Ending the Lockdown - Mass events

Some more thoughts written on 2nd June, after I posted the following on Twitter on 11th May

To resume social activities: family and mass gatherings, sports, the arts, public transport, foreign travel, etc., the UK daily new infections must be in the 10s or 100s, not the 1000s. This requires mass testing, good tracking and compulsory quarantine. When, Boris?

We're still seeing a UK-wide rolling 7-day total of over 15000 lab-confirmed cases.  Though the figure for England is now consistently under 5000, this is around the number in late March, and we went from that to 35000 - 40000 per seven days in about three weeks.  That's the lab-confirmed cases.  Nobody has any real idea of the number people in the community who currently have the virus but haven't taken a test.  Some pundits put the multiplier at four to five times, although social distancing means that it may be smaller.  That's still 20000 new cases in England each week. 


There's no way that community team sports, concerts, large family gatherings, religious activities, Friday night at the pub, and 1001 other things that delight us will be allowed to resume until the chances of catching this deadly infection have been reduced to near zero.  Social distancing is a killer for most of these activities.

We can't go on with social distancing forever.  We need to eradicate the virus - who knows if an effective vaccine will ever be found?

We need to develop a process that

1. puts a strong obligation on anyone who suspects that they have the virus, or is showing symptoms, or has been in contact with an infected person, to test
2. gives test results within 24 hours or ideally same day
3. gives support to anyone who tests positive, in line with their needs, to isolate safely - counselling, financial, communications, medical, psychological, nursing, child support
4. supplies accommodation for anyone who cannot isolate without risk to others - if one in a family has the virus, there's no need for everyone else to catch it too
5. supplies compulsory accommodation for anyone testing positive who won't isolate voluntarily

At present, testing is concentrated in single-function testing centres.  That involves travel for potentially sick people, which may be a real problem for some.  We need a more responsive and accessible way for anyone in need of a test to obtain it.  Testers on motorbikes?  District nurses?

The Government seems scared to bite the bullet of compulsory quarantine, and it's obviously a political hot potato.  Sadly, it may be necessary for the few, to give freedom to the majority from the restrictions of social distancing.  Maybe voluntary accommodation could be given with such good arrangements that no-one needs to be compelled.

Songs for washing hands

Two times 'Happy Birthday to you' or any of these variants (work in progress)

Happy Birthday to you
Squashed tomatoes and stew
Bread and butter in the gutter
Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday to you
I hope that's just flu...
There's corona in Verona
And Basingstoke too.

Beach Books 2019

 Thomas Pynchon The Crying of Lot 49

The Secret Barrister Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken

Neil Gaiman The Ocean at the End of the Lane 

Adam Rutherford A Brief History of Everyone that Ever Lived 

J L Butler Mine 

Guy de Maupassant A Parisian Affair and other stories

Lucy Foley Last Letter from Istanbul 

Anna Funder Stasiland

S J Parris Treachery

Michael Forsyth The Etymologicon

Finished back home: 

Reece Hirsch Black Nowhere

The new Project Fear

During the EU referendum, the voices of experts and the Remain side were dismissed by the Leavers as Project Fear.

We're now being subjected to a barrage of threats from the Leave side, that if we fail to leave the EU by the arbitrary date of 31st October 2019, it will be the end of British democracy as we know it.  There's a strong whiff of bullsh*t about this claim.  It seems like the new Project Fear.

Parliamentarians who have painted themselves into a corner over leaving quickly may see it as a threat.  Prime Ministers and cabinet members who have created and supported red lines may see it as a threat.  It may ultimately be costly in an election.  But I don't really think that the break-up of the United Kingdom or the smashing of the Good Friday Agreement will be any less costly.

So it's crucial for those that are invested in a Brexit at any cost.  For the rest of us, not so sure. 

If politicians on both sides want to preserve the Union - the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - then the time has come to revoke Article 50 and think properly about the country's needs.

