I’m struggling to see what has actually changed. “Go to work unless you can work at home” has been the message since March! As far as I can see the only difference is that now an Arctic northerly has set in we will be allowed to sunbathe in parks.

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What did people expect in an 8 minute speech? Seriously. 

It was an overview, an outline, nothing more and nothing less. The details will be fleshed out tomorrow as has been stated.

The people who need to return to work tomorrow will have been informed a while ago. Liaisons are ongoing between the government and affected businesses.

People who are confused by his address tonight are either nigh on braindead or wilfully ignorant.

We are all adults but it seems some people need their arses wiping for them and expect a personal itinerary of what they as an individual should be doing on a daily basis.

That's all perfectly reasonable.   Until you allow for the fact that he delivered a speech on a Sunday evening suggesting people should go back to work tomorrow - unless I misheard what he said.

You simply can't have it both ways: if he was just delivering an 8-minute speech containing broad pointers then he shouldn't have been advocating people act on what he said tomorrow.  If he wanted to see changes in behaviour tomorrow then he should have made the speech on Friday morning.

 

Your final two sentences are not worthy of a rational response.

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Morrisons is cutting the price of unleaded to 99.7p per litre and diesel to 104.7p per litre from tomorrow morning as a thank you to key workers and other motorists making essential journeys.

Well whoopee. Remember the fuel protests when unleaded reached the unthinkable 80p a litre not very many years ago?

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Well whoopee. Remember the fuel protests when unleaded reached the unthinkable 80p a litre not very many years ago?

20 years I believe.

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Surprised no mention of masks which I thought would be a gimme if travelling on public transport, especially during rush hour.

I was surprised about that, although of course we won't have all the details until tomorrow, so that may well be there.


As for travelling to work by public transport, I thought it was quite clear: yes, if you cannot work from home and you have no other means of getting to work.   But only if it is your only option.

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The government seem to have been going in circles ever since day one of this crisis.

My own considered view is that BJ is taking another massive gamble with what he said this evening. Like everyone I fully realise there will come a time when we will make to make some move to restart the economy, but I am far from convinced that we have yet reached that stage.

Yes, the number of infections and deaths each day and week has fallen a bit compared to a month or so ago, but my worry is that if restrictions are eased even slightly, it could (and IMHO likely will) lead to another surge in the number of new cases and deaths, rather like what we saw in late March and early-mid April. In my view, the lockdown which has been in place since 23rd March needs to remain in place until the much talked about "R" number is below 0.5 across the UK. Things are still far too precarious as they are.

I agree with you David about things being in a precarious state right now. From such a high base number it won't take much to take us to defcon 5, or whatever it is. Something is responsible for the continued high infection figs, be it 4k each day or the 18k to 20k a day it might be? There surely can only be a few things it can be, supermarkets, public transport, other. In the last couple of weeks numbers in the north west and north east have increased apparently.

If the information for England was available, it would be good if someone could extract data down to postcode/town level to at least try to ascertain if the current high infection rates are completely nationwide, or if they are concentrated on a number of hotspots. 

 

20 years I believe.

Yep, early autumn 2000 wasn't it?

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Yes and now The tax on a full tanker load of petrol, duty and VAT, is over £26,000. However I don’t expect imo to fall much further unprecedented co-ordinated deal between Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States to stabilise oil prices was agreed. The deal was also intended to indirectly help level off global financial markets.

 

 

Well whoopee. Remember the fuel protests when unleaded reached the unthinkable 80p a litre not very many years ago?

 

So should I be going back to work tomorrow if I don’t have a car?

I know it's possibly a theoretical question here, but I would say yes, in the sense that you are not breaking any instructions set by the Government - but of course it is almost forcing you to potentially breach the social distancing rules through no fault of your own. i.e If it was by tube for example you will have no control over the situation you find.

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It was members of your household not family. 

That's what I meant. Ever tried to get your wife to play golf with you  

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So should I be going back to work tomorrow if I don’t have a car?

 

don’t ask questions like that...it was perfectly clear...just stay alert!

 

That's what I meant. Ever tried to get your wife to play golf with you  

At least with golf you can go around on your own. You don't need them. For tennis, you are pretty buggered unless you have a family member who is half decent and can hit the ball back.

 

So what exactly DO you want to see happen?

A salient point that I have also asked from my left field viewpoint. Of course it got no response. But this is because nobody knows what is the BEST thing to do. Not you, not me not the Government. Who is prepared to come out and say that. I am. But is it reasonable to expect any Government to say that? I doubt it, despite it being the truth. 

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Yes and now The tax on a full tanker load of petrol, duty and VAT, is over £26,000. However I don’t expect imo to fall much further unprecedented co-ordinated deal between Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States to stabilise oil prices was agreed. The deal was also intended to indirectly help level off global financial markets.

Where has that been reported?

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I would have liked to have seen some more specific strategic plans e.g like:-

1. We are introducing an intensive antibody screening programme. It will take some time but we hope in 6-8  weeks time we will have enough data to extrapolate the number of people who have been infected in the UK


2. We are sending a mandatory questionnaire form to every house in the Country to fill in if they have been tested positive or had symptoms. To state their employment status and how they think they may have been infected.


3. We intend to continue the current lockdown procedure until we tell you specific stepwise changes to it. These will be issued at 7pm every Friday.


4. We intend to closely monitor the effect on transmission in other Countries and make our changes based on the knowledge we have gained from them. This will give us the advantage of hindsight.


5. Where mistakes have been made we will identify the reasons, learn from them and do our utmost to prevent them happening again in this outbreak and any future ones.

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Where has that been reported?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52264546

 

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Thanks Bertie.

My perspective is that we should be looking at the best practice of leadership demonstrated by leaders of other countries with broadly similar socioeconomic circumstances.  On that measure the Johnson government comes up short of the best; I'd hope you would concur with that reasonable assessment.

Yes, quite interested in NZ actually.

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