 deaths from coronavirus and 80,539 confirmed cases.
A four-day trend of a slight decline in the number of cases ended on Thursday when both infections and deaths rose compared to the previous 24-hour reporting period.
Italy is the worst-affected in Europe where almost everything has been closed for over two weeks and people told to stay at home.
What is happening in Italy's south?
Contagion and deaths are far less widespread there, but worrying signs are coming from regions such as Campania around Naples and Rome's Lazio where the health system is considered much less equipped than in the rich north.
So far there have been 74 deaths in Campania and 95 in Lazio.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Vincenzo De Luca, president of the Campania region, complained that the central government had not provided promised ventilators and other life-saving equipment.
"At this point there is the real prospect that Lombardy's tragedy is about to become the south's tragedy," he said. "We are on the eve of a major expansion of infections which may not be sustainable."

[anonymous-user]

citizensm1th said:

Make them stop at the end of ones drive and send Jeeves to collect surly? and even Shirley

Jeeves took one for the team, and made a fine Sunday roast. Now that is what I call the good old Feudal spirit!

Shirley did not get collected. She had to hoof it from the railway station, and has been made to sleep in one of the outbuildings. One cannot be too careful these days.

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 26th March 21:18

[anonymous-user]

barian said:

I am not usually taken so seriously. But by the time Edwardes took over the decline was irreversible.

Again, I politely demur. Much damage was done after Edwardes left things in better shape. The crooks who bought and sold what was left of Rover at the very end were pretty crooky!

[anonymous-user]

David Anderson QC - worth a shufty. Authoritative.

https://www.daqc.co.uk/2020/03/26/can-we-be-forced...

You can also try Adam Wagner on Twitter, but I usually find too much self-promotion in his stuff, and he has oddly selective views on which human rights matter and which don't. For example, he over values religious rights because he is religious, and he only values free speech rights for views that he agrees with (he was absolutely furious about the very excellent Miller decision on gender ideology and free speech, because AW's a wokebro, who has bought the rainbow unicorn magic) but he's another source of analysis on the emergency stuff.

Secret Barrister maybe worth a look too, but she also over self-promotes, and isn't really much good on Constitutional principles.

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 27th March 07:58

[anonymous-user]

"Train hard, fight easy."

So said Marshal Suvorov, allegedly. He was Catherine The Great of Russia's number one General. The remark may also have been made by Xenophon, some centuries BC, and many others back to the Neolithic.

Suvorov also believed in having reserves. The Public Sector used to have reserves, but Neoliberal ideology took over, and many reports were written for Whitehall by McKinsey and such like, and reserves became not a thing.

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 27th March 10:41

[anonymous-user]

barian said:

I am not usually taken so seriously. But by the time Edwardes took over the decline was irreversible.

PS: I saw the joke, but I ride a personal hobby horse about BL history, and try to do myth-busting when I can, because people less well informed than you are often believe all the blah. Don't get me started on 1970s Lancia myths either!

[anonymous-user]

As you would expect, some police, many (NOT ALL) of whom already have an unduly authoritarian attitude to citizens, are jumping on the emergency and exceeding their powers. But .... try getting a judicial review challenge in front of a Judge right now. Expect some declaratory judgments, and maybe some damages judgments for wrongful arrests, but many months down the line.

[anonymous-user]

Graveworm said:

Reasonable excuse exists in a lot of legislation. It is a matter of law not fact so needs to go in front of a judge before we get definitive statements....

This is not bright line or black letter law. What is reasonable is a fact-specific question. Context is everything. Judges can give guidance as to what is and is not reasonable, but the facts of each case matter. Are you perhaps a law student or a legal academic? Things outside the Academy are not quite as they can appear from some of the books.

[anonymous-user]

Here is GMP getting it wrong, asserting that exercise is limited to one hour. GMP, do not make stuff up!


https://twitter.com/GMPDenton/status/1243502883565...

[anonymous-user]

jm doc said:

La Liga said:

jm doc said:

Make your own mind up whether we are right to plunge the country into the deepest recession with businesses destroyed and bankrupted with potentially millions unemployed and a generation of children brought up in poverty on the guesswork of these people.

I'll have to borrow your crystal ball when it's free.

So no recession then, is that what you're saying?
Or just trying to demonstrate how witty you are and failing badly

No, it's not what I am saying, or I would have said it.

My point was you're unable to state a lot of those things as if they're facts / sure to occur e.g. 'Plunged into the deepest recession', and, 'a generation of children brought up in poverty'.

[anonymous-user]

Props to police officers who are dealing with these things sensibly. I have a lot of sympathy for police officers who are having to deal with a raft of new rules without time for briefing and training.

Boo to police chiefs and social media operators who are sending out needlessly authoritarian messages.

Mega boo to the curtain twitching informers who are wasting police time because Mr Smith at number 27 has been out twice today. Authoritarianism always has willing accomplices amongst a population. There are some who are overjoyed by the opportunity to denounce their neighbours, and some seem positively gleeful at the idea of Martial law. Let's hope we don't get there.

There has been a deluge of additional sets of regulations since the Act was passed. There isn't time to comment on them all. Edited highlights may follow, if I CBA to tidy up my horribly messy study first. Good exercise, indoors!

[anonymous-user]

A saddo indeed, probably hoping to be appointed as Mr Hodges in an ARP hat, Dad's Army stylee. Suppose that the officious curtain twitcher sneezes on one of the notices, and less than a minute or so later a motorist arrives back at his or her car, and picks up the notice to crunch it up and chuck it away. Guess what might happen then, Mr self righteous enforcer of public virtue...