Greatly to Trump's credit, in my view, is that he did not attempt to use Covid as a pretext for extending his period of office as Mayor Khan's term has been extended for a year already. The US Presidential and General Elections went ahead on schedule. We should follow that example this year at least.
Interesting point about a different subject. Having said which I readily admit that Covid provides a handy pretext for what needed doing anyway.
I agree with you on disasters, Elaine, but have never been happy with a fixed proportion of GDP. This has often left DfID scrabbling around looking for something to spend it on, leading to silly things like Ethiopian pop groups, and all this while paring our defence budget to the bone. More on defence, please!
The lockdown we have at the moment is inexcusable given that the Tier System was only a fortnight old when Boris was panicked into introducing it. We know that the info he was fed was as dodgy as the dodgiest of dossiers ever fed to Blair. Yesterday I was polled by YouGov on a range of options for more draconian restrictions which I would accept in exchange for a freer Christmas break from them of various durations. We were offered quite a range but only one alternative to complete lockdowns after and before Christmas. We will doubtless be told that thie outcome of this poll is massive popular support for more lockdowns, but a better example of fixing the questions to secure the desired response I have rarely seen. Government action treating citizens like recalcitrant children has not resolved this crisis hitherto. Continuing it will not do so either but it might please the 'experts' who are having a field day and those who want us to enter Brexit in the most enfeebled and miserable state possible.
The question of the secession of part of the UK is a matter of concern to the whole of the UK just as the question of the secession of 11 supposedly sovereign states was of concern to the whole USA. Therefore any referendum to give effect to it should require the consent of the whole population not just one twelfth of it. An Act to that effect should be appended to the devolution legislation passed in a hurry by Blair.
The policy may well be foolish but I think you're basically right. The SNP only really started to have traction in Scotland after Britain joined the EU. The same was true for Plaid Cymru in Wales. EU membership is a warm, cuddly alternative to UK membership. They think they can substitute distant Germany for neighbouring England and that the subsidies will come from there to pay for their policy failures. If they ever get their wish they'll be disappointed. That theory might have had some traction in the 1970s but it doesn;t now.
You know what, people die every day. Always have done,always will. Will closing all the theatres and sports stadia, not to mention concert halls and churches stop them doing that?
Nicely put Oratorian. I feel strongly that the economy is being undermined and with it the quality of life socially and culturally in pursuit of a chimera. The government is not actually being led by the science but by some advisers addicted to mathematical modelling who don't actually agree among themselves. Ferguson especially had form in this regard in respect of the Foot and Mouth disaster 20 years ago that should have seen him put out to grass then. I respectfully suggest that lockdown is just a mechanism for kicking the can down the street. As soon as to stop you find the can is still there inviting another kick in the form of another lockdown and so on ad infinitum. Our hard won liberty is not to be treated in this cavalier fashion any longer, nor is our cultural heritage.
In fact we don't have A vaccine. They modify it annually to take account of the evolution of the virus.
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