[gme]

I think bars should be allowed to open if they want to. Yes there may be some issues at the big town center ones but a vast majority are not like that and this will allow them to hopefully get some sort of income coming in.

All the pubs where i live wont have the issue your talking about so why penalise them due to a minority group, a minority who seem to be the issue anyway as they instead head to the beach/forest/moorland/park etc with cases of cheap beer and get pissed. The police need to help the ones that are going to have an issue and also shut down the ones that are letting it happen.

[ali k]

Looks to me as if Downing Street just want to move on from Covid now. Job done.

No more daily briefings, no functioning app, still no release of data on how many individuals are getting tested, 25% of people testing positive not contacted or refusing to self-isolate, no idea how quickly people are contacted if they do manage to get through. And if lockdown easings mean it does all go to shit somewhere the virtually bankrupted local authorities have to pick up the pieces.

No 10: "It is a matter for local authorities to manage numbers, alongside emergency services and Public Health England...should we see case numbers increase we" (by which they of course mean someone else) "will introduce local lockdowns"

Yet the new parallel track and trace system doesn't feed the information back to them at a local level sufficiently to do this.

[mrjonathanr]

Final point - which has again gone under the radar. ALL his suppliers want payment up front. For everything, from bog rolls to kegs. This is because of (a) the risk to them and (b) the suppliers suppliers demanding the same terms. This  - he said - was going to create alot of difficulties for some operators who didnt quite have the reserves he had. I would wager this is the case for many businesses opening up around now...

Makes you wonder where he goes for his supplies... I can speak about one 750 pub chain who definitely don't do this, payment is as per normal. With quirky beers from microbreweries things may be trickier for the supplier of course.

[SA Chris]

No 10: "It is a matter for local authorities to manage numbers, alongside emergency services and Public Health England...should we see case numbers increase we" (by which they of course mean someone else) "will introduce local lockdowns"

Straight from the Donald playbook. He let responsibility lie with state governors wrt securing PPE, imposing lockdowns and dealing with unrest. Trying to avoid being unpopular and responsible.

[Oldmanmatt]

On the subject of opening bars....

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-close-bars-limit-restaurant-dining-due-explosion-covid-19-n1232233

[sherlock]

Easy to point fingers across the sea, but given photos of beaches, I think we are far from out of the woods here.

Never mind the beaches, wait until the beer swilling, sweaty red faced clowns come out to march on July 12th...

[SA Chris]

Hopefully it rains on their parade.

[Oldmanmatt]

Bloody stupid, cussed, ideologically hamstrung, wankers.

https://www.ft.com/content/301c847c-a317-4950-a75b-8e66933d423a

[tomtom]

Bloody stupid, cussed, ideologically hamstrung, wankers.

https://www.ft.com/content/301c847c-a317-4950-a75b-8e66933d423a

For those who can’t read the paywalled article here’s a twitter thread explaining it

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1277960112691273728?s=21

Basically the govt is releasing less than half of the regional CV19 test data to local authorities. Hence situation in Leicester snuck up on everyone (except in govt).

[Oldmanmatt]

Bloody stupid, cussed, ideologically hamstrung, wankers.

https://www.ft.com/content/301c847c-a317-4950-a75b-8e66933d423a

For those who can’t read the paywalled article here’s a twitter thread explaining it

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1277960112691273728?s=21

Basically the govt is releasing less than half of the regional CV19 test data to local authorities. Hence situation in Leicester snuck up on everyone (except in govt).

Thank you, completely forgot the paywall.
I was too busy thumping my head against the real wall.

[TobyD]

I think bars should be allowed to open if they want to. Yes there may be some issues at the big town center ones but a vast majority are not like that and this will allow them to hopefully get some sort of income coming in.

All the pubs where i live wont have the issue your talking about so why penalise them due to a minority group, a minority who seem to be the issue anyway as they instead head to the beach/forest/moorland/park etc with cases of cheap beer and get pissed. The police need to help the ones that are going to have an issue and also shut down the ones that are letting it happen.

I totally disagree,  how many things are the police supposed to do?  Quarantine,  closing pubs , illegal raves... and the burgeoning fraud industry around flogging fake cures etc as well as the normal crime, and riots, protesters....

Lots of pubs will be a total nightmare,  guaranteed.

[ali k]

The police need to help the ones that are going to have an issue and also shut down the ones that are letting it happen.

I totally disagree, how many things are the police supposed to do?

Apparently 75% of police call outs/presence don’t actually involve a crime. They’re also increasingly being used to pick up the slack in other areas which have been underfunded e.g. mental health incidents, social services etc. The same is true of the ambulance service I believe. They’re being told to prepare for 4th July as if it’s New Years Eve!

[TobyD]

They’re being told to prepare for 4th July as if it’s New Years Eve!

I bet the police are fuming. It's a completely stupid idea to open up on a Saturday night, just so Boris can feel like he's the good time goon funster that he wants to be, whilst actually being really quite an unpleasant person.