I want to keep this country in a strong position in its trading and manufacturing arrangements including Just-In-Time which is so productive for our motor industry and for our customers in the remainder of the EU.

I want this country to be able to recruit willing workers who will pay their taxes from all parts of the world. Why build new barriers against well-trained doctors, nurses, carers and technicians from the EU?

Politicians can still keep Leave as their policy - that's something to discuss at length - but let's take away the false urgency, the Gadarene swine rush for the cliff edge, the fear of thinking through the issues properly.  Red lines were drawn without any idea of the impact, and the deadline was set before the requirements were known.  Anyone in business management with half an ounce of sense knows that a change programme or project started under those conditions will miss.

I want to keep the Union and the Good Friday Agreement intact.  And so, I think, do the majority in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  Let's not forget them while the way forward is being mapped out.  But let's take some time to think about what the country needs.  

Time to Revoke Article 50

The EU Referendum in 2016 was called without any proper thought about the impact of a Leave vote.  Right through the campaign, promises and predictions were made by both sides about the way it could work out.  Many statements were based on little knowledge and analysis, and some were just downright lies and exaggeration.

The Remain campaign was lukewarm, and made many dire predictions about the immediate aftermath of the vote.  They weren't intelligent enough to make some justifiable long term forecasts, so it was easy for their comments to be dismissed as 'Project Fear'.  Labour, led by the arch eurosceptic Jeremy Corbyn, failed to engage properly and mobilise its support.  And it seems there may have been some very clever targeted manipulation of voters using data which hadn't been acquired entirely legally. 

In the heated atmosphere, good information was dismissed along with the bad, and we heard idiotic comments like "we've had enough of experts".  There was a great deal of hate speech aimed at an unelected elite in Brussels which apparently controls our laws.  

All kinds of future relationship with the EU and other trading partners were offered, including a customs union and free trade area.  No-one considered the issues around the Northern Irish border and the potential impact on the Good Friday Agreement. 

The new Prime Minister, Theresa May, defined her own red lines for the negotiation without consulting other parties.  These were in line with her prejudices and the wishes of the extreme Brexiteers within her party, but detached from reality.  Her approach to immigration is nuts, based on an adherence to David Cameron's soundbite commitment to the "tens of thousands".  This ignores the needs of industry, the university sector, and the National Health Service.

She opposes freedom of movement, despite the fact that other European countries have managed to restrict this to the treaty conditions of freedom of movement to work.  It's probable that her opposition is based on advice from the Home Office, which would be incapable of enforcing in the way that, for example, Belgium can.  Luddites and technophobes in her own party led her as Home Secretary to scrub the national identity card project when the Coalition came to power.  If she'd had the guts to resist them, there might have been a chance.

She destroyed her Commons majority with an ill-judged General Election in 2017.  We're now in a complete mess where her negotiated Withdrawal Agreement isn't supported by the Commons and there is talk in the air of further bribes to the DUP to pass a vote.

But even if this vote is passed, there's then the need for a permanent trading relationship and we can be sure that the unholy alliance of the European Research Group, DUP and Labour will mess up whatever treaties can be proposed.

It's clear that whatever we do now, we'll be worse off after leaving than before.  Our terms of trade, travel, access to intelligence and police co-operation, scientific data and medicines, radio isotopes for cancer treatment, GPS data, and countless other benefits that we take for granted will be affected.  We'll have to employ thousands of civil servants in the UK to cover the jobs that were done on a shared basis for 28 countries.  We'll have to pay for the lot.  By the way, unelected, with great pension arrangements, experts in the jobs they'll do. Feels like an elite to me. 

We didn't vote on the red lines that have become apparent, and we have a last chance now to stop this runaway train and think about what we really want.  We should revoke Article 50 now, and have a national debate about what is really required. The debate should take into account the realistic immigration needs of the NHS and the care sector, industry and education, and a realistic solution to the NI border issue if any such thing exists. Then the proposal to leave (if any) could be voted on in a properly constituted referendum, say in a couple of years' time, if we think that change is needed.