MP Charles Walker's wobbly on Channel 4 News last night attracted a gentle put down from Devi Sridhar

Somehow mirroring the exchanges in this thread .....


https://www.channel4.com/news/we-can...er-on-lockdown

Is that first or second jag, though? My octogenarian mother-in-law doesn't have her second until mid-April, so I can't imagine all over-50s will be done by then.

Look, I'd follow the advice of people with brains (e.g. Doctor Van-Tam) and not the pre-regurgitated lies of those two. Chacun à son goût as they say, but I'm not believing a word coming from either apart from making a mental note of where Hankie's said he's gonna go so I give it the widest possible berth and don't run the risk of seeing him.

devi Sridhar wants the country’s borders closed forever. If you support that then fine, it’s just an opinion after all. Everyone can have opinions, ‘expert’ or not. Scientists usually get paid regardless they don’t really have a living to make.

I’ll tell you why. It’s because the government doesn’t even know what they are doing tomorrow lol :) so how can I rely on them for a few months down the line? They are just saying don’t book to cover themselves so they don’t get blamed in case things go south.

People only care about themselves in the end of the day, so politicians will say whatever they can to cover the bases on their end.

Matt Hancock is only a minister, he can run things but has no final decision making capability and it’s the same with Shapps. Hancock wanted borders fully closed, Boris said no so we don’t have fully closed borders just a lot of threats and bureaucracy. I would love to play poker with these guys clearly they aren’t good at bluffing

Well to start off with, Devi Sridhar needs to get her facts straight. Australia and NZ don't have a travel bubble and have never had a travel bubble. Australians were never allowed to travel to NZ quarantine free, but people from NZ were allowed to travel to Australia quarantine free, However, that stopped when there was one case of the SA strain detected in NZ, and the Australian government shut that down. As of two days ago, it seems like the travel bubble that was planned to begin this year has now been scrapped: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/things-h...-travel-bubble.

These experts keep pointing to places like Australia and NZ for how great they did without realising the economic damage that will result and cause no end of social, mental and health issues.

Secondly, it seems like many experts today are advocating for Covid-0, while at the same time saying Covid is here to stay. If Covid is going to around forever, lockdowns will be here forever.

Believe it or not, Covid is not the only health issue that exists. And the economy matters. We have a vaccine. Once all groups from 1 - 9 are vaccinated, there should be no reason to ease things effectively back to normal. Even if foreigners come in, the most vulnerable are protected. It just seems like many here are completely fine with lockdown continuing forever.

Welcome back to the world HB7! I thought we had lost you to ‘the experts’

Hahaha

The other thing to remember is that people - actually, voters - are foaming at the mouth. I'm on leave this week and, not having much else to do, we cycled yesterday to Bushy Park. For the otherwise located, it's a park in South-West London. Well at 10 AM on a Wednesday it was PACKED. The car park was full. The queue at the one coffee shop was as long as the queue for beers at Twickenham stadium. It was full of people, of families, of elderly... Last year, on a Saturday with good weather (not -2C like yesterday) there was no one. This government has a very keen eye on public opinion (see the recent anti-influencer crusade) and a car park filled with people (mostly likely to be Tory voters as it's Twickenham/Richmond) , on a workday, during a cold spell means that people want out. People get that there is risk but it's going to be a very tough sell not to allow opening up and travel (and schools!) come April/May.

No, *you* only care about yourself. Others care about others, which is why they follow the rules, rather than trying to exploit loopholes or just ignore the rules completely.

I agree completely (almost - in Richmond and Twickenham they tend to vote LibDem!) but one does have to be aware of the tyranny of the majority. Public opinion is strongly against travel right now because they don't want to have a holiday. That opinion will almost certainly change in the summer, when they do want to have a holiday somewhere hot. But majority public opinion ignores those who have or need to travel, such as people desperately trying to keep their business going, or people with close family abroad. They are always a minority, but their interests do need consideration otherwise, sooner or later, it will come back to bite the government.

This is quite a naive point of view. All the more careful surveys have found that the great majority want the rules and are concerned that others aren't obeying them. But also, that the great majority aren't personally following the rules to the letter. To be fair to those who aren't following the rules to the letter, the infractions are of the "won't do anyone any harm" type and, as the rules continue longer and longer, and well beyond the time that it's clear we are past the worst, people will have an increasingly expansive view on what they can do without causing anyone any harm.

I’ll probably soon go ahead with booking non-essential travel to/via/from the UK for the period starting mid-August. Maybe I’ll get lucky and non-essential June visits will be allowed.

40-60 years ago, what proportion of UK-born UK citizens even got beyond the UK/Ireland domain for non-work trips within any given year?

im aiming from spring onwards (April) at least to Europe.

remember many uk residents have family abroad which contributed to why London’s population is easily 700,000 people less right now and rents are down 30% in some cases. Many either went to the countryside or to their families in Europe

Its frustrating seeing people being faulted for wanting to travel where their travel is deemed non-essential and these people are made to feel like criminals. Not all of us are wanting to go party in Dubai or sit on a beach somewhere - some of do need to travel and see family. All the talk now is "how dare people think of a summer holiday when there is a pandemic". But for millions of us, we want to travel: not to go on holiday, but to see family.

I have family here in the UK, France and Germany, as well as Australia. I have given up any hope of seeing my parents and siblings in Australia till late next year. But in my opinion, I need to travel to Europe to see family. But just because my "needs" don't fit in the "essential" category, I can't go anywhere. I'm not sitting here complaining, but there are millions like me all across the country. I don't care if I don't have a summer holiday till 2022 or 23 - but I'd like to see my family. This is where the frustration comes from. And then we have these so called experts sit there and make people out to be criminals and 'spoilt children'.