I firmly believe that the vast majority of politicians get into it because they want to make people's lives better, and / or the country more prosperous.
I also believe that Johnson is an exception, I really don't think he gives a shit and just wants people to love him as he womanises his way into old age.

[tomtom]

My neighbour (bar owner) is opening in Monday because of this. As are several local bars apparently.

[ali k]

I firmly believe that the vast majority of politicians get into it because they want to make people's lives better, and / or the country more prosperous.
I also believe that Johnson is an exception, I really don't think he gives a shit and just wants people to love him

100% agree with this.

My neighbour (bar owner) is opening in Monday because of this. As are several local bars apparently.

It’ll be an interesting experiment tomorrow. I wonder if the smaller places not opening will concentrate people trying to get into the ones that do open and exacerbate the problem? There’s also the danger of people seeing pubs opening as a signal to arrange a load of house parties, causing an even bigger problem, albeit out of sight.

[TobyD]

It’ll be an interesting experiment tomorrow. I wonder if the smaller places not opening will concentrate people trying to get into the ones that do open and exacerbate the problem? There’s also the danger of people seeing pubs opening as a signal to arrange a load of house parties, causing an even bigger problem, albeit out of sight.

I acknowledge that restrictions have to be lifted but the implementation owes everything to BJ wanting to be popular by having a big jamboree everything open in one weekend event rather than what they should have done which was drip in lifting restrictions on business over a week or two.  They should perhaps have opened restaurants first and allowed pubs to serve alcohol if served at tables with a sit down meal. As it stands they'll have absolutely no idea which factor they should limit in the inevitable event of increased outbreaks. 
The government are about as far from being guided by science as you can imagine. 
Interesting experiment is right on the money; an experiment in government by focus group (which the government spends millions a week on) and trying to please conservative voters in both Surrey and up north. 

[andy popp]

whilst actually being really quite an unpleasant person.

Steady on now!

[Offwidth]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/03/coronavirus-us-daily-case-increase-fauci-trump

Talking of unpleasant people who cause dire consequences

[TobyD]

whilst actually being really quite an unpleasant person.

Steady on now!

From Jonathan Freedland's article in the guardian today:

To the untrained eye, the choice of a Saturday for the great unlocking might seem a tad rash, when, I don’t know, Monday was available to ease people in gradually. That point was put to Boris Johnson on LBC this morning, but he couldn’t offer even an approximation of an answer. Which leaves us to conclude that his government of geniuses picked Saturday solely because of the pleasing headlines that the Fourth of July suggested – rather forgetting that this is the day when Americans celebrate their escape from the rule of a dysfunctional London elite headed by a man with more children than you could count and prone to gibbering in public.

I think I was being quite restrained in comparison,  its not as though I came right out and said that I think Boris Johnson is a c**t.

[ali k]

At the risk of sounding like a curtain twitcher(!)...a car with three middle aged blokes in just came to pick up two other guys on our street (father and son who live separately). All dressed in jeans and shirts - no guessing where they're heading. Not much point in social distancing measures at the pub if 5 blokes from different households are all sharing a lift to get there!

[Paul B]

At the risk of sounding like a curtain twitcher(!)...a car with three middle aged blokes in just came to pick up two other guys on our street (father and son who live separately). All dressed in jeans and shirts - no guessing where they're heading. Not much point in social distancing measures at the pub if 5 blokes from different households are all sharing a lift to get there!

A place near me have printed a "First Beer Back" cut-out Instagram frame and are asking people to take pics and tag them.

[TobyD]

The pub that is across the road from where I live had a police riot van outside at half 6 this evening....

[andy popp]

I think I was being quite restrained in comparison.

I was, in fact, commenting on your remarkable restraint.

[TobyD]

I think I was being quite restrained in comparison.

I was, in fact, commenting on your remarkable restraint.

My take is that the pandemic has exposed the worst of Johnson and Trump. They are men without idealogy or conviction except in their own egos. They are enraged that a global event has stolen away their plans; whether for a glorious flag waving Brexit or a glorious flag waving MAGA campaign. They have both compromised their response to the virus and effectively sacrificed their own populations to further their own political ends. Not only are they ineffective governors, they are morally bankrupt and deserve the worst karma that the universe has to offer. Sadly, rich powerful men rarely get what they deserve.

[TobyD]

Read this interview with Anthony Costello since last post, it rather echoes what I was saying, here's a quote if you don't want to read it all:
Do you agree with Sir David King, chair of Independent Sage, that the government has lost all moral authority?
Did the government ever have much moral authority? The whole English response, almost from the beginning, has been an unfolding tale of individualism and new Conservatism, which has damaged public health. Now you have this bizarre situation where you’ve suddenly got this mysterious body called the joint biosecurity centre, which is going to be in charge of data and nobody knows who they are or where they’re getting it from. You’ve got Public Health England (PHE) being marginalised and, I would think, abolished, and the Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), which is now wary of the politicians, not really being listened to. So it’s a very odd situation.

Former WHO director Anthony Costello: 'Opening pubs before schools says something about our priorities'
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/05/anthony-costello-world-health-organization-independent-sage-coronavirus?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard