-
ℹ️ Heads up...
This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.
UK politics general discussion
- Thread starter Craig
- Start date
Alsty
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Fury 325
There are six MPs who voted against the privilege motion:
Cash, Sir William - Stone
Fletcher, Nick - Don Valley
Holloway, Adam - Gravesham
McCartney, Karl - Lincoln
Morrissey, Joy - Beaconsfield
Wheeler, Mrs Heather - South Derbyshire
All Conservative of course. There are also a staggering 225 Conservative MPs who did not vote.
Full breakdown here: https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/Division/1566
Note: There is a difference between the official result based on the Tellers’ count and the number of Members’ names recorded, so this might be corrected later on.
Cash, Sir William - Stone
Fletcher, Nick - Don Valley
Holloway, Adam - Gravesham
McCartney, Karl - Lincoln
Morrissey, Joy - Beaconsfield
Wheeler, Mrs Heather - South Derbyshire
All Conservative of course. There are also a staggering 225 Conservative MPs who did not vote.
Full breakdown here: https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/Division/1566
Note: There is a difference between the official result based on the Tellers’ count and the number of Members’ names recorded, so this might be corrected later on.
Benzin
TS Member
To be fair to the 6/7 who actually voted in support of the bumbling oaf at least they actually showed up and did so.
Still scummy Tories mind. But showed up unlike the rest of their cowardice filled mob. Presumably because half of them know they've got stuff hidden away relating to this and are potentially next on the chopping block.
Sunak especially if the rumours about the "Eat Out to Help Out" are accurate (I.e. all evidence showed that it would be an extremely bad idea but he implemented it anyway).
Still scummy Tories mind. But showed up unlike the rest of their cowardice filled mob. Presumably because half of them know they've got stuff hidden away relating to this and are potentially next on the chopping block.
Sunak especially if the rumours about the "Eat Out to Help Out" are accurate (I.e. all evidence showed that it would be an extremely bad idea but he implemented it anyway).
BarryZola
TS Member
I said at the time that it was an awful idea (probably on this very thread too). Forcing people together and costing the tax payer a ridiculous amount of money, when people were already stacking cash through furlough and couldn't wait to go out and spend anyway. Imagine how many businesses were falsifying receipts to earn extra cash too on phantom orders. Nearly up there with the stamp duty relief that helped to push house prices up at a ridiculous rate. All whilst the bank of England should have been whacking up interest rates, but instead they left it too late and now they're putting them up for no apparent reason whilst people have less money available to spend. Heads should roll. Pathetic incompetency, at best.
pluk
TS Member
I quite liked eat out as an idea. Many people were scared to go out, but with measures in place it was time and was something to get people and the economy moving. Something to speed up a return to some level of normality at a time when the virus was better understood and controlled.
Im sure there be plenty of people with reasons it wasn't the right thing to do in hindsight, but I also know people in the industry who think it was absolute godsend.
Im sure there be plenty of people with reasons it wasn't the right thing to do in hindsight, but I also know people in the industry who think it was absolute godsend.
BarryZola
TS Member
Don't you at least think the sensible thing to do would have been to open up for a while and see if people wanted to go out and spend first, instead of giving them money off to do it straight away without checking? People literally couldn't wait to get out there and do normal things again. Do you remember beaches and just about anywhere we were allowed to go for recreation? Supermarkets were rammed after the first few weeks when the public could be bothered to follow the rules. Obviously the most weary in society still would have had doubts about mixing, but I doubt a few quid off Maccies would have persuaded them to go out anyway. The people who took advantage of eat out to help out are the types who would have gone out anyway, on the whole.
pluk
TS Member
Eat out came a month after lockdown restrictions closing restraunts had ended, and longer still after mamy other relaxations, they obviously had a good idea of people's actions and the state of the industry by then. It's also very relevant that it ran Mon to Weds only, traditionally the quiet part of the week for hospitality, so a good way to spread the demand and fill stillimited capacity when continuing rules of spacing etc persisted. No good everyone who was happy to go out turning up at the same time; worse for the business and potentially worse for covid transmission.
BarryZola
TS Member
Ah, so it did. I stand absolutely corrected on that. Maybe they had crunched the numbers then after all.
Alsty
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Fury 325
Eat Out to Help Out was a terrible idea. Firstly, the Sage committee were never consulted on it, and a committee member later said if they had been then they would've explained what a "spectacularly stupid idea" it was¹. Secondly, research has shown that it drove up infections by 8-17% and any economic benefit was short lived and ended as soon as the scheme finished². Alternative policy measures, such as extending the furlough scheme, increasing statutory sick pay and supporting low income households through expanding free school meals may well have proved to be far more cost effective.
¹ https://www.theguardian.com/busines...e-focus-of-covid-inquiry?ref=pmp-magazine.com
² https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/econo...ns_up_by_between_8_and_17_new_research_finds/
¹ https://www.theguardian.com/busines...e-focus-of-covid-inquiry?ref=pmp-magazine.com
² https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/econo...ns_up_by_between_8_and_17_new_research_finds/
Islander
TS Member
I really like the citations in this post - can they become mandatory on future posts please mods? Reading the first sentence I wanted to disagree, but given the sources I can't..!
George W
TS Member
Eat out to help out was good in the sense it convinced more people getting back out there after the government and media and drilled them full of rampant fear, however definitely think the money could have been better spent on the NHS services, let's not forget hospitals got overwhelmed so easily because of years of underfunding.
pluk
TS Member
The cost of EOHO was miniscule in comparison to costs involved in any of these things, none of them could have been implemented on any serious scale as an alternative to this spending. Also any of those options are nearly pure spending, they don't encourage economic activity in anything like the same way. Who knows how many more restraunt businesses would have failed, each with a long term reduction in economic activity, if they hadn't recieved both the direct boost in trade from this and the longer term acceptance and normality with eating out? We can't know, but as I said I do know that people in the industry I know say it absolutely did save them and their businesses after what had gone before.
As was the case throughout, SAGE advice concerned itself with the virus and its spread in quite an isolated way, the economy and people's wellbeing outside of the direct effects of the virus were not it's concern. The government were making their decisions on much broader considerations. Allowing people out and encouraging people to return to shared spaces with other measures in place would ALWAYS have resulted in an increase in infections whenever it occurred in the countries Covid journey, so that can basically be used against the decision makers whenever they did anything.
The long term effects are of course estimated, because what would have happened without the support will forever remain an unknown, but it's also worth considering that restrictions did return which would have scuppered the momentum. That could bot have been known and doesn't mean it wasn't worth a try.
I'm not trying to be an apologist for that shit show of a government, but it is incredibly easy in hindsight to state everything they did was wrong, especially with an underlying political leaning. Decisions had to be made in a global situation the world had never seen before in the modern age. None of this was easy and no one could ever have got anything right.
Benzin
TS Member
It was also easy at the time to say that there were some things being done that were exceptionally stupid.
Johnson going into a ward full of Covid patients then ended up contracting it for example. The slow implementation of mask wearing and allowing the races to go ahead were also incredibly bad decisions.
Johnson going into a ward full of Covid patients then ended up contracting it for example. The slow implementation of mask wearing and allowing the races to go ahead were also incredibly bad decisions.
pluk
TS Member
Yeah, but you can prove anything with facts, can't you?
(Stewart Lee)
Seriously though, the use of statistics on certain points in isolation can obviously help form an opinion and learn lessons for the future, but they are still hindsight and they are still easy with the use of language and omission to be presented in huge bias.
Yep, as always seems to be the case on here when I'm trying to say something vaguely balanced, I'm not Tory, nor am I trying to excuse the terrible things they've done. It's far too easy and trendy though to say everything done was wrong, when in reality completely impossible decisions were being made mostly with the very best of intentions.
Plastic Person
TS Member
I probably would have 'liked' this before the pandemic and its aftermath, or even more optimistically under the government of Theresa May, but the leaders that saw us through it were worse than I think anyone could have anticipated. Johnson in particular had no appetite for civility, leadership or basic responsibility, or else he might still be Prime Minister. His staff and advisors were selected exclusively to reaffirm his power (hence most of those are dust, too), and they regularly ignored the advice of experts. You're right in saying that COVID was an event incomparable to any other in modern history, but I think few at the top made decisions "with the very best of intentions." That's not a sentiment I'd extend to the NHS, public services or scientific bodies, however.
Alsty
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Fury 325
Yes that's true, which is why there is a public inquiry which will take a balanced look at things rather than with the benefit of hindsight.
Matt.GC
TS Member
I've been very interested recently in seeing Cameron and Osbourne grilled at the enquiry. Of course the likes of May, Johnson, Truss (remember her? If you currently pay a mortgage, you should!) and Sunak are low hanging fruit for obvious reasons ranging from filthy lies to extreme incompetence.
But the 2010-16 dynamic duo, seem to usually get away Scot free. Riding on the popularity of policies, that they openly resisted prior to 2010, of their power hungry enablers - Cleggs ministerial car hungry Lib Dems, they pursued an ideological agenda that has damaged this country ever since. They began the savage cuts in public sector pay. They left the NHS in such a precarious position that a light gust of wind could cause it to fall over. The laws that allowed lock down were built upon a 1984 Control of Infectious Disease Act, the only pandemic planning they did was stock pile flu meds. They starved the economy of growth, which prevented to BOE from raising interest rates much above zero for many years. They artificially inflated house prices in an already overheated market with stamp duty and Help to Buy schemes. They called a constitutional changing referendum and completely failed to contingency plan for one of the potential outcomes before running away to draw their pensions.
Even though their ideological policies have long been proven to be damaging to the country, what is their response to the Covid enquiry? More lies about Greece, bankruptcy and that there somehow "wouldn't be an NHS" without their decisions. Whilst their successors (rightly) are mostly wearing the blankets of shame, they both seem to get away with being seen as distinguished ex statesman. Whereas I won't ever stop seeing them for what they are, the architects of what followed. Come election time, I'm sure Sunak and co will only want to talk about the months leading up to polling day, how they've been pumping money into fixing problems their own government caused in the first place whilst repeating the "but Ukraine, but world economic factors, but Covid". But I seriously hope voters cast their minds back much further. Never forget Truss, never forget corrupt Boris, never forget May being paralysed by her own party and never forget the vicious ideological politics that laid the foundations for this roster of clowns to gain power and wreak havoc in the first place.
But the 2010-16 dynamic duo, seem to usually get away Scot free. Riding on the popularity of policies, that they openly resisted prior to 2010, of their power hungry enablers - Cleggs ministerial car hungry Lib Dems, they pursued an ideological agenda that has damaged this country ever since. They began the savage cuts in public sector pay. They left the NHS in such a precarious position that a light gust of wind could cause it to fall over. The laws that allowed lock down were built upon a 1984 Control of Infectious Disease Act, the only pandemic planning they did was stock pile flu meds. They starved the economy of growth, which prevented to BOE from raising interest rates much above zero for many years. They artificially inflated house prices in an already overheated market with stamp duty and Help to Buy schemes. They called a constitutional changing referendum and completely failed to contingency plan for one of the potential outcomes before running away to draw their pensions.
Even though their ideological policies have long been proven to be damaging to the country, what is their response to the Covid enquiry? More lies about Greece, bankruptcy and that there somehow "wouldn't be an NHS" without their decisions. Whilst their successors (rightly) are mostly wearing the blankets of shame, they both seem to get away with being seen as distinguished ex statesman. Whereas I won't ever stop seeing them for what they are, the architects of what followed. Come election time, I'm sure Sunak and co will only want to talk about the months leading up to polling day, how they've been pumping money into fixing problems their own government caused in the first place whilst repeating the "but Ukraine, but world economic factors, but Covid". But I seriously hope voters cast their minds back much further. Never forget Truss, never forget corrupt Boris, never forget May being paralysed by her own party and never forget the vicious ideological politics that laid the foundations for this roster of clowns to gain power and wreak havoc in the first place.
People were complaining loud and clear at the time that Boris had failed to attend any of the early crisis planning meetings...he had books to write and people to visit, if I recall his sad excuses correctly.
Those decisions were simply his own ignorance...too busy to attend.